Only 1 Commissioned US Navy Ship Currently Held Captive By Another Country

[Kid Berwyn]

There's Only Commissioned US Navy Ship That's Currently Being Held Captive By Another Country

by Samantha Franco
November 14, 2023

The USS Pueblo (AGER-2) was taken by the enemy during a time when the US military was deeply involved in the Vietnam War. The United States, hesitant to become involved in yet another conflict, left the crew to grapple with the consequences. They endured a challenging 11 months in captivity, facing harsh treatment at the hands of the North Koreans, but ultimately succeeded in securing their return home. Unfortunately, the ship remains in captivity to this day.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/there-s-only-commissioned-us-navy-ship-that-s-currently-being-held-captive-by-another-country/ss-AA1jVHJ9

For some reason, when he visited North Korea, instead of demanding the ship's release, the idiot "pee-resident" Donald J Trump saluted the bastards holding her:

[Voltaire2]

1. North Korea is a Stalinist nightmare but

the Pueblo was a spy ship and likely was inside NK’s territorial waters. We FAFO. Nobody is going to get that ship back until relations are normalized. Trump is of course a dangerous authoritarian monster so Kim is his peer.

[Kid Berwyn]

3. USS Pueblo was in international waters.

The capture was an act of war, ostensibly in support of North Vietnam, but served to alienate North Korea from its "Third World" allies. Here's background and pro analysis:

A Reckless Act: The 1968 Pueblo Crisis and North Korea’s Relations with the Third World

by Benjamin R. Young
The Wilson Center, April 14, 2021

On January 23, 1968, North Korea captured the USS Pueblo, an unarmed US Navy intelligence vessel, in international waters. The North Koreans held the 83 man crew hostage for 11 torturous months.

While much has been written on the Pueblo in recent years, the important effects of this event on Third World relations with North Korea remain little known.[1] The Pueblo, as it turned out, represented a key turning point in North Korea’s ties to the Third World during the Cold War era, a history that I delve deeply into in my new book, Guns, Guerrillas, and the Great Leader.

Although North Korea depicted the capture of the Pueblo ship and crew as another victory for the North Korean people over US imperialism, the Pueblo crisis also demonstrated that Kim Il Sung’s underhanded guerilla-style tactics risked plunging the Korean peninsula into another war. By exposing the DPRK government as a volatile and aggressive actor on the global stage, the brazen seizure of the Pueblo ended up harming Pyongyang’s reputation in the Third World and did little to increase international sympathy for Kim Il Sung’s regime.

Frustrated Allies

Two days after the capture of the Pueblo, the North Korean government summoned foreign diplomats posted in Pyongyang to tell them the news of the incident. The North Koreans represented the incident as a US violation of their sovereignty and territorial boundaries. Esmat Naguib, the chargé d'affaires of Egypt to North Korea, “was informed about the capture of the American espionage ship [USS Pueblo] by the North Korean coast guard for violating the territorial waters of the DPRK,” according to one Romanian dispatch from Pyongyang. Naguib asked North Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Heo Dam whether the Soviet Union pressured Kim Il Sung to release the American servicemen. Heo responded: “The DPRK would never allow a third party, no matter whom, to meddle in this matter, which is under the exclusive authority of the DPRK.”

Naguib believed North Korea’s capture of the Pueblo and a failed assassination attempt on the South Korean President in Seoul on January 17, known as the Blue House raid, were meant to “effectively and directly help the North Vietnamese people with the consent of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” The DPRK’s boldness and aggressiveness in confronting the US and South Korea shocked Egypt and other Third World partners.

Continued...

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/reckless-act-1968-pueblo-crisis-and-north-koreas-relations-third-world

[Voltaire2]

7. Yeah well that's our story and we're sticking to it.

NK has their version. They also have the ships logs which they claim clearly indicate otherwise.

Not really the point. The point is that nobody is getting that ship back until relationships are normalized. Technically we are still at war, or at least our ally South Korea is still at war.

[Kid Berwyn]

8. You might enjoy reading the account of Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, USN

Bucher: My Story

EXCERPT...

I was not alarmed, only slightly annoyed that he would show
up at lunchtime. I told Quartermaster Law to call Lieutenants
Harris and Schumacher to the flying bridge with their identifica-
tion book, and Photographer Mack with his cameras. When the
subchaser kept coming on without change of speed or course, I
decided to make sure we looked in every respect what we wanted
to appear to be— an oceanographic research vessel operating on
the high seas. The international day signals indicating such
activity were hoisted and I called my oceanographers from their
meal to put on an extra Nansen cast for the benefit of our
visitors. Then I scrambled down the ladder to the pilothouse
and checked our position to make sure we really were in inter-


BUCHER: MY STORY


178

national waters. Our cross-bearing fixes on the coast were still
clearly visible, but Law had confirmed them with radar when he
first sighted the subchaser. Pueblo was now a tenth less than
sixteen miles off the island of Hung Do, still lying dead in the
water with a slight southeasterly drift. There was no doubt in
my mind that we were completely legal and that all I had to do
was match my orders to any situation that might develop. I was
joined by Steve Harris who climbed back to the flying bridge with
me, took a long careful look at the much closer subchaser, flipped
through his identification book, then announced his conclusions:

“She’s a Russian-built, modified SO-i class submarine chaser.
One hundred-thirty feet overall by twenty-one feet beam. Speeds
up to forty-eight knots through sea-state two. Normally armed
with depth charges and automatic cannons, but other configura-
tions, including missiles, may be encountered. Normal comple-
ment is three officers and sixteen crewmen.”

