All Posts Tagged With: "us"
Russian live fire air military exercise underway near Alaska
Russian military actions are clearly the prelude for Moscow’s presentation of demands and get or take what it wants.
Sarcastically entitled ‘Exercise Stability 2008′ the live fire operations will take place Oct.-6-12 over sub-Arctic Russia uncomfortably close to Alaska. This is the first time in almost a quarter century Russia has ventured dozens of nuclear bombers for an exercise in which live cruise missiles will be fired.
Russian air force spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik says Exercise Stability 2008 is “practicing the strategic deployment of the armed forces including the nuclear triad.” Triad refers to land, submarine and bomber launched nuclear weapons.
Last week on Oct. 1, Russian warships armed with nuclear missiles docked at Syrian ports and Oct. 8, on the eve of Yom Kippur, will continue into the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with Venezuela.
Col. Drik stressed that the Tu-95 and Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers will “carry their maximum combat payload and fire all the cruise missiles on board.” Also taking part in the air force exercise are Tu-22M3 Backfire strategic bombers, air superiority fighters, interceptors and aerial tankers.
The locations of the war games were deliberately chosen to underline three messages to America on the eve of its Presidential election.
- Russia is willing to brandish its nuclear strength in America’s face - to the north (Arctic) and south (Caribbean) - to challenge America’s position as the world’s No. 1 superpower.
- Russia is powerful and rich enough to rise above the shockwaves rocking the world’s financial markets while carrying on developing its military muscle and expanding its spheres of influence.
- By docking at the Syrian port of Tartus, the Peter the Great nuclear missile cruiser is Moscow’s marker on the Mediterranean to betoken the end of US Sixth Fleet’s sway.
Yesterday, Oct. 3, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, announced that 20,000 kilometers of the Russian border passes through the Arctic. Moscow therefore claims 18 percent of its territory and is preparing a plan to implement this policy. That include taking out oil and natural gas that exist there in vast deposits.
On September 30th the Russian nuclear powered submarine Ryazan docked at the Kamchatka Peninsula opposite Northern Japan after completing a one-month voyage under the Arctic Ocean without surfacing. That Delta III class strategic nuclear submarine is armed with sixteen nuclear tipped ballistic missiles with a range of 8,000 km. Russian Navy Commander Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky welcoming the Ryazan’s arrival said: “The navy continues to play an important role in safeguarding Russia’s maritime economic and research activity throughout the world, including in the Arctic.”
Russia sees weakness in a self-absorbed America. It is encouraged by presidential candidate Obama’s promise to cut military budgets. When Clinton cut military budgets in the 1992-1999 Russia was emboldened to develop is oil and gas reserves and is now ready to exploit its oil and gas production and take what is wants.
Russia’s air and naval strength does not yet match America’s military might but it has more than doubled it military spending including: a 23% increase last year, more increases likely, and the possibility of American cut backs makes Putin feel the time has come to get what he wants - a new Russian empire. Although Russian president Dmitry Medvedev stated emphatically last week that there is no cold war or any other war with America, Moscow’s actions tell a different story.
Iran Preparing for War
Multiple sources point to Iran mine laying in Gulf, military exercises, bellicosity, and determination to be nuclear power at any cost.
A report from London says Western intelligence sources report Iran has engaged in a series of intensive exercises designed to enhance combat readiness for a war in the Gulf. The sources said Teheran has been steadily testing both regular military units as well as those of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Gulf sources say Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has been planting mines in the Gulf. Gulf Arab officials said most of the mines were placed in Iran’s territorial waters they also say Iran is preparing for war.
The U.S. Navy and its Western allies plan to deploy at least one additional strike carrier group in the Gulf and it is expected to arrive by mid-September.
At the same time a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said Iran continues to supply weapons to Shi’ite militias in Iraq that continue to attack U. S., Iraqi and allied forces there.
Russian Bear Want Back And Bad
President Eisenhower said America’s Greatest Weapon Against the then emerging Soviet Bear was the Good ol’ U. S. greenback.
MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dimitry Medvedev has said Russia will have to respond militarily to the deployment of elements of a U.S. missile shield in Central Europe.
The deal to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland was reached in mid-August, and followed the signing of an agreement on July 8 by the U.S. and Czech foreign ministries to place a U.S. radar in the Czech Republic.
