More reasons to keep the F-22

United Press International Reports:

WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Two Russian planes flew within 500 feet of U.S. Navy ships participating in military drills with South Korea, military officials said.

A few hundred more 5th generation F-22 stealth fighters to patrol our skies for these lumbering Russian bombers would be a good thing. Why stop at 183? Whether Russia is just trying to effusively flex its aging muscles or not, the reality of the threat is obvious for the world to see.

The F-22 for a Bold, New, Dangerous World

Vice President Joe Biden was right; the new administration is being tested. This week alone brings a number of ominous signs of conflict the world will expect the United States to deal with. These are issues that will have to be handled fastidiously.

Wired reports that U.S. MNF-Iraq shot down an Iranian UAV last month. This opens yet a new front on the Iraq war.

Further east, Japan has threatened to shoot down North Korea's "satellite launch." If Japan follows through on its word, the action may cause North Korea to begin matching its rhetoric with deeds.

Lastly, Russia's interfax news agency is reporting the possibility that Russian strategic bombers could be flown out of Cuban and Venezuelan air fields. This obviously smacks of a second Cuban missile crisis.

These aerial crises stand apart from current wars being fought on the ground by the U.S. and its allies in the middle east. Military strategists, such as Thomas P.M. Barnett, have rightly argued the need for a robust American ground force which can provide not only security, but also civil affairs and humanitarian aid.

However, these increased threats to American air dominance among its adversaries may give the strategists pause. For example, Secretary of Defense Gates halted further production of the new fifth generation F-22 fighter at 185. The school of thought questioned the need for so many stealth, agile, supersonic dog-fighters in an age when insurgencies are fought in the cities and villages of third world countries. Others added the yet-to-be-fielded F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as another argument to kill the F-22 and thereby cut Defense spending.

The F-22 program was put on hold because opponents argued the fighter was built to help wage obsolete Cold War battle. Yet, as recent bellicosity from Russia, Cuba, Iran and North Korea demonstrate, many of our old adversaries are still in a Cold War mindset.

The United States should re-think a growing need for the F-22, especially considering the price tag of the F-35.

Are Russian Pilots That Bad?

...or is there something more sinister behind this?

UK jets shadow Russian bombers

The UK's Royal Air Force has launched fighter jets to intercept eight Russian military planes flying in airspace patrolled by Nato, UK officials say.

Four RAF F3 Tornado aircraft were scrambled in response to the Russian action, the UK's defence ministry said.

The Russian planes - long-range bombers - had earlier been followed by Norwegian F16 jets.

Not the only incident involving Russian Bombers. Maybe they're still upset over the whole Litvinenko thing.

The Beslan Tragedy - Two Years Ago Today

Gateway Pundit has an excellent post and video reminding us about one of the more depraved terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic radicals: 3 Years Ago Today... Terrorists Seize Beslan School

A Russian Conspiracy - Theory

Shocking.

Is Putin the capricious autocrat we think he is, or the victim of a concerted effort by his political opponents to bring him down?

It is turning out those in exile and desperate to get back into power are the ones who would use murder as a propaganda tool. And if this is the case, then why would they not use nuclear material smuggled through London to disrupt Russia and begin the take over of Russia one such Oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, has openly called for.

And:

What if these people were right, that it was the Oligarch’s trying to stain Putin so they could garner support for a coup? Putin has what he needs and can get what he wants. He is not facing election. He has no motive outside the conspiracy fantasies of people with no proof. On the flip side, we have the words of these Oligarchs stating their plans. And we know, as the article points out, they are the ones who truly gained from the publicity surrounding these deaths. Publicity they paid PR firms to help promote.

So is Putin the victim? He's not so innocent, and not so shy about using heavy-handed tactics, says American Thinker:

Last Friday, another act of war took place in the skies over the Caucasus, when a Russian aircraft violated the Republic of Georgia's airspace and was fired on by the country's air defense forces. Prior to this latest incident, Russia violated Georgian airspace no fewer than three times within as many weeks, including one instance of a deliberate missile attack against a Georgian-NATO radar site.

