Reply #78: But [View All]

[Truth2Tell]

if any of those speed boats had set a direct course toward any of those warships they wouldn't have come within 50 yards without being destroyed. The Cole was surprised in harbor. Those warships in the Gulf were in no danger at all.

And of course there wouldn't be any issue here at all if we didn't have a fleet of warships cruising back and forth off the coast of Iran. Talk about harassment.

And if you wanna talk about the USS Stark, I'll call that and raise you one Iran Air Flight 655

Edit for xcerpt:

Iran Air Flight 655, also known as IR655, was a civilian airliner shot down by US missiles on Sunday July 3, 1988 over the Strait of Hormuz... R655 was destroyed by the U.S. Navy's guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes between Bandar Abbas and Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 38 non-Iranians, 66 children and one pregnant woman. Both IR655 and the Vincennes were inside Iranian territorial waters at the time of the attack.

The U.S. government... never admitted wrongdoing, accepted responsibility, nor apologized for the incident. In August 1988 Newsweek quoted the vice president (Bush) as saying; "I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are..."

The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action ribbons. Lustig, the air-warfare co-ordinator, won the navy's Commendation Medal for "heroic achievement," noting his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire" that enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure"