John V. Walsh – The Unz Review Oct 31, 2021
“When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”
So warned Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in his address to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2020. He was referring to the consequences for East Asia of a conflict between the US and China.
Fast forward to October 2, 2021, about one year later, and the first patch of grass has been stomped on by the U.S. elephant, trudging stealthily about, far from home in the South China Sea. On that day the nuclear-powered attack submarine, the USS Connecticut, suffered serious damage in an undersea incident which the U.S. Navy ascribed to a collision with an undersea object.
After sustaining damage, the submarine apparently surfaced close to the Paracel Islands which lie only 150 nautical miles from China’s Yulin submarine base in Hainan Province. The Connecticut is one of only three Seawolf class of submarines, which are assumed to be on spying missions. But they can be equipped with Intermediate Range (1250-2500 km) Tomahawk cruise missiles which can be armed with nuclear warheads. It is claimed that they are not so equipped at present because the Navy’s “policy decisions” have “phased out” their nuclear role, according to the hawkish Center For Strategic and International Studies.
When a US nuclear submarine with such capabilities has a collision capable of killing U.S. sailors and spilling radioactive materials in the South China Sea, it should be front page news on every outlet in the U.S. This has not been the case – far from it. For example, to this day (October 30), nearly a month after the collision, the New York Times, the closest approximation to a mouthpiece for the American foreign policy elite, has carried no major story on the incident and in fact no story at all so far as I and several daily readers can find. This news is apparently not fit to print in the Times. (A notable exception to this conformity and one worth consulting has been Craig Hooper of Forbes.)
A blackout of this kind will come as no surprise to those who have covered the plight of Julian Assange or the US invasion of Syria or the barely hidden hand of the United States in various regime change operations, to cite a few examples
The U.S. media has followed the narrative of the U.S. Navy which waited until October 7 to acknowledge the incident, with the following extraordinarily curt press release (I have edited it with strike-outs and italicized substitutions to make its meaning clear.):
The Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN 22) struck an object while submerged on the afternoon of Oct. 2, while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region in the South China Sea near or inside Chinese territorial waters. The safety of the crew remains the Navy’s top priority The crew is being held incommunicado for an indefinite period. There are no life threatening injuries. This allows the extent of injuries to the crew to be kept secret.
The submarine remains in a safe and stable condition hidden from public view to conceal the damage and its cause. USS Connecticut’s nuclear propulsion plant and spaces were not affected and remain fully operational are in a condition that is being hidden from the public until cosmetic repairs can be done to conceal the damage. The extent of damage to the remainder of the submarine is being assessed is also being concealed. The U.S. Navy has not requested assistance will not allow an independent inspection or investigation. The incident will be investigated cover-up will continue.
Tan Kefei, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense although not so terse, had much the same to say as my edited version above, as reported in China’s Global Times:
“It took the US Navy five days after the accident took place to make a short and unclear statement. Such an irresponsible approach, cover-up (and) lack of transparency .. can easily lead to misunderstandings and misjudgments. China and the neighboring countries in the South China Sea have to question the truth of the incident and the intentions behind it.
But Tan went further and echoed the sentiment of President Duterte;
“This incident also shows that the recent establishment of a trilateral security partnership between the US, UK and Australia (AUKUS) to carry out nuclear submarine cooperation has brought a huge risk of nuclear proliferation, seriously violated the spirit of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, undermined the construction of a nuclear-free zone in Southeast Asia, and brought severe challenges to regional peace and security.
“We believe that the actions of the US will affect the safety of navigation in the South China Sea, arouse serious concerns and unrest among the countries in the region, and pose a serious threat and a major risk to regional peace and stability.”
The crash of the USS Connecticut goes beyond the potential for harmful radioactive leakage into the South China Sea, with potential damage to the surrounding nations including the fishing grounds of importance to the economy. If the US continues to ramp up confrontation far from its home in the South China Sea, then a zone of conflict could spread to include all of East Asia. Will this in any way benefit the region? Does the region want to be turned into the same wreckage that the Middle East and North Africa are now after decades of US crusading for “democracy and liberty” there via bombs, sanctions and regime change operations? That would be a tragic turn for the world’s most economically dynamic region. Do the people of the region not realize this? If not, the USS Connecticut should be a wake-up call.
But the people of the US should also think carefully about what is happening. Perhaps the foreign policy elite of the US think it can revisit the U.S. strategy in WWII with devastation visited upon Eurasia leaving the US as the only industrial power standing above the wreckage. Such are the benefits of an island nation. But in the age of intercontinental weapons, could the US homeland expect to escape unscathed from such a conflict as it did in WWII? The knot is being tied, as Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and if it is tied too tightly, then no one will be able to untie it. The US is tying the knot far from its home this time half way around the world. It should not tie that knot too tight.
“But the people of the US should also think carefully about what is happening.”
That’s a nice touch.
