A Massive Ship Carrying Thousands of Containers Hits a Bridge
No one knows how this was possible. Are we entering a new era of cyber warfare?
This article is nothing but pure speculation. I dare even label it conspiratorial. A massive cargo ship carrying thousands of containers filled with the stuff Americans buy daily approached a bridge with no power — it had become as helpless as a floating child in a child’s bath.
The bridge didn’t stand a chance. When the nose of the ship sliced into the unprotected supporting column, the bridge shook and then toppled, killing six bridge maintenance workers. The road from the bridge fell across the bow of the ship. The health of the Francis Scott Key Bridge — just for fun, I will bet anyone a $1 that most MAGidiots don’t know who Francis Scott Key was — is vital to our economy.
The Port of Baltimore is the top handler in the U.S. of imports and exports of cars and light trucks, according to a statement from Moore’s office last month. His office called it “one of the largest economic generators” in the state.
It ranks ninth among U.S. harbors for both tonnage and dollar value of foreign cargo passing through.
“The collapse of the Key Bridge is a global crisis,” Moore said at a Wednesday briefing. “The national economy and the world’s economy depends on the Port of Baltimore,” he added.
“The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in the country (Ripple Effects).”
15,000 people are employed daily at Port Baltimore. A prolonged shutdown will ripple across the state of Maryland and the whole country.
The fascist from Fox News, Maria Bartiromo, suggested that the collapse might be related to the “unsecured border.” She is effectively blaming immigrants. She blames her Sicilian grandfather, who came over in 1933. Her ignorance is to be expected, though. Alex Jones also chimed in, and no one really ever knows what he said. He did suggest some sort of conspiracy. There have also been suggestions that some cyber attack took place.
I want to throw my hat in the ring on the cyber attack version. There was a complete “blackout” of all systems. Thanks to technology, these catastrophic moments are supposed to be a thing of the past.
The “complete blackout” reported by the pilot is hard to explain in today’s shipping world, in which large commercial vessels now operate with a range of automation, computerized monitoring, and built-in redundancies and backup systems designed to avert just such a calamity.
“In the last 30 to 40 years, the level of that redundancy has been increasing quite considerably,” said John Carlton, a professor of marine engineering at City, University of London. “The ship of today is so very different to the one of 30 years ago (Baltimore Investigation).”
Nonetheless, everything just froze. If you have ever been driving a car and suddenly the power steering locks up, then you know how the kind of paralyzing panic that can ensue in a matter of seconds. The ship wasn’t supposed to have done what it did.
Another interesting question is why the ship’s systems were blacked out as it approached the bridge.
As much as I don’t like climbing down the muck and God-only-knows-what dirt of a bottomless rabbit hole, something about the words Vladimir Putin has been spouting lately makes me think that this “unexplainable moment” is easily explained if we just look in the right direction.
Despite the incompetence of Russia’s military, they are good at cyber warfare. Actually, good may be an underestimation. Russians are potentially the best at cyberwar because they are unhindered by concerns of morality and rarely stopped by a consideration of the consequences of their actions. I noticed during my many years living in Russia that there is almost no understanding that an action could have negative consequences.
A Russian tech guy sitting somewhere deep in Russia won’t for a second consider the fallout that his pressing “enter” could have on innocent people somewhere “out there.” He knows that he wants a new car or TV — or most likely some cool, expensive gadget or pair of sneakers— and so he hits “enter” and releases his virus. His government employers are happy, and he is safe and regarded highly by the government system. Russia’s solipsistic view of the world means that harming others is perfectly okay so long as they are “others.”
Another reason I think Putin could be responsible for the bridge collapse is his affinity for the Kerch Bridge, his pet project for connecting Crimea to the Kuban Region of Russia, is well known. Putin loves that bridge the way he loves luxurious Saturday-evening baths in virgin elk blood — that’s why he has slowly taken on the look of a pale vampire. When Putin talks about that bridge, he gets misty-eyed.
Russia has repeatedly said that going after the bridge is a “red line.” After the first attack, which closed the bridge and cost Russia a lot of money, the Kremlin said that future attacks would be answered in not-so-obvious ways. Could this assault on the massive ship with potentially 10,000 shipping containers be his response?
Since Putin’s fifth presidency began, he has been out and about telling the Russian people that the West is determined to end Russia. The battle is being brought to “our doorstep, so we must make all those guilty of this. We know who they are and must pay for their desire to destroy us.” Moscow keeps warning us that Western support for Ukraine will not go unanswered.
Many think in terms of direct assaults by Russian forces. Poland and other countries keep talking about potential invasions by Russian forces. Let’s be honest: Russia doesn’t have much of an army left, so simply put, it can’t invade Poland, let alone Estonia. Russia will struggle to launch a new offensive against Kharkiv in Ukraine, so when Putin speaks ominously about payback, was the crashing of a massive cargo ship into the support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge what he meant?
I am more than sure the NSA and other cyber bodies are monitoring the situation more closely than they let on.