Text Fwd:[Rick Rozoff]Pentagon Provokes New Crisis With China

* Text sent from Rick Rozoff on July 10, 2010

Stop NATO
July 10, 2010
Pentagon Provokes New Crisis With China
Rick Rozoff

Three news features appearing earlier this week highlight tensions between the United States and the People's Republic of China that, at least in relation to the language used to describe them, would have seemed unimaginable even a few months ago and are evocative more of the Korean War era than of any time since the entente cordiale initiated by the Richard Nixon-Mao Zedong meeting in Beijing in 1972.

To indicate the seriousness of the matter, the stories are from Global Times, a daily newspaper published in conjunction with the People's Daily, official press organ of the ruling Communist Party of China, and Time, preeminent American weekly news magazine. Both accounts use as their point of departure and source of key information a July 4 report in Hong Kong's major English-language daily.

On July 6 writer Li Jing penned a news article for Global Times called "US subs reach Asian ports: report," which detailed the following recent developments:

"Three of the largest submarines of the US Seventh Fleet surfaced in Asia-Pacific ports last week, the South China Morning Post reported Monday [July 5]. The appearance of the USS Michigan in Pusan, South Korea, the USS Ohio in Subic Bay, the Philippines, and the USS Florida in the strategic Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia was a show of force not seen since the end of the Cold War, the paper said, adding that the position of those three ports looks like a siege of China." [1]

The piece from the Hong Kong newspaper cited was entitled "US submarines emerge in show of military might: Message unlikely to be lost on Beijing as 3 vessels turn up in Asian ports," and was in fact dated July 4.

The author, South China Morning Post Asia correspondent Greg Torode, described the simultaneous arrival of three "Ohio-class submarines" equipped with "a vast quantity of Tomahawk cruise missiles" as a reflection of "the trend of escalating submarine activity in East Asia...." [2]

He further added this noteworthy data: "Between them, the three submarines can carry 462 Tomahawks, boosting by an estimated 60 per cent-plus the potential Tomahawk strike force of the entire Japanese-based Seventh Fleet - the core projection of US military power in East Asia."

The author quotes without identifying his name or nation a veteran Asian military attache with reported close ties to both Chinese and U.S. military officials: "460-odd Tomahawks is a huge amount of potential firepower in anybody's language.

"It is another sign that the US is determined to not just maintain its military dominance in Asia, but to be seen doing so...that is a message for Beijing and for everybody else, whether you are a US ally or a nation sitting on the fence." [3]

* Image source: same as the link, [USS Ohio]

On July 8 Time magazine's Mark Thompson elaborated on the earlier report with language, including that of his title, "U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a Message," derived from the South China Morning Post piece, which Thompson claims contained information planted by "U.S. officials...on July 4, no less" [4] in a clear signal to the government in mainland China.

The Time journalist added details, though, not in the original story, replete with a good deal of editorializing that perhaps serves the same source he attributes the contents of the Hong Kong article to and for the same reason: As a shot across the bow to China.

His account of last week's deployments included: "A new class of U.S. superweapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia."

The U.S. has eighteen nuclear-powered Ohio class ballistic missile submarines, fourteen still armed with nuclear warhead-tipped Trident missiles and four which "hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads."

"The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan." [5]

With the arrival of the USS Ohio in the Philippines, the USS Michigan in South Korea and the USS Florida "in the strategic Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia" [6] on the same day, "the Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 new Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood." [7]

The Time report also revealed that all four Ohio class Tomahawk-armed submarines were operationally deployed away from their home ports for the first time.

Thompson wrote that the coordinated actions were "part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater, which Washington sees as the military focus of the 21st century."

Regarding the submarines still carrying Trident missiles, he rhetorically added, "Why 14 subs, as well as bombers and land-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons, are still required to deal with the Russian threat is a topic for another day." [8]

All three journalists cited - Jing, Torode and Thompson - place the U.S. submarine deployments within a broader and also a more pressing context.

The South China Morning Post writer stated: "In policies drafted under then-president George W. Bush, a Republican, and continued by the administration of his successor, Democrat Barack Obama, the Pentagon is shifting 60 per cent of its 53 fast-attack [as distinct from ballistic and guided missile] submarines to the Pacific - a process that is now virtually complete.

"But the presence of the larger cruise-missile submarines shows that, at times, the US forward posture will be significantly larger."

The USS Ohio, for example, "has been operating out of Guam for most of the last year, taking advantage of the island's expanding facilities to extend its operations in the western Pacific.

"It is due to return soon, but the Florida and the Michigan are likely to remain in the region for many months yet, using Guam and possibly Diego Garcia for essential maintenance and crew changes."

Additionally, "The presence of the Florida, based on the US east coast, appears to confirm the US is still routinely bringing submarines under the arctic ice cap to East Asia." [9]

Just as the Pentagon is moving nuclear submarines under the northern polar ice cap to the Indian Ocean, so it has recently reached an "agreement [that] will allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the North Pole" to Afghanistan and "the region" by way of Kazakhstan, which borders China as well as Russia. [10]

The U.S. military "siege of China" is proceeding on several fronts, on land as well as under water and in Central as well as South and East Asia. But what primarily had been a policy of surveillance and probing China's perimeter is now entering a new phase.

That the U.S. currently has over 60 per cent of the Tomahawk cruise missiles assigned to its Japan-based Seventh Fleet near China emphasizes the qualitative escalation of Washington's show of strength vis-a-vis Beijing. One related to, as was seen above, a strategic shift of attack submarines nearer China and also to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula that was exacerbated by the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in March.

There has even been speculation that U.S. submarine deployments and other "messages" delivered to China of late were designed to pressure Beijing into taking a tougher stance toward North Korea over the Cheonan incident. What journalists have been referring to as messages would in an earlier age have been called saber-rattling and gunboat diplomacy.

U.S.-China relations sharply deteriorated this January when the Obama administration finalized an almost $6.5 billion arms sales package for Taiwan which includes 200 Patriot missiles. [11] An article on the subject in the New York Times on January 31 was titled, revealing enough, "U.S. Arms for Taiwan Send Beijing a Message."

China suspended military ties with the U.S., and bad blood has persisted throughout the year, resulting in Secretary of Defense Robert Gates scrapping plans to visit Beijing early last month when he was effectively disinvited by Chinese officialdom on the prompting of the military.

The White House and the Pentagon have been sending a number of unequivocal - and increasingly provocative - messages to China this year.

The new U.S. administration signalled a confrontational approach early on. In May of 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, barely three months in her post, stated, “The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere....” [12]

Later in the year then Director of National Intelligence (and retired admiral and former commander-in-chief of the Pacific Command) Dennis Blair released the latest quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report which said “Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States’ national interests. [13]

While Blair headed up the Pacific Command (PACOM) from 1999-2002, his role included overseeing a vast area of the planet that includes China (since the Ronald Reagan administration assigned it to that military command in 1983).

