There are about a billion different points of contention, and as much misinformation going out as election time in the US.
Here are some things to consider.
1) The media doesn't even agree on which fancy graphic to use depicting the cave topography. Understand your estimation of the situation is probably 99% wrong.
2) No, it's not a 4km swim by themselves. (Seriously, I don't know where this one came from.)
3) No, some US Navy SEAL isn't in any way qualified to give an accurate opinion on anything that's going on in Thailand. Unless of course he's a caver, a cave diver, very experienced in sump diving, and also experienced in cave diving rescue.
4) If you're not a cave diver, you don't know what you're talking about.
5) If you're a cave diver but have never dived in wiggly bits and spent lots of time slogging in sumps and your only experience is in a wide open cave that's near impossible to silt out, you don't know what you're talking about.
6) The British CDG have absolutely the best divers in the world for this type of rescue. They eat, sleep, breathe, and live in small mud-filled sumps. Some of them even look like trolls (Forrest Wilson looks like he came right out of a Hans Christian Andersen story) They are seriously the best in the world at this type of stuff, subject matter experts, proverbial rocket scientists of this type of endeavor.
7) If the best people in the world say this is the best way to safely and effectively rescue a bunch of kids with the limited time and resources available, listen to them. They're smarter than you, they're on site, they know a hell of a lot more about all of this stuff than you do, or some rando on the internet. Me included. If you want to drive an F1 car, you ask someone like Lewis Hamilton or Sebastien Vettel, you don't ask your cousin Leeroy who never misses a Nascar race on tv. Seriously, you don't know more than they do, you're not smarter than they are, and your opinion on the matter is unqualified and unnecessary.
8) They have the best interest of these kids in mind.
9) If their best interest is swimming them out, a TINY percentage of which will be through a restriction that has been prepared for their exit as best as possible, then they are going to swim them out. Is it ideal, nope, but it's better than the alternative.
10) 4 potential months in a cave is not healthy. Neither is drowning, but there's a hell of a lot that can go wrong being stuck underground for 4 months.
11) Drilling a hole will take just as long, if not longer. Mountains and boreholes and 30 ton drills do not mix real well.
12) Oh you're an open water scuba instructor? You're still not qualified to give an opinion.
To reiterate, we all love to speculate, and we all like to think that we've got the answer. We don't. The guys on the ground, who happen to be the best in the world at this, are making decisions based on all of the information, with all of the tools they have at their disposal. Arm chair quarterbacking them from halfway around the world with your unqualified and misguided opinion doesn't make you look smart. You're not saying anything that they haven't already considered. You don't have the magic wand that makes this all go away. I say this as an experienced cave diver, who has done the wiggly bits, dives a rebreather in a cave, and does it for hours at a time. I am not qualified to give an opinion on this. If I'm not qualified to give an opinion, the bar has been set pretty high for those that ARE qualified to give an opinion on this. Chances are, you're not one of them.
This is directed to no one in particular, so if I've offended you, tough cookies. Sit back, relax, and let the professionals do what they do best, be the best at this sort of thing, and give those kids the absolute best chance at survival.
And before this gets moderated to hell and I get smacked by the staff, O'DOYLE RULES!!!!
