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Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part V

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Vixen said:
Bollyn has nothing to do with it.
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Then give us another source for the argument that if Sweden did it once, they would do it again. That's the argument you made, which happens to coincide with Bollyn's. Both of you relied upon misrepresenting Sweden's actions as having "disappeared" the men.

"Sweden stated their belief that the men would receive the protection of Egyptian law, based on assurances of the government."

This doesn't really ring true. 'They would say that, wouldn't they?'
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Yes, they would. I'm not defending Sweden's actions from a moral or political standpoint—or really at all. My claim is that by making this statement (true or not), Sweden avoids the intent requirement of the law you say they broke that forbids enforced disappearance. A court later found that it was negligent of them to have relied upon that assurance. That still doesn't create intent.

However, the acid test is that they did not allow the men's lawyers to argue their case which proves they did skip protocol.
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No one disputes that Sweden denied the men due process in their asylum claim, and there was a judgment to that effect in an international court. The Rome statute doesn't specify which laws or for what purpose. If Sweden's intent was to deny the men the protection of laws, then sending them to a place where a successful legal challenge could be mounted against Sweden makes no sense.

Yes, there should be a reckoning any time a state actor deprives a person of any of his legal rights. That doesn't make every such action an enforced disappearance.
 
Vixen said:
I would say they effectively are...
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No, that's not how laws work.

As I've said many times, if you want to believe informally that Sweden's actions amounted to an enforced disappearance, you're welcome to that belief. If you want to argue that Sweden's behavior was morally and politically questionable, there are probably plenty of people here who would agree with you. If you want to argue that Sweden's actions were unlawful on other grounds, you'll see that a court agreed.

But if your claim is specifically that Sweden violated the Rome statute on enforced disappearance, then you have to respect the letter of that law. You can't wave your hands and tell us they "effectively" did.
 
Vixen said:
How do you know the victim support groups and the German shipbuilders are 'spreading wild conspiracy theories'?
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The German shipbuilders are trying to defend their reputation by fogging up the conclusions of the independent investigation. This happens all the time in the aftermath of accident investigations. You would know this if you had the appropriate experience.

Victims and survivors are notoriously susceptible to conspiracy theorists. Not that they themselves formulate and spread them. But they seem motivated to believe that the loss of their loved ones should have more sinister causes than simple shoddy construction or poor seamanship. They want someone to be guilty, not just negligent. Therefore they entertain theories to that effect with less skepticism and more sympathy.

For example, Scott Grissom—son of the unfortunate Gus Grissom—went on a years-long crusade trying to show that his father's death in the Apollo 1 accident was a deliberate act of sabotage. He even got his mother to go along with it. It was pure conspiracy-theory nonsense. I helped with the forensic analysis of the relevant spacecraft parts that debunked Scott's claims. Scott is otherwise an intelligent, skilled, and accomplished human being.

Given...
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Gish gallop again.

Just because certain persons think it a huge joke, it doesn't make it so.
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Straw man. No one thinks this is funny. But the conspiracy theories you've espoused are full of lies and absurdities. That you personally can't or won't face them doesn't make them plausible or you smart.
 
Vixen said:
I would say they effectively are ...
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Well, yes you would say that, wouldn't you? You really wish it was true that Sweden disappeared those two men so you can claim it's something Sweden does, in support of your potty conspiracy theory about Sweden secretly rescuing but then abducting and disappearing a group of officers from the Estonia.

It's silly nonsense. Pretending Sweden disappeared those other two men does not make it look any less nutty. Just more desperate.
 
Vixen said:
I am out.
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Or rather, you've been backed into the same corner over the same claims as in the last several hundred pages, so you're going to run away and come back when you can try it all over again and pretend you're smarter than everyone else.

If anyone is interested in how this whole affair has come about...
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Everyone in this thread is interested to some extent. Some such as me have a professional interest in the accident and its investigation. Others have expressed that they're here to learn and to ask honest questions. Still others merely like watching and participating in debate.

The nature of your interest seems to be the problem. Your advocacy seems more aimed at satisfying your ego rather than following the evidence and learning how to interpret it usefully.

I can recommend Jutta Rabe's 'Baltic Storm' film (I think it is on youtube) and seems to fit the facts extraordinarily well IMV. Also the book by Drew Wilson, 'The Hole' gives the facts from all sides, together with a bibliography of sources.
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The reliability of these sources has been discussed at length already. I doubt that you're in a position to determine whether these sources have reported the facts accurately, fairly, and honestly. You don't have a good track record of choosing good sources.
 
