Iran starts knocking out communications and then hits Turkey, who is still technically our ally? This is a very BAD scenario.
Obama will have to shit or get off the pot. He'll HAVE to order the US military to defend Turkish assets - if not Congress will, and they ultimately WILL declare war on Iran. That puts O-shithead in a very, very bad spot as C-in-C.
Russia will assist Iran. ISIS will "come to their aid" even though Iran is fighting them. We'll be in an ALL OUT war in the ME again, only this time, it won't be US against THEM. It will be US against everyone. (Yeah, the Brits and French will involve themselves.... but, holy crap....)
This could be the beginning of the "end" here guys.
The trigger will be something STUPID.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Russia will assist Iran. ISIS will "come to their aid" even though Iran is fighting them. We'll be in an ALL OUT war in the ME again, only this time, it won't be US against THEM. It will be US against everyone. (Yeah, the Brits and French will involve themselves.... but, holy crap....)
As you have mentioned, I don't think Iran would step up with such a bold move without Russia quietly standing behind them. This could get real ugly.
As you have mentioned, I don't think Iran would step up with such a bold move without Russia quietly standing behind them. This could get real ugly.
That's my thinking too. Iran is currently controlling John fing Kerry. I think they have something on him, maybe they kidnapped his wife or something. He's the only one still standing there trying to "negotiate" the nuke deal.
Everyone else went home today.
They are in control of the situation and I don't think they would hesitate.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Why Iran nuclear talks suddenly look like US-Iran faceoff
As several foreign ministers left Switzerland for home capitals Wednesday, the talks largely came down to their two key participants: Iran and the United States.
Washington — As international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program passed a Tuesday night deadline and several world powers’ foreign ministers left Switzerland for home capitals, the talks Wednesday largely came down to their two key participants: Iran and the United States.
Talks with Iran that have been under way since November 2013 among six major powers – the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany – suddenly looked more like a US-Iran faceoff. The overnight transformation reflects how this week’s deadline for reaching a “framework agreement” over recent weeks became a do-or-die target for the US, even as other powers in the talks have remained fixed on the end-of-June deadline for reaching a final deal.
The March 31 deadline that came and went Tuesday was largely an American priority fashioned to quiet political opposition to a deal at home, and to boost President Obama’s realist strategy of engaging Iran as a rising power in the Middle East.
Recommended: How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out.
"The deal has a lot to say about the future of the US-Iran relationship," says Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and seasoned US diplomat.
Congress may be on recess, but both Republican and Democratic leaders have promised quick action on pending legislation on Iran once the House and Senate reconvene April 14. One piece of legislation would impose a new round of sanctions on Iran, a move the White House says would almost certainly doom the diplomatic effort to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
That helps explain why Secretary of State John Kerry remained in Lausanne for a seventh day of negotiations Wednesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – even as the French, Russian, and Chinese foreign ministers decided to decamp and leave their portfolios in the hands of aides and technical experts.
Prospects for some kind of initial accord Wednesday appeared mixed. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that “not enough” progress had been made to warrant an agreement, and that he would only return “if necessary.” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said upon his departure that efforts to resolve the standoff with Iran “will have been wasted” if the talks failed to continue moving forward.
And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted even as he left that ministers had reached enough “agreement on all key aspects of a final agreement” to “put down in writing” a statement on the parameters for a final accord in June.
Recommended: Infographic Nuclear Iran: How quickly could Iran make the bomb?
The key ministers’ departures underscored a rising frustration over how the talks have become increasingly pegged to American interests.
On the one hand, some world powers have increasingly chafed at the notion that the talks aimed at prohibiting Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon should be tailored to the Obama administration’s need to fend off a Republican-controlled Congress that remains highly skeptical of any deal with Iran.
On the other hand, some powers in the talks have grown dubious of Mr. Obama’s priority on reaching a deal with Iran as part of a grand scheme – a goal first laid out in the president’s 2009 inaugural address – to extend a diplomatic hand to Tehran.
The French in particular have insisted on more stringent controls on Iran’s nuclear program than the Americans and demanded tougher conditions for lifting sanctions – with some officials suggesting France does not have the same motivations as Obama and would not hesitate to block what it considered a weak deal.
The Iranians have sent mixed signals about the importance of reaching a “framework agreement” on the way to concluding a final accord. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said the only real deadline is the one in June. But it is also clear that the government of President Hassan Rouhani is keen on reaching the outline of a deal now as a means of signaling to Iranians that better days lie ahead.
As what was increasingly called the “American deadline” approached, and then passed, reminders mushroomed that the real deadline for reaching a signed and sealed deal with Iran is June 30. That fact is likely to surface in any statement or deal announced this week.
