Russia Begins Operations in Syria: End Game for the US Empire?

angelburst29 said:
Scandal: Polish intelligence agencies have seized NATO expert counter-intelligence center
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2699860
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Poland sends troops to enforce ‘dismissal’ of NATO intel center head
https://www.rt.com/news/326458-poland-nato-raid-intelligence/

The new Polish authorities have sent military police on an overnight visit to the NATO Counter Intelligence Center of Excellence in Warsaw to “enforce the replacement of the center’s head.”

Defense Ministry spokesman Bartlomiej Misiewicz explained the move by saying the head of the training center, Colonel Krzysztof Dusza, had failed to fulfill a dismissal order last week.

The reshuffle was needed as the employees of the center weren’t supported by the Polish government, Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki told RMF radio.

Poland’s foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, told Trojka public radio: “Polish employees lost access to classified materials and we had to change them. We’re dealing with the military so we have to act quickly.”

The new Polish government, formed by the conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS), has appointed Colonel Robert Bala as the acting director of the intelligence center.

However, Bala’s candidacy is yet to be accredited by NATO, an official at the military alliance told Bloomberg.

"This is an issue for the Polish authorities. In general terms, Centers of Excellence are international research centers, which are nationally or multi-nationally funded and staffed, and work alongside the alliance, but they are not NATO bodies,” he said.

Top Defense Ministry officials and military police entered the intelligence center at around 1:30am on Friday, using a copy of the original key, Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

The officer on duty was ordered to leave the building, with spokesman Misiewicz describing the entry as “peaceful.”

Krzysztof Dusza, the sacked head of the center, arrived at the facility following the news that it had been taken over by the police, but he was denied access to the building.

The NATO Counter Intelligence Center of Excellence was jointly organized by Poland and Slovakia in 2014 to gather and analyze intelligence on the Ukrainian crisis and international terrorism.


UN Security Council unanimously adopts Syrian roadmap resolution
https://www.rt.com/news/326466-un-syria-resolution-terror/

The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a ceasefire and political settlement in Syria. The resolution envisions the formation of a unity government and calls for an immediate halt to any attacks on civilian targets.

The resolution demands that all parties to the Syrian conflict “immediately cease any attacks against civilians.” A mechanism to monitor, verify, and report on the truce is to be worked out within a month.

The only groups excluded from the ceasefire are Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

The resolution also asks the UN to convene formal talks on a transitional government. The talks between the regime and opposition are targeted for early January.

The resolution expressed support for a Syrian-led political process that would set up “inclusive and non-sectarian governance” within six months and schedule a process for drafting a new constitution, with the aim of holding fair elections in 18 months.
 
[quote author=luc]Or maybe the Russians have extremely horrible videos/pics of some key figures and decided that now is the time for some serious blackmailing, after having realized that nothing else will work?[/quote]

I bet these monsters keep those videos/pictures locked up somewhere to blackmail and keep their puppets well in place. If the Russians could get or already managed to secure those they could rock the foundation of their hierarchical structure. Suppose the Empire would call it a threat to national structure if populations globally would start lynching their pedophile leaders on the streets.

If a force of good could ever get their hands on that.
 
Continuing article post began on reply #705 due to interesting comments by Lavrov. It appears that even though there were calls from unnamed council members for President Assad to step down in order to "facilitate the battle with terrorism," these calls didn't actually make it into the draft.


UN Security Council unanimously adopts Syrian roadmap resolution
https://www.rt.com/news/326466-un-syria-resolution-terror/

[...]

After the resolution passed, US Secretary of State John Kerry, who chaired the UNSC meeting, said that it was the time “to put an end to indiscriminate bombing, torture and the bloodshed” in Syria, adding that significant progress had been made “that gives us grounds for encouragement.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that the Vienna format is the only way to bring all foreign players to the table and ensure a fair settlement in Syria through talks.

“Today’s unanimous vote in the [UN Security] Council should pave the way for the formation of a broad front against terrorism on the basis of the UN Charter, with the support of all on Earth who are opposed to terrorism, including the army of Syria, the Kurdish militia, and the armed forces of the Syrian patriotic opposition,” Lavrov said. “The air force of the Russian Federation, at the request of the legitimate government of the Syrian Arab Republic, is contributing to the completion of this task.”

“Only Syrian-led inclusive dialogue can put an end to untold suffering in Syria,” Lavrov said, stressing that Syria should remain a secular, unified, and multi-ethnic country.

“Only the Syrian people are to decide on their future, including the fate of President Assad – this is an answer, included into the resolution, to attempts to enforce outside will on the Syrians,” Lavrov said.

