Fox News’ Ralph Peters hit two propaganda birds with one stone when he blamed the crash of the USS McCain on former President Obama for turning the military into a “social engineering experiment.”
Fox strategic analyst Peters appeared on Varney & Co. Monday to politicize and exploit discuss the McCain collision that left 10 sailors missing and five injured over the weekend.
According to Wired, the damage to the McCain suggests that it had the right of way. Wired explained that “Maritime rules dictate that the vessel with right of way maintains course and speed, even when a collision looks possible. That’s to avoid two vessels trying to course-correct, potentially making things worse.” So it’s quite possible that the McCain properly stayed on course until it was too late to avoid a crash. Also, the collision occurred in one of the world’s most congested waterways.
But Peters mentioned none of that. He blamed Obama for putting political correctness over training and seamanship. And it wasn’t just the McCain accident but another warship collision in June that Peters blamed on Obama. That earlier accident, involving the USS Fitzgerald, had some significant differences, Wired reported. But neither Peters nor substitute host Ashley Webster seemed to know or care.
WEBSTER: Why does this keep happening?
PETERS: The obvious conclusion is the officers on the bridge and the seamen don’t have basic navigation skills. They don’t, no longer are drilled in basic seamanship. They don’t have the discipline they should.
Look, I love the U.S. Navy. … But it’s in a bad way right now. … Part of [the problem] is fundamental. Those sailors did not have the basic seamanship skills. But by God, they got their sensitivity training, they got their race-relations training, they got their sexual harassment training and we have for a long time, but particularly under Obama, turned the military into a social engineering experiment.
Webster didn’t challenge a word.
Watch the propaganda below, from Fox Business Network’s August 21, 2017 Varney & Co.
(H/T reader Eric J.)
Forget classroom training out of boot camp. Even if the Navy replaced all content with diversity training the Navy doesn’t just put a seaman or an officer in critical bridge watch positions after they first report aboard. They have to go through rigorous certification. Line officers, for example, need to earn their Surface Warfare Officer pin before doing a solo bridge watch.
Plus, a lot of seaman on ships are undesignated when they report aboard and “strike” their division later meaning many of the seamen on the bridge aren’t even classroom trained but certified solely by on the job training.
