"The response to Crozier’s memo, after it was public, was incoherent. Everybody was saying different things. Modly got on the news and told CNN, We’re working on it, we have a plan in place, which was true because he was in communication with Crozier and his staff at that point. That same afternoon, Modly’s boss, Secretary Defense Mark Esper, got on the evening news and said, I haven’t made any decision and I haven’t read the letter in full. They were nowhere near on the same page. It was the beginning of this massive schism that’s happening right now between civilian and military leadership."And let's not kid ourselves; it wasn't just the flunkies - this clusterfuck goes all the way up to Head of Grifting:
"You see a real difference between how the admirals and the political appointees are dealing with this. The admirals are looking for how to get the sailors off and investigate what happened. But the political appointees, specifically Modly and Esper, seemed like they were completely foundering and looking for a political mitigation tactic that might save them face."
"Last year, the Navy was roiled by Trump’s call for clemency for Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was convicted of keeping war trophy photographs of himself with a dead Iraqi captive. So there was already this sense, when Modly came to the job, that you need to anticipate what the White House wants and carry it out. I think that’s an understanding most administration hopefuls have reached. It could be seen as a bit of a proximate factor for what happened with Crozier."So as far as "most powerful" goes, while I do not question the sheer weight of metal that the U.S. military has and will continue to bring in the near future, it's worth noting that the track record of military organizations that are beaten into a sort of permanent cringe...
Update 4/25: Innnnnnnn-teresting:
"Pentagon leaders are now at an impasse about how to move forward. While CJCS Milley wants a broader inquiry, CNO Gilday and ASECNAV McPherson want to move ahead with reinstating Crozier. SECDEF Esper may be the deciding vote between the two camps."Why I say this is interesting is because the CJCS is NOT in Crozier's chain. Remember the little thing I posted about the Navy chain of command?
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ain't on it.
The only reason I can see that Milley is sticking his fucking oar in is that certain Trumpkins want to torpedo Crozier somehow but don't want their tiny little fingers on the firing button.
Like I said; the track record of armed forces who begin sucking up to political despots?
It's not good.
And, given the track record we already have from the U.S. performance in Central Asia?
Yeah.
That.
The latest news is 400 + cases confirmed ? deaths on the TR. When the controversy began,
ReplyDeleteit was 103 cases. These idiots in charge don't know the rule of thumb of every one with Covid spreads it to 2.5 to 3.0 people. "On a naval vessel's sardine can berthing one can multiply that by infinity. BTW a French Mistral class Amphib Carrier returned to port after discovering 40 + cases. It's not like China and Russia will now unleash their planned attack on Murrica and its' vast military locales in the world.
Today, the number on the TR is 615 cases, plus 1 fatality. All up from 550 last week, in spite of being quarantined today. Enough Docs, Nurses, Respiratory Techs, PPE, Corpsmen, abilities? Only the senior docs know this. The KICOVIDS doubled in the US in one week. I report, you deride...or not.
DeleteMy guess is that this stuff is spreading like wildfire in the Russian services. They've always been ridiculously awful about their living conditions, and this is perfect for a poorly maintained and badly led organization. The PRC...is hard to tell, but my guess is that it's not nearly as "contained" as the PLA and PLAN are admitting.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's kind of the point. Sven threw out the idea of this as an escaped bioweapon and the subsequent events point out what a dumb idea to even consider that would be unless you had a chain of precedent that would enable you (the developer) to quickly develop an effective vaccine. The probability of blowback is nearly 100%.
What really kind of galls me about all this is not the Trumpkin appointees. They're the same damn weasels that have existed since the first Sumerian official figured out how to skim a measure of grain off the top of the god-king's tribute bin. They are in every administration of every state in every era in history.
But...what was supposed to be the unique strength of the American Experiment was that We the People were supposed to - with the alert energy of our watchdog, the Free Press, warning us when the weasels got into the larder - use our Totally Awesome Constitutional Freedoms to (remember Ben?) "keep the republic". We were supposed to be constantly on the lookout for these sorts of thieves and grifters and conmen and petty dictators. That was what was supposed to Make America Great; the We the People were also We the Government, that we were gonna throw the rascals out if they ever tried this shit.
Well...guess what.
Turns out the if you have a bunch of thieves and grifters and conmen and petty dictators that take the time to saturate We the People with the toxins of "government is the problem" and "the Magic of the Market" and "Those People Aren't Your Kind"? They can sucker damn near half the public into putting down their own trousers and handing the cane to their wanna-be king.
What a fuckstory.
#1 political priority for a free nation is to keep the 5...15% dangerous idiots that every country has* away from extraordinary power. The U.S., Hungary, Poland, UK, Italy and Israel seem to fail at this. THAT is quite a troublesome epidemic and it's been going on for years.
Delete*: I don't want to offend, but I feel the U.S. makes a case that the share of dangerous idiot adults may be up to 20% of total population.
If anything I think you're being too polite. IIRC polls taken at the end of the Bush 43 administration came up with something like 27% - so almost a third - of the American public viewed Dick Cheney - who had proved himself beyond a scintilla of a doubt to be a snarling, egotistical, arrogant, ill-informed fathead and casual war criminal - "favorably".
