SCARY Mediterranean Map!

[AsahinaKimi]

Last edited Thu Sep 5, 2013, 12:11 AM - Edit history (1)

No, it's not from your history books on the Cold War. This is the current map showing the spread of US and Russian warships in the Eastern Mediterranean




Just got this in an email.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Beginning to remind me of the Cold War... n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. We are moving towards a new one

[Savannahmann]

62. No, not the cold war.

This has the potential to go very, very, hot. Russia has a military port in Syria, which means that the radars will show inbound missiles and potentially planes. What would we do if we saw such things on our radars in Italy? They have technicians at the Nuclear Power Plant, Russian Citizens. Would we sit back and yawn if our citizens were killed in an attack by a foreign power?

If the Russians feel threatened, or worse decide their national interest is in defending Syria, we will lose some ships. They will and we will both watch our ships with our troops and their troops sink. We have not shown any consideration on how the world feels for the last decade, and that includes this very day. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023601186

Two days ago it was out that we were spying on the governments of just about every South American Country, which means we're about as popular as the clap down there.

If we fire on Syria, and Russia takes it to the UN. The UK we have just snubbed could well abstain. Or Cameron could be instructed by the Cabinet to abstain to save his own political bacon. Then France who hates to take sides could well abstain. That means we would be in the position of vetoing action by the UN against ourselves. Do you have any idea how that would look?

We are perilously close to becoming the aggressors that we have long railed against and opposed.

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. and what is the source?

[AsahinaKimi]

3. I wish i could tell you...

I can email my friend back and ask.

[VanillaRhapsody]

4. that would be great...love to know where that comes from...

[AsahinaKimi]

7. i could try a google image back track...

let me try that.


here is one place: https://a12iggymom.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/coastal-syria/

this too: http://resistencialibia.info/?p=6461

and here:http://3mv.ru/publ/3/

[NYC_SKP]

8. "Image courtesy Syrian Perspective"

Scroll down past the first few pages.

http://syrianperspective.blogspot.com/

[AsahinaKimi]

10. Nice but its in english so...it had to come from

some place that speaks English to begin with, right?

[NYC_SKP]

12. "Prepared by our colleague, Souri Homsi"

Above the picture on that blog it reads:

RUSSIA AND USA FACE OFF IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. SEE THIS MAP PREPARED BY OUR COLLEAGUE SOURI HOMSI. (Thanks, Fadi)

This person could be anyone, living anywhere, but there are a lot of English speakers in the Middle East.

Here's Souri's blogger profile: http://www.blogger.com/profile/08245399610081035732

Some would call this propaganda, but I wouldn't without more evidence.

I wouldn't necessarily believe it all, either.

Interesting stuff, for sure!

[AsahinaKimi]

13. Well one thing is for sure...

The US Navy never gives out information on where its Ships are going. I was told sailors are not even allowed to tell their wives, or family where they are going. So it was not the Navy that leaked this information, someone else did... apparently.

[NYC_SKP]

14. I did what you did with the image, results were all blogs or Facebook posts.

But I think that one blog I linked may be an original source, and I think a group of people are working hard to prevent any US action there.

They don't have very nice things to say about Kerry or Obama, and a lot of their sources are kind of kooky!

I suspect that they created a map using some of what they know and some of what they guessed.

It looks pretty convincing, but we both know it's not official, especially where submarines are!

[AsahinaKimi]

16. Yup especially Submarines..

It be cool if some of our DU Veterans would confirm this, that Sailors are not supposed to tell where their ships are going. I heard this from a few of my patients at the VA hospital. I never knew this, but it certainly made sense to me. One of them even said, from World War II, Loose lips..sink Ships.

Still that is a hell of a lot of Navy ships, in those waters...and Not Just American ones, France, Russia... yikes.. someone might bump into another just by accident!

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

20. It's a good bet that there are a lot of subs there now:

British, American and Russian...possibly French as well. We shouldn't forget that Turkey and Israel also have subs in the region.

[hay rick]

26. Especially submarines...

I work with a veteran whose son is an Annapolis graduate and spends months at a time on a boomer. The sub no longer carries missiles- it ferries SEALs or other special forces to their destination. My friend knows where his son is based (Japan now) and if he is in port- or not. He has no idea where his son goes.

