Tag: media

Remember, THEY’RE the Bad Guys

We’re supposed to believe that the Russians are the bad guys because a vaccinated CIA agent died of a heart attack after returning to Russia of his own volition and being imprisoned for some obvious crimes. Meanwhile, every civilian in the USA who exposes the wrongdoing of a politician, a corporation, or a government agency ends up conveniently “committing suicide” right before they’re scheduled to testify.

A prominent Boeing whistleblower who reported on safety and quality control concerns in the company’s production line was found dead Saturday, according to South Carolina authorities. John Barnett, 62, died of an apparent self-inflicted wound on Friday, the Charleston County Coroner’s office said. He was found in his truck at his hotel’s parking lot.

A 32-year veteran of Boeing, Barnett’s 2019 whistleblower allegations claimed that overworked employees at its South Carolina plant frequently fitted substandard parts on planes and reported faulty oxygen systems that could result in as many as 1 in 4 oxygen masks not operating properly.

Boeing denied Barnett’s claims, but a follow-up investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration lent credence to some aspects of his allegations. A report found that more than 50 “non-conforming” parts were unable to be traced and were lost in the company’s system. Barnett was in Charleston to be questioned for a long-running retaliation suit against the company.

His death comes as Boeing is under increased regulatory scrutiny for its 737 Max aircraft manufacturing process after a door blew out of a flight midair in January. The incident launched a widespread investigation into Boeing manufacturing, discovering lax quality control.

It’s not only impossible to believe anything one reads in the Clown World media anymore, it’s hard to believe we were ever dumb enough, and naive enough, to believe what they were reporting 30 years ago. It’s not like this is a new phenomenon; while Frank Pentageli did actually commit suicide at the behest of the Corleones in The Godfather 2, the fact that the story from 1974 showed how he was under ineffective FBI protection makes it clear that these attacks on witnesses have been around for decades.

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The Roots of GamerGate 2.0

The Dark Herald delves into the latest iteration of GamerGate at the Arkhaven blog:

It all began with GamerGate.

Well, no it didn’t. It began with decisions that the editors of PC gaming magazines made.

Back in the 1990s I had a subscription to Computer Gaming World. It was a don’t miss back then. Given what the internet was like at the time, a print magazine was an absolute necessity. At least if you were going to find out if Master of Orion II was anywhere near as good as the first game, (BTW, it was better). Is the full version Redneck Rampage as difficult to run as the share-ware? (Yes, definitely). Or is John Romero really going to make you, his bitch? (No, he wasn’t.) You would also get interviews with people like Roberta Williams and Richard Garriott. Plus, you would find out which conventions were going to have the best computer gaming room. (It mattered in those days because it might be the only place you could play some titles if your friends didn’t have a copy.)

Here’s the big thing. There was a real sense of community back then and gaming magazines were the glue that was holding us together. The guys that wrote those articles were part of our tribe. They spoke our language, shared our concerns, and agreed with us on what was cool.

The gaming magazines were huge and I don’t just mean within gaming culture. They were physically gigantic. There was a point where CGW had 500 pages. That was where the trouble began.

When you have that many pages, you need to fill them with something. The editors of gaming magazines had run into a problem there. They could hire more gamers and teach them how to write, a longer process to be sure but in the end, you would have more in-depth articles by people who know and love gaming. However, given how fast the gaming magazines were growing and how much original content they needed month to month, a shortcut beckoned siren-like to the editors.

There was always a pile of resumes from journalism majors who were shotgunning any publication in the hopes of landing a gig. They knew absolutely nothing about gaming, but they did know how to write, (sort of, they were journalism majors after all). The view clearly was, just give them something easy to play until we can find someone better.

So, the editors started hiring journalism majors as a temporary shortcut. The kind of temporary shortcut that stays forever. Journalism majors could write about games, but they didn’t love them. They didn’t care at all about game mechanics, what they had a passion for was narrative story structure and pretty, pretty pictures. So long as a game had those it would get a ten-star review even if the gameplay sucked.