"The fight against terrorism must be consistent and not opportunistic in nature, whether it be in Syria or anywhere else. Attempts to separate terrorists into good and bad are unacceptable,” he added.

According to Lavrov, “the resolution stresses the need to provide humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people… It must be provided in strict accordance with the guidelines of the United Nations, enshrined in General Assembly resolutions and the decisions of the Security Council, including the principle of the consent of the host government.”

Foreign ministers from 18 countries as well as the UN and Arab League representatives gathered in New York Friday to push the Syria roadmap. The group has already met twice in Vienna in the last six weeks and drafted a road map for the Syrian conflict reconciliation.

Apart from the UN and the Arab League, the group includes Russia, the US, the EU, the UK, Germany, France, China, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Qatar, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

During the conference preceding the UN Security Council meeting, new calls for Bashar Assad to step down were voiced, arguing that the Syrian President’s exit would facilitate the battle with terrorism, Lavrov said.

“We confirmed our position that – as the UNSC has repeatedly stressed – there can be no pre-conditions to fight terrorism,” Lavrov said, adding that such calls did not make it into the draft. He once again said it is up to the Syrian people to determine the future of their country and its current leader.

The conflict in Syria has lasted for more than four years with more than 300,000 killed.

Another goal of the talks was to work out a mechanism for establishing which rebel groups in Syria will be eligible to take part in the peace process. For this purpose, Jordan, which was tasked with listing terrorist organizations in Syria, presented a document that includes 160 extremist groups, RIA Novosti reported, citing sources in the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“The list reflects positions of different sides,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judah, who presented the document during the ISSG talks in New York, also said, according to TASS.

Only IS and Al-Nusra Front terror groups were exempt from the truce.

Earlier on Thursday, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution submitted jointly by Russia and the US which allows punishing individuals or companies involved in trade with Islamic State or other terror groups.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov as well as with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Russia and the US managed to reach an agreement on some “critical” issues concerning Syria in particular. Kerry said that the positions of the US and Russia on Syria are “fundamentally very similar” and expressed readiness to further cooperation.
 
luc said:
I find it hard to wrap my head around this - why would Kerry/the empire back down so completely 'just' because a threat by Russia to reveal evidence for these things? After all, Russia presented evidence for a lot of things in the past, and Putin speaks the truth rather directly on many occasions. It hardly mattered, the Western media just ignore it, or they put their own spin on things. I just don't think the psychos feel threatened by stuff like this.
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I agree. I don't think they would have backed away simply because Putin threatend to do what he did with Turkey, i.e. expose them. Turkey didn't seem to mind much, and as you say every time Russia embarrasses the US, the western media simply doesn't report it and/or shifts the focus elsewhere. It's not so much what is revealed to the public, but what appears on prime time on TV!

So it could be, as you say, that Russia somehow managed to blackmail them in another way. But my intuition is that for some reason the US is just buying some time, and later on when they feel they can have the upper hand, they will simply revert to their previous position with 'Assad must go!', etc. Politicians know that people have a very bad memory and that they can always rely on 'spinning', so a couple of months down the road they can totally contradict themselves without much loss in terms of public perception.
 
Windmill knight said:
But my intuition is that for some reason the US is just buying some time, and later on when they feel they can have the upper hand, they will simply revert to their previous position with 'Assad must go!', etc. Politicians know that people have a very bad memory and that they can always rely on 'spinning', so a couple of months down the road they can totally contradict themselves without much loss in terms of public perception.
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John Kerry had a slip of the tongue in calling for the UN resolution on Syria, as shown in this RT video at 0:15-0:19:

"Will those in favour of the draft r̶e̶v̶o̶l̶u̶t̶ resolution [. . .]"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMpWA4bOY7s
 
Windmill knight said:
luc said:
I find it hard to wrap my head around this - why would Kerry/the empire back down so completely 'just' because a threat by Russia to reveal evidence for these things? After all, Russia presented evidence for a lot of things in the past, and Putin speaks the truth rather directly on many occasions. It hardly mattered, the Western media just ignore it, or they put their own spin on things. I just don't think the psychos feel threatened by stuff like this.
Click to expand...

I agree. I don't think they would have backed away simply because Putin threatend to do what he did with Turkey, i.e. expose them. Turkey didn't seem to mind much, and as you say every time Russia embarrasses the US, the western media simply doesn't report it and/or shifts the focus elsewhere. It's not so much what is revealed to the public, but what appears on prime time on TV!

So it could be, as you say, that Russia somehow managed to blackmail them in another way. But my intuition is that for some reason the US is just buying some time, and later on when they feel they can have the upper hand, they will simply revert to their previous position with 'Assad must go!'', etc. Politicians know that people have a very bad memory and that they can always rely on 'spinning', so a couple of months down the road they can totally contradict themselves without much loss in terms of public perception.
Click to expand...

