sealionAny ideas?
Cruise missile? They look similar to me (compare to below):
Any ideas what this is?
sealionThe war with Iran is less and less likely, because Cheney might resign over the Libby debacle.
Below is a link to a case study that compares the usage of liberal and conservative “talking points” used during reporting of the American government-paid pension system a few years ago.
http://www.businessandmedia.org/spec…ity/socsec.asp
Whether a news report is true or false has nothing to do with the news media that reports it. Labeling a media outlet as liberal or conservative is equivalent to resorting to personal attack during an argument. The above link is a good example. Instead of discussing the issue at hand (Bush administration’s social security policy), the article labels most news media as liberal, then implies that because they are liberal, therefore their arguments are biased. What gets lost in the process is the arguments themselves. The article fails to explain why the arguments put forth by most news media are biased, instead it suggests the false claim that all arguments from liberal media are biased.
sealionIf the people are stupid enough to pillage their own history why should the US stop them? I don’t think the US wanted its troops to be in a position of shooting looters.
Generalization is a hallmark of prejudice and bigotry. Mocking the whole people because of the acts of a few thugs and thieves sounds like generalization to me.
I was talking about the stupidity of the U.S. officials. A few Americans like to brag that they are the beacons of freedom and masters of entrepreneur. But where were the entrepreneurial spirit which they are so proud of, that they let such a public relations disaster to happen? That is how Americans manage Iraq, or for that matter, their own country (New Orleans)?
You sound like to expect western powers to protect a country from its own people.
Sounds a bit like the old fashioned “imperialism” qsaark is complaining about?
:confused: I do not see the logic. Did you imply that protecting the oil fields is not an act of imperialism, but protecting the culture and heritage of Iraq, or providing the basic needs for the ordinary Iraq people is an act of imperialism?
sealionThey actually admire USA long time ago. From USA warship forcing Japan port to open up that moment in 1854. Japan already see US as their Idol.. During the Meiji modenisation,they try to do everything from fashion,culture just like USA.
When the news of Japan Pearl Harbour strike reaches the mass of Japan in 1941. Many ordinary Japanese were acutually very sad. Cos they worshipped the American alot and the fact they need to face American in War sadden many of them… So the fact,American nuke them cement their mentally. Japan is no way to match American in anytime and NEVER…..
This kind of view is both simplistic and ignorant. Read John W. Dower’s “War Without Mercy”, an unique account about race and the Pacific War, you will understand. Even if the Japanese had any “love” toward the Americans, the Americans certainly had no intentions to return in kind.
sealionWar closer? What war?
Let’s go back to the topic: there will be no war with Iran. U.S. will start talks with Iran next week – the Bush administration is about to shoot on its own feet once again. In fact, the U.S. intelligence probably does not really know exactly where the Iranian research and experimental facilities are located. Their intelligence on Iran cannot be better than that on Iraq, and we all know what kind of “intelligence” they had on Iraq.
If you look at how the plan unfolded in Iraq it is pretty clear what America’s goals were… secure the oil fields and surround the cities. In other words get that oil safe…
The stupidity of a few Americans is only preceded by their greed. The U.S. army rolled in straight to the oil fields, left the museums unprotected, and left the most precious treasures of one of the greatest ancient civilizations to the thugs and thieves – all under the watchful eyes of the whole world!
…The perception that many people of other nationalities has gotten of the Fox News Channel is so far off base I don’t even know where to begin. If you lived here for a long time, and were able to see the nonsense that is thrown at the American people on a daily basis from certain other news organizations you’d be sickened…
Do you mind to give us a specific example, as to what issues that only Fox news gets it right, and most other news channels get it wrong?
sealionWe have decided, and we are unanimous in this decision that Iran is not allowed to have nuclear weapons. Israel has some and any question of them having them is simply not up for question but Iran may not have nuclear weapons and we are prepared to bomb and kill Iranians to ensure they don’t get nuclear weapons… Nah, that doesn’t sound very colonial at all…
I have to agree. Some Israelis and Americans are such hypocrites.
The only way to prevent a nuclear Iran is the full disarmament of Israeli nuclear weapons and a permanent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, or a full-scale ground invasion.
Bombing will not work, because the Iranian nuclear program has entered the production phase. It becomes a “if you bomb it, I will build it again” scenario. In fact, the bombing of the Iraqi facility probably would not have succeeded, had Hussein restarted the program instead of attacking Iran.
if there is no traffic of their own in the Persian Gulf then what is to stop them from deploying mines to stop all traffic? Cruise missile deployed mine… land launched torpedo layed mine… the Russians already have special fuses developed for their FAB bombs that allow them to be laid as sea mines… that would be really cheap… and they could get about 40-50 tons worth in an IL-76 transport… is there going to be a no fly zone there too?
