April 11, 2011

• China Spying On Libyan Operations.
• When All You Have Is A Hammer Everything Looks Like A Nail.
• Kuwait Sentences Iranian Spies To Death
• Iran Smuggling Arms to Jihadists Through Syria
• Israel Attacked By Iranian-Syrian Backed Paletinians
• U. S. General Talks About Sending Ground Troops into Libya
• Saudi Arabia In Crisis
• California Wants to Force Citizens to Pay More with Anti-big Box law.
• Untested Fungus Could Undo DDT Ban Harm
• 1915 Genocide of Armenian Christians by Muslim Turks
• Beck Fired For Losing Viewers And Ad Dollars

China’s military forces are monitoring electronic communications of U.S. and allied military forces in the Mediterranean to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

China’s military used its electronic eavesdropping posts in western China to successfully predict the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf war by monitoring the military communications of Arab governments.

China’s military spies also learned warfighting intelligence from U.S. military operations in the Balkans during the 1990s and from the 2003 Iraq invasion.

China has vastly increased its electronic intelligence gathering capabilities in recent years, coinciding with the growth in its cyber warfare capabilities. Electronic intelligence is a key support element for conducting computer and network warfare.

China’s Embassy in Tripoli is ideally located to conduct eavesdropping operations on coalition forces.

China’s Type 054A Jiangkai-II Class guided-missile frigate Xuzhou was sent to waters off Libya early in the crisis and the visit could have provided an opportunity to dispatch Chinese special forces or electronic eavesdropping equipment and troops to the region in anticipation of future military action.

Chinese IL-76 transports also helped evacuate Chinese nationals from Libya to Sudan, where China currently has a small force of troops deployed. The transport visits have raised concerns among China analysts that Beijing may have brought in military intelligence personnel.

 Hillary Clinton’s favorable ratings are at an alltime high at 56% about twice Obama’s raiing the question of running for President in 2012. She has said she won’t run. We shall see.

A week ago Obama ordered all U. S warplanes and warships away from Libya, and the wheels flew off. And Gadaffhi forces have pushed rebels back everywhere with heavy loses.

In a peculiar side show the debate has turned arcane. The U.S. Air Force has decided not to deploy the F-22 fighter-jet to help enforce NATO’s no-fly zone over Libya. Military sources and analysts acknowledge that the Raptor, produced by Lockheed Martin, did not have the capabilities required for the Western mission. “The F-22 is probably the greatest plane in the world for what it’s meant to do,” an air force officer said. “The problem its applications are limited.”

Using the $200 million F-22 to attack a $200 Korean War era mortar tube is like putting a 200 MPH Indy racer on a go-cart track.

Instead, the U.S. Air Force and Navy have used 1970s-era warplanes such as the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 fighter-jets in operations over Libya. Unlike the F-22, the other aircraft can conduct both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.

The sources said Raptor, which costs nearly $200 million per copy was meant for precision-strike, long-range air-to-air missions. The F-22 can deploy no more than two 1,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) against ground targets, far fewer than the now 40-year old F-15 desiogn, with the ability to carry 24,000 pounds of munitions 12 times as much..

The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or “dumb bombs” into all-weather “smart” munitions. JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, giving them a published range of up to 15 nautical miles (28 km) and can hit a moving vehicle. The guidance system was developed by the United States Air Force and United States Navy, hence the “joint” in JDAM.

In addition, the F-22 was not designed to communicate with other fighter-jets. In an attempt to maintain stealth capability, the Raptor’s data link could receive, not transmit. The Air Force platform was also unable to generate synthetic aperture radar maps, a key requirement for selecting ground targets from the air.

Instead, the Air Force envisioned the F-22 as serving as an escort for the B-2 stealth bomber for long-range missions. But the U.S. military has no plans to deploy the B-2 over Libya throughout the no-fly mission.

“I see no indication that F-22s were used as an escort for the B-2 nor do I see anything that indicates the Raptor will be used in future missions over Libya,” U.S. Africa Command spokesman Maj. Eric Hilliard said.

The Air Force has sought to upgrade the Raptor, with production frozen at 187 aircraft. But Congress and the Air Force have steadily denied funding for both production and significant enhancements.

“The F-22 is our most advanced air-to-air fighter,” Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat and member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said. “Its ability to achieve air supremacy in combat is without doubt. Yet, reports that the F-22 continues to lack a secure communication capability with other U.S. and NATO warplanes, and that it cannot detect and destroy ground targets on the fly are troubling, particularly given how much we’ve invested in this program.”

