Gulf of Tonkin 2.0? US Using Unconfirmed Attack on Navy Ship to Quietly Start War With Iran and Russia

navy-ship-thumbBy Claire Bernish

After reportedly coming under fire from missiles launched in Houthi rebel-held territory, the United States officially entered the war in Yemen today by firing back, knocking out strategic radar sites and other targets in the area believed to have fired first.

In response to the U.S. escalation, Iran deployed a fleet of military vessels to the same geostrategically-critical Gulf of Aden waters where American ships have been situated for months guarding the Bab el-Mandeb strait — the narrow passage through which much of the world’s oil is shipped through to the Suez Canal.

While that may be the crux of the narrative presented by the U.S. government and corporate media, far more ominous secondary developments must be considered, and — as has been the case in Syria and the East and South China Seas — everything points back to Russia.

And not in the vein of Russian aggression as the U.S. propaganda machine would have you believe.

Yemen’s Shi’a Houthis — who captured capital city, Sana’a, last year — have long been suspected by Washington to be receiving direct but surreptitious support from the Iranian government, which flatly denies the allegation.

Saudi Arabia has imposed a naval, air, and land blockade on the tiny country — leaving Yemenis one of the most food-insecure and impoverished nations on the planet — and leading to mass starvation. Without a guaranteed influx of supplies — including arms and other military items — haphazardly firing at a Navy ship seems a logical improbability.

Those rebels deny having fired at the Navy ship or that the missiles even emanated from territory held by the Houthis — and although the U.S. insists at least three missiles emanated from Houthi territory, the considerable lack of efficacy in such an attack certainly adds weight to their assertions.

Nonetheless, the media has been quick to pounce on the American claims as valid — before the Department of Defense even concludes the investigation it putatively initiated. As Reuters reports:

“The United States is seeing growing indications that Iran-allied Houthi rebels, despite denials, were responsible for Sunday’s attack on a Navy destroyer off the Yemen coast,” U.S. officials told Reuters. The rebels appeared to use small skiffs as spotters to help direct a missile attack on the warship, said U.S. officials, who are not authorized to speak publicly because the investigation is ongoing.

The Houthis have publicly denied any role in the strike.

An unnamed and unverified military source further cast doubt on Pentagon claims, telling the Houthi-run Saba news agency:

“These allegations are unfounded and the army as well popular forces have nothing to do with this action,” the source reportedly said. “The US allegations just came in the context of creating false justifications to pave the way for Saudi-led coalition to escalate their… attacks against Yemen and to cover for crimes continually committed by the aggression coalition against the Yemeni people and to continue an all-out blockade.”

As mentioned, however, those pointed questions didn’t stop the U.S. from taking direct military action, prompting Iran — who views the sudden and dramatic escalation as naked, baseless aggression — to deploy its own fleet to the Gulf of Aden.

This, despite the captain of the U.S.S. Mason stating Tuesday the supposed attack only ‘seemed’ to be directed toward his vessel.

“The initial thoughts are that this [attack] was aimed at them,” DoD spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said Tuesday shortly after the incident.

For the United States to employ direct military force against an albeit conflict-embroiled sovereign nation over an incident still under investigation and as-yet unproven indisputable fact, is reminiscent of the vehicle it undertook to embroil itself in the Vietnam War — the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

However, in this case, the move could prove an arrogant flub of enormous proportions.

Yemen, itself, is not of imperative importance to the U.S. except outside the waters off its coast — however, as a proxy ally of Russia its regional consequence matters a great deal.

Should the United States now wage war in Yemen directly, Iran — as indicated in the naval deployment — would almost certainly opportune the chance to defend Yemen militarily, as Business Insider reports:

By taking direct military action against the Houthi rebels, a Shia group battling the internationally recognized government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, the US has entered into — even in a limited capacity — another war in the Middle East with no end in sight.

And although the U.S. response has ostensibly been measured and limited, analysts are cautioning the direct military action — as opposed to previous proxy support through the notorious Saudi-led coalition — could easily set off a larger conflict across the entire region.

Any Iranian engagement with the United States could easily provide its ally Russia, if not China, with yet another field of engagement. An unnamed ‘U.S. official’ told FOX News, in fact, both a Chinese warship and Russian intelligence ship have been spotted in the same waters where the the Mason putatively came under attack.

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Indeed, it could facilely be argued Russia has been playing quite the chess game with the United States throughout the Middle East, amassing a growing number of allies in the process. While Washington touts Russia as one of its many ‘enemies number one’ — officially blaming the Russian government for the damaging hacks and leaks from the DNC database, among other points — a dearth of evidence belies the Russian aggression narrative as false posturing.

Meanwhile, the U.S. alliance with human-rights criminal, coalition leader Saudi Arabia has provided ample motivation for nations to either officially align with Russia or to at least withdraw support. Even the highly-politicized United Nations has condemned the Saudis’ U.S.-backed actions in Syria and has dialed down its support for the coalition.

But the fact questions surround the U.S.’ claims concerning missiles launched from rebels ostensibly supported by Iran when it acted to destroy targets supposedly in Houthi-held territory could have destroyed the last remaining obstacle to all-out war — war, that is, with Russia and its multiple military allies.

In fact, it’s entirely feasible Putin’s weariness with the Russian aggression narrative coupled with the United States essentially striking forces aligned with Iran has set in motion an irreversible chain of events.

With Russian and Chinese vessels spotted in the same waters off the Yemeni coast, it would seem possible Russia intends simply to quash the U.S. for its arrogantly aggressive tactics. For all intents and purposes, the Pentagon employed an unfounded premise to act militarily against Iran — Russia’s ally — giving Putin every reason to come to its defense.

Whether or not the United States piled the last straw on the camel’s back will be decided in the coming days.