Well, that didn't last long.......

Kerry: ‘US Not after Regime Change in Syria, but Assad Must Go’
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1771130?

The US is not seeking regime change in Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian media on a Moscow trip. However, calling the Syrian president “a magnet for terrorists,” Kerry said Bashar Assad cannot stay in the country’s “long-term future.”

Kerry was interviewed by Rossiya 24 channel during his trip to the Russian capital on Saturday between meetings with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

“I am here to talk with President Putin about Syria and our need to join together to stabilize Syria; try to make peace in a way that keeps it as a whole country, and also – most importantly – also destroy Daesh (Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL). Daesh is a terrorist organization, a threat to all of us. We have a common interest and we need to work together,” he stressed.

According to the Secretary of State, it was very important for the Russian people to understand the American approach to the Syrian crisis.

“We are not trying to do a regime change. We are not engaged in a color revolution. We’re not engaged in trying to interfere in another country … We’re trying to make peace,” he explained.

However, Kerry reiterated Washington’s stance that Assad must leave his position for peace in Syria to be achieved.

“Russia can’t stop the war with Assad there because Assad attracts the foreign fighters. Assad is a magnet for terrorists, because they’re coming to fight Assad,” he said.

“So if you want to stop the war in Syria, and we do, if you want to fight Daesh and stop the growth of terrorism, you have to deal with the problem of Assad. Now, that doesn’t mean we want to change every aspect of the government; we don’t,” the diplomat added.

The US Secretary of State also said he did not rule out the possibility of Syrian government forces loyal to Assad being viewed by Washington as a viable part of the operation against ISIS terrorists.

“Absolutely,” he said when addressed on the issue, “providing there is a legitimate transitional process, which the Geneva communique calls for, with a government of transition, where the opposition is part of the government and the issue of Assad will be resolved through that process and people have confidence in that.”

“Under those circumstances, it is possible to envision the army of Syria, together with the opposition, turning against Daesh, providing Assad is not the long-term future of Syria,” Kerry added.

According to the Secretary of State, the Libyan majority on both sides is currently “coming together to form their own government, and we are going to support that government in hopes of calming down Libya and empowering all of us to go after the terrorists.”
 
Leader's Top Aide: US Plotting to Disintegrate Iraq, Syria into 8 New States
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940928000783

"The US is after implementing its plot to create a Greater Middle-East whose aim is disintegrating Iraq into three countries and dividing Syria into five states in a bid to downsize countries to provide security to the Zionist regime," Velayati said on Saturday.

He also referred to the regional developments, and said, "What we are witnessing today, including the creation of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the ISIL, is aimed at confronting the Islamic Awakening and annihilating the chain of resistance."

"Today, Syria is the golden chain of resistance and the US, the western states and their allies in the region are attempting to destroy this chain," Velayati said.

His remarks came as General Vincent Stewart, the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, claimed in September that Iraq and Syria were unlikely to emerge intact from years of war and sectarian violence.



Russia Using Space Warfare Systems in Syrian War
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-space-warfare-systems-syrian-war/

Moscow relying on satellites to gather intelligence after recent anti-satellite weapons test.

Russia is employing a significant portion of its space assets to gather intelligence and conduct airstrikes in Syria, underscoring Moscow’s reliance on the military use of spacecraft, according to reports.

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff for Russia’s military, said last month that Moscow is directing 10 satellites, including some with civilian uses, to conduct reconnaissance in Syria, locate targets, and enhance communications among Russian armed forces, in Syria, Gerasimov told reporters.

One Russian propaganda outlet boasted that “Russia now fields one of the largest and most effective satellite groups in the world, and it has reached a peak of activity amid the military operations in Syria.”

The Kremlin has used its satellites to claim that Turkey is facilitating ISIS oil trade, releasing images that allegedly show the terrorist group’s oil tankers traveling into Turkey. Turkey has denied those charges. Tensions remain high between the two nations after the Turkish air force shot down a Russian jet last month and claimed that it had violated Turkish airspace.

The world’s leading militaries, including U.S. armed forces, increasingly rely on satellites to collect intelligence and facilitate operations among various branches. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the United States possesses the world’s largest collection of spacecraft with more than 400 satellites, about half of which can be used for military purposes. Russia is second with 89 satellites, followed by China with 35.

U.S. Air Force Space Command did not respond to a request for comment about Russia’s use of satellites in Syria.

