It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, November 21, 2021
A majority of Gen Z investors think crypto will make them millionaires, new survey shows
Isabelle Lee Sat, November 20, 2021 Getty Images
The majority of Gen Z investors think crypto will make them millionaires, a recent study by Engine Insights showed.
"This generation has a greater acceptance and comfort with all things digital," an expert told Insider.
"They feel that everything financial is harder for them than it was for previous generations," an expert said.
It sometimes seems crypto is minting new millionaires by the day, particularly those with the stomach to dabble in the risky world of altcoins. The most famous of these — like doge and shiba inu — have produced some eye-watering returns in 2021.
It's no surprise then that investors are flocking to the space with dreams of quick riches, and Gen Z investors in particular think crypto will make them millionaires, a recent study by data analytics firm Engine Insights showed.
Nearly two thirds — 59% — of Gen Z respondents to the survey believe they could become wealthy by investing in cryptocurrencies.
"This generation has a greater acceptance and comfort with all things digital, so not surprising that would be more comfortable with crypto," Kathy Sheehan, SVP at Cassandra, a division of Engine Insights, told Insider. "This generation has a lot of concerns about debt and finances."
A confluence of factors, from the rising costs of real estate to college education could be to blame, Sheehan told Insider. Inflation reaching 30-year highs has only reinforced the appeal of crypto as the weakening of fiat money dominates headlines.
"They feel that everything financial is harder for them than it was for previous generations," Sheehan said. "Couple that attitude with more of an appetite for risk, it is not surprising that they are hoping for a quick fix or return."
The survey, whose findings are based on responses from 1,027 people in November, also found that if offered $2,000 to invest, Gen Z respondents are three times more likely to buy digital assets compared to baby boomers, and twice as likely to consider virtual currency a "legit currency."
The crypto market has fluctuated wildly this year, but has generally been trending higher. The crypto market capitalization hit $3 trillion recently.
Bitcoin has gained 100% since the start of the year, while ether is up 480%. Meme coins have had it better, with dogecoin rising 4,835% year-to-date and shiba inu skyrocketing 63,490,000%.
Many retail investors poured multiple rounds of government stimulus checks into stocks and crypto, helping fuel the surge in both markets seen during the pandemic.
Why Republicans Can’t Stop Talking About Masculinity
Katelyn Fossett Sun, November 21, 2021
Republican lawmakers and hopefuls seem particularly interested in the idea of masculinity lately. In a TV interview earlier this month, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley claimed the left was telling men their “masculinity is inherently problematic.” He also told interviewer Mike Allen he would make masculinity a signature political issue.
Hawley’s comments sounded similar to those of Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who went viral last month in a video calling on mothers to raise their sons to be “monsters.” Today’s culture, Cawthorn said, is trying to “demasculate” all young men “because they don’t want people who are going to stand up.” More recently, Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance sounded similar themes in a series of tweets in which he defended Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was acquitted on Friday of all charges in the shootings of three men in the aftermath of demonstrations in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Vance tweeted that the trial filled him with “indescribable rage.” “We leave our boys without fathers. We let the wolves set fire to their communities,” he continued. “And when human nature tells them to go and defend what no one else is defending, we bring the full weight of the state and the global monopolists against them.”
According to historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, this way of talking about masculinity has its roots in conservative evangelical spaces, but it’s going mainstream. Du Mez wrote a book last year called Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, about how the model of masculinity in evangelicalism went from emulating the qualities of Jesus to emulating those of the actor John Wayne, and how that has shaped culture and politics ever since. Hawley, Vance and Cawthorn all have deep ties to evangelical Christianity and frequently reference the importance of faith in their lives and, especially for Cawthorn and Hawley, in their political philosophies. I spoke with Du Mez about the history of masculinity as an idea in Republican politics and why it’s suddenly so popular. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Katie Fossett: When you heard these comments from Hawley and Vance recently, given your background and what you study, what did you hear?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: I’ll start with Hawley. Within conservative evangelical spaces, first of all, there is the idea that masculinity is a God-given thing. When Hawley is talking about an attack on men and saying that the left is attacking manhood and that they hate this country and don’t believe in gender … all of that sounds very familiar. In white evangelicalism, this has been a refrain for decades now. In evangelical spaces, Christian manhood has long been equated, particularly in conservative circles, with a kind of rugged, militant quality.
Since the 1960s, conservative evangelicals have elevated a more militant ideal of masculinity, one that is both provider and protector. And they have argued that God has created man to fulfill these roles: He’s filled men with testosterone to give them strength, and that testosterone makes them aggressive and they need to channel that aggression for good. That is their God-given duty as men. And so when I heard Hawley talk about courage and independence and assertiveness, that is very similar to how masculinity is discussed in evangelical spaces. Although often rather than assertiveness, they substitute aggressiveness.