Washington has also banned the F-22 for export to non-NATO states. Israel has been the only Middle East country to express interest in Raptor.

“Had the F-22 been stationed in Europe, in proximity and therefore more available, it undoubtedly would have been used,” U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz told the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on March 30. “It was an expedient judgment, putting the plan together and executing on a very rapid timeline.”

Whatever the cause Gaddafi’s forces continued to fight their way toward Benghazi, the heart of Libya’s revolution, as five African leaders arrived in Tripoli in an effort to broker a ceasefire and political settlement.

Elections officials in southeast Ohio don’t want people coming to polling places wearing shirts or other attire promoting local schools that have hotly contested tax measures on the ballot. If they do they will have to cover up with a neutral poncho. Most call the poncho order - dumb.

Kuwait has captured an unspecified number of Iranian spies. Two of the eight Iranian cells have been equipped with firearms. Kuwaiti authorities were said to have information on the membership of other Iranian spy cells.

Iran was said to have formed additional sleeper cells. The source said the Iranian espionage cell in Kuwait marked Teheran’s drive to destabilize the six GCC states.

The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf include: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.

Iran was also believed to have helped at least one suspect escape Kuwait. The Iranian suspect was identified as Ali Ramadan Yinkari, who had been an adviser to the Kuwait Navy. The sheikdom’s military has included numerous foreigners.

On March 30, Kuwait recalled its ambassador from Iran. The Kuwaiti news portal Al Aan reported that the recall was linked to the conviction of Iranian nationals in a spy ring directed by Teheran.

The defendants were part of an alleged seven-man Iranian espionage ring that operated in Kuwait. The suspects were captured in May 2010 and included four members of the Kuwait Army.

Kuwait had recalled its ambassador from Teheran a day after a court condemned to death three people convicted of spying for Iran.

Saudi Arabia has delayed billions in arms purchases from the U. S. signaling it has lost all confidence in Obama.

Israel’s intelligence community has determined that Syria has become a waystation in the shipment of Iranian missiles and other weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said Damascus, and specifically the port at Latakia, was involved in the Iranian shipment of 50 tons of weapons for Hamas, intercepted by the Israel Navy in March.

“Syria, Iran’s main partner in the radical camp, has an important role in the Iranian arms smuggling network,” the center said.

“Syria’s geopolitical position makes it an important relay station for the weapons en route to various destinations - Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.”

The center, staffed by former members of the Mossad and Military Intelligence, said Assad has allowed the use of his naval port in Latakia for the transfer of Iranian weapons to Hamas.

The Israeli military said the Liberian-flagged Victoria docked in Latakia, where it could have loaded the shipment of mortars and anti-ship missiles.

The Victoria was said to have contained Chinese-origin C-704 anti-ship missiles, with a range of 35 kilometers, as well as thousands of 60mm and 120mm mortars, with ranges of 2.5 kilometers and 10 kilometers, respectively.

Approximately 2,500 mortar shells were found on the Victoria, flying under a Liberian flag, which departed from the Latakia Port in Syria, and then proceeded to Mersin Port in Turkey.

Latakia,is Syrias main container port on the Meditereanian and its largest port. Iranian and Russian warships are based at Latakia. The Russians are building permanent port facilities 72 kilom,eters away at Tartus Syria’s next largest port.

“Iran invests great efforts in smuggling weapons to the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip - especially Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad - to support the reconstruction and upgrading of their military infrastructures,” the report said.

Last week Hamas agents were killed in a clandestine attack on their car in Sudan and reports now say the poison gas shells sold by Lybian rebels to Iranian agents for transshipment to Gaza were destroyed.

Moammar Khadafy in his letter to “Our Dear Son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oumama (Obama),” he says, “We still pray that you continue to be president of the U.S.A. We endeavor and hope that you will gain victory in the new election campaign.