U.S. defense officials have raised concerns about Russia and China’s development of anti-satellite weapons systems, which could disrupt operations by the militaries of adversaries and create debris clouds that threaten all spacecraft. Both nations have tested their versions of direct ascent anti-satellite missiles in the last two months.

Gen. John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, said last week that Russia and China’s construction of “kinetic energy anti-satellite weapons” poses long-term problems for space travel.

“It creates an environment that will be there for decades, if not centuries,” he said. “And you can’t get rid of it.”

“So I don’t want to go down that path, and Russia and China are going down that path,” he added. :huh: :zzz:


Report: Obama Says He Does Not Watch Enough Cable News to Grasp Terrorism Fears
http://freebeacon.com/politics/obama-does-not-watch-cable-news-grasp-terrorism-fears/

President Obama reportedly told a group of news columnists this week that he does not watch enough cable news to grasp terrorism fears in the country following terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.

The characterization of Obama’s comments was included in an article from Friday’s issue of the New York Times and has since been edited out of the piece without correction, Mediaite first reported. Several journalists also drew attention to the excerpt on social media before its removal.

“In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments,” the Times piece read.

The article outlined a meeting, originally meant to be off the record, that Obama held with a group of columnists Tuesday during which he defended his response to the terror attacks. Obama saw his career-worst rating on terrorism following the coordinated shootings and suicide bombings in Paris that killed 130 people, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released last month.

Following the attacks in San Bernardino that killed 14, Americans now rate terrorism as the top problem facing the United States, according to Gallup data published earlier this week.

The Obama administration has responded to several national crises, such as the Department of Veterans’ Affairs fake waitlist scandal last year, by indicating that the president learned of the controversy through news reports.




Putin Calls Out Bulgaria for 'Gutless' Position on South Stream Pipeline Project
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putin-calls-out-bulgaria-gutless-position-south-stream-pipeline-project/ri11934

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday told journalists he was perplexed to witness the "gutless" position of the Bulgarian government which in his words "ignored national interest".

Putin was referring to the South Stream pipeline project, which Russia abandoned last December, with the President citing opposition from the EU that resulted in Bulgaria refusing to issue construction permits. Agreement was reached back then to build a pipeline to Turkey (Turkish Stream) instead.

At at his annual press conference on Thursday, Russia's head of state underlined that his country had to invest some USD 3 B into South Stream for construction, job openings and salaries, also pointing out that Bulgaria would have started to receive EUR 400 M annually in transit fees if the project had been carried out.

TASS news agency quotes Putin as saying Moscow came up with the project "because Bulgaria supported it, but all of a sudden they didn't want it".

He stressed South Stream's idea had been "to help Bulgaria".

Putin made his comments when asked about major infrastructure projects to which Russia is currently committed.



Russia’s foreign ministry advises Russians not leave resort areas in Indonesia
http://tass.ru/en/world/845522

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry advised on Saturday the Russians who are on holiday in Indonesia not to leave resort areas in that country, citing information on possible terror threats.

"According to coming information on possible terror threats in Indonesia, Russia’s Foreign Ministry advises that the Russian nationals going to that country should be on alert, should avoid mass gathering places and should not leave the guarded resort areas without any urgency," the ministry said recommending to get in touch with the Russian embassy to Indonesia in case of emergency.
 
Israeli warplanes carried out a raid against Damascus’s Jermana suburb to kill Samir Kuntar, a former guerilla in the south of Lebanon.

Kremlin uncertain whether Israel had warned Russian Defense Ministry of operation in Syria
http://tass.ru/en/world/845662

MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. The Kremlin is uncertain if Israel had warned the Russian military of its operation in Syria, because the mechanism of information exchanges links the two countries’ general staffs.

"I cannot say for certain," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media. "There is a working mechanism of information exchanges between the general staffs. It is the military who should be addressed with this question and asked if there had been any prior notifications on that score."

The Shiite party Hezbollah said on December 20 Israeli warplanes carried out a raid against Damascus’s Jermana suburb to kill Samir Kuntar, a former guerilla in the south of Lebanon. Also, the statement mentioned "casualties among Syrian civilians" without giving any statistics.

Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi condemned Kuntar’s murder. Interviewed on Al-Manar television channel he said that "Israel was interested in the man’s death more than anybody else." He said the Syrian government "condemned the terrorist attack against Jermana, which resulted in the death of civilians and Arab fighter Kuntar."

Syria’s television channel Al-Ikhbariyah said the Israeli warplanes rocketed one of the buildings in Jermana, known to be Kuntar home. Kuntar, a former Fedayeen guerilla, was freed on July 16, 2008 as a result of a prisoner exchange arrangement between Israel and Hezbollah. He had spent 29 years in jail after participation in a hit-and-run raid in Galilee, during which he killed four Israelis. In Lebanon and Syria he is regarded as a "resistance hero." In Israel he had been sentenced to life imprisonment on four counts.