Arrogating the right to divide the entire world into military zones, areas of operation, has never been attempted by any other nation, any group of nations, not even all the nations of the world collectively (in the United Nations or otherwise). But the U.S. has and does do just that. It has even added two new Unified Combatant Commands - Northern Command and Africa Command - in recent years, in 2002 and 2007 respectively.

* Image source: same as the link

The Pacific Command is the oldest and largest of the six current regional commands (the others being the Africa, Northern, European, Central and Southern Commands), and was formed during the dawning of the Cold War in 1947. Its area of responsibility takes in over 50 per cent of the world - 105 million square miles - 36 nations and almost 60 per cent of the world's population.

300,000 troops from all major branches of the U.S. armed forces - the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy - are assigned to it, 20 per cent of all active duty American service members.

Pacific Command is in charge of military defense treaties with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Korea.

The U.S. is also alone in assigning the world's oceans and seas to naval commands. Washington has six naval fleets - the Fourth Fleet (the Caribbean, Central and South America) was reactivated in 2008 after being disbanded in 1950) - and just as Pacific Command is the largest unified, multi-service command, so the Seventh is the largest forward-deployed fleet, with 50-60 warships, 350 aircraft and as many as 60,000 Sailors and Marines at any given time. It is based in Japan and its area of responsibility includes over 50 million square miles of the (largely western) Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The U.S. also has eleven aircraft carriers, ten of them nuclear-powered and all eleven part of strike groups. [14] (China has no and Russia one carrier.)

The Time magazine article quoted from earlier mentioned that the deployment of four U.S. guided missile submarines to East Asia and the Indian Ocean is not the only development that China needs to be concerned about. The U.S. is simultaneously presiding over six-week biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises in Hawaii with over 20,000 troops, 36 warships and submarines (25 American) and 180 planes and helicopters.

This year's RIMPAC, which began on June 23 and is to be completed by the end of July, includes for the first time the participation of France, Colombia - with which the U.S. has recently concluded an agreement for the use of seven of its military bases [15] - and the Southeast Asia nations of Malaysia and Singapore. The other countries involved are Australia, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Peru, South Korea and Thailand. The five-week war games involve "missile exercises and the sinking of three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy ships." [16]

The combined task force commander for RIMPAC 2010 is commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, whose area of responsibility is approximately 50 million square miles of the eastern Pacific, Vice Admiral Richard Hunt, who stated, "This is the largest RIMPAC that we've had," and one which "clearly focuses on maritime domain awareness dealing with expanded military operations across the complete spectrum of warfare." [17]

Time's Mark Thompson also wrote: "Closer to China, CARAT 2010 - for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training - just got underway [July 5] off Singapore. The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

"China is absent from both exercises, and that's no oversight." [18]

This February Cobra Gold 2010, "the largest multinational military exercise in the world," [19}, was launched in Thailand (separated from China by only one nation, either Laos or Myanmar) and as with all previous Cobra Gold war games was run by U.S. Pacific Command and the Royal Thai Supreme Command. Joining the U.S. and Thailand in this year's exercises, designed "to build interoperability between the United States and its Asia-Pacific regional partners," [20] were the armed forces of Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and, for the first time, South Korea.

From June 8-25 the latest U.S. Air Force-led Red Flag Alaska air maneuvers were held near the eastern Pacific. "The Red Flag exercises, conducted in four-to-six cycles a year by the 414th Combat Training Squadron of the 57th Wing, are very realistic aerial war games. The purpose is to train pilots from the U.S., NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations." [21]

Over a thousand airmen from five nations - the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Romania and Belgium - assembled at Alaska's Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force Bases for air combat training which "unites forces from all over the world."

"South Korea, a country already accustomed to working with U.S. troops, is also in Alaska to strengthen the two nations' ties after the sinking of a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine.

"'We have the American Air Force in Korea, and the coalition and the combined working environment is very important,' said Lt. Hoon Min Kim, a member of South Korea's air force. 'And being able to perform under a combined environment is therefore essential as well.'" [22]

The incorporation of progressively more Asia-Pacific nations into what has been referred to as an Asian NATO is by no means directed solely at North Korea nor is it understood as such by officials in Beijing.

Participants in that arrangement, among them Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Mongolia, have troops serving under NATO in Afghanistan. Recently 140 new South Korean forces arrived at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to reinforce a base in Parwan province recently subjected to repeated rocket attacks. Seoul's troop strength in the war zone is now at 230.

This month the government of Singapore announced it will increase its soldiers in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to "a record 162, from 97 last year."

"Next month, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) will send a 52-man unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team - its biggest deployment to Afghanistan - to Oruzgan [Uruzgan], one of two provinces where Singapore has troops." [23]

Earlier this year NATO announced that Mongolia and South Korea have become the 45th and 46th nations to provide it with troops for the war in Afghanistan. Mongolia borders both China and Russia and is the object of intense efforts by the U.S. to increase military cooperation and integration. [24] On July 6 NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy Dirk Brengelmann paid a two-day visit to South Korea, where he stated, "Our security interests and security interests of countries like Korea coincide today more than ever."

A news report of his visit paraphrased his comments as asserting that "The world's biggest military alliance, NATO, is looking to increase cooperation with South Korea and other partners beyond Europe and North America," and added that "Speaking of cooperation, Brengelmann noted NATO's show of support for South Korea in light of the sinking of its warship Cheonan....The diplomat said some NATO members also serve on the U.N. Security Council and that the NATO members will try to ensure any Security Council action on the Cheonan sinking will represent their views expressed in the NATO statement." [25]

Another country that shares borders with China and Russia, Kazakhstan, has allowed the U.S. and NATO transit and overflight rights for the Afghan war and last week the nation's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed a law permitting the Pentagon to ship "special cargo" - armored vehicles - through his country.

The U.S. and NATO have transited hundreds of thousands of troops through the Manas Air Base (now Transit Center at Manas) in Kyrgyzstan, which also borders China, since 2001 and in recent months troops have passed in and out from Afghanistan at the rate of 55,000 a month, 660,000 a year. [26] Washington has announced plans to open new training bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the second nation also adjoining China.

With Afghanistan and Pakistan, which also have borders with China, the U.S. and NATO have a military presence in five nations on China's western flank and a foothold in Mongolia. The U.S. and NATO war in South Asia will enter its tenth year this autumn with no sign of Western military presence departing from China's backyard.

The U.S. military remains ensconced in Japan and South Korea, has returned to the Philippines (including camps in Mindanao), is solidifying bilateral and multilateral military relations with practically all nations in Southeast Asia, and for the past five years has cultivated India as a military partner. [India is currently an observer at the RIMPAC exercises.) Japan, Taiwan and Australia are being integrated into a U.S.-designed regional and broader global interceptor missile system.

The U.S. is conducting regular military exercises, building military partnerships, stationing troops and opening bases around China's periphery, in addition to the positioning of warships, submarines and aircraft carriers in the waters off its coasts.