If the world knows nothing by now, it knows the VERY LAST THING the US leaders care about is what their people think.
the article says the USA is behind many regime changes
that are considered unworkable or undemocratic
please for gods sake USA come and change our regime here in the UK
thankyou
Okay, when this story broke, I suggested that the sub had been hit by a trap which sprung/floated up from the depths. Subs try to remain concealed by staying submerged. They also follow paths based on the seabed terrain. The most famous of these routes are the located between Greenland, Iceland and the UK, known as the GIUK gap, Russia subs would use the deepest trenches to avoid detection & were most famously used in the film Red October.
I am assuming the South China Sea has a similar game, & the Chinese would know the best paths that US/NATO subs would use, even if they can’t detect them, although, I would think the Chinese have made it their business to track foreign subs. So lets say the Chinese know a path is used often. They decide to place a trap on the seabed. This could be a large concrete box (air tight, partially inflated to neutral buoyancy with rapid inflation) attached to the seabed, when a sub is detected, the trap releases. Of course, there’s going to targeting system as well. Even if the sub detects the rising object, unlike that a sub can avoid collision. Remember, this incident has caused substantial damage & injury. The cost of such a trap, maybe $10 million, damage to the front end of a US sub, probably $100/150 million.
It was reported on this site that two Sea Wolf subs (2 of the 3 in service) put into San Diego to take on kit. Related?
“Guam is on the eastern edge of the lifting portion of the Phillipine Plate wich has been tilting steadily in concert with the tilting Mariana Plate since the 7 of 10 plate movements began. These tilts collapse the Mariana Trench on the eastern edge of the Mariana Plate so are accompanied by violent adjustments in the rock strata. Its not just the topography of the region that changes to present a danger. It can be rocks ejected upward during the trench collapse process that can be an immediate or temporary danger. This is what struck the USS Connecticut.” Source: Zetatalk 31/10
It happened before. In 2019 a Chinese nuclear sub sank in the S China Sea and leaked radiation. Tumbling rocks smote the sub.
I think the Iranians should be allowed to inspect this nuclear submarine.
“When a US nuclear submarine with such capabilities has a collision capable of killing U.S. sailors and spilling radioactive materials in the South China Sea, it should be front page news on every outlet in the U.S. This has not been the case”
You bet. Thanks to Der Juden owned news corporations.
Joe Sixpack still bumbling around in the dark as usual.
Wow, a US sub had an accident with a stationary object.
Sounds a bit careless to me, or was the sub and crew bamboozled by some Chinese tech?
Maybe Israel wanted it sunk so it could blame China or Iran?
But then; a stealth sub is not supposed to be detected by countries America doesn’t like.
Hope the waters have not been polluted?
BLM RIOTS
multiculturalism at work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRXTFuzBclY
Matthew 24:6
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Don’t worry about it, its all a staged show managed by the Zionist Cryptocrats, who surreptitiously control & maneuver all these ‘nations’ of the world..The moronic masses think the ‘conflict’ is real; but its all a game managed by one mongrel cult…figure it out, if you can..
The US seems to be having a lot of collisions of late. It must be this new diversity crap they’re fawning to regards officer selection.
There are maybe seven or eight brilliant books from the few German submariners who survived their war, mostly from WWII but a few from WWI, talking about the conditions and dangers they faced. It turns out that while Hollywood likes to portray U-boat captains as older men like Humphrey Bogart, the average age of a WWII U-boat captain was just 27. These men were usually fully educated at the Naval Academy from the age of 5 or so.
Before one can master a vessel under the waves one must first learn to master a vessel above the waves, and to qualify as a U-boat commander they had to have mastered a 3-masted brigantine by age 18. Perhaps if the US got back to serious naval education and promotion based on merit not sex, colour etc, it might not have as many collisions as it does.
Given that the average American citizen can’t even fond the US on amap, it is nor surprise that they aren’t thinking at all. To Joe Sixpack and Sally Soccermom, the rest of the world is somewhere else that can be bombed with impunity.
@ TRUTHY I
this i would know myself . to know
this i would not need those sayings !
@ GOYBOY
maybe it was an alien underwater
space craft preventing nuklear war
as they already did in cold war times
disabling nuklear intercontinal silos.
War is a Racket – That is the US war machine since 1783.
All wars are bankers wars
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
blacks doing what they do best
http://www.renegadetribune.com/white-children-are-constantly-assaulted-by-blacks-in-school-where-they-are-taught-crt/?doing_wp_cron=1635922860.1834959983825683593750
Netflix new animated show “Inside Job” dialogue, “in world war three America plays the bad guy this time.”
From what I hear, the US claims sub hit a mountain… I don’t believe this. A lot of planning goes into the routes taken by subs on patrol. In war, this is different. The No1 priority at sea is the safety of the ship and crew. How many crew need to make mistakes so a sub hits a mountain?
The US Navy says it has identified the “What was that?” one of its subs hit recently. It was a mountain, apparently. I know mountains are big enough to hit, but … aren’t they supposed to be big enough to miss, too?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-navy-investigators-identify-unknown-100900731.html
@ TONY
USA WAS ALWAYS THE BAD GUY
WITH THE PERFIDIOUS ALBION !