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June 22, 2009

Scarborough Shoal

Information Dissemination follows up with more details on the incident with the USS John S McCain (DDG 56), its towed sonar array and a Red Chinese submarine off Subic Bay.

It turns out the incident may have occurred some considerable distance off Subic Bay.

Out to sea, in fact, by the contested Scarborough Shoals.

Several Chinese news sources are claiming the incident took place not off Sudic Bay as CNN reported, nor around the Mindoro Strait as the AP reported, but near the Scarborough Shoals. If you observe the image borrowed from Ken Adams, you can open up Google Earth and see for yourself that while the satellite clearly covers the island, the details of Scarborough Shoals are blurred out... probably for a reason.

The picture in Google Earth is smudged for a reason, and it isn't a bad assumption that the reason is related in some way to the reason a PLA Navy submarine is operating that close to the shoals, or why a US Navy destroyer would be hunting a PLA Navy submarine in that area.

These territorial issues in the South China Sea are no joke. If China has no problem harassing the US Navy over territorial rights, it is a good bet they look at the Philippines with disdain on the issue and will be equally aggressive and provocative... perhaps even more so. As for me, I don't like the lack of transparency from Google Earth in a region we are having naval incidents with the PLA Navy. That just doesn't look right to me.

Thanks to the magic that is "the internet" we can all do our own satellite intelligence from home. Here is a Google Map showing the relative position of Scarborough Shoal with Philippines and China and the Scarborough Shoal Wikipedia entry that meant I did not have to go through the laborious process of typing "Scarborough Shoal" into Google.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at June 22, 2009 08:44 AM

Comments

Looked at the map.

Unbidden, a line from 'Band of Brothers' came to mind: "Arguing over Sobel; that's intelligent."

Your unbidden thoughts may vary.

Posted by: Clayton Barnett [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 22, 2009 12:17 PM

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