DeleteSo there's your baseline - 27% of the U.S. public is too fucking stupid to be trusted with the vote.
Now given that our current Chief Executive's "favorable" ratings have never dropped below about 40%? That's the current level of Fucking Bone-Stupid in the U.S.; four out of ten.
You can't run a republic with that much stupid in the tank. Period. The thing's gonna seize up hard.
As we're seeing.
AFAIK the favourability ratings concern likely voters, not the general adult population.
DeleteAnd here's Dr. Donald J. Trump on the subject of viral intelligence:
ReplyDelete“This is a very brilliant enemy. You know, it’s a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like the antibiotics. You see it. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it.
We’re fighting…not only is it hidden, but it’s very smart. Okay? It’s invisible and it’s hidden but it’s…it’s very smart.”
We are SO fucked.
Smarter than him obviously.
DeleteAntibiotics fight bacteria. How can millions of Americans not see that this lying moron is a lying moron? I can't even stand 30 seconds video of this idiot.
DeletePeople should have loudly laughed him out in 2015 right away.
Drifting slightly from the specifics of USN civ-mil relations to the broader issue of elected official expertise and competence, this era is hardly the first time that officials have reacted to grave issues with asinine remarks. Anyone remember Freedom Fries, for example?
ReplyDeleteThe difference is that in this case the officials are insisting that the actual professionals - in this case, naval officers - support and echo their "asinine remarks". Nobody required the mess cooks at Ft. Bragg to rename their fries.
DeleteOne of the worst aspects of Trump as Chief Executive is his utter inability to tolerate anyone who so much as looks at him sternly. There have been previous presidents who have been thin-skinned, incompetent (Andrew Johnson?), vindictive, rageoholic assholes. None of them combines the unique amalgam of aggressive, ill-informed, stupid, and egotistical as this nitwit.
A sensible elected official would have consulted with his service chiefs (who wanted to slow-walk the relief, if relive him at all) and done the dirty deed on the downlow. The message would have gotten to the serving officers - a poor but totally expected one (don't make the boss look bad in public!) - without making the Trump Administration look (again!) like a bunch of braying jackasses.
I leave no loathing un-loathed in my loathing for Dick Cheney. Evil, cynical, bastard that he is, though...he's not a jackass. He's dangerous - hanging is too good for him, given the GIs he killed - but he's not stupid and he's not asinine.
This guy and most of the dross left over in executive positions in this Administration?
Christ.
Perhaps there's another way this could have gone. It would have required a cold heart, would have been hammered in the press, and multiple people would have had to be prepared to lose their jobs, but it might have helped the overall pandemic effort.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Captain Crozier’s assertion that “in combat we are willing to take certain risks that are not acceptable in peacetime” would have had to be re-examined through a different lens. If we use the language of war to describe the fight against covid-19 then we assume the same level of risk. Sailors go into harm’s way in either circumstance.
Next, understanding that policy is based on recommendations that involve math, and in this instance the dot product of susceptible population, infection rate, and fatality rate is based on assumptions for every single value, we use the TR as a lab: Every sailor remains confined to ship and gets tested daily until covid-19 runs its course in that environment.
You won’t get perfect data as the TR’s population isn’t representative of the population at large, though unlike the population at large you won’t have some fuzzy numbers based on a lower rate of comorbidities (the sailors being younger and fitter (I assume) than the general population – but this also lowers (without eliminating – see below) risk of death among the crew). However, you will have a better idea of things like the symptomaticty ratio, rate of transmission per contact, duration of infectiousness etc. It would also give insight into susceptibility for reinfection and post-infection immunity.
Some sailors would die (as has already happened). Nothing can diminish the tragedy of death. But if we’re prepared to risk life and limb in traditional war in pursuit of achieving national interests, shouldn’t we consider whether or not it is worth similar risks in this current pandemic situation which is affecting every nation’s national interests? Current policy is being made based on math that is working with a wide range of assumptions and little hard data. Anything that helps confirm or deny or shrink the range of assumptions will lead to better data which will lead to better options being presented to decision makers.
As I said, this would be a really difficult decision. I’m certain that medical ethicists would have a variety of opinions on the issue. The decision would be dissected in the public domain. But which leads to a greater advance of the national interest and at what cost (and here we would likely need to introduce actuarial math): a brigade combat team deploying to the sandbox (resulting in . . . I don’t actually know how many casualties the average BCT sustains in Iraq or Afgh, but I assume it’s double digits to low triple digits), or a carrier’s complement confined to ship for the duration of an infectious pathogen?
All that said, I do not criticize Captain Crozier’s decision. His responsibility was to his crew. He fulfilled that responsibility. A decision as I’ve described would have to be deliberately taken by a mix of very senior military and civilian leadership.
This is no "war" to be fought with sailors.
DeleteIt's unacceptable to expect sailors to accept completely unnecessary and useless risks in wartime as in peacetime.
French carrier Charles de Gaulle: 1081 crewmembers infected. The carrier had left port in mid-March and was since at sea.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the USNI Web Page, the TR now has 1017 cases. So much for "It's just like the Flu Gawldernit!" Oh, FDC, let me know if you want me to stop with my TR updates.
Delete