What alarms China most at the moment, though, is a proposed joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise in the Yellow Sea, enclosed by both Koreas to the east and China to the north and west.

China's Global Times recently quoted Xu Guangqian, military strategist at the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Sciences, issuing this warning: "China's position on the Yellow Sea issue demonstrates its resolution to safeguard national rights and interests. It also reflects that China is increasingly aware of the fact that its strategic space has confronted threats from other countries." [27]

China, which just concluded six days of naval drills of its own in the East China Sea, had more reason to be concerned when it was disclosed earlier this month that a U.S. aircraft carrier would join the maneuvers off its Yellow Sea coast.

On July 8 China renewed its opposition to the planned U.S.-South Korean war games, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang telling reporters, "China has expressed its serious concerns with relevant parties. We are firmly opposed to foreign military vessels engaging in activities that undermine China's security interests in the Yellow Sea or waters close to China." [28]

An unsigned editorial in the Chinese Global Times of July 8 stated, "Beijing sees the joint exercise not only as being aimed at Pyongyang, but also as a direct threat to its territorial waters and coastline," and blamed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for worsening relations between the two nations:

"It is not known whether Lee had thought of China's reaction when he announced in May the drill with the US.

"Did he foresee Chinese people's anger? Or, did he intend to provoke the country on the other side of the Yellow Sea?

"It is a shame and a provocation on China's doorstep.

"If a US aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it will mean a major setback to Seoul's diplomacy, as hostility between the peoples of China and South Korea will probably escalate, which Beijing and Seoul have been working for years to avoid." [29]

President Lee met with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Toronto late last month, during which a previous arrangement to transfer wartime command of South Korean forces to the nation in 2012 were postponed if not abandoned. In Obama's words, "One of the topics that we discussed is that we have arrived at an agreement that the transition of operational control for alliance activities in the Korean peninsula will take place in 2015." In the five-year interim "if war were to break out on the Korean peninsula the United States would assume operational command of South Korean forces." [30]

If Washington is planning direct intervention on the Korean Peninsula as its military buildup in the region, including off China's shores, might indicate, the words of former South Korean president Kim Young-Sam a decade ago are worth recalling. Two years after stepping down as head of state, Kim revealed to one of his nation's main newspapers that he had intervened to prevent a second Korean war, that his government "stopped US President Bill Clinton from launching an air strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities in June 1994."

He initiated a last-minute phone conversation with the U.S. president which "saved the Korean peninsula from an imminent war," as "The Clinton government was preparing a war" by deploying an aircraft carrier off the eastern coast of North Korea "close enough for its war planes to hit the North's nuclear facilities in Yongbyon."

Furthermore, Kim warned the U.S. ambassador in Seoul that "another war on the Korean peninsula would turn all of Korea into a bloodbath, killing between 10 and 20 million people and destroying South Korea's prosperous economy." [31]

Any catastrophic event on the Korean Peninsula, and war is the ultimate cataclysm, could lead to hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees fleeing to Russia and millions to China.

The nearly nine-year war in Afghanistan being waged by the U.S. and NATO has led to an explosion of violence and destabilization in three nations flanking China: Afghanistan itself, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Also, since 2001 Afghanistan has become the world's largest producer of opium and hashish, flooding the European and other drug markets. A forum entitled "Afghan Drug Production - A Challenge to the International Community" was held in Moscow a month ago.

A Russian report on the meeting stated "The situation around drug production in Afghanistan has gained a catastrophic character. Some 100,000 people died globally from Afghan drugs in 2009 alone. In all, Afghan-made opiates have claimed one million human lives in the past decade, and 16 million more ruined their health." [32] 30,000 of the drug-related deaths occurred in Russia. The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan currently accounts for 92 per cent of world opium cultivation.

China and Russia are viewed as, if not challengers to U.S. global dominance, impediments to its further consolidation. And not in the military sphere but in the fields of economics, trade, energy and transportation. Destabilization of their neighborhoods and frontiers is one manner of limiting competition.

All means fair and foul are employed to eliminate obstacles to uncontested supremacy, and what the world's sole military superpower (the term is President Obama's from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech) truly excels at is expanding its international military machine with an unflinching willingness to use it.



1) Global Times, July 8, 2010
2) South China Morning Post, July 4, 2010 http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=6c48dbee25999210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=Asia+%26+World&s=News (Subscribers only)
3) Ibid
4) Time, July 8, 2010
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2002378,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
5) Ibid
6) South China Morning Post, July 4, 2010
7) Time, July 8, 2010
8) Ibid
9) South China Morning Post, July 4, 2010
10) Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military Outpost Between Russia And China
Stop NATO, April 14, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military-outpost-between-russia-and-china
11) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow
12) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
13) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
14) U.S. Consolidates Military Network In Asia-Pacific Region
April 28, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/s-consolidates-military-network-in-asia-pacific-region
15) Colombia: U.S. Escalates War Plans In Latin America
Stop NATO, July 22, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/colombia-u-s-escalates-war-plans-in-latin-america
16) Time, July 8, 2010
17) Navy Times, July 6, 2010
18) Ibid
19) American Forces Press Service, January 13, 2010
20) Ibid
21) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_(USAF)
22) KTUU TV, June 24, 2010
23) AsiaOne, July 1, 2010
24) Mongolia: Pentagon Trojan Horse Wedged Between China And Russia
Stop NATO, March 31, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia
25) Yonhap News Agency, July 6, 2010
26) Kyrgyzstan And The Battle For Central Asia
Stop NATO, April 7, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/kyrgyzstan-and-the-battle-for-central-asia
27) Global Times, July 6, 2010
28) Agence France-Presse, July 8, 2010
29) Global Times, July 8, 2010
30) Agence France-Presse, July 27, 2010
31) Agence France-Presse, May 24, 2000
32) Itar-Tass, June 9, 2010

Text Fwd: Red Flag Alaska: Japan, S. Korea, Romania In U.S. Air War Games

* Rick Rozoff on June 28, 2010

Alaska's News Source

KTUU TV
June 24, 2010

Airmen, allies train for combat at Red Flag Alaska

by Christine Kim
Thursday, June 24, 2010

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- More than 1,000 airmen are at Alaska's Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force Bases for this month's Red Flag Alaska, an international training exercise.

The training unites forces from all over the world. Airmen from Japan, South Korea, Belgium and Romania joined U.S. forces for the exercise.

"We have very little training opportunities in Belgium, so this is one of the chances we have to take to get this done," said Maj. Kurt Deprez, a member of Belgium's air force.

South Korea, a country already accustomed to working with U.S. troops, is also in Alaska to strengthen the two nations' ties after the sinking of a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine.

"We have the American Air Force in Korea, and the coalition and the combined working environment is very important," said Lt. Hoon Min Kim, a member of South Korea's air force. "And being able to perform under a combined environment is therefore essential as well."

