The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part II

[JesseCuster]

Vixen, is this a claim of yours or someone elses? There's no sources, citations or proper references for this idea. And given the context, it appears to be a claim you're making.

It might be a rogue submarine for sale by the Russians to an inexperienced third world buyers.

 

[JesseCuster]

Vixen, where's your source, citation and proper reference for your claim that Kate Adie had worked as a secret agent?

Etc. etc. The idea that your posts are sourced, cited and properly referenced is laughable to anybody who has actually read this thread. Do you actually believe that or do you expect others to actually believe it?

 

[Vixen]

Why wouldn't they have told the rescuers what happened? why wouldn't the rescuers have asked?
You think not a word was spoken for 14 hours?

Come off it. There were seventeen nationalities on board. Swedes, Finns, Estonians do not mutually understand each other.

The rescue operation was extremely stressful for the helicopter crews, fearing the wind would throw the helicopter into the sea, the winches not being strong enough to bear the weight of people stricken by cramp barely able to move, the divers having to swim in a rough sea to reach people and get them out.

They then had to hurry the survivors to medical treatment and then return for the next lot of survivors. Likewise, the medical staff were only interested in supplying medical treatment. Each survivor on the nearby ships, the Mariella and Silja were kept separate from each other and from other passengers and were each interviewed by the security police once they were on their own ward in hospital and ready to give their first-hand early account.

No way would members of the navy, the coastguards, the helicopter rescue crew or the medics interfere with this process. It was not in their remit. As most passenger survivors recounted hearing a series of bangs and/or a collision, where did Bildt get his 'bow visor' fell off scenario from? Fair enough as conjecture but to make it the firm announcement as being the cause and prohibiting bringing up the bodies was bound to cause an outcry amongst the relatives and suspicions of a cover up.

No doubt Bildt was advised by his intelligence officers which raises the question, why is the incident 'classified top secret' if the Swedes had nothing to hide. If it was sabotage - and their is a hole in the starboard which has been kept secret - then whoever was responsible was the cause of the mass murder of a thousand people and should be brought to justice.

Instead we have a 'classified' label to protect the UK, USA and Swedish security forces, supposedly in the interests of national security but more likely to cover the back of the then POTUS Bill Clinton, who put in the order for former Soviet Union military secrets and poodles UK - PM John Major who would have signed off the UK signatory to the treaty - and Sweden, the three countries who were helping Estonia develop its own intelligence agency.

 

[Mojo]

Nope, people questioned your claim that Meek agreed with the claim that a mine could have sunk the ship. He didn't agree with the claim, he merely reported the claim that the Estline head honcho made, but you said that Meek agreed with the claim that a mine could have sunk the ship when he did no such thing.

And remember, Vixen made this claim based on nothing more than the headline, admitting that their source for it was a book that uses the newspaper story as a reference for an entirely different point.

 

[Vixen]

Where was an 'expert in mines' involved at all?

Do read the GUARDIAN report, which states:

Johannes Johanson, the managing director of the firm, Estline, said he could not believe the power of the sea combined with technical weaknesses would have been enough to let water into the boat.

'We know that there were very big minefields in this region around Yuto, during the second world war,' he said.

'It's my personal opinion that it could have been something like that. It's very difficult to explain why this kind of big passenger ferry went down in such a short time.'

Do you really think these guys are uneducated about the layout of their own seas?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The survivors had gone virtually 24 hours without sleep, for fear of dozing off forever, as hypothermia brings about extreme sleepiness and indeed, most people on the rafts had to watch their fellow passengers die. All of the rescued had dangerously low core body temperatures. Some were on the verge of death and hallucinating.

Jack the Hedge thinks they were in a fit position to discuss the pros and cons o the bow visor and the car ramp.

Fact is, Paul Barney reports he definitely saw the pointy bit against the moonlight as the vessel went down.

This was later; when he was rescued he was far too delirious with happiness to care a darn about the flipping car ramp.

