Obama is Setting Us Up

[danielboon]

[danielboon]

[Oscar Wilde]

Treason no longer has any meaning.

Of course it does, there are apparently few consequences though.

One party, five parties, makes no difference.

The administrators of our society are obligated and compelled by law to legislate for our benefit .... from the beginning, their efforts have been solely to establish totalitarian rule and they have succeeded.

O.W.

[vector7]

Obama to Kill Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs

Cornerstone of U.S. Naval power eliminated under Obama budget


The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk cruise missile / AP

BY: Adam Kredo
March 24, 2014 1:23 pm

President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say has helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.

The Tomahawk missile program—known as “the world’s most advanced cruise missile”—is set to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016, according to budget documents released by the Navy.

In addition to the monetary cuts to the program, the number of actual Tomahawk missiles acquired by the United States would drop significantly—from 196 last year to just 100 in 2015. The number will then drop to zero in 2016.

The Navy will also be forced to cancel its acquisition of the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles in 2015, according to Obama’s proposal.

The proposed elimination of these missile programs came as a shock to lawmakers and military experts, who warned ending cutting these missiles would significantly erode America’s ability to deter enemy forces.

“The administration’s proposed budget dramatically under-resources our investments in munitions and leaves the Defense Department with dangerous gaps in key areas, like Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles,” said Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.), a member of House Armed Services Committee.

“Increasing our investment in munitions and retaining our technological edge in research and development should be a key component of any serious defense strategy,” he said.

The U.S. Navy relied heavily on them during the 2011 military incursion into Libya, where some 220 Tomahawks were used during the fight.

Nearly 100 of these missiles are used each year on average, meaning that the sharp cuts will cause the Tomahawk stock to be completely depleted by around 2018. This is particularly concerning to defense experts because the

Pentagon does not have a replacement missile ready to take the Tomahawk’s place.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Cropsey said that if someone were trying to “reduce the U.S. ability to shape events” in the world, “they couldn’t find a better way than depriving the U.S. fleet of Tomahawks. It’s breathtaking.”

The Navy has used various incarnations of the Tomahawk with great success over the past 30 years, employing them during Desert Storm and its battle zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Balkans.

While the military as a whole is seeing its budgets reduced and equipment scaled back, the Tomahawk cuts do not appear to be due to a lack of funds.

The administration seems to be taking the millions typically spent on the Tomahawk program and investing it in an experimental missile program that experts say will not be battle ready for at least 10 years.

“It is definitely short-sighted given the value of the Tomahawk as a workhorse,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a former Pentagon staffer who analyzes military readiness. “The opening days of the U.S. lead-from-behind, ‘no-fly zone’ operation over Libya showcased how important this inventory of weapons is still today.”

Overall, the Navy has essentially cut in half its weapons procurement plan, impacting a wide range of tactical weapons and missiles.

Navy experts and retired officials fear that the elimination of the Tomahawk and Hellfire systems—and the lack of a battle-ready replacement—will jeopardize the U.S. Navy’s supremacy as it faces increasingly advanced militaries from North Korea to the Middle East.

The cuts are “like running a white flag up on a very tall flag pole and saying, ‘We are ready to be walked on,’” Cropsey said.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Steve Russell called the cuts to the Tomahawk program devastating for multiple reasons.

“We run a huge risk because so much of our national policy for immediate response is contingent on our national security team threatening with Tomahawk missiles,” said Russell, who is currently running for Congress.

“The very instrument we will often use and cite, we’re now cutting the program,” Russell said. “There was a finite number [of Tomahawk’s] made and they’re not being replenished.”

“If our national policy is contingent on an immediate response with these missile and we’re not replacing them, then what are we going do?” Russell asked.

North Korea, for instance, has successfully tested multi-stage rockets and other ballistic missiles in recent months. Experts say this is a sign that the Navy’s defensive capabilities will become all the more important in the Pacific in the years to come.

Meanwhile, the experimental anti-ship cruise missile meant to replace the Tomahawk program will not be battle ready for at least 10 years, according to some experts.

The Long Range Anti Ship Missile has suffered from extremely expensive development costs and has underperformed when tested.

“You have to ask yourself: An anti-ship missile is not going to be something we can drive into a cave in Tora Bora,” Russell said. “To replace it with something not needed as badly, and invest in something not even capable of passing basic tests, that causes real concern.”

The Pentagon did not return requests for comment.