I have to agree again. Imagine “IEDs on the High Seas!” Naval blockade will be too costly to the Americans themselves. And if it is long enough, the Iranians might start to build railroads and pipelines to the East and Europe.
A full-scale ground war is highly unlikely now. Besides the fact that Iranians have depleted their easy-to-explore oil fields, a ground invasion requires at least half million U.S. troops, then they have to engage in an Israel-Hezbolla style fight. Furthermore, unlike the Iraqi invasion, Russian reaction cannot be ignored now.
sealionIt was said that the Feb. 2 attack was especially disturbing to the U.S. military, because when 2 Apaches came under attack, one promptly left, the other one turned back to confront the attackers. The one that went back to fight was subsequently shot down.
None of the insurgents camouflage themselves in the videos. I would camouflage myself well if I wanted to ambush someone in such an open space.
sealionOil was steady at $30-35 a barrel and even a relatively short time ago $70 a barrel for oil would have seemed impossible- who’s ready now for oil $200 a barrel and economic meltdown if the Persian Gulf is blocked or tankers have difficulty negotiating the Straits of Hormuz? 5 of the top 6 countries with the highest proven oil reserves are in or around that crescent of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Alternative sources like the giant shale beds in Canada are not so economic (yet) to exploit and others like Russia and Alaska have their own (different) problems.
I am afraid that sky-rocketing oil price will not deter an U.S. invasion. On the contrary, it will be an incentive for the current U.S. administration to launch an invasion into Iran. However, I do not think the U.S. will attack Iran, because it is too late. An invasion is out of question.
There was an article on msnbc.com last week. It said that some experts suspect that Saudi Arabia is waging an oil-price war on Iran right now. The Saudis artificially depress oil price by over-producing. The Iranians cannot increase their revenue by pumping up their production, because they have depleted their easy oil fields, and they do not have the cutting-edge technology (due to the sanctions) to drill those difficult oil fields economically.
The fact that Iran has depleted its easy oil fields solves a long-standing mystery for me: why U.S. invaded Iraq, instead of Iran, in the first place.
sealion… and given their lack of real desire to invade Formosa anyway, they are also working towards a credible blue water navy to deal with other issues that are far more likely to necessitate a military action, such as the issue of the Spratly Islands which crops up every now and again.
Taiwan independence is the only issue that will drag China into a war in the near future. The Spratly Islands, on the other hand, is unlikely to provoke Chinese military action. The Chinese are communists, as such, they understand the concept of “profit-sharing”, and they are totally different from the imperial Germany and Japan of the early 20th century. The Chinese will seek co-development of the oil and nature-gas fields with other surrounding countries – and that is the only way to solve issues like this.
I personally think that the Diaoyutai islands and Japan are the more likely true immediate purpose for these ships, with true blue water credentials and securing China’s long shipping lanes as the ultimate goal
No. China is not going to fight an imperial war with Japan, the World War 1 style, in the 21st century. Co-development is the only way to go – this is what the Japanese and American right-wing extremists do not understand.
The Taiwan issue is the absolute top priority for China until it is solved. Any other consideration is a grave strategic mistake in the part of the Chinese leadership.
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One un-intended consequence of the Chinese Asat test is that it gives the U.S. an opportunity to make a space “Gulf of Tonkin” incident in a future conflict – the Americans can destroy one of their own satellites and then claim the Chinese did it, just as they did in the Gulf of Tonkin to escalate the Vietnam war by damaging one of their own destroyer.
sealionWhy I have to emphasize the Japanese way:
Gotta love it. Anyone would think that until Pearl Harbour the concept of a surprise attack was completely unknown. Damn clever those Japanese.
The reason is that I want to point out the fact that, historically, it is Japan, currently the so-called the strongest ally of the U.S. in Asia, who attacked the U.S. without provocation, not China. I could have said “the German Way” (i.e. Barbarossa), only if they still had a shrine for Hitler in Berlin!
The fact is, what the Chinese did and will do is extremely cost-effective. The satellites are very expensive (hundreds of millions each) and highly vulnerable. In fact, the Chinese can just launch a pile of garbage into the orbits, and let the debris do their work.
The same thing can be said of the U.S. ABM system. It is not at all effective, it is ultra expensive, and its infrastructure is highly vulnerable.
My prediction:
Winners: the military-industrial complex, the Chinese, the Russians
Losers: the taxpayers, social security and health care
sealionGPS system is probably not safe.
According to the story, http://russianforces.org/blog/2007/01/is_china_repeating_the_old_sov.shtml.shtml,
when Russians developed their system (the direct-ascend version), they intended to knock out targets from 150 to 40000 km. I guess the Chinese will have the same thing in their mind when they are developing their system.
