US warship 'opens fire in Suez' Breaking News

The thing that gets me is that this occurs just a few months after our own air force accidentally flew live nuclear warheads on a B-52 over our country. Then I find out today that sometime in 2006 the head of a minuteman missile was sent to Taiwan on accident (without nukes of coarse). What the hell is also going on that we don't know about. This is just the stuff that has been made public. Why we would be doing such things is really of great importance to the average citizen because this is our military. It sounded clear to me today on Fox News that these were all accidents/mistakes/errors that noone caught before the blunder was made. God forbid we fly a nuclear warhead over a foreign country and actually pull the trigger. That's almost the only thing that hasn't happened yet.

If anyone is questioning the competence of the U.S. military it is the U.S. military itself. But the problem is the timing. This occurs while we are still militarily committed to Iraq and Afghanistan. And let's not forget that we still have troops pretty much everywhere else.. (Korea, Japan, UK, Europe in general, just to name a few).

It almost seems like the military is slipping in general. I don't think anyone could possibly say for sure why other than we have been in Iraq for 5 years and also have other worldwide military commitments. Maybe this is related to that, maybe it isn't. Our military has definately been making the news ALOT lately and not in a positive light. I don't think I've seen this much negative press in a long time. Perhaps that's because in the pass it was suppressed before it got to the media. So, I don't think anyone truly knows the full extent to which these "errors" have taken place. Not just now but in the past as well.

It is definately of great importance to me and I think we should all keep a close eye on the news to see what comes of these stories and whatever else that is going on out there that we haven't heard about yet.

-ChriS

[edit on 26-3-2008 by BlasteR]

reply to post by lonewolf37


black ops,huh? doesn't anyone on here know someone in the navy? when you are underway,and not at sea,every,and i mean every boat that comes within sight is evaluated. when they go underway,even in the chesapeake bay,when they are leaving port, the 50's are up and armed. they have spotters on the deck that call the distance and direction of the boats in the vicinity. approach the ship and you will be warned off,don't listen, and you won't enjoy your fishing day. this is because of the USS COLE.
So its not so unbelieveable to imagine that in that confined space,they were paranoid.
also ,there was navy equiptment on that ship, so you know that there were navy personell on that ship,and even though it was leased,it was under naval control. do you thnk they're just gonna put patriot missles and god knows what and wait for them to be delivered? this eqiuptment is guarded. how could you possibly think its not? LET ME TELL YA,THE US NAVY IS VERRRRRRY PROTECTIVE ABOUT THEIR WEAPONS.
not only these facts, but you'd have to be pretty stupid to approach a ship in the dark, give the political climate in this part of thr world.
don't forget ,this is close to where the USS COLE got hit
you know they consider the cole attack a major vulnerability,if the navy boot camp in great lakes,il, built a mockup of the cole that everyone goes thru to graduate. its called battle stations ,and the attack and rescue are simulated. so this one is kind of a no brainer

[edit on 26-3-2008 by Spectre0o0]

Originally posted by Zaphod58

Yah, you're absolutely right. They're just lying their butts off because it's the military and they always cover things up.

There's no such thing as confusion in the media.

Zaphod58.

Either I didn't convey my thoughts properly or you are being very selective in your reading.

I thought I made it quite clear that I was saying there is always confusion and emotions during an investigation when it's a homicide case.

What I meant was, the extent of and the frequency of, the variations and inconsistencies of these articles, and what's being said from official spokesman, made this event abnormal, even for a homicide case. The fact the US Military was denying people even got shot, while Egyptian authorities were giving names, head counts, family history, etc. Highly suspect, and suggestive of conspiracy.

ooops

[edit on 26-3-2008 by dgtempe]

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


No, it really doesn't unless you want to see one. You have people on a ship 50+ feet in the air, in limited visibility conditions, shooting warning shots at a small boat. Have you ever been on a large ship and looked down from it? Even when it's bright out the people look pretty small down there. You're also talking people that aren't highly trained marksmen (the naval security squad). As I have said a couple of times, their report to the military probably said they DID NOT HIT HIM, because they didn't realize that they did. The military is going to go by the report they got from military sources.