“These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us,” Medvedev said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday. “This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means.”
The Russian president said that offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only aggravate the situation. He added that the Ukrainian people should be asked their opinion in national referendum. Opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Ukrainians are against their country joining the military alliance.
Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to the U.S. missile shield, saying it threatens its national security. The U.S. claims the shield is designed to thwart missile attacks by what it calls “rogue states,” including Iran.
Medvedev’s statement came on the same day that Russia recognized the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The move came two weeks after Moscow concluded its operation to “force Georgia to peace” following an attack by Georgian troops on South Ossetia on August.
Western political leaders have condemned Russia’s decision leading to fears of a renewed Cold War. U.S. President George Bush said in a statement on Tuesday: “Russia’s action only exacerbates tensions and complicates diplomatic negotiations.”
“We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War, but we don’t want one, and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners,” Medvedev told the Russia Today international news channel on Tuesday.
Last Month The US Navy Helped Put Out Over 1,000 Wildfires Then Blazing Across California
NAVY GLOBAL HAWK PILOTLESS UAVs GAVE DETAILED REALTIME PICTURES OF FIRES TO FIREFIGHTERS.
The U.S. Navy lent their RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV to the state of California last month, for use in monitoring the progress of massive forest and brush fires in the northern part of the state. The RQ-4 stayed in the air for nearly 24 hours, using its powerful sensors to send detailed images to those managing the effort to fight the fires.
It’s not unusual for the military to contribute personnel or other resources to civilian disasters, including forest fires. But the RQ-4 was unique in that the navy is still testing this version of Global Hawk, which is equipped for maritime patrol. The RQ-4 is a long range UAV, that can reach any place in the world in 24 hours. Earlier this year, an RQ-4A made the first non-stop crossing of the Pacific, flying 12,000 kilometers, from California to Australia, in 23 hours. The Global Hawk has previously crossed the Pacific in several hops, but it always had the endurance to do it non-stop.
The U.S. Navy has found that engaging in this kind of disaster relief effort is very beneficial. First, the people being helped appreciate it, and this is good in the PR department. But the sailors and marines involved get useful experience operating in intense, and often extreme, circumstances.
A strategic reconnaissance UAV like the RQ-4, which can intensely scan land and water surfaces, is particularly useful for disaster relief. The video and still images an RQ-4 generates are transmitted via satellite to the ground, and can easily be put onto an Internet connection. This makes it easy to get the images to the people running the disaster relief. In effect, the RQ-4 is like having a photo-satellite overhead all the time.
In the last seven years, RQ-4s have flown over 20,000 hours, most of that combat missions, and many of them from Persian Gulf bases. The latest models have been able to fly 20 hour missions, land for refueling and maintenance, and be off in four hours for another twenty hours in the sky. The RQ-4 has been very reliable, with aircraft being ready for action 95 percent of the time. The U.S. Air Force has been buying them at the rate of five a year, at a cost of $58 million each.
The new B version is larger (wingspan is 15 feet larger, at 131 feet, and it’s four feet longer at 48 feet) than the A model, and can carry an additional two tons of equipment. To support that, there’s a new generator that produces 150 percent more electrical power. The B version is a lot more reliable. Early A models tended to fail and crash at the rate of once every thousand flight hours, mostly because of design flaws.
The first three RQ-4Bs entered service in 2006. At 13 tons, the Global Hawk is the size of a commuter airliner (like the Embraer ERJ 145), but costs nearly twice as much. Global Hawk can be equipped with much more powerful, and expensive, sensors. These more the double the cost of the aircraft. These spy satellite quality sensors (especially AESA radar) are usually worth the expense, because they enable the UAV, flying at over 60,000 feet, to get a sharp picture of all the territory it can see from that altitude.
The U.S. Air Force is stationing a squadron of seven Global Hawks on the island of Guam. These UAVs will begin arriving there next year, and undertake recon missions throughout the western Pacific. The U.S. Navy is also planning to buy Global Hawks, 44 of them, to perform maritime reconnaissance. As a result of that decision, Australia is likely to buy some as well, to monitor the vast stretches of ocean that surround the island continent. The navy RQ-4 used in northern California is the test aircraft the navy is using to see how effective the Global Hawk would be on maritime patrol missions.
