If Not For A Radio Show Caller, Would Russia Have Asked For Help?

--Originally posted at The Noonz Wire--

Drudge has a link to this shocker up on his site:

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMTCHATSKI, Russia (AFP) - Without an anonymous phone call by a tearful woman to a local radio station, the world may have heard too late about the Russian submarine stranded in the Pacific to save its seven crew, the journalist who took the call claimed.

Guzel Latypova, a journalist in the port city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, says the mysterious caller shattered an official silence and in doing so pressured the authorities to look abroad for help in mounting the rescue.

So much for lauding the Russians for reaching out for assistance. This makes it appear that they probably didn't want to, but had virtually no other choice once the story was "in the wild."

Media pressure may have played a role in President Vladimir Putin's decision to dispatch Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov to the scene, and -- crucially -- in the military's painful acknowledgement of the need for foreign help.

As soon as a high-tech British naval robot cut the cables and nets trapping the submarine, the seven men inside were saved.

And the rest is history.

I can't help but think that through their deaths, the 118 sailors lost in the Kursk disaster saved the lives of the seven men on that Priz over the weekend. The Russian government, fearful of a public-relations disaster similar to the one that they dealt with after refusing aid with the Kursk, had no choice but to pick up the phone and call for help.

That mystery caller (a wife of one of the crewmen, according to blogger Michael Hammerschlag) wasn't working alone when she picked up the phone. The souls of 118 Russian submariners were there with her.

Maybe that made a difference.

posted by Alex Nunez @ 1:34 PM