The Red Flag Alaska missions began nearly two weeks ago, with at least two flights a day.

"There's a lot of (ground-to-air) threats that we simulate out there, some surface-to-air missiles and stuff that's out there in the range," said the exercise's lead planner, U.S. Air Force Maj. William Friar. "We have some air-to-air threats that we have, that the guys up north at Eielson Air Force Base, that they fly as the enemy -- as the Red air."

One training mission is a simulated airdrop conducted by eight C-130 Hercules cargo planes from various nations, with two U.S. Air Force C-130s leading the way.

The aircraft fly over diverse terrain, as low as 300 feet above ground. In the back of the lead plane, two airmen prepare to make the drop. Officials say on a real airdrop a C-130 might deploy anywhere from 20 to 55 troops, in addition to supplies.

A second aircraft trails behind the first, dropping flares to simulate troops, but it's just one piece of the mission. What you can't see are the other players above and below making it safe to conduct the drop.

"Whether it be the fighters who are providing the top cover for us against enemy air threats, the (air-to-surface) attack aircraft that are taking out targets that are trying to hit us from the ground," said aircraft commander Maj. Mark Andrews.

The military says Alaska's large amounts of open airspace make a war scenario more realistic -- which means the C-130s' training flight is as real as it could get.

"Let them know that after coming out and executing this, that we're ready to handle anything that's thrown at us," Andrews said.

Red Flag Alaska is another effort to prepare the nation's troops and allies for battle, and to rise above today's military challenges.

There are a total of four Red Flag Alaska exercises each year. This month's exercise involves joint forces, but the other three involve only U.S. aircraft.

Contact Christine Kim at ckim@ktuu.com

_______________________________________________________

Stop NATO

Blog site:

Text Fwd: Pentagon Tests GBI Missile; SM-3s On Way To Europe

* Text informed by Rick Rozoff on June 12, 2010

U.S. Military Test Launches New Missile Interceptor
By Turner Brinton
Space News
posted: 10 June 2010
11:02 pm ET

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) on June 6 successfully conducted the first flight test of a smaller version of its ground-based interceptor being developed as a backup option for a European missile shield, the agency said June 6.

The two-stage interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and delivered an operational kill vehicle to a target point in space, as opposed to actually intercepting a target missile, an MDA press release said. Program officials are still analyzing telemetry data from the test, but all indications are that it was a success, the release said.

The two-stage interceptor is derived from the three-stage Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptors now deployed in Alaska and California to defend the United States against long-range missiles. The MDA and GMD prime contractor Boeing Defense, Space & Security of St. Louis were developing the smaller variant to be deployed in Europe to defend allies and deployed forces there, but the White House has since changed course, relegating the interceptor to a backup option in favor of the Raytheon-built Standard Missile (SM)-3 interceptors.

Under a revised plan for European missile defense announced last year, U.S. Navy Aegis ships equipped with SM-3 interceptors will be deployed to European waters in 2011. Land-based SM-3 batteries will be developed and deployed in Poland and Romania in 2015. These interceptors have a successful test record against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.

A larger and more capable version of the SM-3, known as block 2B, is needed to intercept long-range missiles and provide an additional layer of defense for the United States. It is being co-developed with Japan and is not expected to be ready until 2020. Development of the two-stage ground-based interceptor will continue as a hedge against technological problems with the larger SM-3 interceptor.

• The Most Destructive Space Weapons
• Weapons In Space: Dawn of a New Era
• Photos of the X-37B Space Plane

Text & Video Fwd: RUSSIA TODAY – HAITI EARTHQUAKE WAS MASS MURDER USING SECRET EARTHQUAKE WEAPON – “HAARP”

* Image sourec: Wired.com
'Gallery: Inside Alaska’s Answer to Area 51'
HAARP: MIND CONTROL, WEATHER MANIPULATION, LONG-DISTANCE SPYIN


* Image source( Wikipeida)
'High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program Research Station
Gakona, Alaska'

* Image source : Google

Click the image for larger view


* Image source: Wired.com
(original source: Darpa Budget Estimates)

________________________________________________________________________

* According to Makiko Sato, contrary to below claim, Koichi Toyoshima, Japanese physicist and activist says the HAARP cannot technically work as an earthquake weapon. It will be helpful to put the link HERE so that various views can be considered of.

________________________________________________________________________
* Below info. sent from MICK HARRISON (Civillibertiesandprivacyforall (at) gmail.com) on March 1, 2010

'Dear Japan, Turkey, Taiwan, Philippines, Burma, Greece, Italy, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Central America, South America, USA, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran, Yemen, West Africa, PNG, Samoa, Vanuatu and Fiji – AND HAITI and probably CHILE'

The recent ‘earthquakes’, ‘hurricanes’, ‘storms’, ‘typhoons’, ‘floods’, ‘tsunamis’ and ‘fires’ in your countries were War Crimes attacks using Secret Geophysical Weapons.

It’s called “HAARP” – and the bases are in Norway, Greenland (Denmark) and Alaska (USA)
___________________________________________________________________
Russia Today (Video source: Voltairnet.org) (Video URL)

Voltairnet.org
Controversy
Was the earthquake in Haiti caused by the United States?

According to Russia Today, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías evoked the possibility that the United States are behind the series of earthquakes that struck the Caribben region last week, including the one that devastated Haiti. However, according to Vive Tv, the allegation originated with the Russian armed forces. Be that as it may, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have requested the UN Security Council to convene an emergency session. This forum will be expected to examine these charges and look into the "humanitarian" invasion of Haiti by US troops.

___________________________________________________________________

Editor’s Note: The following article was written and published by VIVE TV, a Venezuelan public channel. The video was broadcasted by Russia Today, a Russian public channel. Oddly enough, the Venezuelan channel designates the Russian Army as the source of these claims whereas the Russian channel attributes them to President Chávez.

VIVE TV: A report from the Russian Northern Fleet [transmitted to the Government of Venezuela] would seem to indicate that the earthquate that devastated Haiti was the "clear result of a seismic weapons test recently conducted by the US Navy".

The Northern Fleet has been monitoring the movements and U.S. naval activities in the Caribbean since 2008 when the Americans announced their intention to re-establish the Fourth Fleet which had been dissolved in 1950, to which Russia responded a year later with a Russian fleet headed by the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great, thus kicking off its first exercise in this region since the end of the Cold War.

Since the late 1970s, the U.S. have made tremendous progress in their seismic weapons research and, according to these Russian sources, currently employ devices based on Pulse, Plasma, Electromagnetic and Sonic technology combined with shock wave bombs.

The report also compares two analogous tests carried out by the U.S. Navy last week: a 6.5 magnitude earthquake that hit the area around the town of Eureka, California, without causing any casualties, and the one in the Caribbean that caused the death of at least 140 thousand innocent people.

