Comments on: USNS Impeccable: Chinese Vessels Harass US Navy Ship

By: Davei

Davei — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:35:23 +0000

stupid american military, get out of our territorial waters!

By: Thomas Jackson

Thomas Jackson — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:03:19 +0000

No doubt brave President BO will write an angry letter to the Beijing Times and threaten to send Barney Frank.

Its funny to see the idiots who make comments like what would the US do if the Russians or Chinese sent spy vessals to the US! Duh, they would never, never do that would they?

I mean they are pure of heart and clean of motive, right you Amherst types?

The US should have just sunk all of these ships and said we will not stand for such beahvior nor violation of the laws of the sea.

By: beth

beth — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:00:57 +0000

I’m afraid you are right, Hondo!

I haven’t seen any reaction from him other than saying he wants to talk to people. Not our allies, of course, he dissed the British. But to our enemies. Oh - and he’s gone to Russia with hat in hand and asked for their help. That was pretty embarrassing. When he got caught, he denied he’d done it and then he admitted he had done it. Talk about going out of your way to look weak.

Other than that - he just keeps traveling around the country campaigning - trying to convenience the American people that we WANT to spend $1 TRILLION plus on diminishing our civil rights. Has he spent a night at the White House yet?

By: Hondo

Hondo — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:48:55 +0000

Obama is being tested a little bit at a time to see what his reaction will be. This is not a gutsy guy and his desire to avoid confrontation will eventually create unavoidable confrontation. And then, folks, the sh*t will hit the fan. When it does you can be sure you couldn’t drag him out from under the desk in the Oval Office.

By: beth

beth — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:09:06 +0000

Surely you don’t think for a second that Russia and China aren’t spying on us? They nestle in the waters around our coasts - we have a lot of coasts.

Remember when New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (then working for the Clinton administration) accidentally gave up nuclear secrets from Los Alamos to a Chinese spy? Even the democrats were mad at him about that. It only got forgotten because 9/11 overshadowed it - so ppl forgot about Richardson’s incompetence.

While ppl are busy pointing their fingers at the USA they overlook what Russia and China do. Everybody spies and everybody knows that everybody spies. But Gray is right - we only know the tip of the iceberg - if that.

By: Gray

Gray — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:14:47 +0000

One other point: The news reports say, Impeccable had deployed her towed array. Well, such a dophisticated passive listening device is mainly used by submarines and anti-submarine warfare vessels. Of course, you could use it for listening to whales, too, but we all know the US navy has a somewhat strained relationship with those animals. However, the purpose of the towed array is to locate even muted underwater noise sources from a huge distance, it’s not much use in finding reefs or wrecks. So, the not so hidden mission of the Navy here was to track Chinese submarine movements. One can only guess what the US would do if a similar Chinese ship would idle in international waters around, say, Kings Bay, GA…

But then, of course, this could much more discreetly be done by an attack submarine like the USS Seawolf. So, either the Impeccably is also up to monitoring Chinese communications and locating radar stations, and the Navy command doesn’t care about this being obvious, or it’s even more dangerous and this is an active provocation. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes, we mere mortals certainly only know about the tip of the iceberg. But if something like the USS Liberty masacre happens, an act of aggression the US would hardly tolerate from the Israelis, but surely not from the Chinese, we may wake up one day only to find that this new cold war has become dangerously hot…

By: Gray

Gray — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:27:05 +0000

Well, of course those were international waters, and so the US have a right to be there. But the Chinese, too. And if they would chose to place a spy ship 75 miles off the US coast, I guess the Pentagon wouldn’t simply react by blocking its path, like The Observer correctly pointed out.

Btw, I noticed something strange about your pictures here: Two of them don’t show the radar dome on the mast, and several other installations seem to be missing, too. Google for other pictures and you’ll find that several seem to be redacted, or showing the ship in a very early configuration. This doesn’t look like the Navy has nothing to hide…

By: Sun

Sun — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:03:26 +0000

so close. Only US dare do that!

By: The_Observer

The_Observer — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:31:08 +0000

Looking at those pictures of the USNS Impeccable I can see it isn’t a recreational yacht. Exclusive Economic Zones run out to 200 miles from a country’s coastline. No foreign surveillance ship, let alone a foreign navy one, should be making measurements or readings of some other country’s zone. How do the Chinese know whether that sophisticated US Navy ship wasn’t trying to tap into underground telephone/internet cables or placing monitoring devices in the surrounding sea?

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:09:40 +0000

“Conducting routine operations” was the same excuse we’ve been told 8 years ago except that was the E3 spy plane, and now 2 spy ships.

I’m wondering if any Russian or Chinese spy ships came with 75 miles of California coastline or Hawaii while giving us the same excuse we are giving the world, how would we feel and what will we do?

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:41:06 +0000

Those of us who live in China recognize the Chinese Navy’s behavior as just normal driving behavior in China. It’s hard to tell the difference between harrassment and just normal bad driving skills.

All kidding aside, the media and your blog did not address a basic question - is there some dispute over territorial waters? Do the Chinese think their territory extends out 75 miles?

The US Navy handled this in the right way and they should continue to ply these waters. If they give an inch to the Chinese they’ll take a nautical mile.