Fearless Iranian Motorboats from Hell

Though it has been more than ten days since the Strait of Hormuz incident, the questions around it are pretty fascinating. Before I go on, a bit of background: On January 8, a handful of Iranian “PT boats” menaced two US Navy ships, a destroyer and a cruise, and threatened to blow the American vessels up…or at least that is the Pentagon’s version of things. What video released by the Pentagon shows are four or five small boats weaving in and out the two Navy warships' wake. Tacked onto the end of the footage is some interesting audio, which I’ll get to in a second.

Upon release of the video, the Pentagon’s interpretation of events came under scrutiny – not here in the States. Nah, the American press pretty much reported the Defense Department spin. The foreign press and independent observers remembered the Bushies’ lies the Iraq War lies, and had the gall to suggest that the Hormuz incident was Bush & Co.’s Gulf of Tonkin.

We can argue whether or not the Iranian "Patrol Torpedo boats" were little more than souped up water-skiing motor boats or whether such provocations are pretty much everyday stuff in the world of power politics (last fall, a group of Russian bombers were turned away from British airspace by the RAF. The Chinese regularly violate Taiwanese air and sea in a provocative manner. These incidents only turn to war when one of the two participants will a war to happen. Defining what happened in the Strait of Hormuz as Bush and the Pentagon have is a step toward war).

However, let us agree that the most peculiar and entertaining part of this tale is the audio tacked on to the end of video released by the Pentagon. Footage of the Iranian motorboats dogging the US vessels is followed by either a black screen or a still of a destroyer. A deep, accented voice says “I am coming for you.” That is followed by an American sailor stating that the US has peaceful intentions and asking the motorboaters to identify themselves. The strange voice answers, “You will explode in two minutes.”

The Pentagon immediately passed this audio off as one hundred percent real, coming from the Iranian motorboaters, and proof that they were under attack. A sceptic pointed out that there was no ambient noise behind the deep "Iranian" voice, nothing to indicate that the transmission came from a speeding motorboat. “The transmission originated from mainland Iran” the Pentagon countered, but when pressed, they had no proof. It has since been alleged that some mysterious “prankster” known as the “Filipino Monkey” must have been the source, though there is no solid evidence to back that up. The mainstream media is saying that this is a question that will never be answered…and that the Iranians are a bunch of dirty dogs and that is all we need to be concerned with. I, however, think I have an answer to this conundrum.

When I heard the voice say "I am coming for you," two words came to mind: Shaw Brothers. For those of you not up on your Kung Fu flicks, the Shaw Brothers are pretty much the Paramount Pictures of the Martial Arts world. Their team of directors made some of the greatest Kung Fu movies of the late 20th Century. Titles such as Clan of the White Lotus, Flying Guillotine, Vengeance, and Five Deadly Venoms are considered classics of the genre and are Shaw Brothers product. There are literally hundred more Shaw films. While the fighting scenes are what make these movies exceptional, those of us who saw the English dubbed versions (usually on Saturday afternoon TV’s Kung Fu Theater) remember fondly the mad voices and crazy dialogue, dialogue that sounds strangely familiar to “I am coming for you.”

So, here you have a White House who is desperate to get into a war with Iran, but doesn’t know how. The nuclear threat suddenly disappeared. There is no hard evidence that the Iranians are running militias against Americans in Iraq. An event needs to be created out of everyday provocation. There is no Karl Rove around to engineer the thing and Condoleezza Rice isn’t gonna let her be pushed in front of the UN with a bunch of pie charts and graphs to do a Colin Powell Iraq threat presentation. Considering that the Bushies are hot to privatize military functions, why not hire out the propaganda? Enter the Shaw Brothers. How else to explain "I am coming for you"?

You think that is crazy? Have you seen and heard the Pentagon video? If not, check it out. And then listen to this, a top secret outtake from the Shaw Brothers' production studio. I am sure you will be as convinced as I am that we are living in a real life Kung Fu Theater.