WTF??? Official: White House, Pentagon miscommunicated on aircraft carrier's location.

[spanone]

?quality=90&strip=all&w=915

(CNN)As the White House was talking about sending a naval "armada" to the Korean peninsula, the very ships in question were on their way to participate in military exercises in the Indian Ocean, some 3,500 miles in the opposite direction.

A senior administration official blamed a miscommunication between the Pentagon and the White House over reports that the aircraft carrier has not made its way to the Sea of Japan as an expected show of force to North Korea.

The official blamed the mixup on a lack of follow-up with commanders overseeing the movements of the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier.

On April 8, US Pacific Command, which oversees military operations in the region, issued a statement saying that the USS Carl Vinson and an accompanying strike group would leave Singapore and head to the Western Pacific, with a US military official telling CNN that it was a "show of force" in response to North Korea's provocations.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/18/politics/carl-vinson-korea-trump/index.html

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. This kind of shit doesnt happen when a Barack or Hillary are in the White House

[spanone]

2. you cannot make this shit up! no one would believe it.

the gang that couldn't shoot at all

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Shoot, hell. They couldnt find the gun

if it was in their hand.

And their supporters love this, think they are doing GREAT!

Stupid Stupid Stupid

[spanone]

5. unbelievable

[elleng]

4. WHOOPS!

[gratuitous]

6. Then why didn't the Pentagon immediately correct the error?

Instead, the impression was left for days that the U.S. was sending a bunch of ships toward North Korea, an incredibly provocative act toward not only North Korea but China as well. The news wasn't corrected until someone correctly identified the actual position of the USS Carl Vinson from a Facebook posting.

What the fuck is anyone anywhere in this whole fucked up government doing? Or do they think flirting with an exchange of nuclear weapons is something to dick around with?

[spanone]

7. Aircraft Carrier Wasnt Sailing to Deter North Korea, as U.S. Suggested

White House officials said on Tuesday they were relying on guidance from the Defense Department. Officials there described a glitch-ridden sequence of events, from a premature announcement of the deployment by the military’s Pacific Command to an erroneous explanation by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — all of which perpetuated the false narrative that an American armada was racing toward the waters off North Korea.

By the time the White House was asked about the Carl Vinson on April 11, its imminent arrival had been emblazoned on front pages across East Asia, fanning fears that Mr. Trump was considering a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea. It was portrayed as further evidence of the president’s muscular style two days after he ordered a missile strike on Syria while he and President Xi Jinping of China were finishing dessert during a meeting in Florida.

The saga of the wayward carrier might never have come to light, had the Navy not posted a photograph on Monday of the Carl Vinson sailing through the Sunda Strait, which separates the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. The picture was taken on Saturday, four days after the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, described its mission in the Sea of Japan.

The Carl Vinson is now on a northerly course for the Korean Peninsula and is expected to arrive in the region sometime next week, Defense Department officials said. The White House declined to comment on the misunderstanding, referring all questions to the Pentagon. “Sean discussed it once when asked, and it was all about process,” said a spokesman, Michael Short.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-north-korea-carl-vinson.html?_r=0

[gratuitous]

12. Humanity's Epitaph: "A glitch-ridden sequence of events"

Dr. Strangelove wasn't a goddam documentary. Dumbass motherfucker shit-stain pin-dicked bug-fuckers, every last one of them.

[Ghost Dog]

29. Cock-ups are common

in a state of war.

[hatrack]

34. Outstanding summary!

[ProfessorGAC]

39. Seeming Like "Wargames" Come To Life

Just a glitch that almost took us to DefCon 1. Idiots.

[atreides1]

30. Because

Mattis is about as much of lickspittle as Kelly, is!

[sarah FAILIN]

33. the military is running their own show

They just flipped him off big time doing this

[matt819]

8. Our adversaries

Must be quaking in their boots. Our allies have to be in hysterics. Me? I always try to keep better track of my aircraft carriers, what with my insurance coverage and gas costs and such.

[northoftheborder]

9. And I was hoping at least the military knew what it was doing.

Lord have mercy.

[NightWatcher]

10. But Hillary had a private email server!!!!

[malaise]

11. These fuckers make the worst incompetents look

brilliant

It's that or they just make shit up. People's lives are at risk here.

[Me.]

13. Was The Military Gaslighting 45

Figuring by the time the Vinson had to turn around the rhetoric would've cooled.

[spanone]

14. you might have a point....they were headed south and the white house thought they were headed north

[Me.]

15. That's Pretty Much The MO Of This WH

[gratuitous]

16. Considering the rather alarmed response of China and North Korea

I don't think fucking around with a possible nuclear exchange is really a good idea, even if it does make President Trump look foolish. Then letting the misinformation/miscommunication (if that's what it was) hang out there for several days until independent observers saw that the carrier group wasn't where the United States said it was seems like governmental/military malpractice of the first water.

