USA Today offered this US Navy image of a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier supposedly under construction in Iran.
Under the headline “Iranian Ship, in Plain View but Shrouded in Mystery, Looks Very Familiar to US,” Eric Schmitt of the New York Times (3/20/14) reported on what he figured were some very curious—and alarming—developments in Iran:
Iran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States officials say may be intended to be blown up for propaganda value.
Where did the tip come from? As he explained, “American officials acknowledged on Thursday that they wanted to reveal the existence of the vessel to get out ahead of the Iranians.”
So it looks like the US government is looking to send a message—which you might say has a “propaganda value” all its own, whatever Iran might be up to. The Times grants anonymity to a source to make the situation sound ominous:
“It is not surprising that Iranian military forces might use a variety of tactics—including military deception tactics—to strategically communicate and possibly demonstrate their resolve in the region,” said an American official who has closely followed the construction of the mock-up.
Schmitt notes that, all that aside, US officials “say they are not unduly concerned about the mock ship.” But then Schmitt adds his own twist:
But the fact that the Iranians are building it, presumably for some mysteriously bellicose purposes, contrasts with the fact that the Iranians stepped back from their typically heavy anti-American posture during a recent naval exercise in the gulf.
Schmitt also points out that the Iranian “government’s purposes can be hard to decipher,” and noted that it was “unclear to American officials whether Iran’s hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps might try to provoke a conflict with the United States Navy to undercut” the recent nuclear agreement.
The presumption would seem to be that, whatever is happening, Iran has “bellicose purposes” in mind. That’s how USA Today sees it too, promoting the headline “Iranians Up to ‘No Good’ With US Aircraft Carrier Mock-Up” on its March 24 front page. The piece inside, by Brian Tumulty, began with the perspective of long-time Iran hawk Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY):
The senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says Iran’s construction of a mock-up U.S. aircraft carrier demonstrates Iran’s continued lack of good faith.
“We don’t really know what it means, but I for sure don’t trust the Iranians,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said Saturday. “It’s some kind of a ruse and whatever they are up to, it’s no good.”
And for a different, less alarmist take—you’d have to go to a different news outlet altogether, because USA Today goes to two right-leaning think tanks for expertise. Here’s one:
An Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute said the mock-up vessel could signal plans for “a new level of effort and sophistication” in Iran’s naval training for the use of “unconventional doctrine and capabilities to confront superior US naval power.”
And another:
Michael Eisenstadt, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, predicts the mock-up carrier will “make the Iranians look pretty silly, however they plan on using it.”
“They are either building this mock-up of a carrier for propaganda purposes in order to substantiate their claim that they can build a carrier, or they are planning (as already reported in the media) to make a propaganda film or spectacle where the carrier is destroyed by Iranian ships, to demonstrate their ability to act on previous threats to destroy US carriers in the Gulf,” Eisenstadt said in an e-mail.
After the Times piece ran, Reuters picked up the story (3/23/14)—minus the histrionics. “Iran Says Replica US Aircraft Carrier Is Really a Movie Prop,” the news agency reported:
A replica of a US aircraft carrier spotted near the coast of Iran is nothing more sinister than a movie set, Iranian media said on Sunday.
The actual USS Vincennes launching the kind of missile that in real life killed 290 aboard Iran Air 655.
The report went on:
Iranian newspapers said it was “part of the decor” of a movie being made by the Iranian director Nader Talebzadeh on the 1988 shooting down of an Iran Air civilian plane by the USS Vincennes. The United States says the downing of the plane, which killed all 290 passengers and crew, was an accident.
“The issue has turned into a good excuse for another wave of hype against Iran,” said the Alef news website which carries views close to the official line in Iran. “Without any proof or real basis, Western media have jumped again to paint a more negative picture of Iran.”
Now, that’s not to say this version of the story is necessarily correct. But it makes more sense than the alternative scenarios promoted by the New York Times and USA Today. If someone in Iran were making a movie about the US shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655—an event that understandably looms large in Iranian memory, since all 290 people on board the civilian airliner that killed—one might build a mock US ship.*
And perhaps that’s what is meant by “propaganda value” in US media: Iran might be producing a film about a horrible attack by US forces on a civilian airliner, a story that is basically unknown in the US—where propaganda is done differently. One might say more successfully.
(*Editor’s note: This post originally referred to the mock ship as “a replica of the US ship that launched the attack on the civilian airliner.” As commenter Padremellyrn noted, the USS Vincennes was a cruiser, not a carrier)
I’m far more fearful of what the real thing may do.
In the US, the Corpse-Press media can not look at another country without thinking “they are doing something evil”. This goes to the heart of the people producing the news because those who see “evil” in everything, do so because it reflects what they think and believe in their hearts. How many of them have cheered and celebrated when they hear we are attacking another. The Sad part is, that none, not one of those in the Corpse-Press now would dare put themselves on the front line. They are Chicken Hawks; they will beat the drums of war and then stand back and let others ‘rush in’.
There is an easy fix; give em all a rifle, and box of ammo, send them to the middle east with a large U.S.A. Stencil front and back. If they make it back after 2 years of living there, then they can eulogize about “War” and what others do in it’s name.