This is a kind of reactionary masculinity that emerges in the 1960s and 1970s in conservative evangelical spaces and more broadly in American conservatism. And the context here is important. Coming out of the postwar era, there was the baby boom, and traditional family values were all the rage, at least among the white middle class. Then you have this disruptive moment in the 1960s. You have the civil rights movement, which is particularly disruptive in the American South to the status quo. And you have the early feminist wave and second-wave feminism in the 1960s — full-swing in the 1970s — and very importantly, the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement.
All of these things are seen to destabilize the social order, and conservatives are particularly concerned. And in all three of these cases, it’s the assertion of white, patriarchal authority or power that can restore order. They believed feminism was threatening to emasculate American men, which was leaving the nation weak and unable to defend itself against communism. The anti-war movement — all those hippies, men with long hair, “make love, not war” — was leaving the nation imperiled. The civil rights movement, as well, was seen as a threat. In the American South, particularly to white families, the integration of schools was seen as a threat to white children.
Against that backdrop, this kind of restoration of a rugged American manhood becomes not just popular, but politicized in a very partisan way.
Fossett: Why is this happening now? Is this language around masculinity becoming more useful in political messaging?
Du Mez: I think it is becoming more useful in the wake of the Trump years. Because, of course, it was around before. There’s a lot of history, particularly of Republicans, unfavorably comparing Democratic men and masculinity against a stronger, more rugged American manhood. It kind of had a resurgence during the Obama presidency. It was very popular for Republicans to impugn his masculinity and to question his manhood and his strength. Both men and women did this; Sarah Palin went after him in this respect. It certainly isn’t something entirely new.
But I think that Trump definitely intensified it, because when you look back to the 2016 Republican primary season, Trump appeared on the stage and nobody really knew what to do with him, but he was able to play into this idea of rugged masculinity, this warrior masculinity, more effectively than any of the other candidates. Most Democrats thought it was laughable.
But he was reckless. He was uncivil. He was crass. He was not going to be cowed by political correctness. He was a bully on a debate stage against other Republicans. And it worked for him. It made him look strong, and it made his opponents look weak. And so you saw them trying to gain the upper hand and try to play that game, but none of them could play it as well as he could because he was completely unrestrained. And I think that because that worked so well, it seems to me that’s the playbook, certainly for anybody who wants to take up Trump’s mantle.
And then you have J.D. Vance’s comments about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. I think one thing that’s important to note is that this rugged masculinity and this conservative vision of American manhood, historically, have been closely linked to Christian nationalism. “We need a strong man who can step up and defend America,” and in terms of Christian nationalism, “defend Christian America.”
When I read Hawley’s speech from the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, on the one hand, he’s praising this group of African-American men who stepped up and brought order to a high school in Louisiana after reports of fighting on campus. On the other hand, he’s also linking the left’s attack on manhood with their ideas of systemic racism and structural oppression. All of those ideas he sees us as a threat to America and a threat to, as he calls it, our shared culture, which would really resonate, particularly with his conservative white base. When we look at Vance, he uses some coded language to talk about the “lawless thugs.”
Fossett: I saw a Madison Cawthorn speech from a recent event make the rounds on social media a few weeks ago that seems to fit this pattern.
Du Mez: Yes. In that speech, he called on mothers to raise their young men to be monsters. It’s so similar to Hawley’s message; he was arguing that culture was trying to “demasculate” our young men, and it — presumably the left — is doing that because it didn't want young men to stand up to it. This resonates with what Hawley was saying, too; he accused the left of sort of trying to make men tolerant and compliant.
It’s really important to situate this call for a rugged militant masculinity within a political context, which is the fight against the left. Both Hawley and Cawthorn have participated in calls to “Stop the Steal,” and Cawthorn actually gave one of the addresses on January 6th, just before the Capitol insurrection. He’s also gone on record talking about how bloodshed will be inevitable if our elections continue to be rigged. So it’s a call to action for young men to have the “backbone,” as he puts it in that speech, to stand up and to fight back to defend our liberty at all costs. And he even goes on to say: “There's nothing I would dread more than picking up arms against a fellow American.” But essentially, that’s where things are headed, he’s saying.
There was a Public Religion Research Institute American Values Survey that came out recently. In that survey, we see that 60 percent of white evangelicals believe the election was stolen. Of those, 39 percent believe that violence might be necessary to save the country. So that’s what we’re talking about here. What is also relevant here is that both Cawthorn and Hawley appear to be drawing on the work of Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and YouTube personality. I think that “monster” quote from Cawthorn is drawing on Peterson in particular. Peterson is sending the same message to young men that they need to be responsible; they need to be assertive; they need to be aggressive. As he puts it, “If you’re harmless, you are not virtuous.” And men need to be monsters. That’s his word; the hero has to be a monster. He needs to be a controlled monster. But you need to have that danger — that capacity for danger — and then you learn how to control that. Otherwise, you will be too weak to stand up to the oppressors.
So both Hawley and Cawthorn seem to be influenced by Peterson’s message, or at least it resonates with them. And Peterson is extremely popular with conservative white men, and young, disaffected men, and so there’s a lot of overlap between conservative white evangelical men and fans of Jordan Peterson. Hawley and Cawthorn seem to be tapping into both of those streams and bringing them together as a political call to action.
Fossett: And Vance’s comment [about Rittenhouse] ties into this, too.
Du Mez: Yeah. He’s saying: This was a young white man who stepped in when others failed, and when the government failed, and acted to use violence to assert order. And that absolutely fits in with this call to action to defend our liberty at all costs. And like Hawley said, it might require bloodshed.
FBI Agents Became CIA Operatives in Secret Overseas Prisons
Carol Rosenberg Sat, November 20, 2021 The FBI headquarters in Washington, Nov. 14, 2021. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times)
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — In the torturous history of the U.S. government’s black sites, the FBI has long been portrayed as acting with a strong moral compass. Its agents, disgusted with the violence they saw at a secret CIA prison in Thailand, walked out, enabling the bureau to later deploy “clean teams” untainted by torture to interrogate the five men accused of conspiring in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But new information that emerged this week in the Sept. 11 case undermines that FBI narrative. The two intelligence agencies secretly arranged for nine FBI agents to temporarily become CIA operatives in the overseas prison network where the spy agency used torture to interrogate its prisoners.
The once-secret program came to light in pretrial proceedings in the death penalty case. The proceedings are examining whether the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his four co-defendants voluntarily confessed after years in the black site network, where detainees were waterboarded, beaten, deprived of sleep and isolated to train them to comply with their captors’ wishes.
At issue is whether the military judge will exclude from the eventual trial the testimony of FBI agents who questioned the defendants in 2007 at Guantánamo and also forbid the use of reports that the agents wrote about each man’s account of his role in the hijacking conspiracy.
A veteran Guantánamo prosecutor, Jeffrey D. Groharing, has called the FBI interrogations “the most critical evidence in this case.” Defense lawyers argue that the interrogations were tainted by the years of torture by U.S. government agents.
In open court Thursday, another prosecutor, Clayton G. Trivett Jr., confirmed the unusual arrangement, in which nine agents were "formally detailed" to the agency “and thus became a member of the CIA and worked within CIA channels.”
He said that the agents served as “debriefers,” a CIA term for interrogators, and questioned black site prisoners “out of the coercive environment” and after the use of “EITs.”
EITs, or enhanced interrogation techniques, is a CIA euphemism for a series of abusive tactics that the agency used against Mohammed and other prisoners in 2002 and 2003 — tactics that were then approved but are now illegal. They include waterboarding, painful shackling and isolating a prisoner nude, shivering and in the dark to break his will to resist interrogation.
Trivett offered no precise time period but made clear that the FBI agents were absorbed by the CIA sometime between 2002, when the black sites were established, and September 2006. On their return to the FBI, they took on the status of CIA assets, he said, and so their identities are classified.
Five of the nine agents had roles in the interrogations of some of the defendants in the case, Trivett said, and their names have been provided to defense lawyers on the basis that they not be disclosed.
The FBI declined to comment on the arrangement, as did the CIA.
A defense lawyer, James G. Connell III, added more details in the same court hearing.
He said that the nine agents “stopped being FBI agents and became CIA agents temporarily” under a memorandum of understanding that established a different arrangement than the more typical assignment of a representative of one law enforcement agency to work out of the organization of another.
A former CIA historian, Nicholas Dujmovic, said there was a precedent for “taking employees from another government agency and quickly making them CIA employees for specific functions.”
In the 1950s, the CIA transformed U.S. Air Force pilots into CIA employees during their stints flying U-2 spy planes and then returned them to the Air Force without the loss of seniority or benefits. “President Eisenhower thought it was important that U-2s not be piloted by U.S. military pilots,” Dujmovic said. The process was called “sheep dipping,” he said.
Earlier testimony showed the FBI participating remotely in the CIA interrogations through requests sent by cables to the black sites seeking certain information from specific detainees, including Mohammed after he was waterboarded 183 times to force him to talk.
The pretrial hearings are in their ninth year and the military judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall of the Air Force, is the fourth judge to hear testimony at Guantánamo. In arguing over potential trial evidence, the prisoners’ lawyers have repeatedly accused prosecutors of redacting information that the defense needs to prepare for the capital trial. In the military commissions, prosecutors are the gatekeepers of potential trial evidence and can withhold information they deem not relevant to the defense’s needs.
In one example, Connell showed the judge a November 2005 cable the FBI sent to the CIA that contained questions for three of the defendants while they were in a black site — out of reach of the courts, lawyers and the International Red Cross.
The FBI released the cable to the public this month under an executive order by President Joe Biden to declassify information about the FBI investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Connell had earlier received a version of the same cable from prosecutors. But it was so redacted that it obscured the fact that the FBI wanted Mohammed and the other defendants questioned in the black sites.
Trivett sought to play down the disclosure of the FBI-CIA collaboration as routine business at a time when the U.S. government was devoting tremendous resources to investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. “This is not some big bombshell,” he told the judge.
A lawyer for Mohammed, Denny LeBoeuf, cast the collaboration as part of a conspiracy to portray FBI accounts of interrogations of the defendants at Guantánamo in 2007 as “clean team statements,” a law enforcement expression.
“They were never clean,” LeBoeuf said. “Torture isn’t clean. It is filthy. It has sights and sounds and consequences.”
NGO: 1,149 Palestinian Minors Detained by Israel This Year
TEHRAN (FNA)- Israeli forces have detained 1,149 Palestinian children since the beginning of this year, according to a Palestinian rights group on Saturday.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society made the announcement on the occasion of World Children's Day, Anadolu news agency reported.
The NGO said most of the detained children have since been released, but 160 of them are still languishing in the Ofer, Damoun and Megiddo prisons.
At least two-thirds of the arrested children were subjected to some form of physical torture, according to the statement, while all of them were exposed to psychological torture during detention.
Since 2000, Israel has arrested at least 19,000 Palestinian minors aged between 10 to 18 years old, according to the NGO.
World Children's Day is celebrated globally on the 20th of November every year with the aim of raising awareness about children’s rights and to promote policies that will improve their well-being.
Low Income and No Prospects for Education: 12-Year-Old Opens Up About Child Labour in Gaza
In 2018, nearly 5,000 children aged 10 to 17 were involved in full-time labour in Gaza, but the official numbers are believed to be much higher because there are many kids below the age of 10 who are not registered.
Mohammed Doghmosh, a 12-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, remembers vividly the moment his mother told him he would need to go to work.
"I was seven back then. My father died in a car accident and my mum told me that from that moment on I would be the one responsible for my family of eight siblings", said the boy.
"So I didn't go to school, I needed to feed my family, and I started working instead", he added.
Tough Days
Mohammed started roaming around the streets of Gaza with his donkey, approaching customers and suggesting they buy his vegetables.
Recalling those days, Mohammed says he was fearful of what the future would hold for him.
"I cried a lot during those days because I didn't know how to control such a big animal as a donkey. Also, I was shy and didn't know how to approach adults and suggest they buy my products".
But he managed to curb those fears and keep going.
"The first weeks were exceptionally difficult for me", says the boy. "I remember the gazes people gave me. Many felt pity for me. They looked at me as if I was a beggar and they gave me more money as charity. It hurt my feelings and I decided to be a man".
Palestinian children pose for a photo at the Jebaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 14, 2015.
With time, Mohammed says he has become more professional. He now earns $26 per day, something that not only enabled him to replace his donkey with a horse, but also helped him to keep his family afloat.
"I sacrificed my studies so that my siblings could go to school. I am paying for their daily expenses and I hope that they will finish their education and will be able to get good jobs in the future".
Child Labour is Common
Mohammed is not the only Palestinian child who has been forced to go to work to ends meet.
According to official statistics, in 2018 nearly 5,000 children aged 10 to 17 were involved in full-time labour in Gaza. Additionally, 1,490 children held down jobs while attending school.
Yet, the numbers are believed to be much higher, specifically because there are many working children below the age of 10 who haven't been properly registered.
The outbreak of COVID-19 in the Palestinian territories in February 2020 has only made the situation worse. The shutdown of private businesses and the closing down of the Strip forced many Gazans into unemployment. And that subsequently pushed the poverty rates even higher.
Mohammed is extremely frustrated with the current situation, and he blames the Hamas government for the mess.
"They don't seem to care about ordinary people. Neither do they cater to the needs of poor families, those who lost their fathers, and those who are forced to work hard to make ends meet".
Hamas, an Islamic group that assumed control over the Gaza Strip in 2007 after a violent coup, has long been blamed for the dire economic situation in the Strip.
Palestinians shop for traditional Ramadan lanterns for the month of Ramadan, at the main market in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Sporadic protests against the group have been taking place in the enclave since 2019. Those protests - organised by the movement Bidna Naish (Arabic for We Want to Live) - have recently reemerged, with people calling on Hamas to take action in order to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians.
Mohammed says he is not taking part in those protests. His job consumes most of his time, leaving him very few options for rest.
But he is hopeful that the situation will improve and he has dreams for the future.
"I hope that one day I will be able to open my own vegetable market instead of relying on animals for the distribution of my products. I also hope that one day I will be able to study and achieve something in life".
U.S. acknowledged the killing of civilians in Syria, but justified it
WASHINGTON – The United States has admitted to bombing the Syrian city of Baghuz in 2019, killing at least 80 people, most of them women and children, but justifying the actions of its military, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, citing Tabu.bg and the New York Times.
According to the data on March 18, 2019, an American F-15E attack aircraft dropped two bombs in the Baghuz area – the first one weighing 227 kg, and then another weighing 907 kg. on a crowd consisting mostly of women and children.
The newspaper noted that the US military recognized this bombing for the first time, which recognition came in response to an inquiry. The United States says the bombing killed at least 80 people, but at the same time says the attack was justified because the 16 extremists in the crowd were killed. The Pentagon also said it was unclear whether the others were civilians or militants, as Islamic State women and children are also known to be armed.
The newspaper writes that the representative of the Central Military Command of the USA, Bill Urban, claims that the army has conducted an internal investigation into the mentioned bombing.
“We hate the death of innocent people and take all possible measures to prevent them. “In this particular case, we have reported and investigated the attack according to our evidence, and we take full responsibility for the involuntary loss of life,” Urban said in a statement.
At the same time, according to the New York Times, an independent investigation has never been conducted, although a lawyer with the U.S. Air Force has reported to management and the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee the deaths caused by the bombings. He (the legal officer) qualified the incident as a war crime.
An employee of the Air Force’s Inspector General told the New York Times that he thought the military wanted to cover up the case. “Management seems determined to bury him. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. It makes you lose faith in the system when people try to do the right thing, but none of the leaders want to hear you,” he said.
TABU recalls that on October 23 this year, according to a statement issued by the US Central Command, one of the leaders of the terrorist group Al Qaeda, Abdul Hamid al-Matar, was killed in an airstrike in northwestern Syria. The civil war in Syria
The Syrian civil war has been going on for almost a decade. Attempts by movements such as the Syrian Democratic Forces to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have failed.
The Syrian democratic forces are armed by allies and the United States, while the Syrian army is armed mainly by Russia. Russia is the only country officially invited to Syria by President Bashar al-Assad.
In 2017, the United States launched a massive missile strike on Bashar al-Assad’s forces after a report emerged that the Syrian president had used chemical weapons to attack his people in the country. Syria and Russia deny such actions.
During his tenure, US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw much of US troops from Syria, leaving several troops to guard Syria’s oil fields on the pretext of “falling into the hands of Islamic State.”
With the withdrawal of the United States, Turkey comes to the fore, declaring it necessary to deal with the Kurds and the PKK movement in the northern part of the country, which borders Turkey. That is why Erdogan is sending troops in an attempt to build a stable and secure 30km zone between Syria and Turkey, which will prevent future terrorist attacks on Turkish territory, as it is. Ceasefire
In February 2020, Turkey lost at least 62 troops killed in Syria. Nearly 100 soldiers were wounded, Syrian-backed forces destroyed dozens of Turkish armored vehicles, and more than ten drones, including drones, were shot down. Washington has repeatedly accused Moscow of involvement in the deaths of Turkish soldiers, Russia rejects these allegations.
In early March 2020, the presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed that a ceasefire came into force in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad later said that if the US and Turkish military did not leave the country, Damascus would use military power.
The reason for the Russian-Turkish negotiations was a sharp aggravation of the situation in Idlib, where in January, a large-scale offensive by the Syrian army against the positions of the armed opposition and terrorists began.
Government forces recaptured nearly half of the Idlib de-escalation zone and left behind several Turkish observation posts. After that, Ankara sharply increased its military contingent in the region and launched the operation “Spring Shield” to push the Syrian troops. Militants are loyal to Ankara and support Turkey.
***
Bill Gates: humanity to prepare for attacks with biological weapons
WASHINGTON – In a new interview with Policy Exchange, the founder of Microsoft announced a future catastrophe, for which it is time to prepare now.
Photo credit: Reuters
The businessman warned governments in various countries of the need to prepare for terrorist attacks with biological weapons, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, citing Tabu.bg. In particular, we are talking about intentional infection with smallpox – a highly contagious viral infection. The disease is characterized by fever, rash on the skin and mucous membranes, often leaving scars. That’s what The Independent writes.
According to the founder of Microsoft, countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have to spend tens of billions of dollars to fund epidemiological safety research. It is especially worth paying attention to the places where people from different countries gather. Bioterrorists are likely to carry out attacks at airports.
“It will probably take about a billion a year for the WHO working group to monitor and do what I call a ‘microbial game,'” Bill Gates said.
According to the developer, epidemics caused by bioterrorism can be worse than natural, including more dangerous than the pandemic of the coronavirus infection COVID-19. We remind you that the first outbreak of coronavirus was registered in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Now, according to BBC News, the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide has already exceeded 5 million.
BulgarianMilitary.com recalls that on October 29 this year, the US intelligence community concluded that the Covid-19 coronavirus was not developed as a biological weapon, according to a report published by the US National Intelligence Council. “We believe that the virus was not created as a biological weapon,” the report said. “Most agencies also estimate with a low level of confidence that the virus may not have been genetically modified. However, two agencies believe that there is not enough data to make such an assessment,” the report said.
According to the report, US intelligence agencies have not reached a consensus on the origin of the virus and believe that two hypotheses about the origin of COVID-19 are likely: an animal infection and “related to a laboratory incident [in Wuhan].”
The secret collision of the US Seawolf nuclear submarine
The analyzes were made by Maksymilian Dura for Defence24. Their assessments, opinions and comments on the topic do not reflect the position of BulgarianMilitary.com
WARSAW – The US Navy briefly reported that the USS Connecticut submarine collided with an unknown underwater object in an attempt to dispel the suspicions that there was a collision with an unknown Chinese submarine. However, it is still unknown what waters the USS Connecticut was in, that the Americans did not have proper maps and could not use anti-collision sonar.
The US Navy released a one-sentence statement on the Seawolf-type nuclear submarine USS Connecticut (SSN 22) in the South China Sea on October 2, 2021. An investigation conducted for US 7th Fleet command found that the US unit was to “land on an unexplored submarine while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region.” The Commander of the 7th Fleet is now to determine whether the further action of the commander of the USS Connecticut was appropriate.
This will be difficult since the investigation did not explain why an underwater collision had occurred at all. The blame was placed on American maps, which did not inform about the existence of such high underwater obstacles at the scene. This took the responsibility off the crew, but at the same time means that: The US Navy did not draw the correct conclusions from a similar accident on the USS San Francisco (SSN-711) Los Angeles-class submarine in 2005; the operation of American submarines in the South China Sea can be very dangerous.
Information about inaccurate maps (if true) would undoubtedly please the Chinese who want to make the South China Sea an inner sea, with the exclusive right to exploit its underwater resources. Therefore, there is no chance that China will provide the Americans with its own, perhaps more accurate, underwater maps. The US Navy could, of course, survey the South China Sea itself, but that would require months of oceanographic vessel work. There is no money for such activity: neither the money nor the consent of the authorities in Beijing, which will certainly not allow Western countries to conduct any comprehensive research under their side.
The Chinese, however, probably did not “buy” the American explanations and are conducting their investigation of what the American nuclear submarine did that it collided “somewhere” with “some” underwater obstacle.
What is the extent of the damage to Seawolf?
So far, the size of the damage is being investigated and the cost of repairing it is estimated. Fortunately, the USS Connecticut hit the underwater mountain with its bow, thanks to which the rigid hull was not damaged (which would have been possible if the ship had rubbed its side against an obstacle over a long surface). In turn, the bow part can be likened to a car bumper, with the difference that on a submarine in the “crumple zone” (between the bow deflector and the front part of the rigid hull) there is a lot of various types of marine equipment.
So far, the Americans have only stated that the ballast tanks have been damaged, which meant that the USS Connecticut had to sail from the South China Sea to the naval base on the island of Guam for a week on the surface. Additionally, the US Navy continues to reassure us that “the nuclear reactor and the submarine’s propulsion system are undamaged.” The fore antenna system of the sonar complex – including its lower elements – must have been destroyed, so the ones most likely used to avoid collisions and mines and to periodically measure the distance to the bottom.
The condition of the main spherical sonar, which is the farthest forward element of the hydroacoustic system, is also unknown. Despite the reinforcements used, it was also probably badly damaged.
Was it possible to avoid the collision?
A submarine below the periscope depth only seems to be unable to observe the surrounding environment. Underwater, optoelectronic, and radar systems are replaced by sonar complexes using acoustic waves, which equally carefully monitor the surroundings and locate objects within the range of even several dozen nautical miles.
Photo credit: Defense Express
It is easiest in the case of “noisy” objects because sonar systems are able not only to detect a bearing on them but also to identify them (through sound analysis). It is worse with the determination of the distance, but it is also possible when using passive antenna arrays of side observation sonars or towed linear antennas, which allow for determining the position of the target using the triangulation method.
In the case of underwater obstacles that do not emit sound, the situation is much more complicated, because to detect them you need to either know where they are or locate them using active sonar. In the first case, you need accurate seabed maps as well as a precise inertial navigation system. Contrary to appearances, it is not difficult at all, because such maritime powers as the US Navy have long been creating a database of the operating areas of their ships, not only in terms of depth but also in terms of hydrological conditions (vertical temperature distribution, speed of sound propagation in water). , salinity, etc.). It is necessary, among others to allow the sonar to work accurately.
It is also not a problem to determine your position underwater without contact, for example, with the GPS, because modern submarines use very accurate inertial navigation systems, counting the distance traveled, taking into account external conditions (mainly underwater sea currents). The American Seawolf-class ships most likely have at least two such underwater navigation systems, so this could not have been the reason for a collision with anything.
It is also difficult to assume that the cause of the collision was the poorly trained crew of the USS Connecticut. All three Seawolf ships are designed for the most difficult tasks and the US Navy would certainly not allow crew members to be taken on board without the appropriate knowledge and experience.
“Connecticut hit the facility while it was submerged on the afternoon of October 2, while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region,” PACFLEET Press Office said on October 7, 2021.
The simplest explanation, then, is that of the US Navy from the outset, that the maps that did not take into account the submarine that the USS Connecticut ultimately struck had failed. The problem is that such an explanation is illogical. The cause of the accident will only be found by those who explain: why anti-collision sonar was not used and what waters in the Indo-Pacific area have not yet been described on American maps.
Why was no active sonar used on the USS Connecticut?
As mentioned above, each submarine, while operating in unfamiliar waters, has the means to locate “non-noisy” underwater objects in front of and below it. These measures include, for example, active combat sonar, anti-collision sonar, anti-mine sonar, and seabed sonar.
These devices allow you to very accurately determine the bearing and distance to the detected object, but they operate according to the principle known from radars: sending an impulse (group of impulses) and then receiving the part of the energy reflected from the target. Unfortunately, this is how the submarine “sees” everything, but on the other hand, it reveals its presence. Active sonar sends an acoustic wave that can be picked up even tens of nautical miles away – alerting the enemy anti-submarine forces.
To avoid this, different types of sonar are used for different types of tasks. Again, the same principle as in the case of radars comes into play. The higher the frequency of the signal, the greater the accuracy of the measurement, but the range is shorter (and therefore also the range of its reception by the opponent). Hence, active combat sonars operate at lower, “audible” frequencies – most often in the 5-20kHz band. This allows to increase the range, but at e.g. 1 kHz requires the use of large-size antennas, which is difficult to use in the case of submarines.
In turn, in anti-collision and anti-mine sonars they already use higher frequencies, even exceeding 100 kHz. For example, a station of this type SA 9510S of the Norwegian company Kongsberg secures in one pulse (ping) at frequencies from 70 to 100 kHz, the observation sector over 120º horizontally and over 90º vertically. Apart from the selection of a higher band of the active sonar signal, its detection can be made more difficult by e.g. using a wide transmission spectrum. The pulse is then “stretched” over a wide frequency range but according to an algorithm that is only understood by a given transmitter and receiver. The signal is thus masked in some way in the ambient noise, which, however, may cause disturbances in the reception of the echo signal.
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And it should be remembered that in the case of sonars it is a bit more difficult to determine the parameters of objects than in the case of a radar station because acoustic waves move in the water much slower than electromagnetic waves in the air, with different speeds (depending, for example, on the sea and the season) and not rectilinear. Hence, it is so important to know the hydrology of the sea, and therefore to have up-to-date maps of the sea on which you plan to operate.
Despite various technical improvements, active sonar is still very reluctantly used by submarine crews. And this applies not only to hydroacoustic stations that send a signal in front of the ship (eg to avoid a collision) but also to devices that send “pings” down, measuring the distance to the bottom for navigation purposes. This reluctance, however, applies only to those reservoirs where you plan to hide your own presence, e.g. by carrying out some secret mission related to the reconnaissance of the enemy, blowing up commandos, or espionage.
The failure of the active sonars to be turned on by the USS Connecticut crew meant that the ship’s mission was top secret, well worth the dangers posed by a submarine worth several billion dollars (about $ 8.5 billion at the current rate). In addition, the lack of maps with the exact shape of the bottom proves that the operation was carried out in a body of water that had not been studied by the American hydrographic services before. This may be proof that the Americans actually found themselves in the actual Chinese waters, for example following the latest submarines and surface ships mass-built in China. This is evidenced by, for example, the consistent avoidance of the term “South China Sea” and the use of the name “Indo-Pacific region” in the official communications of the US Navy when indicating the place of the accident. Perhaps this is why the authorities in Beijing are accusing the US Navy of covering up the entire incident, asking for more detailed explanations on several occasions.
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When it comes to repairing, it’s not all about money
Currently, USS Connecticut is handled by repair teams from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and service groups from the USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) submarine logistic support ship based in Guam. It is a vessel that is a substitute for a specialized submarine base, which, even in unprepared ports, can provide these units with electricity and water, carry out repairs and maintenance of weapons and equipment, as well as provide consumables, spare parts, medical and dental assistance, food, mail, and even legal services. For this purpose, the USS “Emory S. Land” has been set up as a small town with up to 53 different specialized stores.
Now all these repair crews are working to prepare the USS Connecticut so that it can return to the United States and undergo a full repair there. Contrary to appearances, it is not about money, but most of all about finding a shipyard that will take place to carry out the necessary renovation (e.g. a free dry dock). The schedule of US Navy shipbuilding works is so tight that it is very difficult to suddenly include an additional vessel. The inclusion of USS Connecticut in plans may therefore have an impact on other maintenance programs and tasks.
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In the United States, the discussion on the need to secure the Guam base with appropriate shipbuilding infrastructure was immediately resumed – including, for example, a modern, dry dock, so that damaged ships would not later have to be transferred across the Pacific to the United States. The nearest dry dock to Guam for major repairs of submarines is located in Hawaii, and the second in the continental United States at the Puget Sound shipyard, near the USS Connecticut homeport in Bremerton, Washington.
These omissions will now extend the length of time that the US Navy will not be able to use one of its Seawolves operationally. The Americans have only three such ships, which, despite their age (they were in service in 1997, 1998, and 2005), are still considered to be the most silent ships in their class in the world (even at an underwater speed of 20 knots). Initially, they were created specifically to combat Russian submarines in the depths of the oceans. Currently, they have been adapted to perform the most secret tasks assigned to the American Navy.
It does not change the fact that it is a very well-armed submarine. It is equipped with 8 torpedo tubes of 660 mm caliber, which can be used to launch both torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles (which can take up to 50 in total). There is also space for 8 commandos on board.
Do Americans learn from their mistakes?
In all this, the Americans were very lucky. First, their ship managed to break through to Guam for several days, hiding the fact of the accident at all (including from the Chinese). Second, the collision was not serious compared to an earlier incident of this type on the Los Angeles-type USS San Francisco on January 8, 2005, 364 NM southeast of Guam Island (“near the Carolingian Islands”).
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So far it is known that on the USS Connecticut “only” 1 person was injured from a crew of over 130. On the other hand, on the USS San Francisco, one officer was killed and 98 people were injured out of about 130 people on board at that time. This difference was mainly because the USS San Francisco hit the obstacle at the full underwater speed of about 35 knots (65 km / h) and was at a depth of 160 m. So the ship almost immediately stopped and the sailors ran into anything, that stood next to them (injuries mainly included bone fractures, spine injuries, head injuries, and cuts).
The automatic damage was also much greater than on the USS Connecticut (which sailed much more carefully) and included the bow ballast tanks (which had been torn apart) and the entire bow section. The part was practically completely crushed and could not be repaired. So it was replaced with a “new” one, taken from the previously withdrawn Los Angeles-class submarine – USS Honolulu (SSN-718). Fortunately, in this case, the reactor was not damaged and the ship could sail to Guam on its own, with the support of auxiliary ships.
Apart from the obvious errors in command by the commander of the ship and six other crew members, it is noteworthy that the collision in 2005 also occurred with the submarine mountain, which was not on the map used by the crew. This obstacle, however, was indicated on other maps, but it was not marked in the navigational documentation of the USS San Francisco – which was a breach of the regulations. The inconsistencies detected during periodic measurements of the distance to the bottom, which were too rare at the high speed used, were also not taken into account. The last measurement 4 minutes before the collision was, for example, at a depth of 2000 m.
This cost the Americans tens of millions of dollars to repair, and the US Navy was stripped of one submarine for four years – until April 2009, when the USS San Francisco returned to service. When the USS Connecticut will return to the line, it is not known yet.