“That’s what I make her out to be, Steve,” I agreed with him.
“Now, get below and find out if your CTs can eavesdrop on any
talk with her base. It might be fun to know her impressions of
us.”

“We’ll do our best, Captain. Our circuits are still open to report
her presence.”

https://archive.org/stream/B-001-001-693/B-001-001-693_djvu.txt

[captain queeg]

2. There was a U.S. ship attacked by the Israelis years ago, with some Americans killed

I don’t remember much but the US stopped the rescue effort. A real blemish on US history. I’m sure someone here could provide more info.

[Kid Berwyn]

4. USS Liberty

IDF, it appears, did all they could to sink the USS Liberty, a vessel designed to monitor electronic communications. My guess would be Israel's leadership wanted to sink the ship in order to blame the Arab nations and draw the US into its side in the Six Day War. Background from the Defense Technical Information Center:



Abstract: In June 1967, the USS Liberty, an unarmed Navy technical research ship, was attacked by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats in international waters off the coast of Egypt. The attack killed 34 and injured 171 Americans. The attack was clearly an event that intersected military operations at the tactical and operational levels and politics at the strategic level. Using key declassified messages, the findings of the Navy's official Court of Inquiry, interviews with naval personnel involved in the event, and memoirs of senior government officials, this paper attempts to answer a number of highly debated questions regarding that tragic day in American history. Why did Israel attack the Liberty? Was the attack deliberate or accidental, and could the attack have been a case of mistaken identity? If deliberate, who within the Israeli leadership ordered the attack, and why? Why was this U.S. unarmed and unescorted research ship so close to the shores of ongoing hostilities the Six Day War? Why has Israel continued to claim the attack was a case of mistaken identity? Why was the official inquiry micromanaged and rushed to an unsatisfactory completion in a mere 8 days? Why has a full and open official inquiry on the attack never been conducted, and why will there probably never be one? Finally, why would the White House prevent the rescue of an American ship? This has been, perhaps, the most disturbing question arising out of Israels attack. It demands a thorough investigation of the actions taken by the White House and the Secretary of Defense. Why did they order the recall of the planes that had been sent to rescue the Liberty Why did Navy leadership order the surviving crew to be silent regarding the attack on the Liberty.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA499280

More from Muckrack:

https://www.muckrock.com/project/june-8-1967-israeli-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-52/

[LastDemocratInSC]

5. The look on the face of Kim Jong Un says it all.

He's thinking "This guy is a fucking idiot."

Which he is, of course.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Sarah Huckabee Sanders later channeled Kim's pa.

When asked about the gesture, White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "It's a common courtesy when a military official from another government salutes to return the gesture."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/coralewis/trump-salut-a-north-korea-military-propaganda

Huh. Did not know that.

What Gen. John Kelly, retired USMC general and dip's one-time Chief of Staff, said:

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”

SOURCE: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans/index.html

Don't know about Sarah or Melania, but I like my POTUSes loyal to the United States and our Constitution.

[Duppers]

9. Trump is an idiot.

Can you imagine what wingers would be saying if a Democratic president had done this?!!!!

[Kid Berwyn]

10. And a Traitor, too.

'HIS VANITY, NARCISSISM MADE HIM NATURAL TARGET TO RECRUIT'

KGB groomed Trump as an asset for 40 years, former Russian spy says

New book interviewing Yuri Shvets and many other sources alleges Moscow rescued Trump’s businesses with laundered funds, directly tying this to ex-president’s affinity for Putin

by Times of Israel Staff
January 29, 2021

Former US president Donald Trump was nurtured as a Russian asset for decades, starting in 1980, a new book claims, with Moscow actively encouraging the businessman to enter politics many years before he won the presidency and supporting him through numerous failed business ventures as it built a “deep” relationship with the mogul.

“He was an asset,” former KGB spy Yuri Shvets, who worked for the KGB in Washington DC for years in the 1980s, told journalist Craig Unger in the new book American Kompromat.

Unger’s book is based on interviews with numerous sources, including Soviet defectors and ex-CIA agents. In it he makes the assertion that Trump’s relationship to Russia as president — one in which he appeared repeatedly averse to criticize Moscow and often took actions seen as desirable to leader Vladimir Putin– was directly tied to his cultivation by Russia over long years.

The book says Russian officials repeatedly helped Trump get through dire financial straits over the years, providing him with laundered money to support his businesses.

“Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: His vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election,” Shvets told the Guardian.

Continues...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/kgb-groomed-trump-as-an-asset-for-40-years-former-spy-says/

[Duppers]

11. Thanks!

40yrs is a hell of a long time! Makes one wonder who they're grooming now.

One thing for sure, it's always a Republican!