Israel Assassinates Notorious "Terrorist" In Airstrike On Damascus
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-20/israel-assassinates-notorious-terrorist-airstrike-damascus

When it comes to battling Hezbollah, there’s no question that the Russian and Iranian presence is hindersome. Israel can’t, after all, simply fly over Latakia and bomb Iran’s militias as Hezbollah is effectively operating as Moscow’s ground force. Additionally, the Russians are now hyper-sensitive about potentially hostile aircraft which is why The Kremlin sent the Moskva to the coast and deployed the S-400s.

Around the time Russia began flying sorties from Latakia at the end of September, Putin met with Netanyahu in an effort to ensure that there would be no "accidents" in the skies above Syria. Predictably, the Israeli PM reiterated concerns about advanced weaponry falling into the hands of Hezbollah.

Officially, Israel is "neutral" when it comes to the conflict in Syria, but make no mistake, there's nothing "neutral" about Netanyahu's stance on Iran, the Quds, and Hezbollah.

On Sunday, we got the latest bit of evidence which supports the notion that Netanyahu's trigger finger may be getting itchy the closer Hezbollah and Iran get to cementing control of Syria's major urban centers in the western part of the country. As mutliple wires reported earlier today, infamous Lebanese militant Samir Qantar was killed in Damascus by a suspected Israeli airstrike on Saturday evening.

“At 10:15 p.m. on Saturday December 19, Zionist warplanes struck a residential building in Jaramana city in Damascus countryside. The dean of liberated detainees from Israeli prisons, brother Mujahid Samir Kuntar was martyred along with several Syrian citizens in the strike," Hezbollah said, in a statement.

The attack was reportedly carried out from within Israel, but Israeli officials declined to confirm the strike. "Israel has formally kept out of Syria's civil war which started almost five years ago but has bombed Hezbollah targets there without publicly acknowledging these sorties," Reuters notes. The National Defence Forces in Jaramana, an Assad support network, said "two Israeli warplanes carried out the raid which targeted the building in Jaramana and struck the designated place with four long-range missiles."

"Kuntar is considered an important symbol for Hezbollah as was evidenced by the much-attended ceremony in which he was welcomed in Beirut in 2008 after he was released from prison in Israel in a prisoner swap, by his personal audience with Nasrallah and his meeting with then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," the Jerusalem Post says.
 
angelburst29 said:
As the US Navy's newest ship puts to sea for the first time, old questions are resurrected.
Instability Questions About Zumwalt Destroyer Are Nothing New
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/navy/2015/12/03/zumwalt-ddg1000-shipbuilding-navy-ships-tumblehome-stealth/76728838/
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Navy's Ships of the Future, Sunk
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/21/navy-s-ships-of-the-future-sunk.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29

The Littoral Combat Ship was supposed to represent the future of small, fast, and flexible warships. Instead it was beset by significant flaws and questions of reliability.

After years of work costing billions of dollars, the U.S. Navy is scaling back its controversial effort to build a fleet of small, speedy, flexible warships for near-shore patrols—a fleet plagued by design flaws, mismanagement and technical malfunctions.

But the Navy’s not cutting the fleet by choice— and not everyone is happy with the change. The decision to reduce the Littoral Combat Ship program from 52 ships to 40, while also building them all at one shipyard, reflects an ongoing conflict inside the Pentagon over America’s military strategy.

In any event, changes to the program have been a long time coming. Conceived in the 1990s, a decade of extraordinary—some would say foolish—technological ambition among military planners, the Littoral Combat Ship initiative has suffered more than its share of scandal, failure and embarrassment.

Early on, the per-ship price doubled to around $500 million. Designing the warships took years longer than planners had predicted.
And rather than selecting just one shipbuilder to actually manufacture the vessels, the Pentagon tapped two—Lockheed Martin and Austal, each producing its own, unique version of the Littoral Combat Ship. This dual construction strategy resulted in two totally different ship types each requiring their own supply chains and crew-training programs, an arguably wasteful redundancy.

Worse, when the roughly 400-foot-long ships finally began entering service in 2008, the Navy discovered serious technical shortfalls. The early ships rusted too quickly. Their main guns vibrated so much that they couldn’t shoot straight. The Navy wanted to build a bunch of plug-and-play “module” kits including different combinations of sensors and weapons, each tailored for different kinds of combat against submarines, undersea mines or other ships. But seven years after LCS 1, the Lockheed-built USS Freedom arrived at her home base in San Diego without any war-ready modules.