As indicated in the report, it is "more than likely" that the U.S. Navy had "full knowledge" of the catastrophic damage that this test would potentially inflict on Haiti, which would explain why Lieutenant General P. Keen, Military Deputy Commander of U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) had been pre-positioned on the island to oversee the anticipated relief efforts. [1]

The report further indicates that the ultimate goal of these tests is related to plans which foresee the destruction of Iran through a series of earthquakes designed to neutralize the current Islamic regime.

According to the report, the system being tested by the United States (HAARP, for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) is also capable of creating weather anomalies which cause floods, droughts and hurricanes [2].

According to a previous report, the available data coincides with the one associated with the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan (China) on 12 May 2008, and which was also caused by electromagnetic waves emitted by HAARP.

One can observe a correlation between seismic activities and the ionosphere, which is a HAARP feature:

1. Earthquakes identical in depth and linearly on the same fault are caused by induced frequency linear projection.

2. A coordinated satellite configuration can generate concentrated frequency projections targeting specific points (hippocampus).

3. A diagram shows that earthquakes considered to be artificial propagate linearly at the same depth.

Location	Date	Depth
Venezuela	8 January 2010	10 km
Honduras	11 January 2010	10 km
Haïti	12 January 2010	10 km

A depth of 10 kms was also observed in the case of other replicas.

Following the earthquake, the Pentagon announced that the hospital ship USNS Comfort, which was anchored in Baltimore, summoned its crew and sailed to Haiti, despite the fact that several days would elapse before its arrival. Nevertheless, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that the U.S. armed forces were preparing an urgent response to the catastrophe.

General Douglas Fraser, Commander-in-Chief of USSOUTHCOM, indicated that Coast Guard and Navy vessels had been dispatched to Haiti, despite their limited cargo of helicopters and material. The super carrier USS Carl Vinson was sent from Virginia with a complete consignment of planes and helicopters. It arrived in Haiti on January 14 in the afternoon, as specified by Fraser who also remarked that additional helicopter groups would be joining the Carl Vinson.

USAID was already on the spot before the earthquake.

President Obama was informed about the earthquake on January 12 at 17h52 and ordered emergency services to be provided to the staff of his Embassy and humanitarian assistance to the population.

According to the Russian report, the State Department, USAID and the U.S. Southern Command launched their humanitarian invasion by deploying 10000 soldiers and contractors, in lieu of the United Nations, to take control of Haitian territory following the "devastating experimental earthquake.

_____________________________________________________________________
* Other reference articles (source from MICK HARRISON)

Washington's New World Order Weapons Have the Ability to Trigger Climate Change
Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, January 4, 2002


Press TV
Chavez says US 'weapon' caused Haiti quake
Jan. 21, Thursday, 2010

VIDEO:- HAARP: GEOPHYSICAL WARFARE & ‘MIND CONTROL’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9WxpB5ekQQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGZ7Z2LQ7Xc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU_6f_x4qy8&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9WxpB5ekQQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8SGzdEOObo&NR=1
http://www.google.com/search?domains=globalresearch.ca&q=haarp&sa=Google+Search&sitesearch=globalresearch.ca
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=dNrL9o7mh-M

HAARP AND BAE SYSTEMS INFORMATION & ELECTRONIC WARFARE SYSTEMS
http://www.rense.com/general70/haarp.htm

VIDEO:- CHINA CONSIDERS WAR AGAINST USA OVER EARTHQUAKE ATTACK
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=0VX0JvpW5q0&feature=related
http://tinyurl.com/3g4rd5

AMERICA'S "WAR ON TERRORISM" by MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY
http://www.globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html

9/11 WAS DONE BY THE NWO CRIMINALS USING HAARP
The "war on terrorism" is bogus. The 911 narrative as conveyed by the 911 Commission report is fabricated. The Bush administration is involved in acts of cover-up and complicity at the highest levels of government........”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7718
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12565

TURNING 9/11 REALITIES UPSIDE DOWN: THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15147

[Site Fwd]: Comment on Basic Plan on Space

* Makiko Sato informed the site.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　Contributed comments from
the Global Network aganst Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　http://www.space4peace.org/


　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　 Comment on Basic Plan on Space
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　Bruce Gagnon　　　　Main, USA 　　May 11, 2009

I am writing to give the comments from the Global Network Against 　　　Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space　on Japan's “Basic Plan on Space.” 　　　It has come to our attention that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency 　 　(JAXA) and Lockheed Martin are collaborating on a two-stage rocket 　　　launch　system called GX. 　　　　　 　　　The proposal is to use these rockets at Vandenberg Air Force Base 　　　in California.　 　　　We have much experience at Vandenberg AFB which is a key military 　　　launch center for nuclear weapons, missile defense, and military　satellites. 　　　We know that today the US Air Force has problems finding enough reliable 　　　launch vehicles　for their growing demand for military launches. 　　　Thus, we view the GX rocket as an attempt to get Japan　to help 　　　develop a rocket system to assist the Pentagon in launching military 　　　space missions. 　　　We are aware that the Japanese people are being told that the GX would 　　　be　for “commercial launches” at Vandenberg. 　　　The people of Kodiak Island,　Alaska were told　a similar thing about 10 　　　years ago when a rocket launch center was established on their 　　　environmentally pristine island. 　　　But in fact, since the opening of the Kodiak rocket launch center, 　　　only US military space weapons technology missions have been launched 　　　 from their island. 　　　The military industrial complex in the US　has for many years been saying 　　　that an arms race in space will be the largest industrial project in the 　　　history　of the planet Earth. Thus, the US alone cannot afford to pay for 　　　 this expensive　and dangerously destabilizing program all by itself. 　　　The US　weapons industry　has determined that it must recruit allies to 　　　help pay for this program. We see it as no coincidence that Japan is now 　　　 being brought into the space weapons　arms race program. 　　　The fact that the GX rocket is presently at least five years late in 　　 production, and three-times over budget, indicates clearly that this 　　　space weapons arms race indeed will be the most expensive program in 　　　Earth history. This fact will necessitate cut backs in social spending in 　　　the US and in Japan in order to pay for the insatiable appetite of 　　　space technology programs. 　　　Do the people of Japan know this fact? 　　　Are the people of Japan allowed to discuss this fundamental question of 　　　priorities or has it already been determined that Japan will participate in 　　　this new arms race　without serious and vigorous national debate? 　　　The GX rocket is just the start. 　　 　　　Next will come requests for funding in Japan to pay for expensive 　　　military satellite systems and then for“defensive” space weapons 　　　technologies to protect the “investments in space” from attack by 　　　“enemies”. 　　 　　　That is how arms races begin. 　　　Now is the time for the people of Japan and people all around the world 　　　to speak out strongly to prevent a new arms race from beginning. 　　　 　　　We have this one brief moment in history to prevent this new space 　　　weapons arms race. My hope is that the Japanese government will 　　　reconsider its basic plan on space and instead move to join those 　　　around the world who are working hard to keep space for peace. 　　　In peace, 　　Bruce K. Gagnon 　　Coordinator 　　Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space 　　PO Box652 　　Brunswick, ME　04011 　　globalnet@mindspring.com

Text Fwd: US Exploited Korean Test For Global Interceptor Missile System

Stop NATO

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090712/NEWS08/907120361/How+U.S.+exp\
loited+N.+Korea+missile+tests
Honolulu Advertiser, July 12, 2009
How U.S. exploited N. Korea missile tests
Navy ship grounding detailed
By Richard Halloran

Publicly, President Obama and senior officials in his administration berated
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last week for firing 11 ballistic missiles
eastward into the Sea of Japan, four short-range missiles on July 2 and seven
medium-range missiles on July 4. It was the biggest North Korean missile barrage
seen so far.