Saturday, April 9, Hamas and its allies, acting now on Hizballah guidelines from Lebanon, fired 24 heavy Grad missiles and more than 50 mortars shells at seven southern Israeli towns in an expanding radius up to Palmahim in the north. Despite bomb shelters and home guard measures, 20 Israelis were injured or suffered shock. After 17 Hamas and other commanders were targeted in 48 hours of Israel counter-attacks, Hamas requested a ceasefire through the UN. It came from the Islamist organization’s political echelons. Israel replied the request would only be addressed only if it came from Hamas military leaders, who rather than abating their rocket offensive on the Israeli population are intensifying it.
The Palestinian missile violence Saturday began before dawn with Grad missiles exploding north of Israel’s second main port city of Ashdod, south of Kiryat Gat and outside Ofakim. Sirens warning of a missile attack were heard in Gedera and Gan Yavneh. As a million Israeli civilians spent another day in bomb shelters, four Grad missiles landed in Ashkelon Saturday afternoon.
From Thursday, the innovative Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted five of the Grad missiles aimed at Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon. Early Saturday, as 25 Palestinian mortar shells hailed down on the Eshkol district, the IDF hit a car carrying three Hamas field commanders in Khan Younis. They were all killed. debkafile‘s military sources report that Israel’s defense chiefs are reassessing tactics in view of the newly ferocious level of Hamas The Grad missile belligerence under direction from Hizballah.

The 122 MM (about 5 inches in diameter) Grad missile, a 60’s era Russian BM-21 has a range of 15 miles and was originally designed for volley fire from  trucks over the last decade countries like China, Egypt, North Korea and the Czech Republic have produced Grad missiles. It is likely Iran is supplying the weapons.

Glenn Beck announced that he is ending his daily show on Fox News. He didn’t want to end it. He just ran out of conspiracy theories.- Leno

Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers Thursday that added American participation would not be ideal, and ground troops could erode the international coalition and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.

Ham said the operation was largely stalemated now and was more likely to remain that way since America has transferred control to NATO.

The use of an international ground force is a possible plan to bolster rebels fighting forces loyal to the Libyan leader, Ham said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Asked if the U.S. would provide troops, Ham said, “I suspect there might be some consideration of that. My personal view at this point would be that that’s probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail.”

Obama has said repeatedly there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in Libya, although there are reports of small CIA teams in the country. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told lawmakers last week that there would be no American ground troops in Libya “as long as I am in this job.” Then it was disclosed he had already sent CIA operators into Libya - In or out of unfirom they are still Americans in harms way.

Ham disclosed that the United States is providing some strike aircraft to the NATO operation that do not need to go through the special approval process recently established. The powerful side-firing AC-130 gunship is available to NATO commanders, he said.

Uber-liberal Allen Colmes called Donald Trump “the P. T Barnum of our time.”

Saudi Arabia has raised the salaries of military personnel as part of a drive to enhance defense against neighboring Iran.

King Abdullah has decided to promote all military officers as well as raise their salaries. Officials said the measures would include personnel in the military and the National Guard.

“Our focus should be on protecting the kingdom’s security,” Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khaled Bin Sultan said.

Officials said the Saudi officers would see a salary increase of 15 percent. They said the rise would be accompanied by a bonus of two months salary.

This month’s decision took place amid Saudi efforts to rapidly improve combat and security skills in the kingdom. The Saudi Interior Ministry has also launched a drive to recruit up to 60,000 people to join the security forces.

During his inspection, Khaled urged the Saudi military to intensify training. He said this was required to ensure proper use of the new combat air and ground platforms acquired from such countries as Britain and the United States.

The greatest internal threat to Saudi Arabia was said to come from the kingdom’s Shi’ite minority, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern Province. On April 5, Khaled inspected military positions in the province and urged commanders to prepare for any threats, including Iran.

“Iran should listen to reason while making statements,” Khaled said. “What we care about the most is the directives of our leadership to protect the security of our borders and our region.”

Over the last month, Saudi Arabia deployed an estimated 4,000 troops from the National Guard in neighboring Bahrain. Khaled said Bahrain has restored stability in wake of a crackdown on the Shi’ite opposition, believed supported by Iran.

“We need not exaggerate matters,” Khaled said. “The situation in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is stable and satisfactory.”

Khaled was said to have discussed with commanders other regional threats, including Yemen. The deputy minister did not rule out the renewal of the Iranian-backed Shi’ite revolt in northern Yemen, which in 2009 spilled over into Saudi Arabia.

“I would like to reassure everybody that our borders are now secure and that the armed forces are stationed there and are backed by border guards,” Khaled said.

“The fact is: He (Obama) doesn’t have a birth certificate, or he hasn’t shown it, and I’d love him to show it.” … Donald Trump adds that Obama’s grandmother in Kenya said he was born there.

