Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part III

[LondonJohn]

Given all the mistakes that Vixen makes, I'm not sure why folks are disputing this. The Director of Central Intelligence is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the President. The Director is a political appointee who comes and goes. Obama had 6. Trump had 3. The history of the CIA is the replete with political interference in the CIA.

But even though the appointment is in the gift of the President (aren't there Senate confirmation hearings though?), I don't think any CIA Director would - in theory at least - ever take unilateral operational orders from the President. When it came to something like the Bin Laden seek-and-capture-destroy operation for example, there was a clear bilateral process: the CIA (and the military) advised the executive and presented options, and the executive decided - based on that advice - what to do. Obama didn't simply call CIA and Pentagon officials into his office one day and say "I hear on the q.t. that Bin Laden is living in this weird house in Pakistan - I've decided that I want you guys to go in there and capture or kill him, mmmkay?"

I guess it's pretty much the same as appointees to SCOTUS: when a vacancy arises, the President of the day has the power (subject, again, to Senate confirmation) to appoint whoever he/she wishes. And it stands to reason that the President of the day will wish to pick someone who is broadly aligned with his/her own politics and policy aims. But once the appointee takes up the position, there's never any question that he/she would ever act simply in craven support of the President.

(Though I guess there is one significant difference between the two: a sitting President can of course remove (either directly or indirectly) a CIA Director who "displeases" him/her, whereas that's not an option which is available when it comes to Supreme Court appointees. But I think the underlying principle still holds pretty well.)

 

[Andy_Ross]

Citation please of where I claimed it did. The scope of Hamburg University was to examine the various nuts and bolts of the bow visor.


When did you start thinking it had been tasked with discovering sabotage?


Perhaps take a reality check as to what a university laboratory does.

You are the one that brought up the Hamburg University study.

It concludes that fatigue and corrosion resulted in the visor separating in the storm. That is exactly what the JAIC says.

Despite this you keep claiming sabotage.
If you think it was sabotage, why did you bring up the university study?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The JAIC claims it.

Where?

 

[Vixen]

Oh damn, my misunderstanding. And my apologies to Vixen on this specific matter of the side locks.

But no apologies on the much more germane fact which is that the Hamburg Uni report suggests that the initial failure was in the hinges at the top edge of the bow visor.


(Incidentally, that Hamburg Uni report was produced back in 1996 - under instruction from the shipyard, of course..... But upon what primary data and/or physical evidence would/could this sort of unofficial report have been based?)

<faints> Your gracious apology is accepted.

I always understood university academic scientists as having pride in taking due care and diligence in scientific analysis, with an ethical duty to be objective. The professional code of ethics means that one's first loyalty is to one's professional body and you must not let anyone, not even a paying client or an employer induce you or coerce you into being non-objective. There is no reason at all to suspect they fiddled the result. That is tantamount to calling Hoffmeister of Hamburg University 'bent'.

 

[The Man]

It would make more sense for one of the divers to have been given specific instructions to find the case before the dive.
That way there would be no mention of it in the comms and the other members of the team wouldn't even need to know about it.

Vixen hasn't seen Where Eagles Dare.

(Yes, I know WED wasn't about divers)

Well, there was skydiving. Though, the only dives they did (in the sky) was the pin drop.

 

[Andy_Ross]

0hr 35'

During his scheduled round on the car deck the seaman of the watch heard shortly before 0100 hrs a metallic bang from the bow area as the vessel hit a heavy wave.

Further observations of unusual noise, starting at about 0105 hrs, were made during the following 10 minutes by many passengers and some crew members who were off duty in their cabins.

At about 0115 hrs the visor separated from the bow and tilted over the stem. The ramp was pulled fully open, allowing large amounts of water to enter the car deck. Very rapidly the ship took on a heavy starboard list. She was turned to port and slowed down.

At about 0120 hrs a weak female voice called “Häire, häire, laeval on häire” the Estonian words for “Alarm, alarm, there is alarm on the ship”, over the public address system. Just a moment later an internal alarm for the crew was transmitted over the public address system. Soon after this the general lifeboat alarm was given.

During the final stage of flooding the list was more than 90 degrees. The ship sank rapidly, stern first, and disappeared from the radar screens of ships in the area at about 0150 hrs

That is more than 35 minutes.

 

[Andy_Ross]

How does Hamburg University describing a different scenario from JAIC equate to 'supporting a claim for sabotage'?

