Bases, Missiles, Wars: US Consolidates Global Military Network
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17221
"Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shields throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.."
Mr. Obama is getting ready to teach Iran who's the cock of the walk:
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/iran-us-patriot-missile-gulf.... boosts missile presence in Gulf as warning to Iran[/url]
The Obama administration is intensifying pressure on Iran by increasing its missile defences in the Middle East to defend against potential missile strikes in the region by Tehran, it emerged today.
"Potential missile strikes ... by Tehran". There's a lot of historical precedent for Iranian aggression in the region, isn't there, Mr. Obama?
The American military isn't as strong as it appears...
China renews US arms-sale warning[IMG]http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2009/3/31/20093315312650473... [FONT=Verdana][B]China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has vowed to bring the island under mainland rule [EPA]
[/B][/FONT] China has given warning to the US about the severe consequences of its arms sales to Taiwan, saying the move will undermine Chinese-US co-operation.
The country's foreign minister, defence ministry and top legislative body have condemned the sale since the US plan entered the final stages on Friday.
The sale is valued at $6.4bn and includes Black Hawk helicopters, missile defence systems and communications technology.
"China firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with arms sales to Taiwan by the United States," Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a statement on Sunday.
China has already suspended planned exchange of military visits with the US and is also threatening to impose sanctions on any US companies involved in the deal.
"The Taiwan issue involves China's sovereignty and integrity, which concerns China's core interests," a Chinese defence ministry spokesman said on Saturday.
"China is resolved not to yield or compromise on this issue. China's army will be determined in fighting against any conduct that threatens China's sovereignty, integrity and national security."....http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/01/20101317233463353...
The not so thinnly veiled threat is aimed at all American defense contractors who depend on Chinese trade as a source of components:
...following the end of the Cold War there has been a deliberate decomposition of U.S. industry, unprecedented in American history. There are a number of factors which have contributed to U.S. dependence on foreign trade, primarily with India and China, which has not only led to millions of U.S. manufacturing and engineering jobs permanently lost, but paints a grim picture for the long term stability of the U.S. military supply line....
I interpret information in the first post as evidence that the US has overreached itself. That plus the huge debt, unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... I think the US has screwed itself and a crash is inevitable. Either the US will crash themselves or they will get a big nudge from China.
"China's army will be determined in fighting against any conduct that threatens China's sovereignty, integrity and national security."
Regarding Chinese-Iranian relations:
Wiki
PRC/Iran Trade relations
China finds in Iran a permanent partner for its exports and a source for its growing energy demand. In March 2004, Zhuhai Zhenrong Corporation, a Chinese state-run company, signed a 25-year contract to import 110 million metric tons of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from Iran. This was followed by another contract between Sinopec and Iran LNG, signed in October of the same year. The deal, worth $100 billion, adds an extra 250 million tons of LNG to China's energy supply, to be extracted from Iran's Yadavaran field over a 25-year period. In January 2009, Iran and China signed a $1.76bn contract for the initial development of the North Azadegan oil field in western Iran. In March the two countries struck a three-year $3.39 billion deal to produce liquefied natural gas in Iran’s mammoth South Pars natural gas field. Because of its limited refining capacity Iran imports one third of its refined products such as petrol from China.[9][10]
In 2001, the volume of trade between Iran and China stood at $3.3 Billion [1], and in 2005, the volume of Sino-Iranian trade hit $US 9.2 billion. [2] In 2005, exports from China represented 8.3% of the total import market in Iran, giving China the second largest share of the market after Germany. China's exports to Iran have experienced particularly rapid growth in the past five years, with China replacing Japan as the world's second largest exporter to Iran. Iran's imports from China rose by 360% between 2000 and 2005. Aside from China's inexpensive products, Iran is also buying more from China for strategic reasons.[3]. Iran’s Deputy Minister of Commerce Mehdi Ghazanfari said trade exchanges between Iran and China will exceed $25 billion in 2008.[11] Iran is currently China’s third largest supplier of crude, providing China with roughly 12 percent of its total annual oil consumption (nearly one million barrels daily).[12]
Ali Akbar Saheli, Iran's former representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the two countries "mutually complement each other. They have industry and we have energy resources". [4]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I doubt China will tolerate any US interfere in their trade relationships including Iran.