“The grandmother in Kenya is on record saying he was born in Kenya,” Trump said. “The hospital has, not only no birth certificate - or if they have it they should produce it, maybe there is something on it, who knows - but they have no records that he was there. The family is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in.

“There is not one record, in any hospital in Hawaii, proving that Barack Hussein Obama was born there,” he added.

A Capitol political battle lasting years over placing restrictions on Wal-Mart and other big box retail stores flared anew Wednesday when the Senate Governance and Finance Committee approved union-backed legislation.

The bill, Senate Bill 469 by Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, would require proposed “superstore” projects to undergo an “economic impact report” before approval by local governments. It’s the latest in a long-string of anti-big box bills; predecessors were vetoed by former Govs. Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Several cities now require such reports, similar in concept to environmental impact reports, but Vargas bill stems directly from a flareup in San Diego. At the behest of unions that have battled with Wal-Mart, the San Diego City Council approved such a requirement last fall, but Mayor Jerry Sanders vetoed it.

The council then overrode the veto, but Wal-Mart gathered 54,000 signatures to place the issue before voters. The council then backed down and rescinded its ordinance. Vargas immediately pledged to pursue the issue with legislation that would apply to the entire state.

Vargas called his proposal “a modest approach” aimed at determining how superstores affect small business, but Wal-Mart and other critics said it was aimed only at big stores that sell groceries and was obviously aimed at giving anti-Wal-Mart forces more legal ammunition.

The bill cleared the committee on a 6-3 party-line vote, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. Governor “Moonbeam” is expected to sign any measureVargas called his proposal “a modest approach” aimed at determining how superstores affect small business, but Wal-Mart and other critics said it was aimed only at big stores that sell groceries and was obviously aimed at giving anti-Wal-Mart forces more legal ammunition.

It looks like we’re heading for a government shutdown. And you thought Joe Biden had nothing to do before. - Leno

In a cramped London laboratory filled with test tubes, bacteria and mosquitoes, scientists are trying to engineer a new weapon in the battle against malaria: a mutant fungus.

For years, Angray Kang at Westminster University and colleagues have been testing whether they could genetically tweak a fungus to kill the malaria parasite carried by mosquitoes.

Now they’ve found that in lab experiments, mosquitoes exposed to the fungus show a sharp drop in levels of the parasite. If it works that way in the wild, that should make it harder for the disease to infect people.

Kang said the mutant fungus could be sprayed onto walls and bednets like insecticides and could be made for a comparable cost. His reference of course is top DDT that Rachell Carson vilified citing bogus research that thinned bird’s eggs and caused environmental damage. It was subsequently banned after then EPA Director William Doyle Ruckelshaus summarily banned its use despite igoring howlsf and warnings rom the World Health Organization thatmillions would die.

Since 1970 at least one million have died unnecessarily every year because DDT could not be used to eradicate mosquitoes. Subsequently Rachel Carson’s claims in her cult book Silent Spring about DDT;s dangers have been discredited as outright fraud.

In World War I, prior to the discovery of the insecticidal potential of DDT, typhus killed more servicemen than bullets. In World War II, typhus was no problem. The world has marveled at the effectiveness of DDT in fighting malaria, yellow fever, dengue, sleeping sickness, plague, encephalitis, West Nile Virus, and other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, fleas, and lice.

Today, the greatest killer and disabler is malaria, which kills a person every 30 seconds. By the 1960s, DDT had brought malaria near to extinction. “To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable,” said the National Academy of Sciences.

But the handwriting was on the wall when William Ruckelshaus, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, in an address to the Audubon Society in Milwaukee in 1971, clearly stated his position:

“As you know, many mass uses of DDT have already been prohibited, including all uses around the home. Certainly we’ll all feel better when the persistent compounds can be phased out in favor of biological controls. But awaiting this millennium does not permit the luxury of dodging the harsh decisions of today.

Rachel Carson began the worldwide assault on DDT with her 1962 book, Silent Spring fabricated her research to prove an ideological point resulting in the eaths of tens of millions of people.

A Russian proverb says, “If everyone pulled in the same direction the world would tip over.”

Armenians worldwide commemorate the genocide of some 1.5 million Armenian Christians each April 24th.