National Council of Resistance of Iran, a broad coalition of democratic Iranian organizations, groups, and personalities, was founded in 1981 in Tehran, Iran on the initiative of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the Iranian Resistance. For more information visit http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/
Oh great – now the Iranians are spamming us.
” If someone in Iran were making a movie about the US shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655–an event that understandably looms large in Iranian memory, even if most Americans have forgotten–one would probably want to build a replica of the US ship that launched the attack on the civilian airliner that killed all 290 people on board.”
The Vincennes was not an aircraft carrier; looked nothing like this.
The whole thing is ridiculous, but … y’know … fairness and accuracy.
Actually, looking at that photo again, I think maybe Iran is collaborating on one of those Absolut vodka magazine ads. A threateningly smooth drink!
Some 800 military bases around the world, able to destroy economies by imposing illegal sanctions, satellites that can spy globally, listening in on the communications of one and all, and yet a movie prop can trigger paranoia among the Empire’s mainstream media. Get a life America.
Why would they build a mock-up? Surely the Pentagon would have lent the filmmaker some warships for free.
P.S. Obviously, Iranian fears of U.S./Israeli bellicosity are a paranoid myth. There’s no reason to think of the NYT and USA Yesterday as Great Satanic media.
The Vincennes was not an aircraft carrier; looked nothing like this.
No, but the Vincennes was with a Carrier Group, which is standard Navy Protocol.
Padremellyrn:
I was commenting specifically on the language of Peter Hart’s post:
“… a replica of the US ship that launched the attack …”
I honestly have no idea whether my point counts as pro- or anti-Iran in this incredibly stupid non-story, I just believe in ACCURACY.
It’s only lies, fabrications, innuendo, and propaganda when THEY do it.
The movie story is true. Oliver Stone’s son is in it. From memory it is a Canadian-Iranian joint venture.
I wonder if the Israelis constructed a mock-up of the USS Liberty before they attacked it in international waters, strafed its lifeboats, and did their level best to destroy it and all evidence of their unprovoked and murderous attack on a US naval ship?
(*Editor’s note: This post originally referred to the mock ship as “a replica of the US ship that launched the attack on the civilian airliner.” As commenter Padremellyrn noted, the USS Vincennes was a cruiser, not a carrier)
Most sorry to note: but that was David G that pointed out the ship was not a carrier. I was commenting on his comment, and he was right, the ship itself was not a carrier. I was thinking that they would build a mock up of the Carrier Task Force to re-enact the whole thing As the whole Iran war goes back a ways, having been in the original “Hostage Action” in 1980, in a navy task force. Ships would come and go.
The entire world has seen how poorly that the US and others read things from the air….didn’t that Collin Powell person and GW and company all see weapons of mass destruction—–that weren’t there?
Are they trying to use that silly story—-again?
it would seem that after that fiasco, that looking at anything on the ground from high in the air, is not a highly developed skill in the US. or maybe on the planet if you consider the missing Malaysian plane and how with all that spy stuff going on, and all those satelites looking down, that nothing is seen?.
Maybe Iran is making a fun movie, as a counterpoint to the Oscar winner one about true history in the US embassy in Iran that wasn’t exactly true so much after all. : ) It was a fun movie though.
Maybe all the government leaders should spend some time on the International Space Station, because people seem to get along up there; perhaps having a higher purpose doesn’t exist in the political realm? These are my “maybes” and maybe a lot more interesting than so much of the news.
Whilst this might be a non-story, having replicas can be a serious issue: people have been shot by police for wielding replica weapons, and a guy in England was killed by police for carrying a suspected firearm, which turned out to be a table leg (the guy was a carpenter).
But more to the point – Iran’s purpose, whatever it is, can hardly have any offensive objective, whereas Israel’s having a duplicate, identical 777, in Malaysian livery, in a hangar in Tel Aviv since November 2013, is EXTREMELY suspicious, and highly dangerous, if Christopher Bollyn is right. He suspects it was to use in a ‘False Flag’ attack on Israel, to be blamed on Iran. Makes a heck of a lot more sense, and is potentially far more cataclysmic, than the Iranian mock-up.
I suspect Bollyn is right; at least if that was the plan (the MH 370 to have been ‘kidnapped’ in order to use it’s twin as a ‘False Flag’ ) at least it is unlikely for it to be implimented now that the information is out.
Israel has an MO of ‘False Flag’ attacks or frame-ups: the Lavon Affair, USS Liberty, fake Libyan radio broadcast triggering Reagan’s order to bomb Libya, to name some better-known ones.
What is meant by “hard line” – a locution that flows from the keyboards of NYT, WaPo, and like-minded mainstream scribblers effortlessly and apparently thoughtlessly?
Things sometimes have an inertia all their own.Saudi arabia has announced they will go nuclear if no move is made to stop Iran.Others in the region will do like wise.Many there can pay for the scientists to do so.No one is listening that Irans goals are not to develop a bomb.They believe Iran is moving in that direction.That they are lying
Thanks, Padremellyrn. I guess it’s sort of two steps forward, one step back for the FAIR Blog, accuracy-wise. ^_^