Hillary Clinton's Prescription: Make the World a NATO Protectorate
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/hillary-clintons-prescription...
"US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was busy in London and Paris last week advocating the new Euro-Atlantic agenda for the world.."
Having sold $6.4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan, this dangerous provocateur Obama seems intent on intensifying hostility with China on yet another front:
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/02/02/china-us-dalai-lama.html]China warns U.S. against Dalai Lama meeting[/url]
US - Colombia Base Pact Accellerates Dangerous Trend in Latin America
http://drugpolicycentral.com/bot/article/australia.to16599.htm
"The Obama administration's pact to use 7 Colombian military bases accellerated a dangerous trend in US hemispheric policy...the Pentagon's 2009 budget request said it needed funds to improve one of the bases in order to conduct 'full spectrum operations throughout South America' and to 'expand expeditionary warfare capability'..
You guys think the earthquake machine is bad... Wait till the orbital solar death ray is operational...LOL
BAVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVT!
You guys...
The Chinese are taking major issues with the US program C-PGS (Conventional Prompt Global Strike)
US Extends Missile Buildup From Poland and Taiwan to Persian Gulf:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/u-s-extends-missile-buildup-f...
William Lynn, the Pentagon's second highest ranking official and former lobbyist for the manufacturer of Patriot missiles, Raytheon, delivered a speech in Washington DC., on January 21, the contents of which were reported as containing the demand to "put the Defense Department on a permanent footing to fight both low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and THE ABILITY TO STRIKE ANY TARGET ON EARTH AT ANY TIME...
The next air warfare priority for the Pentagon is developing a next generation strike capability that can overcome advanced air defences...The new Promp Global Strike System is designed to accomplish just those last three objetives."
Were a leading Defense official of any other nation to publicly promote that agenda, the newspapers of the world would report it and the Pentagon State Department and White House would not be silent on the matter. The American media and the government would condemn it for what it is:
A threat to world peace and to the world itself
A Week of Western War Councils: The Planning of War Behind Closed Doors
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/brussels-london-istanbul-a-we...
"The defense chiefs of all 28 NATO nations and an undisclosed number of counterparts from non-Alliance partners gathered in Istanbul, Turkey on Feb. 4 to begin two days of meetings focused on the war in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of military forces from Kosovo in the course of transferring control of security operations to the breakaway province's embryonic army (the Kosovo Security Force) and "the transformation efforts required to best conduct the full range of NATO's agreed missions.."
America's Shadowy Base-World:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175204/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america's_shadowy_base_world/
"The only thing that won't make the record books, of course, is the results: in war-fighting terms, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the world's mightiest military has become battled to at least a draw by rag-tag, lightly armed, minority insurgencies.."
[url=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jr7nKuPFIsyTanvAcNhJLc... Humungus threatens Iran with medieval siege[/url] Vicious NATO toadies lining up behind warrior of the wasteland... the ayatollah of rock and rollah etc
The Winnner Takes All In Afghanistan
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB13Df02.html
"The international community has been led to believe that the India-Pakistan faultline is the pivotal concern in the US's diplomatic strategy in Afghanistan. However, it is a mere subplot. The US's principal protagonist is China, while India and Pakistan - and increasingly Russia - are more like jesters in forming the confusion and the humor in an Elizabethan drama...
The main plot is about the expansion of NATO into Central Asia.."
US Tightens Missile Shield Encirclement of China and Russia
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17948
"In fact the current US administration has by no means abandoned plans to surround Russia as well as China within a ring of interceptor missile installations and naval deployments. Airborne laser anti-missile weapons will join the full spectrum of land, sea, air and space interceptor missile components to envelop the world with a system to neutralize other nations' deterrence capacity and prepare the way for coventional and nuclear first strikes..."
NATO Powers Prepare FInal Solution in Kosovo
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/0s/19/11-years-later-nato-powers-pr...
