Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Billion-dollar US nuclear sub comes off worst in Strait of Hormuz collision with ‘fishing boat’

RT | January 11, 2013

The USS Jacksonville, a large nuclear submarine, has broken its periscope after colliding with a vessel which escaped unscathed. This is the latest collision to involve a US vessel in the busy and tense oil choke point of the Strait of Hormuz.

The American sub was performing a routine pre-dawn patrol when seamen heard a “thump”, according to a Navy source who spoke to several news agencies. The crew tried to ascertain the damage by looking into its periscope, only to realize it was no longer working. The other periscope on the submarine revealed that the first one had been “sheared off”.

It appears the ‘fishing trawler’ that collided with the 7,000-tonne submarine was not only undamaged, but barely noticed the accident.

“The vessel continued on a consistent course and speed, offering no indication of distress or acknowledgement of a collision,” says an official statement published on the US Navy website.

Authorities insist that USS Jacksonville is in no immediate danger.

“The reactor remains in a safe condition, there was no damage to the propulsion plant systems and there is no concern regarding watertight integrity,” they said.

The cost of repairing the damaged periscope are as yet unclear, but the discontinued Los Angeles-class submarines, to which USS Jacksonville belongs, would cost over $1 billion to build in today’s money (the sub was launched in 1978).

USS Jacksonville has now returned to Bahrain, where its damage will be assessed.

The Strait of Hormuz, by far the world’s busiest oil choke point and less than 40km across at its narrowest, has been a scene of several collisions since tension has risen between Iran and the US over the past two years.

The latest spiral of tension in the waterway, which is controlled by Iran on the north side, and US allies Oman and the United Arab Emirates on south, started with the gradual imposition of sanctions on the export of Iranian oil to most Western countries over the last two years.

In response, Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait, which transits a third of the world’s sea-borne oil, through ‘asymmetrical’ measures such as laying extensive minefields.

To counter the threat, the US and its allies have deployed what UK media has reported is the biggest concentrated naval force since World War II.

In the crowded passageway, with distrustful captains from dozens of nations operating at cross-purposes, collisions are inevitable.

Most notably, in August last year a Japanese oil tanker left a 3-meter-wide hole in the side of Navy destroyer USS Porter.

January 11, 2013 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran war would devastate US economy: Brzezinski

Press TV – July 20, 2012

Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has warned that a US military confrontation with Iran could be devastating for the American economy.

“A war in the Middle East, in the present context, may last for years,” Brzezinski said in an interview with Newsmax.TV published on Wednesday.

“And the economic consequences of it (the war) are going to be devastating for the average American; High inflation, instability, insecurity,” he added.

He warned the US administration not to rush into a war with Iran and said, the consequences of yet another military strike in the Middle East “will be certainly very costly for the United States.”

The four-decade politician said that a possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran even not for a very long time would prompt the costs of oil to skyrocket as the vital oil-shipping route would be a dangerous passage as a result of the military conflict.

“In effect, the American taxpayer should be ready to pay $5 to $10 a gallon for the pleasure of having a war in the Strait of Hormuz,” Brzezinski explained.

He described democracy as the “best weapon of choice” in the present circumstances, but warned that negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear energy program would fail to yield result if they are meant to corner Iran.

“If the negotiations are designed to humiliate Iran and to put it in some sort of separate box, confining it to a status totally different from all the other signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, then we probably will not get an agreement.”

The United States and Israel have repeatedly threatened that all ‘options’, including the military action, are on the table against Iran to force the Islamic Republic to halt its nuclear energy program, which Washington, Tel Aviv and some of their allies claim includes a military aspect.

Iran dismisses the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use the nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

July 20, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 1 Comment