And even with the modules, the Littoral Combat Ships are lightly armed, each with a single 57-millimeter gun and a few short-range missiles. This spring the Navy rolled out a plan to add more missiles to some Littoral Combat Ships, but they’ll still be toothless compared to the Navy’s larger destroyers and cruisers, all of which boast a 127-millimeter gun and around a hundred long-range missiles.

The new warships are also unreliable. Today the Navy has six Littoral Combat Ships in commission. But between them, the vessels have completed just two overseas deployments in seven years. Based on recent averages, six Navy warships of any other class should, as a group, be able to complete a dozen deployments in that span of time.

The latest embarrassment occurred on Dec. 11 when USS Milwaukee, the brand-new LCS 6, broke down while sailing from Lockheed’s Wisconsin shipyard to Florida. A tug boat hauled the powerless vessel to a Navy base in Virginia for potentially weeks of repairs.
 
Moscow alarmed by worsening situation on the Lebanon-Israel border

_http://tass.ru/en/politics/845854

The Russian Foreign Ministry urges all parties involved to show restraint

MOSCOW, December 21./TASS/. Russia urges Lebanon and Israel to exercise patience in connection with the worsening of the situation on the border between the two countries, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

"Over the past few days we have been witnessing an escalation of tension on the border between Israel and Lebanon," it said. "According to media reports, several rockets were fired from the Lebanese territory on December 20, to which the Israeli army retaliated with artillery fire. No deaths or injuries have been reported," the ministry said.

According to coming reports, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, has claimed responsibility for the shelling of Israel, accusing it of air strikes on Jaramala near Damascus a day before, the ministry said.

Moscow sees the developments with major concern, the Foreign Ministry said. "The worsening of the situation, including in the area of the Lebanese-Israeli border, is fraught with a further degradation of the situation in the Middle East on the whole," the ministry noted.

"With this in view, we urge all parties involved in the confrontation to demonstrate restraint," it said. The ministry said a ceasefire should be observed on the Lebanese-Israeli border in line with all international commitments.
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Four Russian Fighter Jets to Escort President Assad's Plane in Visit to Tehran
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940929000973

TEHRAN (FNA)- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's plane will be escorted by four Russian fighter jets during his upcoming visit to Iran, reports said, adding that the US coalition has been alerted to stand down as the Russian jets will have the permission to fire at will at any incoming aircraft.

"Four strategic Russian fighter jets will accompany the plane carrying the Syrian president during the visit to and from Iran," the Lebanese al-Diyar daily reported on Sunday.

The newspaper also added that the Syrian president is due to travel to Tehran via the Iraqi airspace.

"The US-led international coalition's air command has been warned not to approach Bashar Assad's plane to avoid engagement," it said.

Informed sources said on Friday that President Assad is slated to visit Iran in late December or early January.

"Assad's visit to Tehran will be his second trip abroad in the past four years after his last month's visit to Moscow," an informed source said.

The source noted that President Assad's visit will take place in late December and early January, and said that the details of his visit will be announced later.

President Assad's visits to allied nations takes place after the recent victories of the Syrian army against the Takfiri terrorist groups.



Making waves: Russia's radar umbrella opens over the northern hemisphere
http://rbth.com/defence/2015/12/21/making-waves-russias-radar-umbrella-opens-over-the-northern-hemisphere_553355

Russia’s early warning radar system enables the country’s military to monitor activity across most of the northern hemisphere. There are four ultra-modern early warning radar stations of the "Voronezh" type in operation in Russia today.

Three of these facilities are located in the European part of the country. In 2009, the radar station in the Leningrad Region came online, allowing tracking from Norway down as far south as Algeria. Eventually its range will also encompass the eastern seaboard of the United States.

In 2011, a station also began working in the Kaliningrad Region in western Russia, providing surveillance across the whole of Europe. The third station, located in Russia's southern Krasnodar Region, covers the space over North Africa and the Middle East. A fourth long-range radar station in Siberia covers Central and East Asia, supported by several other Russian installations on the territory of some former Soviet republics.

All of the facilities have the same task: to observe every man-made object that takes to the air at a distance of thousands of kilometers. During the Cold War this capacity was primarily intended for intercontinental ballistic missiles, which when pinpointed in the early stages of their flight would draw a retaliatory strike. The radar installations were also used to guide Soviet missiles.

Creating an unbroken shield

Today this role carries equal importance in view of the increasing global missile proliferation. Russian radar stations are being deployed according to emerging threats in the Middle East, as well as due to the missile defense system being developed by the United States.