There is no way that China will attack U.S. satellites without provocation, the Japanese-style. Remember the Korean War? The U.S. ignored repeated Chinese warnings and brought the war to the Chinese border – then hell broke loose. The same thing will happen again if Americans intervene.
Turn off the public? The public is turned off on Iraq, yet we show no sign of leaving…and in this scenario, China would be committing a valid act of war by downing a US satellite. All the media has to do is paint the Chinese leadership as a bunch of Kim Jong-il crazy types to turn public opinion towards the idea.
As long as the Chinese do not attack U.S. the JAPANESE WAY, do not count on the power of the right-wing propaganda. They cannot turn China into North Korean!
sealionMaybe Russians have a similar system
OK, maybe the Russians just pretended that they could not believe it. They might have a similar system that can knock out targets up to 40000 km – GPS system is not safe after all:
The Soviet ASAT project that the reported Chinese system resembles most closely is “Naryad-V”. This project, developed in the Salyut Design Bureau, involved development of an interceptor that was to be deployed on existing silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (both R-36M/SS-18 and UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 were discussed, but the UR-10NUTTH was the primary candidate). A missile was to carry one or two interceptors that could target satellites in a wide range of orbits – with inclinations from 0 to 130 degrees and altitudes from 150 to 40,000 km. Intercept of spacecraft on high orbits would have taken up to seven hours, but LEO intercepts were expected to take from 30 minutes to 2.5 hours. It may have involved a direct-accent hit.
The “Naryad-V” system was in active development up to the end of the Soviet Union and the project may still exist. The first flight test of the “Naryad-V” spacecraft took place on 20 November 1990, in a suborbital flight of the Rockot launcher (which is a modified UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 missile). Another suborbital flight of Rockot was conducted on 20 December 1991, but it is not clear if it was a flight test of “Naryad-V”. The first orbital flight of a “Naryad-V” spacecraft (again launched by Rockot) was reported to take place on 26 December 1994. The spacecraft was declared as “Radio-ROSTO” satellite. It is quite possible that it was indeed a peaceful satellite built around the “Naryad-V” platform – the information on the program is quite scarce.
http://russianforces.org/blog/2007/01/is_china_repeating_the_old_sov.shtml
sealionTruth be told a direct ascent system is not as complicated as a coorbital system insofar as vehicle design and intercept dynamics are concerned. You need a different guidance system in order to make a hit-to-kill system work, but the overall system as a whole is less complicated and by design can only serve in a reactionary mode. The Russian method was far more useful as the interceptors could be orbited and then moved to an intercept trajectory whenever needed using a variation of a Hohmann transfer orbit.
What the Chinese did was not easy – in fact, the Russians cannot believe it.
PAC-3 doesn’t have any problem at all with that. It’s it’s bread and butter.
Hm. Nobody yet mentioning ERIS? Also a good number of media commentaries seem to be ignorant about ERIS, cause they said something like that (hitting a satellite with a surface based interceptor) was never done before. Admittedly ERIS was not designed for use against satellites, but much more demanding, against ballistic missiles. Used a castrated LGM-30 booster.
I guess the GBI wouldn’t have any problems hitting a low orbit satellite either.It’s not that difficult, you could even do such an intercept w/o on-board terminal sensors, based purely on timing.
Do not be fooled by the propaganda of the military-industrial complex. Patriot system probably does not work as well as claimed by the manufacturers, and the anti-ballistic missile defense system probably does not really work right now and will not work in the near future.
Now if you want to make an antiship ballistic missile, guess what. No one has even tried one yet and put it in service. Here is the problem. At a high altitude you really cannot image a moving ship, and by the time you do, you’re descending too fast. A higher speed means less time to do corrections, less time and opportunity for maneuver. Let’s also talk about what reentry speeds can do against conventional radomes.
The rumor that the Chinese are developing anti-ship ballistic missile is not as far-fetched as it once was.
sealionThe U.S. has been very hyporcrite on quite a few issues.
Some people in the U.S. cannot grasp the reality that the POST-post-cold-war era has ended, signified by American military’s fiasco in Iraq. I remember sometime last year, just as the news of the recovery of Russia’s economy and the U.S. failure in Iraq started to permeate the minds of the general public, some genius think-tank fellows in America started to boast about U.S.’ first strike capability. In the meantime, the U.S. steadfastly refused to sign any treaty that would ban space arm-race, which was strongly advocated by both China and Russia.
Young’s joke is a good one. It is even educational! Some people’s fear in the U.S. is stemmed from the fact that they cannot see the difference between Chinese and Japanese, and they fear that someday the Chinese will launch a space Pearl Harbor attack. I am beating a dead horse here, but the fact is, as long as U.S. do not intervene in the Taiwan conflict, there will be eternal peace between China and U.S.
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