It was obvious that these journalism majors were setting the game difficulty on Toddler Mode and playing through as fast as possible. They wanted to experience the narrative with as little interruption by gameplay as could be managed.

This temporary fix stuck around. The journalists got promoted. Then the magazines started getting bought by media conglomerates like Ziff Davis, who definitely preferred to work with journalists. Consequently, the gamers at the gaming magazines got shunted to the side and the journalists started making the hiring decisions. Guess who they hired?

You guessed right. Other journalists.

Most readers here know of my involvement in GamerGate, including the hosting of #GGinParis with Mike and Milo. But I was much more deeply involved with game journalism starting more than 20 years before the exposure of the GameJournoPros list.

Computer Game World was arguably one of the greatest magazines in publishing history. I read it from cover to cover, carefully taking notes as to who did what and worked for which company, to the point that when I started attending industry events, I could speak substantively to pretty much anyone of note that I met.

I eventually started writing for them, had one of our games reviewed by them, and even contributed by writing the initial review for the much-anticipated id-and-Raven game Heretic. In fact, I was the only game developer who was permitted to write for them, for as Editor-in-Chief Johnny Wilson once said, correctly, “Vox would rather cut his arm off than cut a bad game any slack.” Johnny was eventually replaced by Chris Lombardi, who was also excellent and possessed of a formidable intelligence, but once Ziff Davis bought them and Chris was hired away by one of the early gaming networks, the quality declined rapidly, to the point that I no longer even bothered subscribing even though I was a game developer.

So, I can state with some authority that it’s a good history. Read the whole thing there.

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The Specialist Always Wins

There is a panoply of ignorance on display in the recent UFC vs Navy SEALs debate in the sports world:

Sean Strickland, the UFC superstar, made some waves when he claimed no Navy SEAL could make it through the training he does. While he didn’t specify, it definitely seemed like he meant fight training. Could a Navy SEAL beat Sean Strickland in the octagon?

You know who else found the response to Strickland absolutely cringe? Andy Stumpf. For those of you who might not have heard of Andy Stumpf, he’s a legit dude. He was an operator in SEAL Team 6, got shot in Iraq on the same mission Tyler Grey was blown up, recovered and deployed again. The man isn’t a joke or someone pretending to have knowledge of the topic. He’s fought alongside some of the greatest warriors in America’s history, and he thinks this entire situation is embarrassing…

I spoke to another ST6 operator and one more Spec. Ops. veteran about Strickland’s comments. Both had reactions that mirror Stumpf’s and both admitted it wouldn’t be a fair fight against Strickland…..and that many UFC fighters would struggle in a Spec. Ops. training pipeline.

I don’t know about UFC fighters making it through the military training. I have no experience in that regard. But I am 100-percent certain that no Navy SEAL could ever beat a top UFC fighter in the Octagon. The two SpecOps guys are right. It wouldn’t even be a fair fight. Allow to explain:

I was never one of the top five fighters at my dojo, which was much respected by the other dojos in the Twin Cities, where we practiced an early form of MMA. Being the only dojo to ever take all the trophies from white belt to black in a statewide competition – it was only point-fighting, it must be said – we were basically the Cobra Kai of the state right down to the black gis, although the base of our style was, ironically enough, much more akin to Miyago-do, being Okinawan. I think it’s fair to say I was one of the top ten fighters there, as I was selected for a few of our public demos, including a pretty wild one at Glam Slam that involved fighting under strobe lights.

On several occasions, I had the opportunity to spar with guys who had military training, usually Marines for some reason. And while they weren’t completely hopeless like the normal guy walking in off the street with absolutely no training, they were never above the level of a fairly recent gold belt who had just started sparring a month or two prior. Never. I maintained a weight of 170, and didn’t even need to break a sweat to take apart a Marine who went 235, although, as I’ve said in the past, my little physics experiment in trying to go toe-to-toe with him was a complete failure.

