Beat That War Drum

There was a little dust up in the Persian Gulf last weeken. Some U.S. navy ships got close to Iran, and some Iranians in speedboats went zooming around, throwing stuff into the water. At the same time, there was a radio transmission making threats like "We'll blow you up."

Well, McIlheran the Warrior all but says that this would justify going to war with Iran. I guess he feels that a country just can't have too many wars. He raises visions of the USS Cole and feels so strongly that he puts a second post with a link to the video.

Too bad for McIlheran that the rest of us can also read news stories. We can see where Pentagon officials say having Iranian boats zooming past US Navy ships is par for the course. We can also read articles, like this one:

Fifth Fleet unsure threat to US warships was Iranian

Thu Jan 10, 4:06 PM ET

DUBAI (AFP) - The US Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said on Thursday there was "no way to know" if a threat radioed to US warships in the Strait of Hormuz came from Iranian speedboats, casting doubt on the earlier US version of Sunday's confrontation.

"There is no way to know where this (radioed threat) exactly came from. It could have come from the shore... or another vessel in the area," Lieutenant John Gay told AFP by telephone.

I bet it gets kind of hard to beat that war drum when you have a limp drumstick.