Stop reaching.

So why did you introduce the Hamburg report in to the thread when it confirms the JAIC report, that fatigue and corrosion resulted in the visor separating?

Why are you claiming sabotage when both the JAIC and the university say it wasn't?

 

[LondonJohn]

Citation please of where I claimed it did. The scope of Hamburg University was to examine the various nuts and bolts of the bow visor.


When did you start thinking it had been tasked with discovering sabotage?


Perhaps take a reality check as to what a university laboratory does.

No. You still don't understand what's being said here.

What's being said is this:

1) You're claiming sabotage (as one of many CTs);

2) You're presenting evidence which is (supposedly) in support of your claims;

3) None of your "supporting" evidence in any way implies or requires sabotage;

THEREFORE

4) What, precisely, is informing your claims of sabotage?


Hope that makes things clearer for you. Probably not though, if history is any indicator.....

 

[Vixen]

If you are confused about why this your arguments are considered conspiracy theories, your treatment of this report is a good illustration.

One classic conspiracy theory inference chain goes like this:

1. Someone disagrees with the official report.
2. Therefore, the official report is wrong.
3. Therefore, the official report is a deliberate lie and a cover-up.
4. Therefore, the official report is part of a larger conspiracy.
5. Therefore, my specific conspiracy claims are true.

A conspiracy theorist generally won't spell out their reasoning, simply jumping from 1 to 5, but connecting 1 to 5 requires the whole chain. Notice that while 3 to 4 is not terrible, the inferences from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 4 to 5, are invalid, obviously fallacious.

For 1 to 2: If X disagrees with the official report, X might be wrong. Conspiracy theorists just fallaciously conclude it is always the official report that is wrong.

For 2 to 3: An official report, even if it is wrong, might have either made an honest mistake or had incomplete or misleading information. Conspiracy theorists treat this as impossible and conclude that all errors are deliberate cover-ups.

From 4 to 5: Even if there is a conspiracy and a cover-up, that doesn't mean everything a conspiracy theorist claims is true, especially since conspiracy theorists usually support several mutually contradictory theories at once.

Your treatment of the report fits this pattern perfectly. Hoffmeister concluded that the bow visor suffered from pre-existing damage to most of its connections due to fatigue over years and that because of this damage, those connections failed during the storm and the bow visor broke free. All of this agrees with the JAIC report. It all suggests a lack of sabotage, bombs, submarine collisions, melting by radioactive material, or opening mid-voyage.

The only disagreement with JAIC is the less significant conclusion about the most probable order in which the connections broke. From my understanding, modelling something like this accurately would be difficult in the first place, so you would expect different models to give slightly different results. This is so far from supporting any claim of misconduct or conspiracy it is hilarious.

And this conspiracy theorist reasoning shows up in several other arguments in the thread. You claim as proof of your conclusions:

• Each instance where the JAIC did not include every single word of a witness in their final report--even when the JAIC conclusions are consistent with what the witnesses said;
• Each random ship captain who says they are kinda suspicious--regardless of the basis of their suspicions;
• Each news report that reports details differently.

It is bad reasoning, but more specifically, it is conspiracy theorist reasoning.

I have not claimed Hoffmeister's report claims anything other than what he has claimed it contains.

As I informed Mojo, you can read Hoffmeister's first few paragraphs for yourself which will tell you exactly what the scope of the report is. It is perfectly transparent.

You can read it for yourself, here.

 

[Andy_Ross]

<faints> Your gracious apology is accepted.

I always understood university academic scientists as having pride in taking due care and diligence in scientific analysis, with an ethical duty to be objective. The professional code of ethics means that one's first loyalty is to one's professional body and you must not let anyone, not even a paying client or an employer induce you or coerce you into being non-objective. There is no reason at all to suspect they fiddled the result. That is tantamount to calling Hoffmeister of Hamburg University 'bent'.

They concluded that fatigue and corrosion caused the separation of the visor.
that is the same conclusion as the JAIC report.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Well, there was skydiving. Though, the only dives they did (in the sky) was the pin drop.

True but different members of the team apart from Clint who was there because he was 'outside the loop' were working under different sets of verbal orders that the other members weren't aware of.

 

[Vixen]

It was obviously enough water to make him get the hell out of the engine room, and topside ASAP.

The man isn't alive by accident.

One chuckle the Oceanos incident gave me was that the Captain and his crew were first off the ship.


