Editor's note: The following article is taken from the Chinese-language opinion column "The Real Point."
Hundreds of sailors on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt cheered for Captain Brett Crozier on April 3 as the latter disembarked the ship after being sacked by the Navy for his leaked warning letter about a coronavirus outbreak on the carrier.
In his letter to the Navy leadership, Captain Crozier pleaded for resources to allow isolation of his entire crew as an increasing number of sailors on board were infected with COVID-19 and the situation was quickly deteriorating. But the Navy decided to release Crozier from duty because he showed what they called "poor judgment" in the middle of a crisis.
Why did Washington punish someone who tried to save the lives of his crew?
Crozier was removed for revealing the military's incapability in dealing with the outbreak. Since the outbreak, the U.S. government has been criticized for its incompetence in virus prevention and control.
Crozier's letter to the Navy leadership was leaked to the media before being publicized, exposing the infection situation of the aircraft carrier docked in Guam and the military's sluggish response to the spread of the virus. Replacing the captain became the Navy's only face-saving option.
The Navy needs to find a scapegoat for the deteriorating situation on the ship. When speaking to the press, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said Captain Crozier's action "unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our Sailors and Marines with no plan to address those concerns." It is quite obvious that the Navy was trying to cast blame onto Captain Crozier, labeling him as someone who failed to solve the problem.
The punishment also serves as a warning to others. The aircraft carrier is deployed in the Western Pacific Region as frontier deterrence. The Navy said Crozier's move "raised concerns about the operational capabilities and operational security of the ship that could have emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage."
How the Navy handled the incident revealed that it shared a similar mindset with the U.S. government in handling the pandemic. They are incompetent in preventing and controlling the spread of the virus, spending more time and energy on covering up the truth. What happened to Captain Crozier reminds people of what Dr. Helen Chu had gone through.
In January, Dr. Chu issued an early warning of the virus outbreak in the United States. When she submitted test results to the regulatory body in February, she and her team were told to stop testing for the coronavirus entirely. After the media reported what Dr. Chu had encountered, the authorities tried to blame others.
Emphasis on self-interest rather than people's lives has blurred the focus of the U.S. government's counter pandemic efforts. The bureaucracy in the country's decision-making system, including the military, is the main culprit in delaying the country's response to the pandemic.
