USS Theodore Roosevelt Controversy

[Abdülmecid I]

Two weeks ago, several sailors aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt, a US nuclear powered aircraft carrier crossing the Pacific Ocean, were tested positive for the Corona virus. The ship was ordered back to the naval base of Guam, where approximately 100 affected crew members were evacuated, but the rest remained confined in the ship. Maintaining a safe distance and respecting the necessary hygiene rules in such a confined and densely manned space is practically impossible, so the the potentially deadly disease was guaranteed to spread out. As a result, her captain, Brett Crozier, sent a lengthy email to several officers of the American naval command, asking for more effective measures to protect the crew of the carrier from the epidemic, as he justifiably viewed the limited evacuation as an extremely insufficient measure.

Not very surprisingly, his letter was leaked to the press from an unknown source, which generated a small controversy. The Department of the Navy promptly dismissed the captain from his position, but the situation would deteriorate further, from a public relations perspective. Brett Crozier was cheered by his former crew, while the Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, used very harsh words to describe his conduct. He implicitly called him stupid and naïve, while he also compared his appeal to an act of betrayal. When criticised, Modly initially insisted on the accuracy of his scathing remarks, but he subsequently reversed his stance, issuing a formal apology.



In my opinion, the incident would normally be a relatively minor affair, but it was handled in such an amateurish manner by its protagonists, especially the Secretary of the Navy, that it actually evolved into an embarrassing scandal. Crozier should have been more careful about the confidentiality of his communication, but the unnecessarily inflammatory comments of Modly simply added fuel to the fire. His self-contradictory statements probably indicate that he does not really excel at appropriately handling sensitive cases, where the public image of the administration is at stake.

In fact, the leadership blamed Crozier for threatening the interests of the US fleet in the region, as the San Francisco Chronicle article would have revealed to the nefarious opponents of America the fact that a US carrier was temporarily out of action, but I doubt that this was why Crozier was punished as a scapegoat for a leak, whose original instigator cannot possibly be detected. Actually, even Modly himself admitted he was mainly preoccupied with the negative impact the ''martyrdom'' of Crozier would have on the popularity of the government in Washington. Well now it's safe to assume that Modly's sloppy vengeance managed to cause an even greater headache for himself and his superiors than Crozier's leaked emails.

[B. W.]

Two weeks ago, several sailors aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt, a US nuclear powered aircraft carrier crossing the Pacific Ocean, were tested positive for the Corona virus. The ship was ordered back to the naval base of Guam, where approximately 100 affected crew members were evacuated, but the rest remained confined in the ship. Maintaining a safe distance and respecting the necessary hygiene rules in such a confined and densely manned space is practically impossible, so the the potentially deadly disease was guaranteed to spread out. As a result, her captain, Brett Crozier, sent a lengthy email to several officers of the American naval command, asking for more effective measures to protect the crew of the carrier from the epidemic, as he justifiably viewed the limited evacuation as an extremely insufficient measure.

Not very surprisingly, his letter was leaked to the press from an unknown source, which generated a small controversy. The Department of the Navy promptly dismissed the captain from his position, but the situation would deteriorate further, from a public relations perspective. Brett Crozier was cheered by his former crew, while the Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, used very harsh words to describe his conduct. He implicitly called him stupid and naïve, while he also compared his appeal to an act of betrayal. When criticised, Modly initially insisted on the accuracy of his scathing remarks, but he subsequently reversed his stance, issuing a formal apology.



In my opinion, the incident would normally be a relatively minor affair, but it was handled in such an amateurish manner by its protagonists, especially the Secretary of the Navy, that it actually evolved into an embarrassing scandal. Crozier should have been more careful about the confidentiality of his communication, but the unnecessarily inflammatory comments of Modly simply added fuel to the fire. His self-contradictory statements probably indicate that he does not really excel at appropriately handling sensitive cases, where the public image of the administration is at stake.

In fact, the leadership blamed Crozier for threatening the interests of the US fleet in the region, as the San Francisco Chronicle article would have revealed to the nefarious opponents of America the fact that a US carrier was temporarily out of action, but I doubt that this was why Crozier was punished as a scapegoat for a leak, whose original instigator cannot possibly be detected. Actually, even Modly himself admitted he was mainly preoccupied with the negative impact the ''martyrdom'' of Crozier would have on the popularity of the government in Washington. Well now it's safe to assume that Modly's sloppy vengeance managed to cause an even greater headache for himself and his superiors than Crozier's leaked emails.

The Admiral in charge of the task force was quartered only a few feet from the captain's quarters and the captain never informed the Admiral of what he was doing. This is problematic in the extreme. If there was an issue, he should have went to his immediate superior, but he didn't. He cc'd the letter to over twenty people and a small newspaper. In doing all this he revealed that a major part of America's response element was out of action should China try to move on Taiwan.

The good captain should have been sacked.

[Gaidin]

Modly was within his rights to remove him from command insofar as that goes. But he should've kept his mouth shut and let the investigation go forth instead kicking a dust cloud up. Now to get anything resembling unbiased even with his resignation they have to kick it off to another branch and let it start over from scratch.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Cue the abject apology:

"Let me be clear, I do not think Captain Brett Crozier is naïve nor stupid. I think, and always believed him to be the opposite," Modly said in his statement. "We pick our carrier commanding officers with great care. Captain Crozier is smart and passionate. I believe, precisely because he is not naive and stupid, that he sent his alarming email with the intention of getting it into the public domain in an effort to draw public attention to the situation on his ship. I apologize for any confusion this choice of words may have caused."

Modly also apologized directly to Crozier for "any pain my remarks may have caused."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/polit...dly/index.html

Sad this has been so heavily politicized already as a result of the toxic environment.

[Gaidin]

Cue the abject apology:

Sad this has been so heavily politicized already as a result of the toxic environment.

Well. Let's be honest. Using Fox as the guiding star for your military speeches is probably not a good idea.

[Heathen Hammer]

Apparently the guy who dismissed him himself resigned.

[Cyclops]

The US has always been comfortable transitioning war heroes and military officers into political leaders (a big no no in the Great British Tradition since Oliver somebody lost his or someone else's head) so its possible this guy is prepositioning himself for a senate run. That said the present US administration seems to be having trouble recruiting competent senior officials to run even the most fundamentally important departments and there's been only the most sluggish response to urgent issues around the plague.

As usual a sacking is followed by a blather of contradictions. Cue the usual apologists attempting to parse this into something other than a clusterTrump, while the Donkey Party tries to recruit the captain to pull their own corrupt wagon.

[Gaidin]

while the Donkey Party tries to recruit the captain to pull their own corrupt wagon.

Pretty sure you don't have to worry about this yet. He's hardly out of the Navy to be recruited into politics yet.

[Cope]

The US has always been comfortable transitioning war heroes and military officers into political leaders (a big no no in the Great British Tradition since Oliver somebody lost his or someone else's head)

You wot m8?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Heathen Hammer]

The US has always been comfortable transitioning war heroes and military officers into political leaders (a big no no in the Great British Tradition since Oliver somebody lost his or someone else's head) so its possible this guy is prepositioning himself for a senate run.

In general this is not a bad thing, otherwise you get a society ruled by cowards and guarded by fools. Of course that's not guaranteeing that military officer would be a good politician, but making this a "big no no" is just a sign of degeneration of society that makes it a "great tradition".
In this particular case, I'm pretty sure he just wanted to attract as much attention as possible not to himself, but to situation overall.