[vector7]

Japan, Belgium and Italy reduce their stockpiles of nuclear material

Announcements made during US-led summit in The Hague aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism

• Julian Borger in The Hague
• theguardian.com, <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2014-03-24T11:28EDT" pubdate="">Monday 24 March 2014 11.28 EDT</time>
• Jump to comments (7)

The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, and the US president, Barack Obama, at a nuclear security summit in The Hague. Photograph: Freek Van Den Bergh/AFP/Getty Images

Japan announced on Monday that it would hand over hundreds of kilogrammes of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium to the United States for dilution and disposal, at the start of a global summit aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Belgium and Italy also announced agreements with the US on the removal of surplus fissile material, as part of a continuing Washington-led effort to reduce global stockpiles and the number of sites around the world where they are stored.

Under the agreement, Japan will ship more than 300kg of plutonium and 200kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from its nuclear research site. The material would be enough to build about 40 nuclear warheads.

Japan's stock of weapons-grade material has been a source of friction with China, particularly after rightwing Japanese politicians suggested that it may have value as a deterrent, even though the country ruled out development of nuclear weapons in 1967.

The radioactive material is only a small proportion of Japan's stock, but is in a form that would make it easy to use in a nuclear warhead.

The agreement with Japan was hailed by US officials as the greatest success so far resulting from President Obama's 2009 initiative.

A 2013 deadline "to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years" has been missed.

Since 2010, when the first of three nuclear security summits was held in Washington, 10 countries have rid themselves completely of plutonium and HEU: Chile, Serbia, Turkey, Austria, Mexico, Sweden, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Vietnam. The deadline was extended with the announcement there would be a fourth summit in Washington in 2016.

The two-day meeting in The Hague, involving 53 world leaders, will focus on improving security for global stocks of other radiological isotopes including cobalt 60 and caesium 137 which are used in industry, research and medicine but which could be used in a "dirty bomb" to irradiate a large urban area.

Despite the advances made in the past four years, a former US senator, Sam Nunn, the chief executive officer of a Washington-based thinktank called the Nuclear Threat Initiative, warned in a report published before the Hague summit that "nearly 2,000 metric [tonnes] of weapons-usable nuclear materials remain spread across hundreds of sites around the globe – some of it poorly secured".

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, said last year there were a hundred reported thefts on nuclear and radioactive materials on average each year, although such incidents so far have involved very small quantities.

"We are going in the right direction," said Joe Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund, which promotes disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives. But he added: "When you are fleeing a forest fire, however, it is not a question of direction but of speed. Can we get to safety before disaster overwhelms us? The current pace is only sporadically urgent. Worse, there is a real chance that even this co-operation will cease after the final, planned summit in 2016."

U.S. helps in 'eliminating' sensitive Japanese nuclear stockpile

By Jeff Mason and Fredrik Dahl


U.S. President Barack Obama waves upon arriving to attend the Nuclear Security summit (NSS) in The H …

By Jeff Mason and Fredrik Dahl

Related Stories

• Excess nuclear materials removed from Belgium, Italy Reuters
• U.S. says 'not at all concerned' about Japan's plutonium Reuters
• Japan-US nuclear deal announced at Hague summit Associated Press
• Japan to turn over nuclear material to US Associated Press
• Iran meeting nuclear commitments, but key plant not ready Reuters

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Japan will turn over hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of sensitive nuclear material of potential use in bombs to the United States to be downgraded and disposed of, the two countries' leaders said ahead of a nuclear security summit on Monday.

China had voiced concern earlier this year about Japan's holding of plutonium but Washington and the United Nations nuclear agency in Vienna have made it clear they are not worried about the way Tokyo is handling the issue.

Still, U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a statement that all highly enriched uranium (HEU) and separated plutonium would be removed from the Fast Critical Assembly at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, used for studying the nuclear physics of so-called fast reactors.

The announcement followed what the White House said were technological advances since the 1960s launch of the Fast Critical Assembly that would allow it to be converted to run on fuel not potentially usable for bombs, unlike HEU or plutonium.

Japan, the world's only target of atomic bombs during the final stages of World War Two, does not have nuclear weapons and has long said it will not seek to obtain them.

Like uranium, plutonium is used to fuel nuclear power plants and for research purposes, but can also serve as the fissile material for the core of a nuclear bomb.

"This effort involves the elimination of hundreds of kilograms of nuclear material, furthering our mutual goal of minimizing stocks of HEU and separated plutonium worldwide, which will help prevent unauthorized actors, criminals, or terrorists from acquiring such materials," said the joint statement released by the White House.

"This material, once securely transported to the United States, will be sent to a secure facility and fully converted into less sensitive forms."

The announcement was made in The Hague shortly before leaders from 53 countries, including Obama and Abe, began a two-day summit aimed at agreeing steps to help prevent al Qaeda-style militant groups from acquiring nuclear bombs.