H/T PJM

They've Compared Bush To Hitler

Who do you compare this guy to?

ROE History Lesson From Afghanistan

Prologue

Barack Obama:

"Now you have narco drug lords who are helping to finance the Taliban, so we’ve got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."

...

On December 27th, 1979, the Soviet Union launched its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

The bloody 10 year war resulted in the death of at least 14,453 Soviet military personnel (officially), and 469,685 additional Soviet casualties, either wounded in battle or stricken by disease.

The Afghans suffered far worse at the hand of the Soviets. More than 1 million civilians were killed, while untold millions more were wounded and/or displaced.

Contrast Russia's disastrous campaign with the United States' War in Afghanistan, which began in 2001: Operation Enduring Freedom. To date, after 6 years of hard fighting among the windswept peaks, valleys and poppy fields once home to the murderous, masochistic Taliban, the U.S. has seen only 427 combat deaths. Total losses to Coalition forces (British, Canadian, etc.), amount to just 657.

Furthermore, the U.S. military has suffered fewer than 7,000 wounded during the conflict. While the media are quick to point out that "The number of Afghan civilians killed by US bombs has surpassed the death toll of the 11 September attacks," considering the massive ordinance U.S. and coalition forces have dropped on enemy positions since the start of the war, Afghan civilian deaths after 6 long years so far amount to around 7,300. (While some wildly speculate the number to be as high as 50,000; notice all the "may have" and "assuming" preambles).

The stark contrast between American and Russian military deaths, and Afghan civilian deaths then and now, should tell us two things (at least):

1) The United States military is a far more sophisticated, well trained, and efficient fighting force, and

2) The United States of America is greatly judicious and far more careful in its use of the terrible firepower at its disposal.

This violence, of course, is to say nothing of the death visited on Muslims - by Muslims... many orders of magnitutde greater than any sort of violence inflicted by the United States or Russia, as history has recorded.

No loss of innocent human life is acceptable or tolerable. However, when put into context- specifically, when comparing 6 years of war conducted by the United States at a cost of 7,300 civilian lives, one should pause to reflect the great efforts made by American and Coalition forces to spare innocent life.

By just a glance at Russia's horrific conduct of its Afghan invasion during the 1980's, it is clear that, when compared to our own war in the region, Americans operate under very different Rules of Engagement.

Diane West recently wrote on this topic, noting just some of the lives an American reluctance to shed innocent blood has cost our country in blood and treasure.

Before voters believe Barack Obama, or any other presidential candidate that opens his or her mouth to decry seemingly wanton American "air raids" on innocent civilians, ask yourself: What does war perpetrated by a reckless, autocratic, imperialist regime really look like?

The Belmont Club recently attempted to answer this question, and made a number of excellent points. Here is one of them:

One of the most fascinating questions -- one worthy of a book -- must be why Osama Bin Laden chose to order his suicide airplanes into Manhattan rather than say, Beijing or Moscow. Both these nations have been campaigning against Muslims for centuries. And the answer, I suspect, lies in the "excited commands and shouts of glee form the Chinese on the soundtrack". Or the veritable rain of shells that fell on Grozny in the recent past or the vicious campaign that still rages through Chechnya today. Maybe Bin Laden attacked America because he knew how it would fight. In a mode where even prisoners in Guantanamo Bay could insist upon their Korans being handled with white gloves, while a large section of America's own media would condemn this treatment as too harsh.

Think on this - Barack Obama, DailyKos, Jack Murtha, John Edwards, and others. There is a difference between the conduct of war by a reluctant warrior and the nihilistic aggressor: Cold, merciless punishment meted out by a pitiless war machine.

Additional Thoughts: Strategy Page writes on Why Obama Hustles for Osama:

Senator Obama's claims that American troops in Afghanistan are only killing civilians and launching air strikes on villages came as he was arguing for a pullout from Iraq. As has been the case with past claims of such misconduct, no proof was offered. In fact, videos released earlier in the effort to liberate Afghanistan have shown American efforts to avoid civilian targets (one AC-130 video released early in the war featured the crew noting the presence of a mosque and noting that it was not to be attacked). Moreover, the rate of civilian casualties in the current Iraq and Afghanistan operations are the lowest in history, due to precision weapons, rules of engagements and highly trained troops. But that never gets reported.