When the Commandant of the Marine Corps was talking smack one day about the lethality of the Marine Fu that the Corps had adapted from the Israeli Krav Maga, I just laughed at him, pointed out that six weeks of fight training is inadequate preparation for going up against anyone with six years of fight experience, and told him to bring it on. He came at me and tried a basic takedown at the waist, so I put him face-down on the carpet in a neck-breaking lock that forced him to tap out in about five seconds.

Now keep in mind that my training was built around the striking arts and that my preference was always for counterattacking with a combination of speed and upper body strike power to stun and overwhelm an opponent. And yet, it took less than 10 seconds to completely incapacitate a very highly-trained Marine a) without harming him and b) without throwing a single strike of any kind.

Think about the degree of total superiority that implies. And yes, there were no shortage of witnesses, including Spacebunny.

Now, based on my experience fighting two national champions and one guy who was better than either of them, a fighter like Strickland would probably beat me in my prime in about 45 seconds. I’m confident that I’d get two or three good shots in – I was benching 295 then and even the very best guys had to be wary of my speed – but I’d definitely lose and lose comprehensively. So, there is no way, none whatsoever, that any military training would prepare a Navy SEAL or anyone else to beat a highly trained specialist like Strickland. It would be like spending a few weeks shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun, then challenging a Force Recon sniper to a long-distance shooting competition.

No, he does not have next…

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GamerGate 2.0

Buckle up, boys. The ride never ends. A summary from /pol/

  • DEI-gaming consultants “Sweet Baby Inc” exposed for harassment and coercion to insert wokeism into video games (example: CEO talk admitting to their coercion tactics
  • Issue mostly ignored by Media/Gaming “Journalists” for at least a week
  • A group on Steam forms with a list of games that employed Sweet Baby to consult on their creation, along with a discussion board and chat about the issue
  • Group swells to just under 200k users as of the time of this post
  • Kotaku and other gaming “news” start posting articles over the past 24 hours to start calling the group and users a bunch of wayciss chud nazis
  • Alyssa Mercante, “Journalist” who wrote the Kotaku article, starts taking heat for defending the Sweet Baby company and CEO for her own racism vs whites
  • “Journalist” then hauls off her mask to obliviously spout critical theory talking points after posting said article denying that Sweet Baby pushes critical theory agenda. “hi! you can’t be racist against white people! thanks for tuning in!”

I think we all know who is going to win the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Related Work now. I’m a little surprised Kotaku is still around, to be honest, given the fact that no one who is actually interested in or plays games reads them anymore.

UPDATE: Curiouser and curiouser…

  • Sweet Baby Inc is funded by Baby Ghosts
  • Baby Ghosts co-founder is Eileen Holowka
  • Eileen Holowka’s brother was Alec Holowka
  • Alec Holowka was LITERALLY WHO’s boyfriend

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The Mystery Continues

Clown World’s media just can’t seem to solve the incredible conundrum as to why so many young people are having heart attacks after receiving the safe and effective Covid vaxx:

Why ARE so many young people having heart attacks? They had seemingly healthy lifestyles… but all these people suffered heart problems.

‘Between 10 to 20 per cent of my heart attack patients are now under the age of 40,’ says Dr Martin Lowe, a consultant cardiologist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and The Portland Hospital, both in London. ‘In the US, data shows around one in five heart attack patients is under 40 and we’re catching up in the UK. When I was a junior doctor it was extremely rare to see young people — most patients were smokers in their 50s and 60s.’

Dr Joe Mills, a consultant cardiologist at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, adds: ‘We have really noticed the trend for younger people from mid-20s upwards having heart attacks in the past five years in particular. Now as a cardiologist, you wouldn’t even raise your eyebrows when seeing someone in their late 30s — it’s becoming fairly typical, which is frightening.’

So what’s causing the rise in heart attacks in younger people?