"the last time foreign powers militarily occupied Kosovo was in the early 1940s. They were Benito Mussolini's Italy and Adolf Hitler's Germany. The last time an Albanian military formation was created by an occupying power was in 1944 when Heinrich Himmler set up the Skandenberg SS Division
Major streets in the capital are also named after Tony Blair, Madeleine Albright and WIlliam Walker. And last November 1, Bill Clinton arrived in Pristina to join Hashim Thaci in unveiling a grotesque seven foot statue to the former US President..."
"My Fellow Americans, Tonight I'm Going to Talk Frankly About a Pesky Little Nation Called Israel ... "
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn03192010.html
Consider Biden’s reaction the day after Interior Minister Eli Yishai, probably with Netanyahu’s foreknowledge, announced the scheduled building of 1600 apartments – Jews only – in East Jerusalem, right at the moment Biden was trying to breathe life into the “peace process”. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz points out, those projected 1600 units are part of 50,000 planned for the eastern part of the city.
<snip>
And as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz points out, those projected 1600 units are part of 50,000 units planned for the eastern part of the city. Natanyahu has said these are non-negotiable, whatever Washington might say, let alone the pitiful Palestinian Authority.
<snip>
So here’s the vice president of the United States of America,standing with all the injured dignity of a man who has just had a bucket of sewage dumped over his head and who amid his discomfiture, actually did use the word “condemn” and “Israel” in the same paragraph. The next day Biden heads for Tel Aviv university and confides to the audience that he is a Zionist and that, “throughout my career, Israel has not only remained close to my heart but it has been the center of my work as a United States Senator and now as Vice President of the United States.” Get that: “the center of my work.” This mission statement is not quoted in the U.S. press.
<snip>
In March, 1991, Secretary of State James Baker complained to Congress that “Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process.., I have been met with an announcement of new settlement activity… It substantially weakens our hand in trying to bring about a peace process, and creates quite a predicament.” In 1990, he had become so disgusted with Israel’s intransigence on the settlements that he publicly gave out the phone number of the White House switchboard and told the Israelis, "When you're serious about peace, call us."
First Patriot Missiles Already in Poland
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19339
"The US Patriot air defence batteries and around 100 American troops have arrived in the town of Morag, northern Poland, 60 kilometres from the Russian Kalingrad border. Since early morning - soldiers of the US 5th Battalion and the 7th Air Defence Artillery have been unloading the missiles from 37 train carriages"
Obama Starts Massive US Air-Sea Marine Buildup Opposite Iran
http://www.debka.com/article/8794/
"Military sources reports a decision by the Obama administration to boost US military strength in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions.."
US Cyber Command Waging War in World's Fifth Battlespace
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19360
"On May 21, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced the activation of the Pentagon's first computer command. And the world's first comprehensive multi-service cyber operation.."
Kyrgyzstan As A Geopolitical Pivot in Great Power Rivalries
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19327
"At the very least, what is playing out has huge strategic implications for military security throughout the Eurasian heartland -- from China to Russia and beyond..It therefore has staggering implications for the future of the US in Afghanistan and Central Asia and by extension in all Eurasia..
More Blank Checks to the Military Industrial Complex
http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2010/05/24/more-blank-checks-to-the-mil...
"the total expenditures to maintain our world empire is approximately $1 trillion annually...We spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. We referee and arm conflicts the world over and have troops in some 140 countries with over 700 military bases. No enemy can harm us in the way we are harming ourselves, namely bankrupting the nation and destroying our own currency..."
US Rages At NPT Over Israel Decision
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=128160§ionid=3510203
"After the international community agreed to put pressure on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the US president reacts by condemning the move..."We strongly oppose efforts to single out Israel and will oppose actions that jeopardize Israel's national security,' President Obama said..
Military mystery: How many bases does the US have, anyway?
Published: January 24, 2011
excerpt:
So, what’s the real number?
We don’t know, and it seems clear that nobody is in a big hurry to tell us. Turse concludes that, In the grand scheme of things, the actual numbers aren’t all that important. Whether the most accurate total is 900 bases, 1,000 bases or 1,100 posts in foreign lands, what’s undeniable is that the US military maintains…an empire of bases so large and shadowy that no one – not even at the Pentagon – really knows its full size and scope…
An honest count of US bases abroad – a true, full and comprehensive list – would be a tiny first step in the necessary process of downsizing the global mission.
