Whales Don't Speak Chinese

A federal "judge" has exposed her bias. Nothing new, I grant you.

President George W. Bush should not have exempted the Navy from obeying laws intended to protect endangered whales and other marine mammals by curbing the use of sonar off the California coast, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

In the latest twist of a long-running battle between environmentalists and the Navy, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper rejected the argument that the Navy was exempt from federal environmental law because of what it said was an urgent need to properly train its sailors to detect quiet submarines.

Oh, so there's no threat which requires the U.S. Navy to train with active sonar to protect against, huh?

Sea-power trends in the Pacific Ocean are ominous. By 2025, China’s navy could rule the waves of the Pacific. By some estimates, Chinese attack submarines will outnumber U.S. submarines in the Pacific by five to one and Chinese nuclear ballistic missile submarines will prowl America’s Western littoral, each closely tailed by two U.S. attack submarines that have better things to do. The United States, meanwhile, will likely struggle to build enough submarines to meet this challenge.

Admiral Zhang isn’t relying solely on the Russians [to build subs for China]. He has also increased production—to 2.5 boats per year—of China’s new, formidable Song-class diesel-electric submarine. China is also testing a new diesel-electric that the defense intelligence community has designated the "Yuan." The Yuan is heavily inspired by Russian designs, including anechoic tile coatings and a super-quiet seven-blade screw. The addition of "air-independent propulsion," which permits a submarine to operate underwater for up to 30 days on battery power, will make the Song and Yuan submarines virtually inaudible to existing U.S. surveillance networks—and even to U.S. subs.

And that means, Florence, that the only way to track them in American waters -- or anywhere else -- will be through the preventive use of active sonar equipment, both to detect them and to discourage them from playing footsie with U.S. Navy task forces. Because when heavily-armed warships from opposing sides are in close proximity to each other, (and make no mistake; China is the opposition), the last thing you want is ambiguity concerning location and intent of all the players in the drama. Events have an uncomfortably common habit of taking on a life of their own and running out of control in those sorts of situations, and when nuclear weapons are part of the equation, it could easily be just the beginning of a very, very bad day indeed.

I am unsure precisely how Judge Cooper came to the conclusion that defense policy and foreign relations fall within the purview of the judicial system, but I wish to assure her that she is quite in error. There's a little document called the Constitution of the United States of America which makes that abundantly clear. I wonder if she's bothered to read it.