It’s really a true puzzler, a very sticky wicket indeed. I don’t think Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Manabu Yukawa, and Jules Maigret combined could figure this one out. In related news, doctors from the World Health Organization are also mystified as to the reason behind the sudden deaths of thousands of children in Gaza over the last three months, but they believe climate change combined with poor dietary habits may be to blame.

“Whatever it is, we can assure you, it’s not the vaxx.”

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The Intrinsic Danger of the Truth

Clown World wants its mindless subjects to believe that the people who keep correctly warning them about the lies and false histories of Clown World are an emerging threat vector:

In a world increasingly dominated by sensationalism and misinformation, conspiracy theories have found fertile ground to flourish. Dismissed by many as the ramblings of a paranoid few, these theories have long been relegated to the fringes of society. But the experts now warn that they are witnessing the emergence of a new threat vector: conspiracy theorists being proven right.

The exposure of government surveillance programs like PRISM, the revelations surrounding the secret experiments of MKUltra, and the acknowledgement of covert military operations like Operation Gladio, have all served as a sobering reminder that conspiracy theories are not always baseless. Darker still, we’ve even learned that the US government experimented with syphilis on Black folks and were the ultimate cause of the high rate of STDs among non-white populations.

More recently, the lab leak theory regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic has yet again sparked totally unnuanced “conspiracy theorists were right” discourse. While initially the lab leak theory was clamped down on for being a dangerous conspiracy theory, the hypothesis has — more or less by random chance — been the one to recently gain traction in expert opinions.

And while the true origins of the virus remain unclear, the fact that a modern conspiracy theory could potentially hold elements of truth has raised alarm bells among guardians of democracy like journalists and experts.

The specter of true conspiracy theories heralds profoundly dangerous implications for our ability to function as an open, inclusive, and equitable democratic society. As once-dismissed theories find validation, shadows of doubt are cast upon the credibility of the mainstream institutions and experts who set out to protect us to begin with.

The satanic nature of Clown World can always be identified by its invariable inversion of the truth. When Christians who hope to convince people to accept salvation from Hell are accused of doing so out of hate, when anti-vaxxers who try to convince people to avoid being injected with harmful substances are accused of doing so out of selfishness, and when those who speak the truth are accused of misleading people and spreading misinformation, it is very clear that wickedness is at work.

Furthermore if the truth casts doubt on the credibility of mainstream institutions and experts, then everyone is correct to reject those unreliable institutions and experts, and more importantly, ask questions concerning the nature of that unreliability.

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We’re Dangerous and We’re Spreading

The Economist senses the ongoing decline of Clown World and is terrified of the consequences of its inevitable collapse:

IN THE 1980s Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher built a new conservatism around markets and freedom. Today Donald Trump, Viktor Orban and a motley crew of Western politicians have demolished that orthodoxy, constructing in its place a statist, “anti-woke” conservatism that puts national sovereignty before the individual. These national conservatives are increasingly part of a global movement with its own networks of thinkers and leaders bound by a common ideology. They sense that they own conservatism now—and they may be right.

Despite its name, national conservatism could not be more different from the ideas of Reagan and Thatcher. Rather than being sceptical of big government, national conservatives think ordinary people are beset by impersonal global forces and that the state is their saviour. Unlike Reagan and Thatcher, they hate pooling sovereignty in multilateral organisations, they suspect free markets of being rigged by the elites and they are hostile to migration. They despise pluralism, especially the multicultural sort. National conservatives are obsessed with dismantling institutions they think are tainted by wokeness and globalism.

Instead of a sunny belief in progress, national conservatives are seized by declinism. William Buckley, a thinker of the old school, once quipped that “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling stop.” By comparison, national conservatives are revolutionaries. They do not see the West as the shining city on the hill, but as Rome before the fall—decadent, depraved and about to collapse amid a barbarian invasion. Not content with resisting progress, they also want to destroy classical liberalism.

