A long time ago, February 9, 2001 something rather strange happened that in hindsight might have changed the current history of events.
On February 9, 2001, the USS Greenville (a US nuclear submarine) sank a Japanese fishing ship filled with tourists fishing.
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Let us start out with a few facts relating to this incident.
1. First of all, such a thing should never have happened. And i am saying that from experience. There is no way that you do a "tourist emergency blow" without knowing that something might be above you. No f------ way!
2. There were not just a couple of tourists on board the USS Greenville that day. No, there were sixteen tourists. Two of which had been earlier planned for based upon the support that they had shown toward the recognition of a WW II battleship and the "other fourteen" were Dick Cheney's "energy cohorts" from Texas and Colorado.
3. It took more than five days before the names of the "submarine tourists" were provided to the public.
4. We are talking now, within less than a month from his inauguration, President George W. Bush, kind of in a pickle.
5. Ex-president Clinton made a quick visit to Japan to try to qualm things down a bit.
6. Sixteen tourists in a control room of a nuclear submarine is not manageable. Period. Period.
7. The captain of the USS Greenville took the fall, and probably deservingly so.
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But i have always wondered if we had not let this one pass, whether we would have had a 9/11--or at least avoided the Iraq War miscalculation.
Interesting, this is in fact something I was not aware had happened? But what's the connection to 9/11 or the Iraq war?
Dick Cheney. If it had been brought out to light that "twelve of the fourteen" tourists (8 from Texas and 4 from Colorado) were being rewarded for their contributions to the recent won election, maybe there might have been more off an uproar. But the Bush Administration said the all the Halliburton tourists were on board because of contributions to a retiring battleship called the USS Washington. Of course, they did not say they tourists worked for Halliburton.
And if you don't remember, Dick Cheney was holding "Energy Meetings" in Washington, DC at the time. People were wondering why Cheney had his hands on Energy and not everyone was happy about it.
If Bush had been made to get rid of Cheney early in his Administration, we surely would have avoided Iraq. The fact that Bush got away with this without it being tied to Cheney, i believe embolded the Administration to the point they felt they could cover up any mistake, and i think that allowed them to take their eye of the ball with bin Laden.
When you know something in the past that did not happen you are always thinking about what would have happened if...