Nancy, Please Let Us Save the Planet, Let Someone Else Drill
Our ugly duck energy approach has a bag over its head as exhibited when Nancy (Queen Nancy) edicts to Politico that she “is trying to save the planet”. Repeat “trying to save the planet”.
How can she be so politically blinded to the consequences of our disregard for talking care and providing for our own energy needs rather than foisting it on others to meet our energy needs. Does she live in a cave with a bag over her head too? Please take time to read this article in it’s entirely, for we are on a path to destroy the earth by not drilling for oil and it is past time for the large percentage of thinking and concerned citizens to be heard loudly, firmly and respectfully.
Pelosi: Save the Planet, Let someone Else Drill
Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A17 Washington Post
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. She won’t even allow it to come to a vote. With $4 gas having massively shifted public opinion in favor of domestic production, she wants to protect her Democratic members from having to cast an anti-drilling election-year vote. Moreover, given the public mood, she might even lose. This cannot be permitted. Why? Because, as she explained to Politico: “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet.”
A lovely sentiment. But has Pelosi actually thought through the moratorium’s effects on the planet? Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it’s 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47 percent. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day, the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy. Where does it come from?
Places such as Nigeria, where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and the resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population — which leads to more spills and explosions. Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground.
Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico, where deep-sea U.S. oilrigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill.
The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling — essentially drilling down, then sideways — allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the United States has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.
Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?
The net environmental effect of Pelosi’s no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world — thereby increasing net planetary damage.
Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don’t vote. From places Democratic legislators can’t see. On May 13 Sen. Chuck Schumer — deeply committed to saving just those pieces of the planet that might have huge reserves of American oil — demanded that the Saudis increase production by a million barrels a day. It doesn’t occur to him that by eschewing the slightest disturbance of the mating habits of the Arctic caribou, he is calling for the further exploitation of the pristine deserts of Arabia. In the name of the planet, mind you.
The other panacea, yesterday’s rage, is biofuels: We can’t drill our way out of the crisis, it seems, but we can greenly grow our way out. By now, however, it is blindingly obvious even to Democrats that biofuels are a devastating force for environmental degradation. It has led to the rape of “lungs of the world” rain forests in Indonesia and Brazil as huge tracts have been destroyed to make room for palm oil and sugar plantations.
Here in the United States, one out of every three ears of corn is stuffed into a gas tank (by way of ethanol), causing not just food shortages abroad and high prices at home but intensive increases in farming, with all of the attendant environmental problems (soil erosion, insecticide pollution, water consumption, etc.).
This to prevent drilling on an area in the Arctic one-sixth the size of Dulles Airport that leaves undisturbed a refuge one-third the size of Britain.
There are a dizzying number of economic and national security arguments for drilling at home: a $700 billion oil balance-of-payments deficit, a gas tax (equivalent) levied on the paychecks of American workers and poured into the treasuries of enemy and terror-supporting regimes, growing dependence on unstable states of the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin. Pelosi and the Democrats stand athwart, shouting: We don’t care. We come to save the planet!
They seem blissfully unaware that the argument for their drill-there-not-here policy collapses on its own environmental terms.
UK French and US Navies Practice Blockading Iranian Ports
Iran to have nuke late next year or early 2010.
Fifteen thousand UK, French and US sailors took part in a joint training exercise to practicing blockading Iran’s Gulf ports to prevent refined oil products from entering the nation as a result of intensified sanctions. Iran has no refining capacity of its own so a blockade would effectively strangle its domestic economy bringing it to an abrupt halt. The emerging consensus is that Iran “will miss an opportunity” to accept the package of incentives offered it a week ago in Geneva in exchange for ending its effort to assemble a nuclear weapon.
The British prime minister said this week during a visit to Israel that here is agreement on such sanctions. France also affirmed it would participate in the blockade.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert estimated this week that Iran will assemble a nuclear weapon by late next year or early 2010.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state TV Wednesday, July 23: “The Iranian nation… will not retreat one iota in the face of oppressing powers.” He pledged to continue Iran’s nuclear program.
U. S. main stream media have ignored the story.
Al-Qaeda Tape Calls For Use Of WMD’s Against US Targets
Jihadists urged to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West
The FBI issued a bulletin to 18,000 law enforcement agencies recently warning that al-Qaeda has made new threats to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. targets. ABC News also reported that intelligence sources have confirmed that al-Qaeda plans to release a new video on the web sometime tomorrow. U.S. intelligence believes the terror group will advise its “jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West.”