So not one of them said a word? not one rescuer asked what was happening? for 14 hours?

I think you are the one that is hallucinating.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Enter James Meek with his reasonable story that Estonia 'might have been sunk by a mine claim'. Note the word 'claim'.

It is not 'reasonable'

 

[Vixen]

Nobody has made any such statement, at least not in connection to Meek, and possibly not at all. People have pointed out that Meek was simply reporting a claim made by someone else, not expressing an opinion of his own, and have queried your claim that Meek is someone with particular expertise in nautical matters, but nobody has cast any aspersions on Meek’s journalism, or on Meek personally. Your implication that they have is, to put it bluntly, a lie.

Don't talk wet; as if reputable journalists insert their own opinions in a news article. They are trained to present a wholly balanced and impartial article. A news report is very different from an opinion piece.

The headlines are invariably created by sub-editors and not the person who filed the story.

 

[Vixen]

Sorry, i should have been clearer in my post. I was responding to this:


By reminding you that you had earlier posted this:


Note the part I have bolded, which shows your later assertion to be either mistaken, or dishonest. I wasn't addressing or making any claims about expertise in mines.

I hope that clears things up.

If Meek didn't think his source was reliable he would not have bothered to quote it.

Whilst a professional journalist is bound by his professional ethics to present a balanced article at the same time they still have to make a decision as to whether the source of their story is reliable and they are expected to check the reliability of their sources. In other words they won't publish something that in their professional opinion and training does not ring true.

So in that sense, Meek did indeed believe that the Chief of Estline's opinion was a newsworthy and one, as spoken by a maritime expert.


He is not quoting some unnamed keyboard warrior on a conspiracy theory chat forum.


So, as I said, it is not conspiracy theory, it is current affairs.

 

[Mojo]

Don't talk wet; as if reputable journalists insert their own opinions in a news article. They are trained to present a wholly balanced and impartial article. A news report is very different from an opinion piece.

And yet you claimed that Meek “thought a mine was a genuine possibility”. What was your source for this opinion?

The headlines are invariably created by sub-editors and not the person who filed the story.

Then why did you base your claim on the headline?

ETA: …and by the way, what you posted there in no way supports your claim that posters here have cast aspersions on Meek’s journalism or intelligence. The only person who has suggested that what is in the story is Meek’s opinion is you.

 

[Vixen]

Nope, people questioned your claim that Meek agreed with the claim that a mine could have sunk the ship. He didn't agree with the claim, he merely reported the claim that the Estline head honcho made, but you said that Meek agreed with the claim that a mine could have sunk the ship when he did no such thing.

You have been repeatedly corrected on that and refuse to acknowledge that you were wrong and have launched into a bizarre series of invective posts about gutter hacks and sex-obsessed yellow press, which has nothing to do with anything anybody has said.

I'll repeat what someone else has said, it's hard to know if you're genuinely incapable of reading and following the thread and remembering what you and others have said or if you're just that intellectually dishonest.

Please try to concentrate on the topic of this thread instead of playing childish games over semantics and faux misunderstanding.

 

[Vixen]

Where's your sources, citations and proper references for this?

I didn't give it any credence so I didn't bother chasing it up.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen, is this a claim of yours or someone elses? There's no sources, citations or proper references for this idea. And given the context, it appears to be a claim you're making.

I am pretty sure I did explain in detail how the Russians were selling old submarine stock to Iran and tinpot third world dictatorships.

 

[Vixen]

And remember, Vixen made this claim based on nothing more than the headline, admitting that their source for it was a book that uses the newspaper story as a reference for an entirely different point.

Context is all. The original context is London John claiming that no way would anyone think it was a mine. So I pointed out that actually there was such a claim.


Do keep up.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Come off it. There were seventeen nationalities on board. Swedes, Finns, Estonians do not mutually understand each other.