In the near future, radar will be used to create an effectively unbroken shield over Russia. The rapid commissioning of eight modern stations is now scheduled, some of which will replace old Soviet designs, while others are completely new. These will completely cover the expanse over Siberia and over the Arctic region, as well as covering part of the sky over North America.

The Voronezh system is the backbone of Russia's modern radar tracking capacity and is the fifth generation of radars, the first of which appeared immediately after World War II. Voronezh consists of several modules that make the stations compact and mobile. At its core is a large antenna array, which performs the basic task of monitoring the target territory. Its operation is ensured by several modules full of equipment and personnel working in special portable premises. Providing there is a solid concrete base, the radar can be deployed and set up in a very short time, assisted also by its low power consumption.

Key advantages

Voronezh has a number of advantages when compared with older systems and its foreign counterparts. Its coverage area is 4,000 miles and its height sensing exceeds 2,500 miles, which allows monitoring not only of the Earth's atmosphere, but also space. The angle of observation is close to horizontal, which leaves virtually no dead zones that are inaccessible to its radio waves.



Russian Strategic Missile Forces: constantly on standby
http://tass.ru/en/defense/767449

Russian Strategic Missile Forces were created on December 17, 1959. This military branch of Russian armed forces controls country's land-based inter-continental ballistic missiles. Presently six types of missile systems are on combat duty. Three of them are ground-based and other three are silo-based. Around 6,000 people serve daily at combat posts in alert forces, no less than 95% of missile systems on combat duty are constantly on standby for immediate launch of missiles.



Putin calls new engine remarkable event in domestic aircraft-making
http://tass.ru/en/economy/845031

The new Russian-made PD-14 engine is an important event in domestic aircraft-making, President Vladimir Putin said at an annual press conference on Thursday.

"Do you know that the most important event has just occurred in engine-making? This is the PD-14 new engine," Putin said.

"This is the first product of this type since the late 1980s. This is a big achievement of our engine makers," the Russian president said.

The new engine will help Russia develop the domestic aircraft-manufacturing industry further, including the Ilyushin Il-96 plane, Putin said.

"This is the first product of this type since the late 1980s. This is a big achievement of our engine makers," the Russian president said.

The new engine will help Russia develop the domestic aircraft-manufacturing industry further, including the Ilyushin Il-96 plane, Putin said.

The Russian president said he wanted to use this occasion to congratulate all persons who had helped develop the new engine.

The Russian president also mentioned plans to develop domestic civil aircraft-making. Putin specifically referred to the Russian-Chinese project of developing a wide-body airliner based on the MS-21 plane and the project of developing regional aviation on the basis of the Il-114 aircraft.



Russian cargo spacecraft first time controlled via satellite
http://tass.ru/en/science/845691

A cluster of three relay satellites will make it possible to keep in touch with the spacecraft at any point of its orbit, and not just over the territory of Russia.

Russia’s cargo spacecraft Progress MS has established radio contact with the communication and broadcasting satellite Luch-5B, a source in the space rocket industry has told TASS.

"There has been the first successful session of communication with the Progress MS spacecraft via a Luch system satellite," the source said.

A cluster of three relay satellites will make it possible to keep in touch with the spacecraft at any point of its orbit, and not just over the territory of Russia, where ground communication satellites are located.

Last time relay satellites (Altair) were used to run a spacecraft during the first and last orbital spaceflight by the Soviet space shuttle Buran in 1988. Also, they maintained communication with the orbital station MIR.



Super Sub: Russia’s Next 'Boomer' to Keep Whole World Covered
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940930001546

The keel of Russia's new Borei class nuclear-powered missile submarine, dubbed Emperor Alexander III, was laid at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk on Friday, Russian media wrote on Monday.

The Alexander III, already the seventh nuclear sub laid down in Severodvinsk as part of the upgraded Borei-A project, is 170 meters long, 13.5 meters wide and displaces 24,000 tons of water, Sputnik reported.

Each such submarine carries 16 Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles. Eight submarines of this class are to be built by 2020; three of them have already been delivered to the Navy.

The first submarine of the project is the Prince Vladimir, laid down in 2012. In 2014, two submarines — the Prince Oleg and the Generalissimo Suvorov were laid down.

The eighth and final missile submarine in the series is slated for construction in 2016.

The idea to name the new submarine after Emperor Alexander III was proposed in 2014 by President Vladimir Putin after Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky handed him a restored St. Andrew’s flag from the Russian Imperial Fleet’s battleship of the same name that took part in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War.

The Borei class submarines will form the basis of the Russian navy’s strategic nuclear forces in the coming decades.



Military Source: Iraqi Army Positions in Anbar Province Hit by Canadian Fighter Jet
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940930001663

Military sources announced on Monday that the warplane that bombarded the Iraqi army's military positions in Anbar province on Sunday belonged to Canada's Air Force.