Mojo said:
I'm not accusing the victim support groups or shipbuilders of spreading conspiracy theories. As usual, you are trying to deflect criticism your position onto the victims.
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I have no problem accusing large engineering companies of muddying the waters in the wake of an investigation that finds them at fault. It's part of the politics of that industry. Even the best-drawn conclusions in a forensic engineering investigation have some uncertainty. A company would be remiss in not reminding people of this and thereby defending the interests of its owners. But there's always the temptation to allege more murk in an investigation than there actually is. A partisan response to an independent or official investigation should always be taken with a big grain of salt. Its motive is always to spin the findings to the company's advantage.

Victims and survivors are a different story. When they fall additionally victim to conspiracy theories, I have the utmost sympathy for them. In another thread we talked about the nominal plaintiffs in yet another frivolous lawsuit over the TWA 800 crash, brought by one of its principal conspiracy theorists. This is reprehensible. Vixen wants to frame these things as powerful interests being held to account for imagined culpability; these survivors should be grateful for what these "independent investigators" are doing on their behalf. But that's not really what's happening. Conspiracy theorists behave more like vultures, prolonging the grief for their own ends and holding out false hope that there will be a dramatic vindication.
 
JayUtah said:
Everyone in this thread is interested to some extent. Some such as me have a professional interest in the accident and its investigation. Others have expressed that they're here to learn and to ask honest questions. Still others merely like watching and participating in debate.

The nature of your interest seems to be the problem. Your advocacy seems more aimed at satisfying your ego rather than following the evidence and learning how to interpret it usefully.
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It seems to me that, as with many long-running threads in this subforum, most readers and a substantial fraction of participants are less interested in the ostensible topic of the thread than in its exemplary documentation of the lengths to which some people will go to support their delusion and ego.

After all, the essential facts of this matter can be (and have been!) summarized by a short paragraph that would tell most readers everything they care to know about it.
 
Vixen said:
It is troubling, the missing Estonian senior crew. This is because they were initially listed as survivors.
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Weird. Almost as if a complex rescue and recovery operation had been underway, and there was a significant level of confusion.

If you really want to have fun, look at footage from every major disaster event recorded on film or video after 1977, and you can find a guy who looks (sort of) like Elvis. One of two things is true: Elvis is at/behind every major disaster since 1977, or people's brains can play tricks on them. I'll save you some time, people's brains play tricks.

The senior crew is still on the ship.

It is difficult to see how they could be listed as survivors and then suddenly have their names removed a day or so later. Sure, one or two likely drowned or suffered hypothermia, but ALL of them?
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It's almost as if the ship suddenly began to roll over in dramatic fashion. Again, your new nemesis - gravity - would have come into play. Even if you removed furniture, and panicking passengers/crew from the equation, I imaging getting from Point-A to Point-B would have been a struggle which worsened with every second. The flooding compounded things, and only a fool under estimates hypothermia (speaking as a fool who has under estimated hypothermia twice).

Just because someone put names on a list doesn't mean those people actually survived. Where is this list now?
 
Axxman300 said:
Weird. Almost as if a complex rescue and recovery operation had been underway, and there was a significant level of confusion.

If you really want to have fun, look at footage from every major disaster event recorded on film or video after 1977, and you can find a guy who looks (sort of) like Elvis. One of two things is true: Elvis is at/behind every major disaster since 1977, or people's brains can play tricks on them. I'll save you some time, people's brains play tricks.

The senior crew is still on the ship.



It's almost as if the ship suddenly began to roll over in dramatic fashion. Again, your new nemesis - gravity - would have come into play. Even if you removed furniture, and panicking passengers/crew from the equation, I imaging getting from Point-A to Point-B would have been a struggle which worsened with every second. The flooding compounded things, and only a fool under estimates hypothermia (speaking as a fool who has under estimated hypothermia twice).

Just because someone put names on a list doesn't mean those people actually survived. Where is this list now?
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Vixen has it.
 
Axxman300 said:
Even if you removed furniture, and panicking passengers/crew from the equation, I imaging getting from Point-A to Point-B would have been a struggle which worsened with every second.
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Generally, any deck angle greater than 20° defeats ordinary locomotion. You shift into a different kind of movement that's slower and more awkward.
 
Uh huh Vixen, it's pretty obvious what you're doing even if you assume everyone else here is too stupid to see it. Here's a hint for you, the people in this thread aren't idiots.

Well, most of us...
 
Axxman300 said:
The flooding compounded things, and only a fool under estimates hypothermia (speaking as a fool who has under estimated hypothermia twice).
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That's some potentially very expensive experience! Congratulations for surviving to put it to use.
 
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