There’s Professionals…

…and then there’s the jackasses.  The crews of the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper and USS Ingraham clearly showed they were on the side of the professionals,  The IRGN?  Well, here’s an extract from today’s press conference with ADM Cosgriff (C5F/NAVCENT):

Q     Sir, Jonathan Karl with ABC News. A couple of quick things. One, the Iranian Foreign Ministry is calling the action of these Iranian boats ordinary. I’m wondering if that — what you say to that. And also, how concerned are you generally that the Iranians — about the Iranians potentially acting in a provocative way so as to draw us into a confrontation that we do not want? I mean, how concerned are you that the Iranians are trying to basically provoke aggressive action by the U.S. Navy? 

 

 ADM. COSGRIFF: (Off mike) — hypothetical, and I’ll — if you don’t mind, I’ll avoid it. But I am concerned with what I consider unnecessary and irresponsible maneuvering and behavior like this on the part of those patrol boats in, again, international waters in an area that’s traversed by numerous ships of all nations peacefully day- in and day-out. And so, when they act that way, it raises the possibility of a miscalculation on their part that somebody might take it just too far as we are stepping through our procedures.      And as I’ve told my commanding officers, I take this incredibly seriously and I expect that commanding officers will successfully defend their ships and their crews at all times in this theater. It’s important to remember we have been attacked by small high-speed boats in the Gulf, in the region — the Cole — and in the northern Gulf a few years ago. We have suffered casualties, and we take this deadly seriously.  So I expect that the commanding officers are going to follow their procedures and they’re going to step through them with discipline, be measured, mindful of the totality of the information they have available to them. In this case, I couldn’t be more proud that they did it right.   

Dropping objects in front of vessels transiting international waters, training weapons on same, threatening bridge-to-bridge voice calls and harassing and hazarding operation of vessels.  Yeah, that’s the mark of professionals – not.  Obviously the IRGN was seeking to cause an incident.  Naval professionals are used to dealing with jackasses – but understand, there comes a point where jackasses end up on the short end of the stick:

IS Sahan

 

ADM. COSGRIFF:  It’s worth reminding, again, your listeners and your readers that the United States’ Navy has been here for 60 years. We expect to be here for decades to come. We are a force for security and stability in the region. We have lots of friends. We cooperate with our friends. We’re in a maritime coalition of 19 nations.  We’re proud to say that all 19 nations in that coalition comport themselves with due regard for international law and the convention of mariners recognized around the world with, in this case, one exception. And yesterday, the Revolutionary Guard demonstrated their capacity to act irresponsibly and, in my estimation, well out of the ordinary norms of what we would expect.  So hopefully they’ve learned from this that we’re serious. We’re going to stand on and conduct our routine peaceful operations and security operations and contributory operations the way we always have, and continue building a peaceful and stable gulf and surrounding region.