[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
I was grimly amused on multiple levels this morning as Iraq disintegrates and the criminal morons who got us into that flaming catastrophe ludicrously call for yet another US intervention to see that USS George HW Bush (CVN-77), tenth and last of the Nimitz class American aircraft carriers, had steamed into the Persian Gulf to do, well, something.
Violent militarists and supremely arrogant American hegemons view and wish to implement the American Army, Air Force and Marine Corps as global tools to whatever criminal or corporate enterprise suits them, but I pick on the United States Navy here because some fool marketing contractor came up with the ludicrously dangerous and haplessly unattainable slogan of Global Force of Good for the Navy, one sees it on the teevee commercials as an aircraft carrier steams massively underneath performing, well, something.
Amusingly, the Chief of Naval Operations and flight admirals are appalled by the Global Force for Good slogan as I, albeit for more practical reasons, they know full well the great burdens and limitations of combat-ready flight operations and the incredibly massive scope of what global truly means, they would like nothing more than a precise limited theatre of duty operations with goals they can actually achieve.
Citizens worried about imminent combat with the deployment USS George HW Bush shouldn’t, the Navy very greatly prefers to deploy aircraft carriers in pods of 3, if in fact 2 or more carriers join USS George HW Bush quickly then the rumble is very likely on, and there will be other huge diplomatic signs of war as well. But for now USS George HW Bush steams in solitary carrier grandeur on its impressive mission of something.
Concerned citizens should note the absolute impunity and certainty in which USS George HW Bush is moved tactically about, one never hears “the Rusian Navy” or “the Indian Navy” being an impediment, there is no Navy anywhere possessed by any country to oppose the US Navy. The United States Navy is the most amazingly massive and capable Navy the world has or will ever see, this is a fact, yet incredibly there is never any array of naval forces against them. When the time comes, though, they have an amazing capability of what something can really deliver, this is true.
Another missing element here is the absence of noting the Los Angeles class attack submarine always attached to the George HW Bush carrier group, the Navy never likes to talk about submarines. One is there, though, of course, and that amazingly capable vessel alone could sink an entire squadron of modern destroyers (should they exist) and obliterate their harbor, too, seriously.
The Associated Press did release the Navy disclosure of Aegis cruiser and destroyer class missile ships in the carrier group, the USS Philippine Sea and USS Truxton. Whatever remote hypothetical threats exist for USS George HW Bush, by far the US Navy fears anti-ship missile attack the most, either from land-based sites or cheap dinky frigates, and those two amazing ships will be on utmost vigilance for any missiles on their radars.
Another worthy notation here is that the Aegis air defense system, for all its readiness, has never been deployed in missile combat, one cannot truly say how it would perform with a sudden incoming of 10 supersonic anti-ship missiles. Nor has the nuclear Los Angeles attack class submarine hanging around USS George HW Bush ever engaged or sunk any vessel, Navy or not. All have been very useful for something when the time came, however.
This something that the Global Force for Good applies, just what in the hell is this? No one knows. Any American citizen has heard the news “an American aircraft carrier has been deployed to the region” fifty freaking times in their life spans and yet what is accomplished is never said. Like always, USS George HW Bush will cruise around the Persian Gulf for an unspecified time and then fade away when political attention does.
What about Ukraine, where has the Global Force for Good been for that mess? Well, it turns out the Russians have fabricated the most awesome anti-ship missiles almost beyond imagination in lethality, so even the ruse of doing the big Something was given up there.
Ebola, hunger, genocide, racism, does the Global Force for Good help at all? Sadly, no. Will this awesome force of American good, in fact, be a help in the current conflagration in Iraq? Sadly, no.
But, of course, DC leadership is Doing Something, combat and destruction at the ready—no matter how seemingly remote this time—from the extremely capable forces of the US Navy. Good luck, please come home safely.