Originally posted by Zaphod58

No, it really doesn't unless you want to see one. You have people on a ship 50+ feet in the air, in limited visibility conditions, shooting warning shots at a small boat. Have you ever been on a large ship and looked down from it? Even when it's bright out the people look pretty small down there. You're also talking people that aren't highly trained marksmen (the naval security squad). As I have said a couple of times, their report to the military probably said they DID NOT HIT HIM, because they didn't realize that they did. The military is going to go by the report they got from military sources.

Alright, that made alot more sense to me. Guess I just needed the paraphrasing.

For the sake of the arguement, since I wasn't there, and your logic is pretty sound about the visibility to me, I am going to agree with you and say they probably didn't know, and so it wasn't reported that they shot anyone.

Zaphod, after they stopped the egyptian boat, what would have been the very next steps for them? Wouldn't they have shortly thereafter discovered they had shot them??..

Or would they have just continued on after the boat stopped without further investigation? That would seem very out of place to me? What am I missing here?

It appears now that they're acknowledging that an Egyptian was killed by a warning shot. Hmm... I thought they said all the shots had been accounted for..

Source

US admits to Suez canal killing

The ship was reportedly carrying used military equipment
US officials have said an Egyptian was killed when a ship contracted to the US navy fired warning shots at approaching boats in the Suez Canal on Monday.
US officials had previously maintained that there were no casualties.

Mohammed Fouad was buried on Tuesday amid expressions of anger against the Egyptian government and the US.

A US embassy statement issued on Wednesday said: "It appears that an Egyptian in the boat was killed by one of the warning shots."

If anyone is interested, here's a picture of the man who was killed.


[edit on 3/26/08 by LLoyd45]

Originally posted by Zaphod58

No, it really doesn't unless you want to see one. You have people on a ship 50+ feet in the air, in limited visibility conditions, .

While it may be 50 feet to the bridge I doubt the Navy security team was shooting from there. I would guess they were on the bow or possibly the sides. Height above the water would be much less from there. Maybe around 20-25 feet. It was also after sunset so no telling how much light there was. It's possible they didn't know any of their shots hit the boat. I also haven't seen how far away from the ship the small boat was. If it was a couple of hundred yards height above water wouldn't make that much difference to the angle they fired at anyway.

It's never good when a man looses his life. Specialy due to a misunderstanding. I will have him and his family in my prairs tonight as I cant imagine the pain they are going thru.

reply to post by LLoyd45


Wow, thank you for the updated news and picture. I have took your link and actually put the picture up here. Cause sometimes links go dead and it won't here. This information all came from your link.

An undated hand out photo of slain Mohammed Fouad, 27 provided by his family who claims that he was shot and killed by an American cargo ship passing the Suez Canal, Egypt, Tuesday, March 25, 2008

link

reply to post by Shar
No problem Shar, and thanks for taking the time to resize and post the picture for everyone.

It's like they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Now we know this man was a living breathing person just like us, and that he loved, and was loved by others the same as we are. Most of the time casualties of war remain faceless entities that are easily forgotten.

Originally posted by dismanrc
reply to post by deltaboy

 

As for the shooting? Maybe this crew has never been in the Gulf before and was a little trigger happy and/or worried. Then this boat comes tearing towards them with guys waving stuff. The newbie gets scared and starts shooting. Blame it on the press and all the hype they feed everybody.

One person shoots then other people start shooting. That's called synchronous fire. Also known as contagious fire, and mass reflexive response.

Read here: Officer-Involved Shootings

Was Blackwater aboard the Patriot? I don't know. Or maybe not Blackwater but another private security contractor. There's dozens of them out there--Blackwater isn't the only one.

And now I'm no expert here but could somebody tell me exactly what kind of weapons were used in the shooting? I'm just curious. Semi-auto AR15s maybe? (Now if the weapons used aboard the ship were assault weapons then most likely it was a PMC on board.)