The announcement came after Arab media outlets reported that a fighter jet of the US-led coalition has hit Iraqi forces' positions again.

"The warplane that hit the Iraqi army positions in the city of Fallujah in Al-Anbar province was Canadian," the Arabic-language al-Soumeria news website quoted an Iraqi military source as saying today.

Nine Iraqi Security Forces soldiers were confirmed dead in an errant US airstrike last week in support of ground troops in al-Naimiyah, Fallujah. Over 20 total deaths and 30 injuries have been reported in the incident.

The incident came as the Iraqi army had made great advances in Fallujah's Southern peripheries in Anbar province, and retook key buildings.

Meantime, a lawmaker from the Iraqi Parliament’s Al-Muwatin (Citizen Alliance) coalition called for an immediate investigation into a US airstrike that led to the death of Iraqi soldiers.

"We see that the Coalition air force strikes on Iraqi Army camps continue, coinciding with the victories of the army, thus in itself showing the frivolity of the international coalition against Daesh [Arabic acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] and in efforts to eradicate terrorism," Mohammed Masoudi said. "Therefore, we reiterate our call for the Iraqi government to open an urgent investigation to clarify the circumstances of the incident."

Iraqi parliament security and defense committee chief Hakim Zamli told Sputnik last week that Baghdad was planning to pursue the matter through the courts, holding the United States accountable for what it sees as a war crime. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter later extended his condolences to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi for the deaths.



Obama brags about his presidency
http://www.pravdareport.com/news/world/21-12-2015/132911-obama_presidency-0/

The United States is "inexorably changing for the better," US President Barack Obama said in a recent interview.

Talking about changes and prospects for domestic and foreign policy of the States under his own presidency, Obama estimated the results of his work as "positive."

"I do think that the country is inexorably changing, I believe in all kinds of positive ways," he said in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, meaning most controversial innovations that the USA has seen this year - from the legalization of gay marriage to admitting refugees from Syria.

Speaking about his successor, Obama reiterated that he does not see Donald Trump in the Oval Office. According to Obama, Trump is "exploiting" fears and anxieties of American citizens.
 
Military to Military

Seymour M. Hersh on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

6831 words - Worth the read.
 
angelburst29 said:
Military to Military

Seymour M. Hersh on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

6831 words - Worth the read.
Click to expand...

Thanks, angelburst29. It is amazing at how many in the middle do see what is going on and try to change the direction. As they say "you can't push a rope". I do get a sense that at least there are sensible men in the US military but they get nowhere. If they speak the truth they get replaced.

The Joint Chiefs and the DIA were constantly telling Washington’s leadership of the jihadist
threat in Syria, and of Turkey’s support for it. The message was never listened to. Why
not?
Click to expand...

I think the final battle comes down to seeing or wanting to see the truth (reality).
 
Ankara must come clean & address mounting evidence of links with ISIS – Iraqi MP to RT

_https://www.rt.com/news/326728-iraq-rubaie-turkey-isis-oil/

Turkey needs to be much more proactive in countering terrorism in Syria and Iraq, stop turning a blind eye and aiding the Islamic State terrorists through illegal oil trade, Iraqi MP and a former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie told RT.

Ankara is “smuggling Iraqi oil and Syrian oil through the borders and selling it on the black marker in Turkey,” Rubaie told RT.

“Turkish authorities need to do a lot more than what they are doing now to come clean from the accusations that they are siding, or at least that they are turning a blind eye to the movement of these terrorists from Turkey to Syria and Iraq and vise versa,” the MP said.

The politician says there is “mounting evidence” from all over the world, including Iraq, that “Turkey is playing not a very clean game,” when it comes to Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL).

Rubaie also finds it strange that Turkey is aiding jihadi fighters to get medical treatment on its territory before sending them back to fight in Syria and Iraq.

“Also there is evidence that some of these high value individuals of Daesh when they get wounded in Iraq and Syria, they cross the border and get treated and operated upon in Turkish hospitals,” the MP said.

Ankara must secure the border between Turkey and terrorist-controlled territories of Syria, because Syrian government forces have so far been unable to secure the northern part of Syria. To “seal” the border, Rubaie argues, some 50,000 Turkish troops are needed.

That will help “stop the smuggling of the goods as well as the smuggling of terrorists” into Daesh controlled lands, the MP said.

Overall Ankara should “come clean” and address the mounting evidence of IS links that have surfaced recently. In addition, the MP called on NATO to investigate allegations against Turkey “properly,” as the Norwegians in their latest study have done.
Click to expand...
 
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