This only furthers my own point that the American military takes great care to avoid civilian casualties. But the same cannot, of course be said of other militaries (i.e., Russian)

Ace of Spades HQ also weighed in on this issue in: Law Lesson: The Purpose of Rules of Warfare:

Essentially, international law created a system whereby combatants would be allowed to kill each other, but were required to leave everyone else alone as much as possible. This created another problem, however. In order to leave civilians alone, combatants would have to be able to tell the difference between a civilian and an enemy.

That led, eventually, to things like the cumulative conditions I listed in our talk about unlawful combatants. They are designed so that combatants will be able to distinguish combatants from civilians because combatants carry arms openly, wear a uniform with a fixed distinctive emblem, obey a chain of command (so that they can be ordered to surrender when their commanding officers do), and otherwise obey the laws of war.

In the case of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviets had little regard for these rules of war. But again, whereas today in Iraq and Afghanistan, American service men and women hesitate to shoot for fear of kiling civilians, the Soviets had no such compunctions.

Russia Nuclear Bombers Fly Over U.S. Base

...like they used to do.

Russia resumes nuke bomber sorties

A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. military base on the Pacific island of Guam on Wednesday and "exchanged smiles" with U.S. pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force.

Old practice:

Russia's strategic bombers have resumed the Soviet Union's Cold War practice of flying long-haul missions to areas patrolled by NATO and the United States, generals said on Thursday.

But here's the bad news:

The bombers give Russia the capability of launching a devastating nuclear strike even if the nuclear arsenals on its own territory are wiped out.

With Friends Like These

Iran's allies are dropping like flies.

Russia tells Iran to comply with UN

Russia has told Iran it will withhold fuel for a planned Russian-built nuclear plant until Tehran answers longstanding UN questions about its disputed atomic program, diplomats said yesterday.

Maybe Russia is giving in to U.S. pressure because of Iranian misdeeds, such as:

Dramatic video produced by Iraqi insurgents and captured in a raid earlier this week by U.S. troops clearly shows a battery of sophisticated Iranian-made rocket launchers firing on American positions east of Baghdad, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

As President Bush said, "Iran will be brought to justice."

Russian Diplomacy

...as my father called it.

NATO jets tail Russian aircraft for second time in a week

RAF MILDENHALL, England — For the second time in less than a week, NATO air forces scrambled fighter jets on Friday in response to Russian aircraft straying toward — and allegedly into — British airspace.

Officials from Norway and Britain confirmed Friday they dispatched fighter jets four days after a contingent of Norwegian F-16s and British Tornados shadowed a set of Russian aircraft traveling toward British airspace.

The Russians are cranky over their expelled "diplomats" (read: Attaches, spies) because of the egregious poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Russian reaction is infantile and futile.

"Useful Idiots"

Yuri Bezmenov's "useful idiots." Courtesy Pajamas Media.

Missile Defense is a Joke to Iran

Prensa Latina reports that Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's National Security Supreme Council, called U.S. efforts to build a missile shield in Europe, "the joke of the year."

But President Vladimir Putin of Russia isn't laughing. And Europe is not laughing at Ahmadinejad's comments that Israel's destruction is near.

And of course, the UN is not laughing at Iran's nuclear program as new sanctions are urged.

These latest comments by the capricious Iranians highlight their diplomatic immaturity, and penchant for inflammatory statements.

They cannot be trusted.

Update: Wow. Powerline links to a New York Sun article about something else that is not very funny - an investigation into Iran's possible links to the JFK plot.

Update: Gateway Pundit quotes Mithal Al-Alusi, speaking at the Democracy & Security Conference in Prage - "Iran is the main problem in the region. They are spreading violence to Iran and Syria..."

Tsar Putin

Russia's autocratic President announced today: "I'm the world's only true democrat," Reuters reports.

These comments follow a series of capricious moves by Putin, designed to oppose president Bush's aim to install a missile defense shield in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Putin has even suggested nuclear warheads might be pointed toward Europe.