Some people expect all this to blow over. National conservatives are too incoherent to pose a threat, they say. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, supports Ukraine; Mr Orban has a soft spot for Russia. The Polish Law and Justice party (PiS) is anti-gay; in France Marine Le Pen is permissive. Besides, the obsession with national sovereignty would make people worse off, as trade collapses, economic growth stalls and civil rights are curtailed. Voters would surely choose to restore the world liberalism made.

That view is unforgivably complacent. National conservatism is the politics of grievance: if policies lead to bad outcomes, its leaders will shift the blame onto globalists and immigrants and claim this only proves how much is wrong with the world. For all their contradictions, national conservatives have been able to unite around their hostility towards common enemies, including migrants (especially Muslims), globalists and all their supposed abettors.

The growing peril of national conservatism, THE ECONOMIST, 15 February 2024

Let Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher burn in Hell, along with all the other conservatives who signed off, however reluctantly, on the surrender of the white Christian West to a satanic, pedophile, globalist elite that wanted to impose The Empire That Never Ended on a world that was intoxicated with what it erroneously believed was the triumph of human liberty and the so-called End of History.

There is no “national conservativism” because we’re not fucking conservatives. We want Clown World and all its cursed clowns back in Hell where they belong. We’re nationalists, period. Let Russians rule Russia. Let Americans rule America. Let the Germans rule Germany. Let the Chinese rule China. And let everyone stay in their own nations, and live according to their cultures and traditions instead of trying to impose their ways on everyone else around the world.

The neoliberals know they’re wrong. They absolutely know it, they just can’t bring themselves to completely abandon their false ideals, fake principles, and their elite positions that their satanic masters have granted them.

The citizens of many Western countries see illegal migration as a source of disorder and a drain on the public purse. They worry that their children will grow up to be poorer than they are. They are anxious about losing their jobs to new technology. They believe that institutions such as universities and the press have been captured by hostile, illiberal, left-leaning elites. They see the globalists who have thrived in recent decades as members of a self-serving, arrogant caste who like to believe that they rose to the top in a meritocracy when, in reality, their success was inherited. These complaints have their merits, and sneering at them only confirms how out of touch elites have become.

The world liberalism made is a stinking, dsyfunctional hellhole where nothing works anymore and an evil imperial elites live off the credit-blood of the nations. Let liberalism, neoliberalism, conservatism, and neoconservatism die, as they deserve, because all of them were based on lies from the very start. And only retards and the thrice-boosted still believe those lies, including “immigration is good for the economy.”

“If Congress passes a new bill restricting the admission of new migrants at the border, do you think this would be good or bad for the United States?” Sixty-nine percent of the Americans responded that it would be “good,” while only 14 percent predicted “bad.”

They can call us Alt-Right, or Nationalist Right, or Christian Nationalists, or whatever label they deem sufficiently scary for the purposes of their rhetoric. But no matter what they call us, we are The Inevitable.

Because, as the great historian Sir Charles Oman noted, the great lesson of history is that the world-mind works by action and reaction, and a swing of the pendulum in one direction will ultimately be followed by a swing in the other.

The satanic globalists have had it all their way for at least the last 79 years. They promised Heaven and they delivered Hell on Earth. But the pendulum is already swinging back, and it is going to swing back hard with a holy vengeance.

“Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years.”
–Xi Xinping

The Inevitable Descent of Clown World

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Tucker-Putin Interview: Complete Transcript

This is an autotranslation of the Russian transcript provided by the Kremlin.

INTERVIEW TO TUCKER CARLSON
Vladimir Putin answered questions from Tucker Carlson – journalist, founder of the Tucker Carlson Network video platform.

TUCKER CARLSON: Mr. President, thank you very much.

On February 24th, 2022, you turned to your country and nation when the conflict in Ukraine began. You said you were acting because you came to the conclusion that with the help of NATO, the United States can start a sudden attack, attack on your country. For Americans are like paranoia. Why do you think America could deliver an unexpected blow in Russia? How did you come to this conclusion?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: It’s not that America was about to deliver an unexpected blow in Russia, I never said. Do we have talk shows or do we have a serious conversation?

