March 10, 2009

This Was A Test.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 8:39 pm

We failed.

I don’t think these assholes would have played such games with President Reagan or even President Bush – either one of them.

9 Comments »

  1. Jimbo, they did screw up one of our aircraft and force it to land IN CHINA, and hung on to it and the crew for a week before giving the crew (but not the airplane, IIRC) back.
    Sadly, they may actually have a point — check out the Wikipedia entry on International Waters.

    Comment by Dave Merriman — March 10, 2009 @ 9:10 pm

  2. It won’t be the last test.

    Comment by James Old GUy — March 10, 2009 @ 9:21 pm

  3. No, Dave the U.S Navy did NOT screw up. They were operating in open, international waters. The white areas on the map, I believe are to show 50 miles out to sea. Case in point, every fall, the guys in my neighborhood all go out on a charter boat to chase some tuna. We got about 65-70 miles out to the canyons and all night, with a few nautical miles of us is the international commercial shipping lane.
    Now, granted if a Chinese or Soviet warship decided to come snooping around that close it would warrant our undivided attention but would we harrass those vessels…nope.
    We would probably give them a not so subtle hint that they are a tad too close for comfort and they need to get to stepping.
    This is just another provocation by the Chinese. Their problem is they are going to go too far one time and an all out brawl is going to ensue.
    China knows that because they have The Bomb, they can’t be messed with lest that country runs into a potential nuclear conflict.
    Strong, aggressive military. Strong economy with cheap labor and manufactures half of the worlds products….hell, THEY may be the true superpower. It doesn’t mean we can’t whoop that ass but they sure do hold a strong hand in this deal.

    Comment by RobbieRob — March 11, 2009 @ 7:16 am

  4. Of course, another problem is that we owe them a shitload of money.

    Jimbo

    Comment by Jim — March 11, 2009 @ 9:33 am

  5. As a merchant marine who served aboard some of these civilian manned vessels, I am aware of someclose encounters with Iraq Chinese, and other nationals vessels. Our MSC ships carry no more armament than a few 50 cal., shotguns, m-16 and 9mm handguns. These nations are nothing more than pirates like those in Africa!

    Comment by JD Deadwyler — March 11, 2009 @ 10:05 am

  6. RR – I didn’t say the Navy screwed up. 1- It’s a Navy ship, but operated almost entirely by civilians affiliated with one of our security agencies, and 2- It isn’t just the territorial waters thing. Check the difference between a Navy ship having USNS ___ and USS ___. Some years ago, a couple of South American countries got into a whizzing contest over fishing rights, due in large part to the ‘exclusive economic zone’ shown on the Wiki map (smaller one). Ditto with fishing rights arguments between Canada/US, Iceland/others, and up in some Scandahoovian countries.

    While the ship was _technically_ in the right to be there, the Chinese arguably had a right to let it know to “get stepping”. They certainly got too enthusiastic about it, but that they had the right to protest the presence is the point I was trying to make.

    Comment by Dave Merriman — March 11, 2009 @ 10:34 am

  7. “This has been a TEST of Oh-Blah-ma by the Chinese . . .they want to see how far they can get, you can just bet there will be more with higher intensity . . .Just wait and see.
    “Mark my words, Ohbama will be tested…” as Biden said.

    Comment by Stever — March 11, 2009 @ 12:26 pm

  8. I’m surprised this adminitration didn’t apologize to the Chinese,,,all that hope and change coming down the pike!

    Comment by Michele — March 11, 2009 @ 1:09 pm

  9. We got our plane (EP-3) back, in pieces. Contractors were allowed to fly an old Russian cargo plane in, disassemble the EP-3, and cart the whole mess back out. In the mean time, the ChiComs learned quite a bit about the EP-3. The Navy boys hadn’t managed to destroy quite everything that needed destroying.

    Comment by Mike — March 13, 2009 @ 3:29 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress