USS Enterprise part of US naval exercise in Persian Gulf- something we missed

(Edited the title to be more clear)

News that the US is sending a large naval presence to the Persian Gulf is big enough amid current tensions and talk of Israeli air strikes, but one thing people seemed to miss is that the USS Enterprise is going to be part of the mission as she heads back once more.

From a recent PBS article-

www.pbs.org...

But some observers say that in the event of a crisis — such as an Israeli attack on Iran — maintaining an aircraft carrier off the shores of Iran in the confined and crowded Gulf could make matters worse.

“Putting vulnerable carriers in the Persian Gulf is not a good idea, as it would facilitate crisis instability, not crisis stability,” said John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. “They are just too vulnerable, and thus having them in the Persian Gulf would create powerful incentives for us to strike quickly at the Iranian military assets that threaten those carriers.”

We all remember the false flag threads from early this year-



Many felt this conspiracy theory was finished-

www.abovetopsecret.com...

But it seems this conspiracy theroy is still a possibility, tensions are as high as ever and the USS Enterprise is in fact heading back into harm's way once more.

I'm surprised no one else picked up on this

It's not "heading back into harms way again", it never left the region. It's not due to be replaced until next week or so. As for the conspiracy, she'll sail home in a couple weeks, and be inactivated on December 1st as planned.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


Relax, there is only one country that can't distinquish the American Flag.

And what the lettering USS means, and their our friends, I think.

reply to post by Wonderer2012

I'm surprised no one else picked up on this

Well, thank god you did.

You could've just posted the story without patting yourself on the back.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


Were there not threads concerning the Enterprise being deployed to the gulf this past Spring? Like this one:

USS Enterprise Nears Persian Gulf
www.abovetopsecret.com...
by zanysami
started on 3/20/2012 @ 03:59 AM


I agree it is something we should keep an eye on, and I didn't watch the videos in you OP yet so perhaps my question "What new info do you have" is uninformed. But:

What new info do you have.

S+F for effort.

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
reply to post by Wonderer2012

 

Were there not threads concerning the Enterprise being deployed to the gulf this past Spring? Like this one:

USS Enterprise Nears Persian Gulf
www.abovetopsecret.com...
by zanysami
started on 3/20/2012 @ 03:59 AM


I agree it is something we should keep an eye on, and I didn't watch the videos in you OP yet so perhaps my question "What new info do you have" is uninformed. But:

What new info do you have.

S+F for effort.

I think you may have missed the point

It was deployed in spring and made a safe transit.

The conspiracy theory was therefore de-bunked.

However, recent news shows that the USS Enterprise is in fact going to be part of the upcoming naval exercise, so the conspiracy theory is alive and well.

Boy for smart people, they sure have a profound sense for stating the obvious.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


That's the new info I was wondering about. I think the theory goes something like: "She's being decommissioned anyway, so what better target for a false flag strike to give the U.S./Israel a "reason" to do X"

X being hit Iran I assume. And yes. I like this theory. Let's see what happens.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
It's not "heading back into harms way again", it never left the region. It's not due to be replaced until next week or so. As for the conspiracy, she'll sail home in a couple weeks, and be inactivated on December 1st as planned.

Hopefully you are right, I just thought the PBS article highlighting the dangers of putting 'vulnerable carriers' in the region during talk of Israeli military strikes was interesting given the USS Enterprise was the carrier mentioned as being part of the mission.

Originally posted by Wonderer2012

It was deployed in spring and made a safe transit.

She made safe transit multiple times while she was there. Carriers tend to transit through the Gulf several times while they are on deployment, to make ports of call in various areas in the region.

ETA: They have had vulnerable carriers in the region ever since the talk of an Israeli strike has begun, and nothing has happened. The problem is that even if it's a false flag, trying to set up Iran, too many people would see through it.

If Iran attacks first, without clear proof that an attack is either underway, or is about to happen, then it turns the world against them and makes them the aggressor. If they can either prove an attack is imminent (within hours or a day at most) before they do anything, then they may be able to get some countries on their side to help them, and say that they did what they could to prevent this from happening, and waited until the last second to take any action, and their action was only to defend themselves.

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
reply to post by Wonderer2012

 

That's the new info I was wondering about. I think the theory goes something like: "She's being decommissioned anyway, so what better target for a false flag strike to give the U.S./Israel a "reason" to do X"

X being hit Iran I assume. And yes. I like this theory. Let's see what happens.

edit on 9/23/2012 by this_is_who_we_are because: typos

Hopefully nothing happens, I just wanted to point out that she still has one major mission left in this upcoming naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz.

If the conspiracy is going to play out, then this would be the time.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


I agree. We're 100% on the same page.

Originally posted by Zaphod58

Originally posted by Wonderer2012

It was deployed in spring and made a safe transit.

She made safe transit multiple times while she was there. Carriers tend to transit through the Gulf several times while they are on deployment, to make ports of call in various areas in the region.

Yes and I started a thread highlighting the fact that the USS Enterprise is going to be part of this naval exercise, so she isn't safe from a false flag attack just yet.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


No, but what's the point? Saving a few million on decommissioning fees? Any false flag would be transparent as hell, as I stated above.

Any naval ships in the Persian Gulf are sitting ducks, and the brass know it. Yet they are sending more in anyway. Why would they do such a thing?

Most modern naval ships are built for sitting far off and raining down death from over the horizon. Up close and personal they are not so effective, and they know it. Notice them mentioning they are vulnerable. Cheap missiles will destroy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aircraft carrier in a NY minute. Ever heard of the Millennium Challenge? Yeah, a USN wargame that didn't turn out the way they wanted. Blue=USN; Red=an unspecified Middle Eastern "rogue regime".

Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lt. General Paul K. Van Riper, used old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World War II light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications. Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours.

Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.[1]

At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?"[2]

After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action. After the wargame was restarted, the war game was forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among the rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on all his anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and Red Force was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore.[3]

Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered that the location of Red Force units to be revealed.[4]

This led to accusations that the war game had turned from an honest, open free play test of America's war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise intended to end in an overwhelming American victory.,[3] which meant that "$250 million was wasted".[5]

Aftermath
Due to his criticism regarding the scripted nature of the new exercise, Van Riper resigned his position in the midst of the war game. Van Riper later expressed concern that the war game's purpose had shifted to reinforce existing doctrine and notions of infallibility within the U.S. military rather than serve as a learning experience.

Yet, even knowing all this, they are sending loads of ships into what is effectively a bottlenecked lake? Do the Navy brass have no clue what they are doing? Or could there be ulterior motives here?

reply to post by Wonderer2012


It has been said that the USS Enterprise is scheduled to be put to rest no later than March of next year. There are some that want to convert the ship eventually into a museum.

However right now the ship is still in international waters.

Link: www.stripes.com...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Wonderer2012

 

No, but what's the point? Saving a few million on decommissioning fees? Any false flag would be transparent as hell, as I stated above.

In your edit

What the article implies is that if Israel strikes when the carriers are there, then it would make matters worse rather than better. If Iran retaliates in any way, the carriers might be forced to attack Iran in fear of being attacked themselves.

If the USS Enterprise is attacked if this kicks off, there will be little transparency IMO- who fired first, we wouldn't even know.

It's more than a few million, it's almost $1 billion

Hopefully you are right, just wanted to point out that the USS Enterprise is part of this exercise, which the video report calls the largest anti mining mission ever.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


Question: The exercise is underway now, but how long is it supposed to last?

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
reply to post by Wonderer2012

 

Question: The exercise is underway now, but how long is it supposed to last?

12 days, so scheduled to finished 27th September.

Israel gave a deadline of 25th September, so who knows what could happen?

reply to post by Wonderer2012


And if it was the Stennis, or the Reagan, or the Washington, or any other carrier in the fleet, then nothing would be any different. You'd still have a carrier involved, it would still be vulnerable, and people would still be saying that it's making things worse rather than better.

Just about ANY naval ship in the area could come under attack and be forced to launch an attack on Iran in self defense. In fact in a carrier battle group it's the escorts that would be launching a snap attack on Iran, which is what it would be if they came under fire. It would take time for the carrier to ready an attack. The big difference is that if it's a couple of ships, they're more likely to be overwhelmed, and can launch a smaller attack than all the escorts in a CBG.