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Bottom line - is it hubris or simply criminal incompetence that naval architects and ship design bureaus appear to have completely forgotten the battle damage lessons of WWII? From WWII ships suffering kamikaze attacks and continuing to steam to one of the most advanced surface vessels in today's USN being put out of commission for an estimated six months? We first saw evidence of the fragility of modern naval designs during the Falklands War in 82. This accident gives the perception that nothing was learned from those earlier encounters. WTFO? Hell - did a WWII cruiser even cost $30M?
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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