It is the third such summit since 2010, when it was held in Washington at Obama's initiative. Minimizing civilian uses of HEU or plutonium is regarded as vital to reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Opening the high-profile meeting, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that much progress had been made in recent years but that there was still some 2,000 tonnes of weapons-usable nuclear material in the world and that more action was urgent.

CHINESE "EXTREMELY CONCERNED"

Last month, China said it was "extremely concerned" by a report that regional rival Japan has resisted returning to the United States more than 300 kg (660 lb) of mostly weapons-grade plutonium.

Japan's Kyodo news agency at the time said the United States had pressed Japan to give back the nuclear material, which could be used to make up to 50 nuclear bombs. Japan had balked but finally relented to U.S. demands, Kyodo said. It was not immediately clear why Tokyo was initially reluctant.

The material was bought for research purposes during the 1960s. An official at Japan's Education Ministry said in mid-February that the two governments would probably reach an official agreement on its return at summit in The Hague.

China, which has nuclear arms, is involved in a bitter territorial dispute with Japan over some off-shore islands.

It denies Japanese accusations that it is a threat to peace and in turn has accused Japan of trying to rearm and failing to learn the lessons of its brutal behaviour during World War Two, when imperial Japanese forces occupied China.

SECURITY MILESTONE

Chen Kai, secretary general of the China Arms Control and Nuclear Disarmament Association, said before the U.S.-Japanese announcement that Japan "in recent years" has been amassing a large amount nuclear material, including HEU and plutonium.

"Experts believe such Japanese stockpiling activities have far exceeded the normal necessity of its domestic use of nuclear energy," he told reporters on the sidelines of the summit.

Japan also has plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel at civil reactor and reprocessing sites, totaling 159 tonnes at the end of 2012, according to Japanese data on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

A White House fact sheet said Japan's Fast Critical Assembly came online in 1967 when HEU and plutonium were believed to be required for the type of experiments it was involved in.

But recent advancements have changed that and it will now become the world's first "major fast critical facility to convert from HEU and separated plutonium fuels, marking a significant milestone for global nuclear security," it said.

Miles Pomper, a nuclear security expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said such critical assemblies had not been "touched" before.

"They usually have the most weapons-grade material so it's a big deal," he said in an email. "However, Japan still has nine tonnes of separated plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons and is looking to make more."

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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OBAMA: I'm More Worried About A Nuke Hitting Manhattan Than I Am About Russia

Brett LoGiurato

59 minutes ago 2,037


REUTERS/Sean Gallup/Pool

During a press conference in the Netherlands with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he was more worried about a nuclear bomb going off in Manhattan than Russia's recent actions in Ukraine.

Obama's comment came in response to a question from ABC's Jon Karl, who asked if former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney "had a point" when he referred to Russia during the 2012 campaign as America's top geopolitical foe.

"Russia's actions are a problem," Obama said. "They don't pose the No. 1 national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan."

Obama went on to take a swipe at Russian President Vladimir Putin, casting Russia as a regional power that was threatening its neighbors out of "weakness," not strength. He compared it to the U.S.'s influence over its own immediate neighbors and said America "generally doesn't need to invade them" to have good relations with bordering countries.

Obama also defended his administration's approach to the crisis in Ukraine and its response to Russia, which has included multiple rounds of sanctions. He said he is concerned about the possibility of Russian encroachment into eastern Ukraine, and he continued to threaten additional sanctions if Russia escalated the situation.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5DV228cj80#t=62

[Lenno]

Obama is INsane as well as a full blown traitor
Russia is now inside central America, a violation of the Monroe doctrine, it's in Cuba, it's in Iran. All of America's enemies are now under Putin's Protection, any attack on them gets a nuke in return thus making a conventional ground attack against America coupled with an internal insurrection/spec ops attack a realistic option

[moestooge]

Romney is not against abortion. He was in favor of forcing people to have health insurance (as in Massachusetts). He is not opposed to disarming people. The demons believe in God, too.

The only difference between Obama and Romney was that Obama wasn't trying as hard to hide his true self.

^^^THIS^^^

Home run!

[moestooge]

Lots of posts here about the Red Chinese, but who opened the door for them in the early '70s? Wasn't it the Republicon Nixon? I'm getting tired of being chastised for voting "third party". How about a second party instead of the one-party monopoly of globalist traitors?

[vector7]

Loud + Weak = War

China and Russia are no more impressed with empty bluster today than Japan was in 1941.

March 25, 2014 4:00 AM
By Victor Davis Hanson



The Roosevelt administration once talked loudly of pivoting to Asia to thwart a rising Japan. As a token of its seriousness, in May 1940 it moved the home port of the Seventh Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor — but without beefing up the fleet’s strength.

