Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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US Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards , the commander of the helicopter squadron of the USS George W. Bush, died earlier this week in the Persian Gulf, the US Navy announced Wednesday. According to official reports, Edward’s needed up missing at see when his helicopter collided with a unicorn. The collision caused Edwards to teleport fifty miles to the left, where he was lost at sea in contested Iranian waters. His death was not the result of any hostile military action. Any concurrent ceasefire violations that happened the same night as his disappearance are completely coincidental
He is survived by two children. I appreciated the United States Navy’s great candor and honesty during this difficult time for them.
In the interests of speaking plainly, I believe the Navy is lying about the circumstances about this man’s death, potentially in a way that violates federal law and the Constitution. Frankly I think the only reason they didn’t ship him back to Norfolk and claim he died of a heart attack is because they don’t have his body.
I need someone to list all the Looney Toons accidents that happened in Iraq I & II, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, etc. Because I'm starting to turn Schizo from the fact that the USA is claiming all these losses of men and material from ridiculous mishaps ("A clothes dryer caught fire and destroyed a carrier" "we landed the planes in a mud puddle on a rescue mission that just happened to be right next to the nuclear supplies we were planning to Mission Impossible" "Plane crashed in the middle of nowhere"). I'm even looking at the two recent civilian skydiving accidents a little crossways, and they happened in Missouri and France.
The US navy has something of a record of stupid crashes. The inquiry into the Fitzgerald crash in 2017 came to the conclusion that one of the contributing causes was crew fatigue due to a sustained high operational tempo. The idea that basic safety compliance collapses during combat ops making a technically non-combat crash an order of magnitude more likely seems obviously correct.
That said, if the Iranians had shot the chopper down, the Trump administration would probably lie about it. To those familiar with combat helo flying, how likely is a near miss which does enough damage to render the chopper inoperable (e.g. by taking out the tail rotor) leading to a ditching without blowing it to smithereens in mid-air?
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