Summary: For a week rumors about a US armada sailing to the Gulf circulated around the Internet and in Middle Eastern media, despite having almost no supporting evidence. One of the two major sources for the “US fleet sailing to blockade Iran” story now has admitted his error. No word yet from the other (and more high-profile) source, Debkafile (does Debkafile post retractions?) or the blogs which promoted the rumors.
Along with Debkafile, Timothy Alexander ignited the Internet firestorm on 7 August (GOOGLE to see the resulting posts and news stories) with “Massive US Naval Armada Heads For Iran“ posted at his blog Europe. On 18 August he posted a long article “Wars and Rumors of War“, containing the following retraction (bold emphasis added):
We have a Bush Administration, who with the Brits and French and others, just completed a massive naval war game named “Operation Brimstone” that was announced as a training mission for the blockade of Iran. While two resolutions are pending before Congress (one in the House; the other in the Senate) “demanding” a blockade on Iran. And then the high level leaks that the battle groups were headed to Iran (yes, I know, I was taken in like UPI, DEBKA, and several major and minor news organizations). This was not really the case, but it laid the ground work in preparing the public for the next step. In the meantime the European Union has authorized a blockade in everything but name
So we can close this folder and file it under “The Internet can make us dumber.” This is evidence of almost total lack of sourcing by blogs, too many of which print rumors without any semblance of research. While these rumors were ignored by the mainstream media, they were passed on by high-profile geopolitical blogs. For example, by M. Simon at Classical Values, to which the Instapundit linked. No retractions yet at those sites (so far as I see).
The Internet can be a powerful tool, making us smarter and faster. But only if writers and readers take more care with its contents. Otherwise it can make us dumber.
Update
M. Simon posts his current view of these rumors. He recaps my comments, then says…
He {me} goes on about the misinformation that the inet is promoting at Fabius Maximus. Which is more or less a reproduction of the e-mail.
Now what do I think? The Theodore Roosevelt was in port at the time I wrote my report according to sources I have found of late: i.e. comments at blogs. However, that does not in my opinion invalidate the general idea of an Iranian blockade in the works. I’d like to wait a week or three and see what happens. He may be right about no blockade. However, it seems if Iran and Syria are getting nuclear capable missiles that could lead to pre-emptive attacks by Israel and precipitate a blockade of Iran by the USA.
It is really hard to see where this is all going. I thought it was 1936 (re: Germany France and the Rhineland) it may be much later than that – 1939 (re: Germany and Russia dismembering Poland). If so we may have a very big war on our hands. All this could have been prevented if the USA was supplying more oil to the world markets limiting the profits of our enemies Russia and Iran, not to mention our “best friend” Saudi Arabia.
Pretty ominous. As I have explained in my posts about “War with Iran“, there seems little basis for this kind of speculation. While possible, I doubt any of these things will happen (for the reasons stated at some length in the 27 posts to date on this topic).
Update
Alexander has since deleted his post which ignited these rumors. You can see the Google cache of the article here. Hat tip to Information Dissemination; he also confirms that the USS Theordore Roosevelt is docked at Norfolk — not sailing to the Gulf.
My other posts about this rumor
- More rumors of war: our naval armada has sailed to Iran!, 9 August 2008 — Tracing the origin of these rumors.
- Update on the rumored armada sailing to Iran, 13 August 2008 — With updates from Stratfor and Debkafile.
- A US naval armada is en route to blockade Iran and start WWIII (the story gets better every day), 14 August 2008 — More details from one of the bloggers who shot this story into cyberspace, and an official US denial.
- UPI reports on the multi-national armada sailing to Iran, 15 August 2008
Other posts about the Internet: does it make us smarter or dumber?
- Cable Cut Fever grips the conspiracy-hungry fringes of the web, 7 February 2008
- Resolution of the Great Submarine Cable Crisis — and some lessons learned, 8 February 2008
- What do blogs do for America?, 26 February 2008
- The oddity of reports about the Iraq War, 13 March 2008
- Euphoria about the Bakken Formation, 10 April 2008
- The Internet makes us dumber: the Bakken euphoria, a case study, 15 April 2008
- Does reading Debkafile make us smarter, or dumber? , 15 June 2008
- A Congressman ignites a netstorm about Twitter, 9 July 2008
