It’s not that unusual. The cruise industry has collapsed over the past month. And it’s springtime, usually when the cruise lines begin transiting their cruise ships between northern and southern hemispheres. Those things cost too much to sit idly for 6 months waiting for the weather to turn; they go to where summer is in the world and keep operating for revenue.
I think it’s institutionally embarrassing for a Navy to watch an armed warship SINK to an unarmed cruise ship. This is spearmen-killing-battleships-in-Civilization bad.
For all the crap we give our sailors for the recent issues navigating, I’ve seen some amazing stuff from OTHER navies suggesting truly amazing levels of incompetence.
That was an interesting story. There has still not been a good Jagged Alliance game since JA2. I was surprised to see former top Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller on the fringes of the account. He must not be content to sit on his laurels and collect $15k/month from the RNC (as per this old article: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/21/trumps-ex-bodyguard-makes-15000-a-month-from-a-gop-slush-fund.html). Instead, he’s further monetizing his former access to Trump to offer innuendo and rumors of help, but not actual help or access, like so many of his peers. Good work if you can get it.
Not a rhetorical question exactly, but why does the US want to fuck around with overthrowing the Venezuelan government? What is the national security interest here? Would it just be a matter of us wanting access to their natural resources or what?
I think it’s a combination of American neurosis, triggers, and fantasies, e.g.
Jack Ryan + Socialism! + 3 Letter Agency geniuses + grifters + a little racism
They don’t like Venezuala because of Socialism. They think that it will be easy to over throw because ofJack Ryan novels and racism. They are fractally bad at what they do because they are dumb grifters, plus they are partaking of the CIA/US intelligence agencies long tradition of of absolute failure.
You can’t rationalize it because Trump isn’t rational. Who knows what kind of “win” Sean Hannity or some OANN mouthpiece is whispering in his ear on any given day?
Seems very unlikely this effort had any official US support. But it was not subtle, so likely every security agency on both sides knew what was happening.