The rescue operation was extremely stressful for the helicopter crews, fearing the wind would throw the helicopter into the sea, the winches not being strong enough to bear the weight of people stricken by cramp barely able to move, the divers having to swim in a rough sea to reach people and get them out.

They then had to hurry the survivors to medical treatment and then return for the next lot of survivors. Likewise, the medical staff were only interested in supplying medical treatment. Each survivor on the nearby ships, the Mariella and Silja were kept separate from each other and from other passengers and were each interviewed by the security police once they were on their own ward in hospital and ready to give their first-hand early account.

No way would members of the navy, the coastguards, the helicopter rescue crew or the medics interfere with this process. It was not in their remit. As most passenger survivors recounted hearing a series of bangs and/or a collision, where did Bildt get his 'bow visor' fell off scenario from? Fair enough as conjecture but to make it the firm announcement as being the cause and prohibiting bringing up the bodies was bound to cause an outcry amongst the relatives and suspicions of a cover up.

No doubt Bildt was advised by his intelligence officers which raises the question, why is the incident 'classified top secret' if the Swedes had nothing to hide. If it was sabotage - and their is a hole in the starboard which has been kept secret - then whoever was responsible was the cause of the mass murder of a thousand people and should be brought to justice.

Instead we have a 'classified' label to protect the UK, USA and Swedish security forces, supposedly in the interests of national security but more likely to cover the back of the then POTUS Bill Clinton, who put in the order for former Soviet Union military secrets and poodles UK - PM John Major who would have signed off the UK signatory to the treaty - and Sweden, the three countries who were helping Estonia develop its own intelligence agency.

And in all that time and activity no one thought to ask any of the survivors what happened?
Not one of the survivors said anything to the rescuers, hospital staff or anyone else?

Why do you think they wouldn't have asked any of the crew what went wrong or what happened to the ship?

In my experience it's one of the first things you do, try to find out what you are dealing with or what went wrong, it is part of your training.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Do read the GUARDIAN report, which states:



Do you really think these guys are uneducated about the layout of their own seas?

Which bit tells us of his expertise with sea mines?

 

[Mojo]

If Meek didn't think his source was reliable he would not have bothered to quote it.

He was reporting what someone said. That means that he needed to make sure that they had said it, not that what they said was credible.

 

[Mojo]

Context is all. The original context is London John claiming that no way would anyone think it was a mine. So I pointed out that actually there was such a claim.

What made you think the claim was credible?

 

[Vixen]

So not one of them said a word? not one rescuer asked what was happening? for 14 hours?

I think you are the one that is hallucinating.

Oh for crying out oud. These guys literally faced death in the face. Do you really think they would even begin to be experts into the cause of the accident. She-eesh.

Rolf Sörman, first-hand eyewitness survivor says:

Rolf Soerman, a Swedish survivor, said he saw from the life raft a large dark spot on the bow of the sinking ship. "It seemed to me to be a hole," he said.

Soerman said the investigating commission falsified and partly discarded his evidence.

"My evidence was classified as a state secret, so that I myself had no longer access to it," he said. "I'm not 100 percent convinced it was a hole I saw, as it was very dark, but I'm sure it was much darker than the rest of the hull and to my mind it looked like a hole."

Baltic Times

How could any responsible person know as of Day One the cause of the accident before (a) the ship was even located or (b) there had even been an initial investigation.

 

[Vixen]

And yet you claimed that Meek “thought a mine was a genuine possibility”. What was your source for this opinion?




Then why did you base your claim on the headline?

ETA: …and by the way, what you posted there in no way supports your claim that posters here have cast aspersions on Meek’s journalism or intelligence. The only person who has suggested that what is in the story is Meek’s opinion is you.

Awfully sorry but I am on a chat forum and not writing a peer-reviewed paper, so I don't need to answer to quibbles over petty semantics. Stop feigning ignorance as to what was meant. You'll be combing for typos and grammatical errors next. You are desperate.