In case you missed it on Fox News, there happens to be a Russian spy ship about 19 miles off the coast of Virginia. We can just imagine the wall-to-wall poutrage that would erupt on the “fair and balanced” network if Barack Obama shrugged this off the way Donald Trump is. But Fox seems to be working overtime to persuade us that there’s nothing to look at.
A FoxNews.com article has some details on the situation.
As of Friday morning, the Russian spy ship is slowly patrolling only 17 nautical miles—roughly 19 miles—from land, according to officials. United States territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from shore.
[…]
The Victor Leonov, armed with an array of intelligence gathering equipment used to intercept communications and analyze U.S. Navy sonar capability, later traveled within 30 miles off the Connecticut coast near a submarine base earlier this week.
“It’s lawful [and] similar to operations we do around the world,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters Friday.
Farther down in the article, there’s also this:
When the president was later asked about other recent Russian provocations including the buzzing of a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Black Sea roughly 180 miles southwest of Russian held Crimea, Trump responded, “Not good.”
The four Russian jets came within 200 yards of the USS Porter and had their identifying transponders turned off according to a spokesman for the U.S. military’s European Command.
You’d have to make a real effort to find that article on Fox’s home page. I had to do a page search to find it:
Yesterday, during his press conference, Trump bizarrely shrugged off the provocations by reiterating his desire to make a deal or deals with Russia. Plus this:
TRUMP: Now, again, maybe I’m not going to be able to do a deal with Russia, but at least I will have tried. And if I don’t, does anybody really think that Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump? Does anybody in this room really believe that? OK?
This morning, retired Army General Jack Keane, a Fox News military analyst who declined an offer to serve as Trump’s defense secretary, assured Fox News viewers that the boat is nothing to be concerned about.
JON SCOTT (host): Isn’t this the kind of thing that goes on all the time, I mean, between both countries?
KEANE: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
But then Keane went on to say something not at all in line with Trump:
KEANE: The fact they’re using a surface ship [instead of the usual submarine] is because they want all the publicity … They want to distract us from what they’re doing in Ukraine. They’re strengthening their military position in Ukraine. They’re also strengthening their position in the Middle East. And those are roles that are very different for Russia. Russia is trying to replace the United States as the most influential country in the Middle East. And that is serious business and they’ve been doing that and trampling our interests in the Middle East.
[…]
Every opportunity [Russian President Vladimir Putin] has to humiliate and embarrass us in front of our allies or take advantage of us in his national interest is what he is up to.
That immediately begs the question as to why, then, Trump seems to be unconcerned about it. It raises even more questions about his administration’s ties to Russia.
Scott said he wished there was more time to discuss the matter but – oops, time was up.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for more on this.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to get aggressive with Russia. But we should at least know what Trump's plan is, assuming he has one. Furthermore, there’s no reason for Fox to give Trump a pass. Instead of addressing the situation, he's golfing (after he criticized Obama for playing golf), taking off for a weekend getaway (after criticizing Obama for taking vacations) and holding a rally less than a month into his presidency.
I respect General Keane’s independence and am glad he got some airtime to talk about this. However, I feel confident that he would have gotten a lot more airtime, and probably on prime time, had Obama still been in the Oval Office doing what Trump is doing now.
Watch Keane below, from the February 17, 2017 Happening Now.
The Ruskies no longer have their huge vaunted sub fleet. No more Red Octobers or the non fictional Kursk sailing the Seven Seas menacing lesser navies. But they still have spy ships. Electronic communications is now more important than ever and getting more crucial as time goes by.
I’m sure Trump’s rubes think that everything will be allright as long as the USA builds another WWII era battleship. Yeah,…just make sure to paint a big bullseye on the port and starboard sides.