Bush's response? A quick visit to the Czech Republic and Poland before the G8 summit in Germany.

Why would Putin think that an escalation in rhetoric and violent intimidation would encourage the U.S. to not want a missile shield?

Cold War II

Globe and Mail Exclusive: Putin threatens to target Europe with missiles

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Europe with missiles, including potentially nuclear weapons, in a dramatic escalation of his Cold War-style showdown with the United States.

Ahmadinejad threatens Israel, and Russia threatens the United States. One must wonder if these states enjoy their belligerent pariah status.

The Litvinenko Twist

The Belmont Club: The Wilderness of Mirrors

Was it the KGB?
Or MI6?
Lugovoy?
A Double-cross?
An accident?

Whew.

American "Imperialism" and the Enemy Miscalculation

Was Osama Right?

Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won't change their view.

BY BERNARD LEWIS Wednesday, May 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?"

And the law of unintended consequences...

From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, it is clear that they expected this second task, dealing with America, would be comparatively simple and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole series of attacks--on the World Trade Center in New York and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S. military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000--all of which evoked only angry words, sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles to remote and uninhabited places.

Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the lands of Islam; Stage Two--to bring the war into the enemy camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so completely out of accord with previous American practice, came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of their assessment, and of the policies based on that assessment, was necessary.

More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep, wide and lasting.

Despite what the critics may say, when the President calls for the U.S. to "stay on the offensive," this is not simply a mindless platitude.

I doubted that argument only a few years ago, but now believe it would be a mistake not to do so.

300: I have to laugh

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Hates 300

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken time away from his busy schedule of crushing the infidels in order to provide some freelance film criticism about the recent box office hit 300. In a televised speech, Ahmadinejad accused the West of "trying to tamper with history by making a film and by making Iran's image look savage." He never mentioned the name of the film but it was clearly 300 which was also attacked last week by the Iranian Cultural Minister as "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological warfare aimed against Iranian culture." Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

For a sound, reasonable approach to this film (of which there are few), see here:

'300' Fact or Fiction?

Indeed, at the real battle, there weren't rhinoceroses or elephants in the Persian army. Their king, Xerxes, was bearded and sat on a throne high above the battle; he wasn't, as in the movie, bald and sexually ambiguous, and he didn't prance around the killing field. And neither the traitor Ephialtes nor the Spartan overseers, the Ephors, were grotesquely deformed. When the Greeks were surrounded on the battle's last day, there were 700 Thespians and another 400 Thebans who fought alongside the 300 Spartans under King Leonidas. But these non-Spartans are scarcely prominent in the movie.

Still, the main story line mostly conveys the message of Thermopylae.

A small contingent of Greeks at Thermopylae (which translates to "The Hot Gates") really did block the enormous Persian army for three days before being betrayed. The defenders claimed their fight was for the survival of a free people against subjugation by the Persian Empire.

and as a reminder, the movie is based on a comic book...

The warriors of "300" look like comic-book heroes because they are based on Frank Miller's drawings that emphasized bare torsos, futuristic swords and staged fight scenes. In other words, director Zack Snyder tells the story not in a realistic fashion - like the mostly failed attempts to recapture the ancient world in recent films such as "Troy" or "Alexander" - but in the surreal manner of a comic book or video game.

One would think with a faltering economy, sky-rocketing inflation, non-payments to Russia on its nuclear plant, fresh U.N. sanctions, high-level military defections, and now a crisis due to the capricious seizure of 15 British sailors - Iran has enough to worry about. I suppose insecurity knows no bounds.

Russia gives it's buddy Iran...

... an Ultimatum on Enrichment, according to the New York Times.

PARIS, Mar. 18 — Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran’s nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European, American and Iranian officials said.

The Jerusalem Post confirms that pulling experts from Iranian nuclear site.

It appears that Ahmadinejad may not have as much spring in his step when he comes to the United Nations to argue his case against further sanctions. Will we still need sanctions against an Iranian regime without the necessary tools to complete their reactor? Most likely, since they will only turn to the black market.