Although analysts partisan to American foreign policy have repeatedly claimed Russia lacks the military might necessary to wage an all-out endeavor against the U.S., they not only underestimate Russian capability, but plainly ignore the heft of military might in the alliance Putin has fomented with Iran, China, and, now, the Philippines — each with soured U.S. relations.

At this point, it’s entirely possible the U.S. has served up the ultimate ‘check’ — but whether or not Russia answers with a nuclear ‘checkmate’ it appears to be preparing for might be known sooner than had been imagined.

Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.


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21 Comments on "Gulf of Tonkin 2.0? US Using Unconfirmed Attack on Navy Ship to Quietly Start War With Iran and Russia"

  1. Here’s a heads up , I already knew Iran only backed few Houthis and not all , then i found out Wa. post admitted ” Houthis are not Iranain Puppets ” but didn’t stop ABC NBC ” News ” claim …….. ” Iranian backed rebels fired missiles at U.S. ” but of course there’s no proof only regurgitation of neocon war plan plans and it will happen , a war against Iran , it’s been planned for many years

    • ABC, NBC “News” – no wonder you spew such nonsense.

    • Since 1991. Remember the sheet of paper with 7 names of countries the “Good Guys” planned to bring them democracy and free trade and they should take all the resources?
      Iran was on the list as well IMO to settle a score by Britain and US due to the past they did not quite succeed in oppressing the country Iran and to take all their resources.
      They have been kicked out of Iran in 1979 by Mr. Khomeini.

  2. Not even waiting for the witch to be elected before they start the damned war.

  3. A vote for hillary is a vote for full scale military war that WILL be spilled onto the streets of America. A non vote or a vote for a 3rd party will STILL be a vote for war.

  4. Wrong, you ARE prejudiced, hateful, and misinformed!

  5. We all owe it to the youngsters to make them aware of these snakes they allow to sucker them into killing/dying for. “Bitch” slap them into waking up, they’ll thank you for it when their minds develop completely.

  6. The Washington psychopaths are still thinking in a WWII way of a hot shooting war. they come out positiviely.

    US can forget it this time.
    Oceans are no obstacle anymore.
    If a war starts there will be a strong answer or reaction falling on their soil as well. And it will be a ferocious one.

    The sleepwalking American people will wake up and become shocked to see (when still possible) what it feels like to have war in your street in front of your house thanks to their insane politicians.
    It will be a war organized by their chief warmonger Songbird Johnny McCain and his friendly president.

    This is no fun. Think about it, Americans and you vote for it: No more baseball watching, no mopre hamburgers anymore and no TV anymore.

    • I just hope they dont bomb the hospitals. Apparently Russian planes have bombed another 3 hospitals according to Aljazeera and I thought they said the last 4 were bombed earlier in the week. It really makes sense that Russia would go out of its way to bomb hospitals when you are fighting terrorists. Maybe they think there is only wounded terrorists in them..

  7. Gulf of Tonkin anyone. Here we go again. Remember what the captain said:// “This, despite the captain of the U.S.S. Mason stating Tuesday the supposed attack only ‘seemed’ to be directed toward his vessel.” America breaks the law by being there and then starts another ‘Viet Nam’….only this time it won’t be napalm and agent orange…..but nukes. Impeach Obama NOW and tell congress NO WAR!!!!!

  8. Animals

  9. Sewer Nation has lost the right to exist. As idiot culture sat compliant/ignorant and (most damning), silent, the Judas Class gleefully working with their Synagogue masters has soiled every vestige of honor and decency we (may have) had. When you consider Jewmerica was directly complicit with robbing the people of the world of any hope they may have had in living a normal life through their greed/evil while idiot culture stood “drooling” silently, we as a people must assume co-responsibility. When you consider our foolishness goes back AT LEAST to the first world war our liability for this madness explodes.

    When you consider the situation the “Goim” of the world find themselves in at this juncture is a DIRECT result of filth the likes of Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower et al fomenting a proxy war that, had they been true to their God, people, nations and stood WITH Germany and the axis powers there would be no Central Banks globally bleeding the world into slavery, no all powerful Synagogue corrupting/destroying nations’ morals, economies, religions etc. Even more heart breaking, it could have been done with virtually NO slaughter of tens of millions of Christians/Muslims or enslavement of the Goim world. W/o the fictional holohoax bilking more for decades and imprisoning “criminals” for the heinous act of trying to help the western world see the TRUTH of the matter. The Synagogue could have been reigned in with legislation/isolation, they would have been “gifted” with their very own “place” on Madagascar, kept out of world politics, economy, morals – free to practice their treachery…… on themselves with their Goim Judas Class working their fields, emptying their chamber pots and offering up THEIR sons and daughters as “play things” for those devils.

    Think of the millions of decent Russians, Chinese, Iranians, East Indian men, women and children who will be added to the list of millions this Sewer Nation has slaughtered for their thirty pieces of silver. Yet the majority of Idiot Culture refuse to see the 800 pound “gorilla” leering at them from the shadows. What a goddamn shame.

    “No Rothschild is English… No Baruch, Morgenthau, Cohen, Lehman, Warburg, Kuhn, Kahn, Schiff, Sieff or Solomon was ever born Anglo-Saxon. And it is for this filth that you fight. It is for this filth that you murdered your Empire. It is this filth that elects, selects, your politicians.”

    Ezra Pound, March 15, 1942 radio broadcast

  10. theDeplorableRedneck | October 17, 2016 at 7:21 am |

    The plan is to start a war to effectively block the election.
    Donald will not have any of this.
    They are done.
    Thumbs down puppet masters of idiocracy.
    They deserve no mercy.
    SHEandHEandTHEYareDESPICABLE.

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