The number of Russian ships in the Mediterranean is probably not significant. The Russian Navy doesn't have many modern ships and is no match for the U. S. Navy. It is unlikely that they are there for reasons other than surveillance and "showing the flag."

[Ghost Dog]

61. This is the missile cruiser

Moskva:

[center]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva[/center]

[hootinholler]

66. I can confirm as a submariner

The normal order of things is that the crew in general does not know where they are headed, they might know a port of call on the schedule if they are an attack boat, but those are notorious for changing. Some of the crew may not know where they have been as well.

On a boomer, it's moot. Typically, you go out, submerge, surface and come back in to the same port. Unless you have a special training operation, you don't know where the patrol areas are unless you work in navigation. You are on a war footing the entire patrol.

When I was in (out in 1983) the Silent Service (as in no talking opposed to can you hear me now) was still a point of pride. The spy Walker was a real poke in the eye.

[OldRedneck]

27. Well, not exactly . . .

Want to see where every US Navy aircraft carrier is located? Including carriers that have been decommissioned and those that are still being built?

Here you go:
http://www.gonavy.jp/CVLocation.html

[AsahinaKimi]

65. I did not see the USS Independence CV 62

on that list.

[Recursion]

32. Whoever it is, they put Nimitz "in the Med" despite facts to the contrary

The Nimitz group is not in the Mediterranean and has no orders to go there. It's in the Gulf of Aden.

[99Forever]

5. What could possibly go wrong?

[grillo7]

21. Indeed n/t

[Aerows]

6. Wow.

Thanks for this, Kimi.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

9. This could really become messy.

It wasn't the big countries that set off this thing. It was the little ones, the Irresponsibles.

-On the beach

[NuclearDem]

11. In other post-apocalyptic literature...

I seem to recall the trigger for the nuclear war in Alas, Babylon was an incident at Latakia.

[AverageJoe90]

30. Here's the thing, though. Alas, Babylon was written in *1956*.

Nineteen. Fifty. Six. Just before the VERY HEIGHT of the Cold War.....if you think tensions are scary today, then you wouldn't have wanted to be around in '56: That was the year, btw, of the Suez Crisis, which had a real chance(even if not real great, but still far higher than today) of turning into the first front of WWIII.

[another_liberal]

43. The difference is hardly spacious.

This could turn into a very big war in hours. It only takes one person who wants to see it happen.

[AverageJoe90]

58. Again, I will refer to By Dawn's Early Light for this one.

I'm not *literally* saying that it's totally impossible, but the probability of WWIII, global thermonuclear war above all, not to mention a WWII-scale war, is so completely unlikely, that it really *shouldn't* be given too much thought by rational people. At least in the aforementioned movie, a group of ultra-nationalists was able to seize a sub, aim a nuke at a city, and blame it on the other guy. And even *that* wasn't likely.....even in 1990-91 when the USSR was in the process of collapsing.

I really do wish people would stop fixating on every little thing and claiming that it was gonna be the next Great War; I remember when they were saying that about Libya last year.

Hell, the Georgia conflict might've had an actual tangible chance of blowing up into a full-blown Russo-American conflict, if not the next Great War, had things gotten truly bad. And even with Dubya in office it didn't happen. With Obama, it's all that less likely, and Putin has increasing amounts of unrest to deal with at home.

[another_liberal]

63. Agreed, "Global thermonuclear war," is always, "Unlikely."

May it never be more than that. However, one has to have a seriously deficient imagination to not be deeply troubled by the mere prospect of such a U.S./Russia confrontation as we now see shaping up off the coasts of Lebanon and Syria. The unthinkable only remains so until someday it somehow happens.

[KittyWampus]

15. and that doesn't include submarines.

[AsahinaKimi]

18. Three subs pictured in the

lower left hand corner.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

19. There will be more than that especially with the carrier group.

[Recursion]

35. But the carrier group isn't there and isn't ordered there

This is kind of pissing me off because the mapmaker more than doubled the US ships that are actually there. The Nimitz group is not in the Med and has no orders to go there. They're in the Gulf of Aden.

[Recursion]

34. But it does include an entire carrier group that isn't there and isn't ordered there

So there's that.

[Duer 157099]

17. Not to scale n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Still very busy section of the ocean

And crowded too

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. And it is missing the Israeli assets surely to be there.

