The Armada That Wasn't

This week, the media is piling onto Donald Trump, ridiculing him for saying that he was sending an "armada" to North Korea, to threaten that country. (More than the usual military exercises on its borders, and threats of assassination of its leader.)

It took me a couple of days to realize "this seems odd". It was only a week ago, but the media controls the discussion so thoroughly that it seems far down the Memory Hole.

So I checked the Oracle (google) and got this...."Last week, the armada was diverted to a new mission.
"U.S. Pacific Command ordered the Carl Vinson Strike Group north as a prudent measure to maintain readiness and presence in the Western Pacific," Cmdr. David Benham, a spokesman for the command, said in a statement on Sunday.
"Third Fleet ships operate forward with a purpose: to safeguard U.S. interests in the Western Pacific,” he said. “The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible, and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,” the spokesman added.
President Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster said on Fox News Sunday that the ships were being redirected toward the Korean Peninsula as a “prudent” measure, because “North Korea has been engaged in a pattern of provocative behavior.” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/11/us-navy-carrier-strike-group-sets-its-sights-on-north-korea.html

That seems pretty official.

Then, on April 14th, Trump told Fox News...."President Donald Trump on Wednesday told the Fox Business Network, “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier.”

On April 17th, Christopher P. Cavas, reporting in Defense News, gave a bizarre mishmash of statements, in which anonymous sources denied that the ships were heading to North Korea.
"Off the record, several officials expressed wonderment at the persistent reports that the Vinson was already nearing Korea. “We’ve made no such statement,” said one official.
But, a couple of paragraphs later, he reports..."The Vinson’s return to Korea was ordered on April 8 by Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command. On April 11, Defense Secretary James Mattis – having just met with Harris in Washington – noted that no specific incident prompted the order to curtail the exercise program and head north."

So, according to this article, anonymous sources "express wonderment" and deny that Adm. Harry Harris had ordered the ships to return to Korea. Who are these officials, who have their uncredited claims put forward against official spokesmen?

What kind of reporting is that?

However, if you peruse the mainstream media and the blogosphere, you will find endless articles snarkily ridiculing Pres. Trump for "not knowing where his warships are".

So, what is going on? I did find a CNN article, from last week, clumsily trying to explain it all off as "miscommunication" and "confusion". http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/18/politics/carl-vinson-korea-trump/

However, there is no more mention of that, in the constant barrage of attack articles now. It seems that Trump is being portrayed as an incompetent commander in chief. Why? Is it to mold American public opinion into accepting open military rule, with no pretense of civilian oversight?

I find this ominous.