As Treu, Sillaste, Limde and Kadak were all in the same life raft together in warm clothing - Treu even had his passport - and survival suits, Linde even as Tammes was sending his desperate Mayday call, I think we can dispense with the myth the crew hung around to help the passengers, although Piht was seen helping people onto a life raft.

 

[LondonJohn]

0hr 35'

Then why did you write 35"...?

 

[Vixen]

Yes, a narrative supported by analysis that leads to a logical conclusion. None of what you've presented leads to a narrative.

You have an amorphous collection of factoids, many of which are mutually exclusive or flat-ass wrong, that you endlessly gallop between. But the goal of a conspiracy theory isn't to reach a conclusion, is it? The goal is to prolong the discussion and thereby give the impression of a controversy where none exists.

Plenty of people have brought forward evidence of possible sabotage.

Were I to produce live footage of the accident as it happened, that still wouldn't change the official JAIC report and the one people believe, because people only believe something when it is marked 'official'.

This is how totalitarian regimes work.

 

[LondonJohn]

How does Hamburg University describing a different scenario from JAIC equate to 'supporting a claim for sabotage'?

Stop reaching.

NO.

We're asking what supports your claim of sabotage??

 

[Vixen]

Okay, cool, post a link to that executive order stating that, by order of the President of the United States, the facts surrounding the Estonia's sinking must remain classified.

Then post a link to whichever treaty, or international case-law wherein the USA can tell any foreign country what to do, or the law that binds Sweden to comply with anything the US demands.

Otherwise you're confusing standard rules of secrecy with your delusional proclivities for conspiracy. There is an automatic 20 rule for secret, and top-secret information after which the information is reviewed. If elements of the secret are still current, the secrets remain secret. The US secrecy likely has something to do with our covert activity in the Balitc, which is ongoing.

In his book The Hole: Another Look at the Sinking of Estonia Ferry on September 28, 1994, investigative journalist Drew Wilson shows a photocopy of a letter sent to him by the NSA on January 20, 2004, in which the agency refused to provide information on three documents about Estonia because it could cause serious damage to national security.

 

[JayUtah]

Citation please of where I claimed it did. The scope of Hamburg University was to examine the various nuts and bolts of the bow visor.

We asked you what your evidence was for sabotage. You pointed us at this report.

Perhaps take a reality check as to what a university laboratory does.

And how many university engineering labs have you worked in? How many forensic engineering investigations have you participated in?

 

[LondonJohn]

The JAIC claims it.

Well firstly, where exactly does the JAIC Report claim this?

(Because when I read this post of yours, I went back to the report and did multiple searches for the relevant key words. Answer came there none.)


And once you can direct me to the right passage in the report (or in any other official JAIC material), we can then have a discussion about generalities vs specifics and so on.

 

[JayUtah]

In his book The Hole: Another Look at the Sinking of Estonia Ferry on September 28, 1994, investigative journalist Drew Wilson shows a photocopy of a letter sent to him by the NSA on January 20, 2004, in which the agency refused to provide information on three documents about Estonia because it could cause serious damage to national security.

And those are almost always not because what was discovered is earth shattering but because how it was discovered is a means the agency does not wish to disclose. Classic argument from ignorance. Wilson's expertise is in business and economics, which leads him to make errors when he is writing in a field he does not know.

 

[Vixen]

Oh, you need to stop.

In 1994, Clinton had been in office for two years, and a month later would be handed a crushing defeat in the form of the Republican Revolution that saw Congress overrun with the opposition party.

The President is not the head of the CIA, it's structure is insulated from the political appointees who come and go.

And no, Generals do not blindly follow the orders of the President of the United States.

From reading of recently deceased Colin Powell, my understanding is that he was a Republican appointed by Republican POTUS's. Maybe not directly as there is a chain of command.

In April 1989, after his tenure with the National Security Council, Powell was promoted to four-star general under President George H. W. Bush and briefly served as the Commander in Chief, Forces Command (FORSCOM), headquartered at Fort McPherson, Georgia, overseeing all Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard units in the Continental US, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. He became the third general since World War II to reach four-star rank without ever serving as a division commander,[46] joining Dwight D. Eisenhower and Alexander Haig.

Later that year, President George H. W. Bush selected him as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[56]

wiki

AFAICS a military chief is very much a political appointment in the USA. I concur I may be wrong on this but that is the impression given by these appointments.