Iranian Questions

The ball is in Iran's court now, since Iran agrees to attend Iraq conference with US:

Iran has pledged to attend this weekend's international conference on the future of the Iraq, where its delegates are likely to come face to face with American representatives.

Diplomatic relations between Iran and America have been suspended for more than 25 yearsTeheran had appeared reluctant to commit itself to the summit, which has been organised by the Iraqi foreign ministry, after Washington gave the meeting its enthusiastic backing.

Perhaps Iran is looking for a distraction, and this summit is a welcome opportunity. After all, according to Russia: Iran still owes for nuclear plant. And we all know how Russia reacts to displeasure. Just ask their critics, former KGB agents, and investigative journalists... oh wait, we can't ask them, they're dead.

The New York Times quoted a Russian official who put it more lightly:

''The main issue on the agenda of today's meeting is to discuss the crisis situation connected to the lack of funding of the project by the Iranian side,'' said Pavlov, who heads the department in charge of the plant's construction at Atomstroiexport.

How... embarassing. Iran is deep in Russia's pocket. Russia is like a loan shark, and if you don't pay up... maybe some Imams will start dying mysterious deaths or plunge to their deaths from five story buildings?

As if Iran didn't have enough problems - what with the big Russian bear lifting it up by its ankles and wringing the spare change from its pockets... Ahmadinejad goes and gets in a flap with his ally Bashar Assad of Syria.

Syrian President Bashar Assad exchanged harsh words with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a phone conversation, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassah reported on Wednesday.

Sources close to the Syrian leader told the newspaper that Assad had initially called the Iranian president to discuss Ahmadinejad’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah in Riyadh.

However, the conversation reportedly turned ugly when Ahmadinejad voiced support for the establishment of an international tribunal on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri - a sensitive subject for Syria, which has been suspected of involvement in the Lebanese leader’s death.

The report said that Assad became enraged and launched into an angry tirade, cursing the Iranians at the end of the conversation.

At the risk of sounding repetitive... as if Iran didn't have enough problems - their missing Revolutionary Guard General is now reportedly in Northern Europe (along with his family), chewing the fat with CIA and Mossad intelligence agents. Most reports incline to think the General has defected, particularly since his family also managed to get out of the country and are nowhere to be found.

Ynet News has more:

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Wednesday quoted an Iranian military official as saying that missing Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari is staying in a northern European country, where he is receiving “excellent treatment.”

According to the newspaper, the Iranian military official said Asgari is being interrogated by American and other Western intelligence officials on secrets he was exposed to while serving as the Defense Ministry’s chief consultant for strategic affairs.

The General, who was also a founding member of Hezbollah, seems to be in good hands.

So what is Iran's response to all this?

Point the finger:

Teheran: US, Israel making threats

Iran took the US, Israel and the UN Security Council to task on Wednesday, accusing Washington and Jerusalem of threatening military attacks on its nuclear facilities and saying Security Council pressure on Teheran was illegal.

The house of cards seems to be just falling down. Divide and conquer.

Back in the USSR...

Breitbart says the Dead Russian reporter was investigating arms sales to Iran, Syria.

A Russian reporter who died after falling out of a window was investigating sales of weapons by Russia to Syria and Iran, his newspaper Kommersant said Tuesday.

Ivan Safronov had told his newspaper that he had "received information" about the sale of Sukhoi-34 fighter jets to Syria and S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran via Belarus.

Little Green Footballs also covers the Russian Journalist's Death a "Forcible Suicide"

Here’s a detailed and interesting article at Kommersant.ru on the apparent “forcible suicide” of journalist Ivan Safronov, who was reportedly about to release an exposé on Russian arms deliveries to the Middle East: Ivan Safronov Was Killed.

Meanwhile, back in the USSR, er-Russia, the New York Times reports:

U.S. Doctor and Daughter Sickened by Poison in Russia

MOSCOW, March 6 — An American doctor and her daughter were being treated in a Moscow hospital on Tuesday after showing signs of thallium poisoning. Thallium is a highly toxic element with a history of use in pesticides and in murder.

The hits keep on comin'...