[angry_octet]

Conditions off the Californian coast are different to a Straight of Hormuz transit. Every deployment will have command guidance, RoE, threat briefings, maintain a picture of possible threats etc. A ship doing routine training is probably under default 'self defence' rules. And no CO wants to be the one to mistakenly blast some civilians into pink mist.

[ddalex]

Experience shows that mistakenly blasting some civilians into pink mist doesn't mean anything if those civilians aren't white US citizens on US soil...

[angry_octet]

You can certainly choose to believe this, but it is wrong.

What you are referring to is choosing to blow something up based on a systematic approach that follows the laws of armed conflict, with frequent legal oversight, separate after action review, in a system that strongly punishes failure to follow process. This system is fully endorsed by the US Congress, representing the citizenry.

So if some civilians get blown up, 9/10 it was a deliberate decision.

[ddalex]

I meant that there are no actual repercussions.

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1...

repeated incidents where US killed citizens of other countries with impunity and no repercussions for the perps

[angry_octet]

Rogers certainly got off lightly, as did the system that promoted him, and the US has to own that, along with all the other atrocities. The US pays in a thousand ways they choose not to account for -- the guilty have externalised the costs.