TUCKER CARLSON: This is a beautiful quote. Thanks. We have a serious conversation.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: You have a historical basic education, how I understand, huh?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Then I will let – just 30 seconds or one minute – give a little historical help. Do you mind?

TUCKER CARLSON: Please of course.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: See where our relations with Ukraine began, from where did she take it, Ukraine?

The Russian state began to gather as centralized, it is considered a year the creation of the Russian state – 862, when Novgorodians – there is such a city of Novgorod in the north-west of the country – invited Prince Rurik from Scandinavia to the prince, from the Varangians. 862 year old. In 1862 Russia celebrated its 1000th anniversary statehood, and in Novgorod there is a monument dedicated 1000th anniversary of the country.

In 882, the successor of Rurik, Prince Oleg, who performed, in fact, the functions of the regent in the young son Rurika, and Rurik died by this time, came to Kiev. He removed two brothers from power, who, apparently, were once members of the Ryurik squad, and thus Russia began to develop with two centers: in Kiev and in Novgorod.

Next, a very significant date in the history of Russia, – 988. This is the Baptism of Russia when Prince Vladimir, this is the great-grandson of Rurik, baptized Russia and received Orthodoxy – Eastern Christianity. Since that time the beginning the centralized Russian state is being strengthened. Why? Common territory, single economic relations, one language and after the baptism of Russia – one faith and power prince. Central Russian begins to take shape state.

But for various reasons after the introduction succession – also in ancient times, Middle Ages – Yaroslav the Wise, a little later, after he passed away, the succession was difficult, not transmitted directly from father to elder son, and from the prince who passed away, his brother, then sons on different lines. All this led to the fragmentation of Russia – of a single state, which began to take shape as one. Nothing this is not special, the same thing happened in Europe. But the fragmented Russian state has become easy prey to that the empire that Genghis Khan once created. His successors, Khan Batiy, came to Russia, plundered almost all cities ruined them. South the part where Kiev was, by the way, some other cities, they simply lost their independence, and the northern cities retained part of their sovereignty.They paid tribute to Horde, but part of sovereignty saved. And then with the center in Moscow, the beginning a single Russian state is taking shape.

South part of the Russian lands, including Kiev, began gradually reach for another « magnet » – to the center that was developing in Europe. It was the Grand Lithuanian Principality. He was even called Lithuanian-Russian, because the Russians made up significant part of this state. They spoke ancient Russian, were Orthodox. But then the union of – the union of the Great princes of the Lithuanian and Polish kingdom. After for several years another union was signed already in the spiritual realm, and part Orthodox priests obeyed power Pope. So these lands were part of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

But the Poles for decades engaged in the impoverishment of this part of the population: they introduced their language there, began to introduce the idea that these are not entirely Russian, that, since they live near the edge, they are Ukrainians. Initially, the word « Ukrainian » meant that man lives on the outskirts of the state, « near the edge », or is engaged in border service, in fact. It didn’t mean some special ethnic group.

So here the Poles polished in every possible way and in principle treated this part of the Russian lands quite harshly, if not cruelly. All this led to, that this part of the Russian lands began to fight for their rights. And they wrote letters to Warsaw, demanding compliance with their rights so that people, including Kiev, are sent here…

TUCKER CARLSON: When it was, in what years?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: It was in the 13th century. I will now say what happened next, and I will name the dates so that there was no confusion.

And in 1654, a little earlier, even – people who controlled power in this part Russian lands, appealed to Warsaw, I repeat, demanding that sent people of Russian origin and Orthodox faith. And when Warsaw is basically nothing did not answer and almost rejected these requirements, they began to turn to Moscow so that Moscow would take them to itself. You didn’t think that I came up with something, I will give you these documents…

TUCKER CARLSON: I do not think that you are making up something, no.

