…AGAIN!?!? ANOTHER US NAVAL COLLISION IN JAPAN
OK... it's the day before the American thanksgiving holiday, and in trying to sort through all the articles in my inbox (and believe me, I'd like to blog about all of them!), I saw that many of you had sent along this story about yet another collision of a US naval warship with another ship, this time a Japanese tugboat. So with Saudi coups going on, airplane-helicopter collisions over a Rothschild estate in Great Britain, Mad Madam Merkel's ongoing woes, and a circus of sexual charge and countercharge in American politics, why choose this story as the final pre-holiday blog?
Well, I'll get back to the whys and wherefores. Here's two versions of the story, if, indeed, you can call them versions:
Another US Navy Warship Crashes
US warship collides with Japanese tug boat, latest mishap for the Navy's 7th Fleet
Now, you'll have noticed that the Yahoo version of the story is superficially longer than the Zero Hedge version, but that both contain such a paucity of information that the "story", such as it is, boils down to:
"A Japanese tugboat experienced problems and crashed into our ship."
Really? That's it?
Indeed, there's so little information here that I cannot help but indulge my habit of driving truckloads of high octane speculation through this one. Indeed, it's like an open invitation to do so. First, there's so little information that I strongly suspect that there's a bigger story here and that the US Navy, which was met with all sorts of speculation after the USS John McCain and USS Fitzgerald incidents (not to forget the USS Donald Cook), has clamped down hard on any press releases. The collision, after all, occurred during naval exercises designed to impress North Korea.
My guess is that they're probably not laughing in Pyongyang, and certainly not in the Pentagon, because what is absent here is almost a complete blackout of what may have caused the accident. Notably, this time it cannot be blamed on American crew incompetence (so it would seem), because the Zero Hedge version of the story states this:
According to the report, the US Navy carried out towing exercises when the boat experienced technical problems and crashed into the side of the USS Benfold.
This is the statement that, frankly, caught my eye. Notably, it is not a quotation from any US Navy source, but it does reference a Sputnik report of the incident. In any case, the language is - again - invitingly ambiguous: which boat experienced technical problems? The Japanese tugboat? or the USS Benfold? But the latter doesn't make sense, since were told that "the US Navy carried out towing exercises when the boat experienced technical problems...," clearly implying that it was the Japanese ship, rather than the American one, that was experiencing "technical problems". Does this mean the American warship "stopped everything" during a wargame exercise to tow a Japanese tugboat? If so, that suggests that the problem on the tugboat was of a somewhat serious nature. Otherwise, why not radio the Japanese authorities for a civilian vessel to assist the stricken tugboat? In other words, on this reading, the situation was serious and perhaps urgent.
Yet, we're told next to nothing about it, nor about the nature of the "technical problems." Were these problems with the vessel itself? or the crew? or both?
I stress these points because in all the attention focused on the Fitzgerald incident some weeks ago, everyone was focused on the warship itself. No one seemed to be asking about the freighter that struck it: why had its crew not steered to avoid collision? Did its crew experience some sort of mental haze or confusion? Had control of the freighter been taken over... perhaps even hacked? (After all, if one can hack airliners, why not freighters?) The US Navy, it will be recalled, tried to place some blame on the warship's crew and the then commanding flag officer of the 7th Fleet who was subsequently dismissed. That boat didn't float, as far as I was concerned, because the freighter crew, by the same lights, would appear to have been equally, if not more, culpable and incompetent. And you'll notice, not a word has been said about the crews of the ramming freighters since the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents. The whole thing smelled of technical failure, and regular readers here will recall that I even suspected a bit of mind manipulation technology might have been in play.
Oh, and interestingly enough, RT reported that the "technical problems" were that the Japanese tug "lost its propulsion." Was this serious enough to make the US warship, during wargames, become a tugboat? Even the specificity, when provided, raises my suspicion meter into the red zone: Hmmmm...
So, yes, I'm putting this into the same column as the Fitzgerald and John McCain incidents, and even in the same column as the Donald Cook incident until more information is forthcoming, and yes, I'll probably be skeptical of that too. Something is going on; someone is sending messages, and that someone appears to possibly have some very sophisticated technology.
See you on the flip side...
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A follow-on article here:
https://news.usni.org/2017/11/18/destroyer-uss-benfold-damaged-collision-japanese-tug
Good, informed comments below that article. From a comment by Duane:
“It is reported that the towing cable got fouled in the tug’s prop(s) while both vessels were underway in parallel at slow speed with the cable being slack (i.e., the tug dropped aft to create slack). With the tug suddenly no longer under its own propulsion and with the cable still attached to the bow of the DDG which still had forward way on, it’s quite possible that the DDG unavoidably pulled the fouled cable forward, which would tend to draw the tug – having at this point essentially become the towed vessel – laterally into the hull of the DDG. It was also reported that the strike was amidships … that would seem to support the scenario I describe here.”