A sneeze...Oy.

[Recursion]

25. Why is the Nimitz group shown in both the Med and the Gulf of Aden?

Or has the Navy finally perfected teleportation technology? (Did we ever find the Eldridge?)

Assuming the Nimitz is in only one place, this tells me both the US and Russia are keeping their capital ships out of the area, which is a good thing.

[AtheistCrusader]

28. It has been announced that the Nimitz carrier group is on its way.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0902/USS-Nimitz-carrier-group-heads-to-Syria-should-we-be-needed

Just you know.. wandering over. No big deal. Just in case, you see.

[Recursion]

29. So, you linked an article saying Nimitz has no orders to go to the Med

to show that Nimitz is going to the Med?

The Nimitz carrier strike group, which includes four destroyers and a cruiser, has no specific orders to move to the eastern Mediterranean at this point, but is moving west in the Arabian Sea so it can do so if asked.

We have I think three divisions in AFCOM that "could" move into the area, too. Why not add them to the map?

[another_liberal]

39. They have no orders to do so yet.

The operative word, of course, is "yet."

[Recursion]

42. The Truman and Washington groups don't have orders "yet" either

Why not add them too?

[another_liberal]

44. Because they aren't in the Red Sea right now . . .

And they aren't only a day or two away.

[Recursion]

45. Nimitz is still in the Arabian Sea, moving west

They were just relieved by Washington so they're heading west anyways to get home

[another_liberal]

46. "To get home . . ."

Or something.

[AtheistCrusader]

51. I MIGHT buy that story if its home port was Norfolk or Newport News or something on the east coast.

[another_liberal]

54. It's on its way to be ready . . .

If the Syrians decide to shoot back, more firepower may be needed.

[AtheistCrusader]

50. Nimitz home port is in Everett, so I guess taking the scenic route home?

[Recursion]

53. Refit is in Norfolk IIRC

I think Nimitz is about to do its overhaul. Or they could be extending, but at any rate they are not in the Med.

[AtheistCrusader]

55. Hence the arrow on the map, showing motion, but not arrival.

I guess you could construe the larger map without the inset as being erroneous, but it's clearly marked with the inset.

I sincerely hope it doesn't need another overhaul, it just completed one and re-activated in 2012.

[Recursion]

57. You're right about the refit; I had my groups mixed up

I just SLEP'ed so it should be good for another few years. So, yes, this is an extension of the cruise, but it is still not forward deployed and is heading to a contingency position.

[AtheistCrusader]

59. True.

And it might well have its hands full with Iran in a worst-case scenario. Syria and Iran have a mutual defense pact. (Of dubious quality/strength, but there it is)

[Recursion]

60. I think Assad will find that pact and $5 will get him a latte at Starbucks, personally

But, yeah, the domino possibilities are my biggest reason to be against a strike.

[Gore1FL]

31. They are also back in 1941 right before the Pearl Harbor Attack.

I saw this documentary about it:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/

[Recursion]

33. Loved that movie. And the Philadelphia Experiment (nt)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

36. I didn't know those ships were 80 miles long.

[another_liberal]

38. No, but they can kill from a lot further distance than that.

Pay attention and, sadly, you may just get to see.

[Turborama]

40. LOL!

[another_liberal]

41. Odd sense of humor there, turb.

Laugh at the build up to war much?

[Turborama]

49. No

I was amused by the reality check on the propagandistic fearmongering, though.



(Typo fix)

[another_liberal]

52. Nothing like the start of a funny little war to bring out the chuckles, eh?

Enjoy!

[Turborama]

56. Can you read?

In case you missed it, it was the 2 letter word in answer to your question.

It is saddening how many people fell for it so easily, though.

[another_liberal]

64. Are you trying to insult me?

That would be a violation of the rules here, old pal.

[Recursion]

48. Or that a frigate could be compared to a destroyer

[another_liberal]

37. Stop the war!

We have the power to stop the war now, if only we will try. Don't let this happen to our country again. Stop the war!

[Recursion]

47. Here, I fixed it for you

I couldn't resize the frigate and amphibious ships to make them smaller than destroyers, but at least I removed that double-tasked carrier group.

So we have 5 destroyers and an amphibious ship vs. normally having 3 and 1. And the French added a frigate.