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Zaphod, after they stopped the egyptian boat, what would have been the very next steps for them? Wouldn't they have shortly thereafter discovered they had shot them??..

Or would they have just continued on after the boat stopped without further investigation? That would seem very out of place to me? What am I missing here?

If they felt there were explosives on board the boat that they just shot most likely they wouldn't want to bother with checking and just move on. If I'm wrong, somebody can correct me.

[edit on 3/26/08 by Marked One]

Originally posted by Marked One


Was Blackwater aboard the Patriot? I don't know. Or maybe not Blackwater but another private security contractor. There's dozens of them out there--Blackwater isn't the only one.

And now I'm no expert here but could somebody tell me exactly what kind of weapons were used in the shooting? I'm just curious. Semi-auto AR15s maybe? (Now if the weapons used aboard the ship were assault weapons then most likely it was a PMC on board.)

Several of the articles have said it was Navy personnel who did the firing. With actual Navy onboard I doubt Blackwater would be there too.

The Navy has also changed back to claiming no one was hit by fire from the Global Patriot. After more reports from the sailors onboard the ship it was revealed the sailors were firing tracers some 20-30 meters in front of the Egyptian boat. Firing tracers let them see exactly where their rounds were going. I still don't know what the weapon was. My guess would be an M-16 or variant or M-249 machine gun. Even firing tracers they don't load them for every round and a ricochet can head in almost any direction especially if it hit something in the water.

Oh well. Now that you say Naval men. I'm sorry I didn't notice. I just sort of skimmed through the articles. I was in a hurry at the time I read them.

Now tracers have different ballistic characteristics than normal rounds don't they? (By which I mean they travel a bit differently.) Or is there not much difference?

Originally posted by Marked One
Now tracers have different ballistic characteristics than normal rounds don't they? (By which I mean they travel a bit differently.) Or is there not much difference?

Different ballistics would defeat their purpose. Tracers are used in machine guns to show where the rounds are going. Tracers are usually loaded every fourth to every sixth round so the majority of the bullets leaving the gun are standard rounds. The tracers need to impact in the same spot the other rounds are landing for them to be an effective aiming aid.

If anything the Egyptians should secure their waterway. Being as it cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single cargo vessel to pass through it you would think they would prohibit unauthorized boats from entering.

Ya, who's responsibility is it to secure this area?

On Ft.Riley, we had a Russian general visiting once, every single soldier was warned to stay away from certin areas of the base, as MP's would be locked and loaded in full combat load-outs (M-16's and M-9's rounds chambered). Any soldier approaching these areas would be liable to be shot.

Would it have been the russian's fault if I ran twoards the general with a camera in hand, and got put down by an MP?

Who should have been keeping this boat at bay knowing what would happen? Are Americans responsible for every canal's and port's security in the hole world?

OR, are we just responsible for making sure OUR people are ok? I know the concepts of freedom are hard to grasp sometimes, they aren't always logical on the surface either.

Originally posted by BlasteR
Our military has definately been making the news ALOT lately and not in a positive light. I don't think I've seen this much negative press in a long time.
[edit on 26-3-2008 by BlasteR]

Its an election year and the "media" hates the military as do most liberal demoncrates. The big mistake here is that they let anyone live through this at all. If a boat gets close enough to get shot, it should have been destroyed..........completely.

Originally posted by heliosprime
The big mistake here is that they let anyone live through this at all. If a boat gets close enough to get shot, it should have been destroyed..........completely.

Yeah you're right. Once they discovered they had indeed killed a cigarette trader, they should have proceeded to destroy all the adjacent salesman and fisherman.

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy

Originally posted by heliosprime
The big mistake here is that they let anyone live through this at all. If a boat gets close enough to get shot, it should have been destroyed..........completely.

Yeah you're right. Once they discovered they had indeed killed a cigarette trader, they should have proceeded to destroy all the adjacent salesman and fisherman.

Didn't think of that......good point........they should have cleaned up the area.........they should have taken out any boat withing range........