[spanone]

17. total incompetence.

[Me.]

18. I Don't Think Foolish Would Be THe Point

Avoidance would be and I would bet China knew where those ships were all along. Nothing goes unnoticed these days.

Just a thought because I also don't believe the military didn't know where the ships actually and at the same time where 45 said they were.

[MedusaX]

20. Absolutely..... everybody except WH/45 knew...

Every military/foreign leader on earth knew that those ships were NOT headed for NK....

Which probably served to minimize the tensions that Repug 45 was deliberately trying to heighten...

It is easier to ignore 45s playground bully bluster when you know more about the location of his military assets than he does....

And something as obvious as an invisible armada... is sure to be noticed by all eyes...

[Me.]

21. Precisely

[gratuitous]

22. I couldn't say whether China knew or not

But the Pentagon surely knew where this carrier group was, and didn't say jack-shit about it for days. In today's announcement, the Pentagon claimed a series of miscommunications with the White House. Like nobody in the Pentagon reads the papers or watches the news, and they were all totally oblivious to what President Trump was saying? Obviously not.

So, what does this episode say to our alleged allies Japan and South Korea, or the people living there in the shadow of China's and North Korea's nuclear arsenals? What should this say to the American people, watching this little dog-and-pony show, wondering if we're on the brink of a nuclear confrontation? Just incredible that our government is playing around like that.

[Me.]

23. To Me It Says

Containment

[brush]

27. I think you're right. The military seems to be purposely not letting the country get pulled into ...

Last edited Wed Apr 19, 2017, 11:21 AM - Edit history (1)

trump's bravado.

Of course the navy knew where their ships were.

I'm guessing there have been conversations within the military, especially after trump approved the bungled Yemen raid (which we know O rejected because of inadequate intel), that the current occupant of the White House may not be fully equipped to make sound decisions — he was bypassed on the MOAB drop. They just didn't tell him until it was done.

The admirals probably just kept us our of a nuke face-off with NK, which is great because two unstable presidents with nukes at their disposal might have gotten into a game of who blinks first and who can say if either would have enough sense to ease off on the macho posturing?

[JHan]

26. I think 45 is content to be out of the loop.

[Me.]

41. Even If He Doesn't Actually Realoze That He Is

[marked50]

19. The truly outrageous thing about this is the historical context.

This is the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokay, that required an immense secrecy of the location of the aircraft carrier task force that launched this raid. The risks they took with their proximity to Japan and the bravery of their efforts to take off a carrier with medium range bombers ( B-25) and no catapult assists and the knowledge that they didn't have a return path, other than getting to a partially occupied ( by the Japanese) China and just hoping to find a place to parachute to or land was a testament to their bravery.

This Trump effort is a slap in the face of these brave service members.

[Xipe Totec]

24. It's the new strike force, the USS Schrodinger nt

[Volaris]

31. Hahahahah

[L. Coyote]

25. Incompetence and embarassment combined. Mission Accomplished!

[Kablooie]

28. "I'm president of America! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk." KLONK! "OW! Woo-woo-woo-woo!"

[gwheezie]

32. Trump yelled send the armadillo to china!

By the time McMaster figured out he meant Armada, the ships were already on their way to Australia.

[hatrack]

35. God, must be early in the morning, since I can't stop laughing

I shouldn't but what the hell else are you going to do?

[Pachamama]

37. Armadillo....its bigly!

[Vinca]

36. Amazing. Dear Leader and "his" generals and admirals don't bother telling

the person who steers the ship. We are so screwed.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

38. What about the story of Chinese and Russian ships trailing it???

That was apparently hogwash too, and our media happily reported it!

Maybe they should have reporters observing military actions instead of blindly accepting whatever they're told by our government?!

WTF?! WTF?! WTF?!!!!!!!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

40. BUMP!!

How is THIS thread getting so little attention here?!

Didn't anyone else watch the news while they talked about the USS Carl Vinson being in the area of North Korea, like it was a FACT?!

Here's a story from two days ago that declared Russian and Chinese ships were trailing USS Carl Vinson! It must be hard to trail an aircraft carrier that's NOT THERE, eh?!

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-north-korea-carl-vinson-585048

China and Russia have sent reconnaissance vessels to follow the U.S. aircraft carrier deployed to the Korean Peninsula, as fears of a military confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang rise.

The navies of both Beijing and Moscow want to gather intelligence on the USS Carl Vinson Strike Group—a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier—that has been rerouted to the region, multiple Japanese government sources told The Yomiuri Shimbun.

The U.S. Pacific Command redirected the carrier, its fighter jets and several accompanying warships toward the Korean Peninsula earlier in April. The command said that the move was designed to “maintain readiness” to deal with North Korea, which it described as the “number one threat” in the region.

[NastyRiffraff]

42. Well, misplacing an aircraft carrier is understandable

After all, I misplace my glasses all the time.