To me, this just looks like one of the unavoidable, small mishaps which occur from operating in the real world. No significant damage. Absent the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents, this would never even have made the news.
At the best, this just looks like piling-on. At the worst, it looks like ‘misdirection’ from the more-vital news Joseph initially-mentions or a propaganda campaign to blackwash the US Navy…
Please review Field McConnell’s information being faxed daily to Executive branch marine general Kelly .
It tells all about treasonous criminal enterprise .
https://youtu.be/WxuuHSxq0xo?list=PLE72BEBA5297D2366
Well this one doesn’t rise too high on my Conspirometer, I have to say. Simply put, I fail to see the strategic value of weaponized tugboats against warships. It’s like threatening a gun-toting intruder with your ferocious attack chihuahua.
This one simply doesn’t rise to the same level of seriousness of the other incidents, and the vagueness of the ZH article is simply due to their being churned out like sausages by the resident Tylers, who don’t even have time to spellcheck their headlines.
That said, I thought Guyrr’s link to the RT article about Putin’s call for “urgent” defense mobilization was quite interesting. Now that’s an unambiguous signal to knock it off in anyone’s book, especially in view of the whole Middle East situation being stoked up by the usual suspects.
And this breaking news:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/22/aircraft-carrying-11-crashes-in-pacific-ocean-on-way-to-uss-ronald-reagan.amp.html
https://www.rt.com/usa/410585-navy-aircraft-crash-pacific/
It gets worse… Putin orders Russian companies to be ready for urgent transition to war-time operations
https://www.rt.com/politics/410646-putin-orders-all-russian-companies/
I think we are on a knifes edge right now. That slaughterbot video has me very very worried.
Guygrr, this news is very bad.
I first saw it over at JS today:
“‘Preparing businesses for war-time manufacturing’ is not a side issue. It means that they have to have everything ready to switch the types of products they are making, and that is not easy to do. This is a clear indication that things are getting ready to go hot; and it is not rumor, it was posted by RT.”
This is not just jawboning, politician-style. This is a concrete action. ‘The Saker’ has been warning for a few years that the Russian government fully-expects WWIII to be pushed by the PTB. Their leaders have been psychologically-preparing the Russian population for that possibility, including scheduling nuclear-attack drills and conducting nuclear-forces readiness exercises. With Russian patience wearing thin around Trump’s pre-election ‘détente’ promises, the Russians may be ‘reverting’ into the real threat to them by the PTB.
This could just be a “we’re watching you” statement around the Israelis and Saudis preparing for the anti-Hezbollah war in Lebanon (to be continued into Iran). Let’s hope it is just that…
No doubt the ones pulling the trigger
will be somewhere safe watching it on satellite tv
with buttered popcorn
and taking bets.
Is it typical for mere cargo transport to have 11 people onboard?
All these ships and planes crashing remind me of the MH flight that “just went poof,” or as I think Jeb Bond put it one Friday in a very detailed breakdown of the incident, it seems to have just hit an invisible wall mid flight…
It’s an antique turboprop from the late ’60s, and there are three survivors. The loss of life is tragic but I see nothing unusual there. You can go on YouTube and see any number of horrifying crashes of military transports and carrier-based aircraft; unfortunately it happens all too often.
During a nerve-wracking sparring match between an amateur and the U.S. boxing champion, an unexpected fist slammed into the champion face.
It was blamed on the ionized atmosphere of an upcoming bout due to some questions about the legitimacy of the current champion.
Apparently someone isn’t listening if they keep having to send the message. At least no lives were lost with this latest mishap.
A suggestion: convert these useless “warships” into fast cruise vessels (minus guns), so that people in America who cannot, or don’t like to fly, can get a fast passage to Europe to do their historical research or have a vacation.
Hear, hear!
One of my favorite writers–the justifiably cynical and darkly hilarious Fred Reed–has a lot to say on exactly that topic.
Hmm.. well..its either..
Godzilla whupping some serious tail.. Think about it..
All damage was done by ‘something big’ hitting the ships.. and damage doesnt look like a ship hitting another ship.. (for my oh so expert opinion… kof koffà)
All accounts are woefully missing in the ‘explanations’ department…
All damage is always done by ‘friendly’ ships..who’s crew then disappears.. (I havent seen any interviews with the crews that rammed the US boats)
and Major HOS.. lots of ‘unidentifiable’ sea monster corpses turning up on beaches in the southern hemisphere this last 2 years..
Over the top HOS.. Wasnt there talk about a psychic shape shifting killer squid in that underground lake.. well.. under ice lake in Antarctica??
or…
North Korea really actually is a holdout for the Deep State and above.. and something keeps pushing thought the blockades.. and damaging the ships.. (which might explain Trumps tweets to NK…)
and anyone who thinks that the ships were just out for ‘wargames’…
“North Korea as a hold out for the Deep State and above”…. that “and above” is my concern right now.