South China Sea Intrigue

A few days ago I heard an interesting story on CNN about how the USNS Impeccable was poking around the South China sea, when all the sudden some Chinese ships started to pursue them telling them to leave the area.

The Pentagon claims that the Chinese ships were harassing the Impeccable and even said that they have “increasingly aggressive conduct.”

So what did the Chinese do exactly? Well, according to the Pentagon, two Chinese vessels were in close proximity to the Impeccable, waving their flag and telling the Impeccable to leave the area. (That sounds so aggressive huh?)

What happened next is what caught my attention. It seems that as five Chinese vessels came closer, they also started to throw pieces of wood into the water. OOO!!!!!!! Wood was thrown in the water! AND because the Impeccable didn’t quite know what the intentions of the Chinese vessels were and contending that it was an aggressive move on their part, the Impeccable decided to take some fire hoses and spray the Chinese vessels with water. I started cracking up when I heard this next part…get this…the Chinese crew members decided to strip down to their underwear while being sprayed with the fire hoses! Oh-My-God! This is aggressive? This is dangerous? To whom? You know what…if the Chinese were in international water somewhere near a protected area of the United States, you better bet your ass that we would have our military out there trying to get them away from our protected interests. Why do we feel that it is ok to take surveillance ships near the coasts of other countries and collect data, and if that country finds it threatening and decides to warn us to leave, we find that aggressive?

I am amused, I guess, by the thought of Chinese men stripping down to their skivvies and dancing around in the water being sprayed at them. Maybe there is more to this story than we are being told, but on the surface it looks like China made it pretty clear that they wanted our people to leave the area and we got pissed off. It also makes me wonder if we are too arrogant as a military power. Is it essential that we be over there sticking our equipment where it doesn’t belong? Yet, if another country were to do that to us we would have our panties all up in a bunch? Do we need to lighten up a little? Or is the U.S. correct in it’s assumptions that China is increasingly aggressive towards us over there?

I would LOVE to see a video of all that transpired! You know they must have a copy of it over at the Navy!

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