The then-commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral James O. Richardson, an expert on the Japanese Imperial Navy, protested vehemently over such a reckless redeployment. He felt that the move might invite, but could not guard against, surprise attack.

Richardson was eventually relieved of his command and his career was ruined — even as he was later proved right when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Britain at the same time promoted a loud Singapore Strategy, trumpeting its Malaysian base as the “Gibraltar of the Pacific.” But London did not send out up-to-date planes, carriers, or gunnery to the Pacific.Japan was not impressed. It surprise-attacked the base right after Pearl Harbor. The British surrendered Singapore in February 1942, in the most ignominious defeat in British military history.

By 1949, the U.S. was pledged to containing the expansion of Communism in Asia — even as Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson (who had been chief fundraiser for Truman’s 1948 campaign) declared that the Navy and Marines were obsolete. He began to slash both their budgets.

A “revolt of the admirals” followed, to no avail. But Mao Zedong’s China and Stalin’s Soviet Union took note of the new disconnect between American bluster and massive defense cuts. So they green-lighted a North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950.

The common historical denominator is that Asia and the Pacific are always dangerous places, where calling for tough action is not the same as preparing for the consequences of upping the ante. Loud talk sometimes even encourages a thuggish challenge to prove it.

Unless the United States in any meaningful way backs up its current flamboyant “pivot” to Asia with additional ships, air wings, and manpower, there is no sense in chest-pounding our resolve to our increasingly orphaned allies, who may soon have to choose between acquiescing to China and going nuclear.

China will not be impressed that we talk confidently even as we cut defense — just as imperial Japan was not awed when aged American battleships were ordered westward to Pearl Harbor as a gesture.

Nor did the Japanese tremble when the British battleship Prince of Wales and battle cruiser Repulse were sent without air cover to Singapore. Both were seen as targets rather than deterrents and so soon ended up at the bottom of the sea.

Likewise, in the late 1940s, “containing Red China” meant nothing when the postwar U.S. had canceled new aircraft carriers, even as it still deployed on the cheap vulnerable small garrisons of troops all over Asia.

President Obama’s pivot has now joined his stable of deadlines, red lines, step-over lines, and “I don’t bluff” and “I’m not kidding” assertions. The problem with such rhetoric is not just that it is empty, but that it is predictably empty. If Obama cannot lead, can he at least keep quiet about it?

A Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran is not just unimpressed but encouraged, seeing such sermonizing as an assurance of nothing to follow. Obama’s threats are like a gambler’s involuntary tic, which astute poker players read always as a forewarning of a bluffed empty hand to follow.

A wiser course is to decide in advance where the U.S. is capable of deterring aggression and where it either has no interest in trying or has no power even if it wished to. Then, once our security parameters are established, we should stay largely quiet, consult our allies, keep troublemakers guessing about our next move, and then use force if necessary to stop their aggressions.

The Japanese, Taiwanese, South Koreans, Filipinos, and Australians are more likely to assume their democracies are safe when they see a U.S. carrier that means business than when they hear the president or his secretary of state lecture an aggressor about its unacceptable 19th-century behavior, the Third World about its homophobia, or the world about the dangers of climate change.

Consider also Russia. We forget that “reset” in 2009 was a loud Obama attempt to reverse the Bush administration’s efforts to punish Russia for its aggression against Georgia — a Russian gambit itself perhaps predicated on the impression that the United States was bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that the Bush administration had been weakened by the midterm elections of 2006. Bush’s efforts to promote new missile-defense initiatives with Poland and the Czech Republic, suspension of nuclear-arms-limitation talks, curtailment of official communications with Moscow, and bolder efforts to isolate Iran from Russian interference were all intended to advise Moscow not to bully its neighbors.

Yet Obama entered office declaring that it was the Bush administration’s reaction to the Georgia aggression, and not the Russian invasion itself, that had cooled U.S.–Russian relations. The result was a red plastic reset button that presaged loud lectures about human rights in Russia without any real, concrete follow-through.

Our relationship with Russia is far worse now than during the Bush administration. Vladimir Putin is not just not deterred — who would be, after the U.S. fickleness in Libya, Egypt, and Syria, and in dealing with Iran? — but quite eager in the Crimea and Ukraine to show the world how to deflate American moralistic sermonizing. Putin believes that his amoral show of power impresses others who admire not his strength — for in truth he has little of it — but the simulation of strength that wins him support at home and a sort of sick admiration abroad.

Being weak is sometimes dangerous. Being loud, self-righteous, and weak is always very dangerous indeed.

This ^^^

TODAY:
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan didn't sign... pic.twitter.com/T9A4jXND5f

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