Secretly, U.S. officials informed on missile defenses were pleased, for two
reasons. First, the elaborate U.S. missile defense in place in Japan, Alaska,
California, Hawai'i, aboard Navy ships and in satellites was severely tested and
worked well. In particular, the fusion of data from sensors based on land, at
sea and in space produced swift and clear images of what the missiles were
doing.

Second, U.S. intelligence gathered information about the missiles that otherwise
could not have been had. An official in Washington said: "We learned an
incredible amount about where exactly North Korea is in their long-range missile
development program." Because North Korea has only aging radar, he doubted that
North Korea "learned anything close to what we learned about their tests."
....
The missiles were sighted by U.S. radar in northwestern Japan near the remote
village of Shariki, then picked up by radar on Shemya in the Aleutian chain of
Alaska and another encased in what looks like a giant golf ball aboard a
seagoing base in the mid-Pacific. A satellite and an Aegis destroyer on patrol
in the Pacific also tracked the missiles.

Missile data were transmitted to a U.S. command center at Yokota Air Base west
of Tokyo, where much was shared with Japan's Self-Defense Forces. The data went
to operations centers in Hawai'i, Northern Command in Colorado, Strategic
Command in Nebraska, the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, and
to the situation room in the White House.
....
Had Obama given the order to shoot, computers in a fire-control suite in Alaska
would have selected interceptors in Alaska, California, or aboard an Aegis ship
at sea to shoot at the missiles while in mid-course. As a last resort, an
anti-missile missile would have been fired from Hawai'i at the incoming warhead
hurtling down from space.
....
Richard Halloran, formerly a New York Times correspondent in Asia and in
Washington, is a writer in Honolulu.

===========================
Stop NATO

Text Fwd: Air Force eyeing faster retirement for many jets

* Text informed by Lindis Percy on May 23, 2009

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=62852
Air Force eyeing faster retirement for many jets
By Franklin Fisher and Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 23, 2009

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — The U.S. Air Force in the Pacific plans to speed the retirement of more than 40 combat aircraft, three of them from Osan Air Base, as part of a restructuring plan announced earlier this week, officials said Thursday.

The remaining aircraft will come from bases in Alaska and Hawaii.

That same restructuring will see the Air Force in Europe lose 18 F-16s and possibly one of its three fighter squadrons.

In all, the Air Force would get rid of about 250 fighter jets from its inventory worldwide under what’s called the Combat Air Forces restructuring plan.

Some of the losses would be offset by the addition of the newest generation of aircraft to the inventory and by upgrades to others.

The move is in line with the Air Force’s aim of freeing up money for next-generation aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicle operations.

It would save $355 million in fiscal 2010 and $3.5 billion over the next five years, according to an Air Force news release.

In the Pacific, the reduction will affect Osan Air Base, Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska and Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

"So this move is part of a larger effort to bridge our current force structure with a smaller, more capable future force composed mainly of fifth-generation aircraft," Pacific Air Forces spokesman Maj. Kenneth L. Hoffman said Thursday.

Osan’s 51st Fighter Wing would lose three A-10 Thunderbolt II jets, which are designed mainly for close air support missions, Hoffman said.

But it will retain 45 aircraft and receive upgrades to 24 of its F-16s.

Officials at Osan had no immediate details Thursday on the timetable for the change.

By next year, Elmendorf’s 3rd Wing will have retired the last of its 24 F-15 Eagles, but it has 36 F-22 Raptors that are being upgraded to the most modern, Block 35 variant.

Also by next year, Hickam will have lost its 15 Hawaii Air National Guard F-15s, but will receive 18 F-22s, with delivery starting in early 2011.

Within the time between the F-15 departure and F-22 arrival, Air National Guard units will deploy to Hawaii to maintain mission capability.

The Air Force will retire 112 F-15s, 134 F-16s and Osan’s three A-10s under the restructuring plan.

Five other aircraft had already been slated for retirement during the current fiscal year, which ends in October.

"We have a strategic window of opportunity to do some important things with fighter aircraft restructuring," the news release quoted Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley as saying.

"By accepting some short-term risk, we can convert our inventory of legacy fighters and F-22s into a smaller, more flexible and lethal bridge to fifth-generation fighters like the F-35."

(An earlier version of this story was posted on stripes.com May 20)

Text Fwd: Dear Secretary Gates

Text fwd from Bruce Gagnon on March 31, 2009

http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/news.aspx?news_id=1654
Missile Defense in the News
Dear Secretary Gates
March 20, 2009

Dear Members and Friends,

Today, I delivered on behalf of our membership, a letter to the United States Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates urging the use of all available missile defense assets to the maximum capability to prepare in the face of the uncertainties of the North Korea "Space Launch" that might pose a threat to Alaska, Hawaii and other regions of the United States.

One of the United States most valuable assets and the best discriminating and tracking sensor for ballistic missile defense, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) has not been deployed and has been docked for the past several months at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The SBX was the main sensor in the recent successful long-range ballistic missile intercept on December 5, 2008 providing the primary targeting information for the Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. that successfully intercepted a long-range ballistic missile from Kodiak Island, Alaska.

The December 5th, 2008 test simulated a North Korean long-range missile threat using the current U.S. missile defense deployed assets designed for a long range ballistic missile intercept. The SBX was also successfully deployed and used with the Aegis Sea-Based Missile Defense System for the February 21, 2008 successful NRO satellite shoot down which had a 1 in 45 chance of harming human life if not intercepted. The SBX is a self propelled X-band radar and has a sea speed of up to 10 knots per hour.

If deployed the SBX can begin to emit its sensor 50 or so miles from Hawaii and can become effective by providing sensoring information to the deployed long-range missile defense system in place today. The SBX cost $950 million dollars to build and costs additional tens of millions of dollars to maintain and operate annually.

The azimuth or launch direction for an ideal space orbital launch from North Korea using optimal rotation of the earth is in the mid-80s which over flies the country of Japan and heads east towards the Pacific Ocean. The azimuth for a long-range ballistic missile from North Korea to Hawaii is in the similar 80s degree range. North Korea has declared two "clear zones" on either side of Japan for the first and second rocket stages accounting for the debris falling from their rocket or missile launch. The North Korea trajectory following that flight path would terminate close to Hawaii if the rocket failed to achieve orbit or was a long range ballistic missile launch.

