Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Did you know that there are no international waters in the Straits of Hormuz?

There’s a basic factual error in our mainstream media’s reporting on the recent incident in the Straits of Hormuz.

According to Paul Woodward (see my Dec. 13th post), “Witness the spectacle of an international “incident” that after a few days has devolved into a debate about a Filipino Monkey. The only comfort the White House can take from this drama is that the press never even noticed when the stage upon which it was set, came into question.


Iranian speedboats threatened US warships in international waters in the Straits of Hormuz. So far only one analyst — Kaveh L Afrasiabi, writing in Asia Times — has pointed out the most basic factual error in this account: there are no international waters in the Straits of Hormuz.”

My point: If the mainstream media can’t get the facts straight, why should we believe anything it reports? My solution? I rely on alternate news sources, including Paul Woodward’s invaluable War in Context. Recommendation: Sign up for daily e-mail alerts.

(map: University of Texas Libraries - double click to enlarge)

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