I wonder if brazil now regrets not buying Su-35 instead of the old mirages. The mirages are no match for the Su-30’s.

Still, those “old” Mirage-2000s increase the option price for Venezuela of intimidating Brazil by increasing the element of uncertainty in a campaign of intimidation.

In his recent speech Chavez directly refered to US CVs having to stand further of from his coast line after the arrival of the Flankers, so that at least sugests that he’d be interested in long range anti-shipping missiles. No ASMs no real threat, right?

No real threat with the emphasis on real; if Chavez threathens a US CSG in international waters or in the territorial waters of a nation friendly to the US (i.e. Dutch/English/French islands in the Caribbean), he is toast. The best strategy to deal with the attention hungry Chavez is to ignore him; exactly what the US is doing.

Selon le quotidien économique, l’opération serait financée par l’Arabie saoudite qui a récemment préféré au Rafale l’Eurofighter, construits par EADS, BAE Systems et Finmeccanica.

“Les Saoudiens ont visiblement sous-évalué l’énorme déception des Français à la suite de leur décision d’opter pour l’Eurofighter”, écrit La Tribune.

“L’échec du Rafale a en effet été très durement ressenti à Paris. Du coup, les missions diplomatiques françaises au palais du roi Abdallah ont fini par ébranler les esprits saoudiens qui n’avaient pas pris la mesure des enjeux du Rafale pour la France, estime-t-on au sein des industriels”, poursuit le quotidien.

Saudi-Arabia buys French aircraft for Marocco in order to improve its relations with France, which was disappointed after its aircraft was rejected in favour of another type. I am stunned. 😮 We shall see whether such rumours will materialize.

I know enough of Marxism to recognize emotional quirks loosely based on theories from this school of “thought”. What is in fact lame in this discussion is that you are spouting forth obvious crap:

Another thing is that Bush made a LOT of failures which put the whole matter in the spotlights and even worse, induced a world wide movement, generally referred as anti-americanism. That is a term which was unknown under Clinton,

to which I respond by pointing out that the history of this movement goes back much farther by providing you with some links.

This:

One thing is that he started the worldwide anti-terrorist campaign which justifies much greater defense spendings (which enables many lobbyist members to take their share).

is merely a variation of the immiserization theory (“ooh, them capitalists with their lackeys are exploiting them poor labourers”. Furthermore, it is patently wrong as Secretary Rumsfeld axed a lot of big “Cold War”-programs over which he faced a lot of criticism from the military establishment, senators from the states affected and the defense industry. So much for the overwhelming power of the military industrial complex.

The term colony no longer applies. The Dutch Antilles are independently governed but remain part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (compare “Commonwealth”). The Dutch are responsible for defence varence of the Dutch Antilles.

The islands are not as “independent” as they may look like and the degree of practical independence depends on the island in question. Currently, a commission is reviewing the ties between the European Netherlands and the islands. So far its advise has been to totally reconfigure the relationship between the islands and the mainland, but no agreement has been reached yet. Its advise is to give the smaller islands (the upwind ones) the same status as a Dutch community (i.e. turning them into overseas territories), as they are not economically viable on their own; and the larger ones (downwind isles) more freedom of their own. Also the other islands currently do not like the influence of the largest island, Curacoa.

The French navy employs the missile on a twin launcher, dubbed Simbad:

Amazingly, the Simbad system will be the main anti-aircraft armament on the new LHDs Mistral and Tonnerie:

I partly agree but i wonder these are Western sources, the question is get pictures and Official press relaese of both sides, by that i mean if you want Russian sources go to the Russian webpages, if you want Israeli sources get Israeli sources only checking all the sources from the different warring parties you can more less guess what you will prove by pictures or hard evidence.

As far as Tom Cooper is concerned, he also employs Syrian, Egyptian, Iranian, Russian etc. sources whenever available and he actively seeks them. Furthermore, he also has contacts in these countries and visits these while doing research.