The SBX is the most powerful and most capable sensor to discriminate the debris, payload and a possible reentry vehicle in detail from a North Korean long range missile or rocket launch traveling at extreme high speeds across the Pacific Ocean.

Below is the text of the letter sent to Secretary Robert M. Gates:

Dear Secretary Gates,

As Chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance representing 10,000 members nationwide with a 7 year consistent record of promoting the development and deployment of a robust missile defense capability for the United States, I am compelled to write to you regarding my concern for America's actions in the face of the growing North Korean missile threat. While I recognize the right of every sovereign nation to pursue a peaceful space program, I believe you would agree that the upcoming North Korean "space launch" could very well have military implications for the future and in the near term, threaten Alaska, Hawaii or other regions of the United States. Therefore, I urge that you consider activating all available missile defense assets to the Pacific to protect against an errant space launch attempt or a ballistic missile launch that threatens the United Stares or our allies. By way of reference, I understand that the assets deployed for the successful intercept of a long range ballistic missile target this past December 5, 2008 can put the United States in the most effective posture to counter any North Korean action in the next few weeks.

On a personal level and by the full support of my membership, I encourage you to place all of our Missile Defense assets in the Pacific region in the best position to counter the ambiguity that North Korea has historically demonstrated.

Respectfully,

Riki Ellison
Chairman and Founder
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

Text Fwd: 21st Century Star Wars And NATO's 60th Anniversary

Stop NATO
21st Century Star Wars And NATO's 60th Anniversary
Summit
Rick Rozoff
January 15, 2009

Regular contentions by US civilian and military officials that the installation of projected third position interceptor missile facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic are aimed at so-called rogue states like Iran and North Korea are a geographical, geometrical and geopolitical absurdity.

In fact such plans are entirely aggressive in nature and present the potentially most dangerous threat the world has known.

Missile deployments in Poland and the linked missile radar site in the Czech Republic are an integral, indeed the central, component of a global (and more than global) US-dominated system to neutralize targeted nations' deterrence and retaliation capabilities, both before and after the fact, for uses of blackmail and actual implementation.

It's worthy of note that the two affected countries, Poland and the Czech Republic, are two of the three first nations incorporated into NATO since the end of the Cold War, at the Alliance's 50th anniversary summit in Washington in 1999 in an event that occurred as NATO was launching its first war (in or out of area), against Yugoslavia.

The third member inducted at the same time was Hungary, where protests have halted the construction of a projected NATO radar station.

In fact the American missile shield outposts in Eastern Europe are an overt effort to implement the Reagan era Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), infamously known as Star Wars.

The X-Band radar that is to be installed in the Czech Republic will be shifted from the US Marshall Islands where it is linked with the Reagan Test Site, and the missile center, at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, from which US (and allied) interceptor tests have been regularly conducted in conjunction with a Sea-Based X-Band Radar off the coast of Alaska and more interceptor missiles at Fort Greely in the Alaskan mainland is named the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site.

The floating X-Band Radar periodically moved off the shores of Alaska for these exercises weighs 2,000 tons and is 30 stories high.

Its permanent base is in Hawaii where a local newspaper wrote, referring to the sea-based Aegis component of the system, in June of 2008:

"The Missile Defense Agency co-manages the Navy's Aegis program, partners with the Army on its ground-based Patriot missiles and has primary responsibility for other, developing anti-ballistic missile technologies. It's an evolution of the Strategic Defense Initiative begun by President Reagan and has an $8.7 billion budget this year."

Similarly, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is based in Huntsville, Alabama, where the Pentagon employed former German missile scientists in the 1950s for its own Cold War programs and where last year the MDA completed its Von Braun III building, a $240-million, 900,000-square-foot facility.

The center is named, of course, after the founder of Nazi Germany's missile program.

Upon completion of the Von Braun III building in April of last year Alabama Senator Richard Shelby said that naming the complex after Dr. Wernher von Braun was "fitting."

"His spirit is with us here today," Shelby said, "and certainly his vision continues because of the work started here."

Despite the regular disclaimers that the current US global missile shield program is not a so-called Son of Star Wars, an Alabama newspaper reported in 2006 upon the completion of the earlier Von Braun II building in Huntsville that:

"On the back wall of the lobby area are five pages, hand-edited with scribbled notes and revisions, in a simple wooden frame. It is the Star Wars speech given by President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983...."

And as Reuters reported in the same month, "The Bush administration and Republican allies in Congress are again pushing for seed money to explore options for putting a multibillion-dollar layer of ballistic-missile interceptors in space [which was] first floated in the 1980s as part of then-President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative."

Time Magazine echoed that observation in November of last year, stating that "President George W. Bush promised to build a 'Star Wars' missile shield, and he has kept that promise...."

With the above in mind, the extension of revamped US Stars Wars installations to Eastern Europe, in the case of Poland within immediate striking distance of Russia, takes on ominous dimensions.

As the Russian Novosti agency's chief military commentator remarked last November:

"[T]he strategic importance of these interceptor missiles would increase were the U.S. to deliver a first nuclear strike against Russia.

"In this scenario, interceptor missiles would have to take on the limited number of missiles surviving the first strike, which would allow the U.S. to hope for success and, for the first time since the 1950s, for a victory in a nuclear war."

And the official Chinese party newspaper People's Daily reported in May of 2007:

"[T]he U.S. is seeking to deploy bases within [the territory] of its European allies [and], if it succeeds, in building interceptor bases and radar bases.

"Then, its missile defense system takes the shape with its homeland as its center and East Asia and Europe as the two wings.

"[T]he existing layout is...targeted directly and entirely at both Russia and China, and this is
precisely the reason to arouse strong the opposition of Russia."

That is, the missiles in Poland have to be seen as part of a first strike strategy in two respects in
which, if the threat doesn't work, the actual use remains.

The ground-based missiles themselves can hit Russia's two largest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, within minutes.

Whether such missiles contain conventional or nuclear warheads, a fact only the Pentagon would know, is a distinction Russian air defenses and strategic forces wouldn't have the time or luxury to evaluate.

Even to take the US at its word and to assume that missiles with non-nuclear payloads would be used against 'rogue states,' they could produce the following results, in the words of the the Chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky and Ukrainian Defence Minister Anatoly Gritsenko, respectively:

"Within a radius of 500 to 600 kilometers, depending on the size of the interceptor's nuclear charge, an electro-magnetic impulse will be generated and cause a total power blackout, shutting down computers, generating plants, gas works, water-pump stations, radio and television, and dispatcher's offices in airports and at railroad stations.

