U.S. Destroyer and Chinese Warship Have "Unsafe" Encounter in the South China Sea

Perhaps you've not even heard this news, because the President of the United States is too busy publicly lamenting the "trauma" his abusive Supreme Court nominee is being put through by the women he victimized and making vague pronouncements about a senator who has a serious drinking problem that "compromises" him, and in various other reprehensible ways is sending the political press on endless tilt-a-whirls of demented codswallop, but a U.S. destroyer had an "unsafe" encounter with a Chinese warship in the South China Sea over the weekend.

Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne at CNN report:

A U.S. Navy ship had an "unsafe" interaction with a Chinese warship Sunday while the U.S. vessel was conducting a freedom of navigation operation near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, causing the U.S. ship to maneuver "to prevent a collision," according to U.S. defense officials.

"A (People's Republic of China) Luyang destroyer approached USS Decatur in an unsafe and unprofessional maneuver in the vicinity of Gaven Reef in the South China Sea," Capt. Charles Brown, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet, told CNN in a statement confirming the incident.

Brown said the Chinese warship "conducted a series of increasingly aggressive maneuvers accompanied by warnings for the Decatur to depart the area."

He added that the Chinese destroyer "approached within 45 yards" of the front of the U.S. ship, adding that the Decatur "maneuvered to prevent a collision."

"Our forces will continue to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows," he said.

Just to be clear, the "freedom of navigation" exercises in that disputed area are considered provocative by the Chinese government, and, as the trade war has escalated, any and every provocation is heightened against that backdrop. This latest incident isn't going to diffuse that situation.

That said, I honestly don't even know how I can trust whether this happened at all, no less whether it happened as reported by a spokesperson working for a military whose commander-in-chief is a known liar who obliges his underlings to routinely lie on his behalf.

United States citizens can't trust our own government anymore. Not that it was ever the most trustworthy institution in the first place, but this is a whole new level of absent integrity.

It scares the shit out of me that I can't know if this is something that really happened as reported, and whether that's a foreboding harbinger, or whether it's something the Trump Regime invented (or merely exaggerated) in order to justify their own intended malice in the region.

Fuck.