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Continue reading “Tucker-Putin Interview: Complete Transcript”

Immiliteracy and its Consequences

The US military is already losing serious face around the world without even losing a ship, much less an aircraft carrier, in the Middle East:

Lost amid all the other news breaking in the last 24 hours is one particularly disturbing story: the United States Navy lost a battle at sea yesterday. CENTCOM put out an anodyne press release yesterday stating that afternoon, “Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the U.S.-flagged, owned, and operated container ship M/V Maersk Detroit, transiting the Gulf of Aden.

One missile impacted in the sea. The two other missiles were successfully engaged and shot down by the USS Gravely (DDG 107). There were no reported injuries or damage to the ship.” All well and good… but as it turned out there was a lot more to the story.

This engagement occurred while two American merchantmen – the Maersk Detroit and the Maersk Chesapeake – were attempting to run the Bab al-Mandeb from south to north while being covered by the USS Gravely. An AEGIS destroyer’s defensive umbrella should have turned this transit into a milk run – except it didn’t. CENTCOM admits that one of the Houthis’ tactical ballistic missiles – undemanding targets as far as such things go – got through the Gravely’s interceptors.

What they neglected to mention was that it struck about a hundred meters from the Maersk Detroit, and that after the attack the convoy aborted the transit and retreated back into the Arabian Sea rather than press on into enemy fire. Was retreat the correct decision at the moment? Probably, the Gravely was shepherding two lumbering merchantmen and facing unsuppressed shore batteries of unknown strength and capability in broad daylight, quite possibly without adequate air cover given the ambiguities of the Eisenhower’s exact station in the Red Sea and the limited combat radius of its air wing.

Was this operational plan inadequate? Almost certainly – reading between the lines, it reeks of a complacent assumption that Houthi missile batteries had actually been suppressed by a few rounds of air raids and that a single AEGIS destroyer could handle anything the Houthis could throw at them with no need for additional contingency planning.

In the event neither of these assumptions were correct – and because of it a convoy covered by one of the US Navy’s premier warships retreated from a battle that was going badly.

The United States Navy Essentially Lost A Battle At Sea This Week, ZEROHEDGE, 27 January 2024

Now, this decision to turn around and leave the danger zone was obviously an eminently intelligent decision by the captain commanding the convoy. At this point, the escorts aren’t there to actually protect the cargo ships, they were intended to dissuade the Yemenis from launching any attacks in the first place. Obviously, the attempt at intimidation failed, so the captain did the right thing and saved both his destroyer as well as the merchant ships that were attacked by abandoning the planned transit of the Gulf of Aden.

The problem is that the media has been relentlessly attacking the Russian generals who did precisely the same sort of thing at the beginning of the disastrous Ukrainian counteroffensive. In fact, one of the reasons the AFU counteroffensive was so disastrous was because the Russians wisely withdrew their troops from untenable positions and fell back to ground that could be better defended at a reduced cost. Which, it has

Being completely immiliterate – Is that even a word? If it isn’t, it should be – the media invariably describes every strategic retreat, tactical fall-back, or exit from an indefensible position as a defeat. So, there is no way to avoid the rhetorical consequences of the fact that a small group of desert fighters managed to drive off a US destroyer that might have even been protected by the air cover of a US carrier.

Bravely the US Navy sailed into the Red Sea
They were not afraid to sink, so brave the Navy!
They were not at all afraid to be sunk beneath the waves.
Brave, brave, brave, the Navy!

More, inevitably, to come.

And the public demonstration of weakness, too, has consequences.

It was reported, that the U.S. offered through the Swiss embassy to Iran, to strike one of their sites but Iran should not retaliate. This would allow the US to save face. Looks like it was REJECTED.

UPDATE: No wonder the captain of the Gravely decided to retreat. It was clearly the right decision.

CNN reports per 4 Defense Officials that yesterday’s interception of a Houthi ASCM by USS Gravely (DDG-107) was at a range of around 1 mile or 0.86 nautical miles and was shot down by the ships CIWS. This is the first specifically reported instance of a Houthi missile/drone interception by CIWS. This is the closest interception to date the others being within 5-10 miles away.

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