An FBI spokesman confirmed the threat “calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians.” The U.S. has no “intelligence of any specific plot or indication of a threat to the U.S.,” the Bureau spokesman said. Still, the FBI has taken the precautionary step of alerting other agencies of the potential threat. It is widely believed that Syria has been hiding Saddam’s WMDs in the Bekaa Valley since 2003 and those weapons can be and perhaps already have been made available to the terrorists.
Our roll-over and play-dead Congress about to sell us out again!
The New York Times has reported that Congress and the Bush administration have reached a compromise on an expanded FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) bill that will grant telecom companies limited immunity.
Once again, our roll-over-and-play-dead Congress has found a way to relinquish its duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. The Times describes the process as having been reached after ‘months of wrangling.’ That’s the problem here; Congress is only interested in ‘wrangling’ not in standing up to or ‘fighting’ against what has become, at best, a rogue administration.
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The Democrats were returned to power in November 2006 under the guise of reigning in this administration and ending our involvement in Iraq. Neither has happened. Instead, the Congress has been complicit in escalating the war in Iraq and in assisting President Bush’s assault on our civil rights. In February the Democrats showed a bit of backbone by allowing the temporary surveillance measure to expire, raising Bush’s hackles. It must have been too much heat for the Democrats to endure because they’re about to vote him expanded spying powers. <!–[endif]–>
The most controversial portion of the FISA bill is the section that grants retroactive immunity to the telecoms complicit in violating our civil rights. According to a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), he considers this bill better than the bill the senate passed in February and much better than the Protect America Act signed into effect last summer. His spokesman went on to say that Reid is still opposed to retroactive immunity. However, it remains to be seen if Reid will stand up and fight. It sounds more like he has resigned himself to the fact that the bill will pass.
Caroline Frederickson, head of the ACLU Washington Legislation Office characterized this legislation as a “thinly-veiled giveaway to some major campaign donors.” She went on to say, “The Hoyer/Bush surveillance deal was clearly written with the telephone companies and internet providers at the table and for their benefit. They wanted immunity, and this bill gives it to them.”
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It’s clear that the Democrats lack the political will to stand up to President Bush, a lame duck president who can now lay claim to having the most unpopular administration in American history. One has to wonder why they are even taking up this legislation at this time with a new administration starting in just seven or eight month’s time. Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) vowed to filibuster any legislation that included retroactive immunity. That remains to be seen. It’s difficult to have much faith in this particular crop of Democrats.
Israeli Must Attack Iran Given UN Failure and US Coming Impotence
An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s deputies said on Friday. says a Reter’s report. In addition a US Presidency of an inexperienced Barack Obama could encourage Iran resulting in the US being paralyzed long enough to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon thereby neutralizing the US, Israel and Europe to respond.
“If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. “Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable,” said the former army chief who has also been defense minister.
It was the most explicit threat yet against Iran from a member of Olmert’s government, which, like the Bush administration, has preferred to hint at force as a last resort should U.N. Security Council sanctions be deemed a dead end. Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, has defied Western pressure to abandon its uranium enrichment projects. The leadership in Tehran has also threatened to retaliate against Israel — believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal — and U.S. targets in the Gulf for any attack on Iranian turf.
Mofaz also said in the interview that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, “would disappear before Israel does.” Mofaz’s remarks came as he and several other senior members of Olmert’s Kadima Party prepare for a possible run for top office should a corruption scandal force the Israeli prime minister to step down.
Iranian-born Mofaz has been a main party rival of the Israeli prime minister, particularly following the 2006 elections when Olmert was forced to hand the defense portfolio to Labor, his main coalition partner, at Mofaz’s expense. Mofaz, who is also designated as a deputy prime minister, has remained privy to Israel’s defense planning. He is a member of Olmert’s security cabinet and leads regular strategic coordination talks with the U.S. State Department.
Israel sent warplanes to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981.
A similar Israeli sortie over Syria last September razed what the U.S. administration said was a nascent nuclear reactor built with North Korean help. Syria denied having any such facility.