"A shock wave will destroy many buildings and structures, while radioactive fallout will contaminate the terrain for years. The Chernobyl disaster would look like a child's prank." (December 2005)

�Nobody knows what can be inside these fragments [of alleged intercepted missiles]. If it is not nuclear bomb or nuclear warhead in a literal sense, it can be a dirty bomb, for example, with radioactive agents that in addition to the effects from Chernobyl nuclear may pollute our territory much more. It can be also any virus or biological weapon.� (March 2007)

The first addition to the missiles in Poland, even before their deployment, is the US's commitment to station a Patriot battery with 96 warheads to Poland, within striking distance of Russia's Kaliningrad enclave and Belarus now that the Pentagon has developed a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system with a range of 120 kilometers.

And all of the above is only a small portion of the integrated full spectrum global and space system the US and its allies have already successfully tested and are preparing to deploy, which include:

-Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
-Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV)
-Ground Based Interceptor (GBI)
-Forward Based X-Band Radars (FBXB)
-Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

These permit the destruction of other nations' missiles in the launch, boost, midcourse and terminal phases and in theory in the silo.

The global missile system also includes - in addition to ground-based interceptor missiles - air, sea and space components.

The sea-based element is the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, increasingly being deployed on US and allied NATO and what has recently been termed Asian NATO warships. Linked with the Pentagon's plans for a "1,000-ship navy" and a complementary US/NATO/Asia-Pacific NATO "3,000-ship navy," this would provide Washington and its military allies the ability to patrol all the world's waterways and shipping lanes with missile killer capacities.

The spaced-based components include kinetic-energy weapons, space lasers, space-based conventional weapons space-based Interceptors, with the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle an 'amphibious' intermediate weapon.

Regarding the third leg of the US nuclear triad, not even in theory a defensive one, the B-2 stealth bomber is described by its proponents as being equipped with "sixteen 2,400 lb (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs in a single pass through extremely dense anti-aircraft defenses."

The Pentagon and the B-2's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, regularly boast that it can penetrate radar and air defenses and strike "deep in the interior" of a targeted state that possesses "strategic depth."

That description, given today's political reality, can only pertain to Russia and China.

As authors Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, referring to the general strategy of delivering
crippling first strikes, wrote in their paper "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" in Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council of Foreign Affairs, in its March/April 2006 edition:

"It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.

"The U.S. Air Force has finished equipping its B-52 bombers with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are probably invisible to Russian and Chinese air-defense radar. And the air force has also enhanced the avionics on its B-2 stealth bombers to permit them to
fly at extremely low altitudes in order to avoid even the most sophisticated radar."

On the general strategy of so-called missile defense, the Russian analyst Yury Rubtsov said late last September:

"The pending deployment of interceptor missiles in Poland is a link in the system of the global
anti-missile shield sweeping from Greenland to Alaska created by the United States that does not conceal its plans for setting up a fourth and a fifth position area for its anti-missile shield.

"The system that Americans are forming is to include offshore and on-land elements in Alaska, California, Japan, Greenland and a number of European countries. A naval base in the Aleutian Islands has been put back in service to support sea-based radar mounted on a re-built oil platform.

"The radar in turn will be a component of the integrated system of the anti-missile shield alongside the interceptor missiles deployed in Alaska.

"[M]ore than ten countries are involved in the formation of the US anti-missile shield, including Australia, Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Japan, India, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Taiwan and Ukraine."

All of the above are NATO members or partners except for India and Taiwan - it would be too overt a challenge to China to formalize partnerships with them - but the latter two are also being progressively integrated into the US/NATO international nexus.

This past September the Pentagon began its first-ever permanent military deployment in Israel, to man an X-Band missile radar site with a range of 1,240 miles; that is, able to operate throughout the Middle East and into Southern Russia.

In addition, outgoing US Missile Defense Agency director Lt Gen Henry Obering has over the past eighteen months either alluded to or been accused of laying plans for deploying Star Wars missile and radar bases in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine.

At the last summit of NATO in Bucharest, Romania in April of last year, all 26 member states endorsed US missile system plans in Poland and the Czech Republic.

That support was reiterated at a NATO defense ministers meeting last November (with the attendance of the military chiefs of over sixty nations, over a third of the countries of the world) and the following month at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, evoking this response from Russia Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov:

"The deployment of a U.S. missile shield in central Europe would disrupt the strategic balance
among the world's nuclear powers."

With the upcoming NATO sixtieth anniversary summit on April 3-4 of this year, and with the incoming Obama administration naming former Bush administration NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Jones as its National Security Adviser, all indications are that US and
allied missile plans for Europe may expand yet further.

While in Prague three weeks ago California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, chairwoman of the House of Representatives Strategic Forces Subcommittee, was described by the Czech News Agency as having "long been demanding that the system protecting the USA and its allies against possible hostile missiles be fully included in the NATO complex of defence."

The same agency reported the previous month that "Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek..said the approval of the treaties would crucially influence the defence capability of NATO."

And Polish Minister of Defense Radoslav Sikorski said that the elements of the air defense shield which will be deployed in Poland will become part of the air defense shield of the entire NATO bloc.

A sentiment shared by NATO Spokesman James Appathurai last April in also calling for the integration and expansion of the US interceptor sites into a broader, continent-wide Alliance system.

Even more ominously, last month current NATO Supreme Allied Commander General John Bantz Craddock affirmed:

"[T]he fact is there is strategic need and advantage for nuclear weapons....The alliance has made the decision to have them. There has been no debate to retrograde them out."

And in reference to the 400 U.S. B-61 tactical nuclear bombs stored at bases in several NATO countries, including Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United Kingdom, a Pentagon report released on December 8, 2008 stated:

"The presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe remains a pillar of NATO unity."

The combination of US nuclear warheads in Europe and the expansion of the NATO Alliance and US missile interceptor sites to encircle Russia on its eastern, southern and western borders is a far more threatening development than anything that occurred during the Cold War.

Recent surveys show two-thirds of Czech opposed to the US missile radar site with 71% demanding a referendum on the issue and 54% of Poles in opposition to having their nation turned into a potential ground zero in a cataclysmic missile war.

Czechs and Poles clearly realize the danger that most of the rest of the world has been oblivious but can no longer remain indifferent to except at its own peril, perhaps at the risk of its very survival.

The half century long stationing of US nuclear warheads throughout Europe and current plans to deploy US missiles and missile radar sites on the continent's eastern perimeter would both be impossible, would be inconceivable, if the nations and peoples of Europe were not enchained by an increasingly ambitious and expansive military bloc that places bases, nuclear arms and missiles on their soil and sends their sons and daughters to kill and die in 21st Century colonial
wars of conquest and domination.

As self-styled global NATO prepares its 60th anniversary, first bi-national, summit in France and Germany this April, the abolition of this, history's first, attempt at an international aggressive military axis must be brought to an end.

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Stop NATO

* Same article also in(Site provided by Rick Rozoff) *

http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=21st-Century-Star-Wars-And-by-Rick-Rozoff-090119-982.html