On that day in 1915 300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and professionals in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) were rounded up, deported and killed. Also on that day in Constantinople, 5,000 of the poorest Armenians were butchered in the streets and in their homes.

The Armenian Genocide occurred in a systematic fashion, which proves that it was directed by the Islamic Young Turk government.

First the Armenians in the army were disarmed, placed into labor battalions, and then killed.

Then the Armenian political and intellectual leaders were rounded up on April 24, 1915, and then killed.

Finally, the remaining Armenians were called from their homes, told they would be relocated, and then marched off to concentration camps in the desert between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor where they would starve and thirst to death in the burning sun.

On the march, often they would be denied food and water, and many were brutalized and killed by their “guards” or by “marauders.” The authorities in Trebizond, on the Black Sea coast, did vary this routine: they loaded Armenians on barges and sank them out at sea.

Hitler was impressed with the Turk’s efficiency saying to his generals on the eve of sending his Death’s Heads units into Poland, “Go, kill without mercy . . . who today remembers the annihilation of the Armenians.”

Henry Morgenthau Sr., the neutral American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, sent a cable to the U.S. State Department in 1915:

“Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses [sic] it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion.”

Morgenthau’s successor as Ambassador to Turkey, Abram Elkus, cabled the U.S. State Department in 1916 that the Muslims were continuing an “. . . unchecked policy of extermination through starvation, exhaustion, and brutality of treatment hardly surpassed even in Turkish history.”

But, there was no intervention or even sanctions in the ethnic and religious cleansing.

Turkey still denies its role in the genocide.

The federal judge who struck down California’s gay marriage ban has confirmed longtime rumors that he’s a homosexual, but said his homosexuality was irrelevant in deciding the landmark case. Critics say that is judicial prejudice and his ruling should be set aside.

Speaking for the first time about the case since retiring from the bench in February, former Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said he never considered recusing himself from deciding the constitutionality of Proposition 8 because of his sexual orientation, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

UAE authorities have captured thousands of weapons headed for Yemen. They said the weapons, believed destined for the opposition, was sent from Egypt in March.

“The ship carried around 16,000 pistols of different calibers and arrived from Turkey via an Egyptian port,” Dubai Police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said.

In a statement on March 24, Tamim, regarded as a leading security official in the emirates, said the firearms had been stored in a warehouse in Dubai. He said five Arabs and a Turk were arrested. The incident underscored that much of the Middle eastern fighting is religiously motivated and supported by religious factions.

The weapons shipment for Yemen was valued at $4.3 million. In the statement, Tamim did not provide details of the end-user of the weapons.

The police statement was issued on the eve of massive protests against the Saleh regime. Organizers said the opposition planned to march on March 25 to oust the president after 32 years of rule.

“Friday [March 25] will be the ‘Friday of the March Forward,’ with hundreds of thousands of people,” Yemeni opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan, addressing Saleh on television, said. “We will arrive where you are and remove you.”

The U.S.-trained Yemeni military has been crumbling amid the revolt, with scores of officers defecting to the opposition. Some of the officers have brought with them main battle tanks and armored units, which now patrols areas of Sanaa. The United Styates has been a stabilizing fector in the Middle East but Obama has ended that resulting in chaos.

A lot of people wonder what a government shutdown would be like. I think a lot more people wonder what a government running properly would be like. –Leno

So, why was Glenn Beck fired? Take a look at circumstances surrounding the cancellation of his show:

• Ratings dropped precipitously, from 2.9 million viewers in January 2010 to 1.8 million in January 2011. Many of those viewers were from younger and more desired demographics;.
• The language of the press release announcing the show’s end says Beck will be developing “a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’s digital properties.” Not good, Glenn. That sounds a lot like the announcement when Dan Rather was pushed out of the anchor chair at CBS News. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like the departure announcement from Rather’s predecessor Walter Cronkite as well.
• More than a third of Beck’s Fox audience was lost after his “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington.
• After Beck called President Barack Obama a racist, ColorofChange.org urged consumers to boycott Beck’s advertisers, ultimately resulting in more than 400 Fox advertisers saying they didn’t want their commercials on Beck’s show, according to Forbes. That cost Fox News owner News Corp. a cool $600,000 a week.
• At least one poll found words like tiresome and tedious used often to describe Beck whose show had become a monologue.

The shutdown would mean that all non-essential workers would stop coming to work. I’m OK with that. Why do we even have non-essential workers? - Kimmel.