Posted on 09/08/2013 2:08:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We spend a lot of time debating the domestic ramifications of President Obama’s handling – to use the word loosely – of the situation in Syria, ranging from political fallout to impacts on upcoming elections. But it’s a big world out there and other countries have taken a keen interest in the subject. You can now bump up the level of engagement that China has in this mess, as they have dispatched a warship of their own to the party.
China has reportedly sent warships to the coast of Syria to “observe” the actions of US and Russian ships as tensions build in preparation for a potential military strike on Syria which could come as soon as next week.
According to the Russian news outlet Telegrafist.org, the People’s Liberation Army dispatched the Jinggangshan amphibious dock landing ship and the vessel was seen passing through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal, the waterway in Egypt that leads to the Mediterranean Sea and waters off the coast of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
It may be for “observation” purposes, but this is no Carnival cruise ship. Launched in 2011, the Jinggangshan was built for action.
China has launched its largest amphibious dock landing warship, the 19,000 metric ton Jinggangshan, in Shanghai.
The 689-foot-long warship can carry 1,000 soldiers, helicopters, armored fighting vehicles, boats and landing craft, a report in the China Daily said.
The vessel is the second Type 071 dock landing ship built by Shanghai’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding.
In addition to the troop and chopper carrying capabilities, the ship has a number of conventional guns. This comes on the heels of news that Russia already dispatched ships to the region this week, so it’s starting to get a little crowded out there. I was watching Fox and Friends this morning – where I first saw the story – and there were some probably hyperbolic comparisons being made to 1914, but it does make one wonder. Over the past two decades, when the United States has decided to launch any sort of air strikes from mobile / naval platforms, it was just taken as a given that we could do it. And our targets generally don’t have much in the way of sea power to challenge elements of the most powerful navy on the planet. But the Russians and the Chinese have considerable forces as well.
This leaves two potential areas for trouble. What if the Russians and / or the Chinese decided to respond to a strike by us with a military option? They’ve got the resources in place – though it still sounds unlikely in the extreme – so Obama has to be taking that into account. The other problem for the President, though, seems to come from the much more likely possibility that he won’t muster any support at home and our ships turn around and leave the area without striking. How bad of an international debacle does that turn out to be when we have ships in place, the Russians and Chinese show up, and we turn tail and leave? It wouldn’t be the reality of what happened, but that’s how it could easily be spun on the international stage. The last standing superpower on the planet comes to a showdown on the ocean and walks away… it’s not a pretty picture.
What could possibly go wrong. Perhaps they are just doing a seven day tour of the holy land.
W.B Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Russia and China are not sending warships to Syria for a Boat Show.
I’m pretty sure of that. They smell blood in the water from Obama and
this administration.
Buckle up or learn to love the bomb. WW3 is just one cruise missile away.
And Peru?
Did they send their ship?
Guess Barry won’t have a choice but, to launch. Otherwise he will look like an even bigger idiot.
China has a torpedo that is nearly impossible to defend against.
Comes to mind a circle of dogs snarling at one bone, which in this case is Syria.
The Middle East is a powder keg. It might not take much to create an explosion that sends repercussions throughout the world.
Perhaps, but it won't be because of an LPD, unless we sink it by accident.
Also recall that a Chinese sub came up undetected in the middle of a US fleet not so long ago.
China may be itching to try out their new ‘bath tub’ toys.
What is it with these other navy’s???
First the Russians send in an intell trawler with three “landing ships”...
Not much of a surface action group...
Now the Chicoms are sending a “landing ship” as well...
I wonder if we are getting sucked into a “rope a dope” here...
They want to test ut their new toys...
> Buckle up or learn to love the bomb. WW3 is just one cruise missile away.
And this time it may come to our shores. We’ve been very lucky so far that the enemy hasn’t tried to attack us on our soil but with a president showing such weak leadership and the sissification of our military it may not be far off at all.
Talk about a room full of mouse traps!
What happens if the Russians mistakenly target
a Chinese ship or the opposite? What about Anti-ship
missiles from Lebanon, or Syria. What a mess.
fyi
Wow. Sooo vivid. I could almost smell the gunpowder and ass lube. You’ve managed to capture Zero’s “best night ever” in words.
They saw us flying air support for the Libyan savages with AC-130s and A-10s.
That was the Obama adventure where arms and ordnance for the brave “Arab Spring freedom fighters” fell into the hands of al-Qaeda.
Everything about this latest Hussein venture is ‘snake-bit.’ If he isn’t resigning tomorrow, Americans of both parties should be asking why not.
ONE Chinese warship?
Pfffft.
Let me know when they get to 7-8. And they can’t rule the skies in the area, which means they are toast.
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