Independent analysts have questioned, however, whether Israel’s armed forces can take on Iran alone, as its nuclear sites are numerous, distant and well-fortified.
That likely means Israel will appeal to the US for support before the US administration changes, ie., the THANKSGIVING SCENARIO. Israeli is convinced if Iran has nuclear wepons it will use them to destroy Israel. It is a mortal issue for Israel.
Challenges Facing China (and the US)
The continuing jolting news coverage in the US media of the human toll and the seemingly uniqueness destruction of the earthquake in China which has created lakes, as well as exposed shoddy construction, and showcased the government response (informed by Katrina?) and the perspective of our newest blogger from China, The Tao, has caused me to think. Well it’s about time some many say.
I thought about the phrase “the only superpower”, which has always made me cringe for a lot of reasons. It refers, of course to the US as the world’s lone remaining superpower, after the fall of the Sovier Union, before the now obvious economic (and military, and techonoligical and space?) rise of China begun 30 years ago with a capitulation to capitalism., indeed the rise of all of extended Asia including Russia and the Middle East.
How fleeting that fact (only superpower) might be viewed to have been in the eyes of history, however flawed as always, which importantly is not that of any of us alive today. Yes, we probably had/have more nuclear weapons than any other power, more oil/energy consumption, more of this and more of that. But we, in my opinion, unlike world oil, have peaked. I like to think that does not mean we have to fall in any important real terms, whatever that is, but that the rest of the world is rising.
Because if that is true, I think the US can take some credit for the rise of the rest of the world. Despite our many flaws including the current seemingly ham handed results of some of Bush’s policies, 1) we have resisted the massive true and continuing colonization of the world that other powers and governments have (and would have tried to exploit, differently than we tried), 2) we have encouraged the move to capitalism, which encourages other countries directly and indirectly, to compete with private companies in the US and throughout the world, and 3) we have encouraged democratization in some manner, not just in our image.
The challenges of China are significant, as it moves from 5000 years of poor government in my opinion, to one where human rights and human opportunity are taking center stage. I note from the writing of The Tao, that there is support for China’s continuing suppression and control of the media.
The thinking is that if there were US style freedom of the press inside of China as well (it still exists in the US despite charges to the contrary), more than one revolution would break out in that vast and historically diverse country. So much would come to light, accurate and inaccurate, that even millennium old conflicts will be exposed and given the harsh light of day that the US government and it’s candidates for office are exposed to everyday. That would make it impossible for the government to govern. The government is nominally Communist, but in reality is is simply an entrenched authoritarian regime trying to hold on to power while it gives power to the people through capitalism without democracy, so that human rights and human opportunity, can increase the quality of life that all previous government failed to achieve.
I applaud the cold eyed pragmatism this leadership in China embarked upon decades ago, for the benefit of billions of people alive now and in the future, as well as for themselves in their leadership positions. That pragmatism continues today in it’s national interest. Some think national interest is inextricably tied to the charge of fascism, but I do not, although extreme nationalism if it emerges, could deserve even worse and more precise labels.
China is not politically correct in US terms. It would shock most American sensibilities of human rights (think one child policy). For the world’s benefit, their most important challenge is to release power gradually enough so as not to move into the next revolution, in the style embodied in Marxism and Mao, which called for continuous revolution, even violent, approving of the killing of innocents (similar to but importantly different to “collateral damage”) in the wrongful belief that each revolution would result in a better government. Absolutely wrong because it just transfers power into the hands of a different corrupt group, think Castro and yes, the beloved Che, Hugo Chavez and many others. No it does not include the hapless Bush.
The challenge to the US is to continue to support China’s rise (and the rest of the world) while finding way to be appropriately nationalistic, looking our for our legitimate national interests without entering into disastrous conflicts, economic, political or militarily. It is important for the extreme political divide in the US to get healed, because given all the givens, the US is in danger of serving up our national interest to a now more powerful “rest of the world”.
Who thinks we cannot go from superpower protected status to extreme vulnerability to modern day versions of colonialism, extreme nationalism, real fascism, through terrorism or outright warfare from aggressive state powers, and continuing non state terrorism, in your kids lifetime. 9/11 could look tame compared to a worse case scenario. We need to relearn how to act in the world, in this really new world order (not the kind trumpeted by conspiratorialists).
Where will the leadership come from to create a good outcome for the world, including the US?