But as ensuing talks recede from global center stage and shift to nailing down the technical details and complex timetables of a final accord, world powers may find themselves recalling within a few weeks why the March 31 deadline ballooned into something so important.
Iran nuclear talks in final stretch
Reuters
Related Stories
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus on January 31, 2014. Photo by Reuters
By Haaretz | Apr. 1, 2015 | 6:28 PM
By Zvi Bar'el | Jan. 2, 2014 | 9:52 AM | 4
A leading Syrian human rights NGO as well as eyewitnesses said that by Wednesday afternoon, ISIS fighters had taken over large parts of a Damascus camp for Palestinian refugees and were threatening to assume full control of it.
The Al-Yarmouk camp lies eight kilometers south of the center of the Syrian capital. If ISIS takes charge there, it would mark the closest the jihadist organization has gotten to the heart of its target, the Assad regime.
Syrian jets were reported bombing near the camp to stop ISIS's advance.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting broke out between ISIS and the Palestinian jihadist group Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis.
The camp, besieged by Assad regime forces for the last year, had fallen under the control of the Syrian rebel jihadist group Nusra Front. NBC-TV quoted an eyewitness saying Nusra Front was fighting alongside ISIS, which stormed the camp from the Hajar Aswad neighborhood immediately south of it.
ISIS "pushed from the Hajar Aswad area and Nusra fighters have joined them. They have pledged loyalty to Daesh," said the witness, using an Arabic term for ISIS.
Witnesses in the camp said ISIS made its move after several of its fighters were recently captured inside Al-Yarmouk by Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis and other groups.
Al-Yarmouk has become a focus of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, with many Palestinian refugees dying from the severe food and medicine shortages there.
Before the Syrian civil war, the camp had a population of 160,000; now it stands at 18,000, with former residents settling in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and others in Syria.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The Iran nuclear talks are now a day into overtime. The Chinese and French foreign ministers have left Lausanne, the Swiss city where the negotiations are continuing after the March 31 deadline for a framework agreement.
The word is that the outcome will be far from the desired grand agreement, one putting at least a 15-year moratorium on an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Instead, there will be a broad statement that effectively hopes for the best by the ultimate June 30 deadline.
Iran and the outside world still can’t quite see eye to eye, right?
Right, but that is not the only big problem. It turns out one of the main hitches in the talks is the outside world itself, the so-called P5+1. A red line for the US-led side is robust retention of sanctions to ensure Iranian compliance over the period of the deal. This includes a so-called “snap-back” provision, proposed by the US and France, of harsh sanctions should Iran cheat.
Iran’s negotiating team, however, has demanded that all oil and financial sanctions be lifted simultaneously and immediately, with no snap-back.
This position has attracted some advocates on the P5+1 side. Though ostensibly allied with the US, France, Germany and the UK in the talks, Russia and China are siding with Iran on the issue of the snap-backs. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has publicly said that all the sanctions must be dropped immediately.
All the parties know, however, that a deal lacking continued sanctions and snap-backs would be dead in the water in Washington—Congress would kill it.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Fearing military strike if talks break down, Guards reportedly ready to close Strait of Hormuz, where they drilled to attack US forces weeks ago
By Times of Israel staff April 5, 2015, 9:40 pm
A member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards chants slogans after attacking a naval vessel during a military drill in the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran, February 25, 2015. (photo credit: Hamed Jafarnejad/AFP/Fars News)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards “are preparing for war” in the event that negotiations to turn Thursday’s framework nuclear agreement into a binding deal by June 30 collapse, an Israeli TV report said Sunday night, citing Arab intelligence agencies.
The Israeli Channel 10 report said Arab intelligence agencies have warned “France, the UK and the US” that the Revolutionary Guards fear Iran could face a military strike should the talks break down, and that the Guards are ready to close the Strait of Hormuz and take other unspecified measures. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the US was working as recently as January on improving its biggest bunker buster bombs in case they were needed for strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The Sunday Israeli TV report highlighted the major discrepancies that have emerged between the US and Iran since the framework agreement was announced on Thursday, raising the concern that the non-binding understandings reached to date will fall apart and the negotiations collapse.
A little over a month ago, the Revolutionary Guards held large-scale naval and air defense drills near the Strait of Hormuz — a strategic Gulf waterway, through which one fifth of the world’s oil passes — in which dozens of speedboats swarmed a replica of a US aircraft carrier. State TV showed footage of missiles fired from the coast and fast boats striking the mock US aircraft carrier. The late February drill also included shooting down a drone and planting undersea mines.
This image taken from Iranian state TV, shows footage of damage to a mock US aircraft carrier during large-scale naval and air defense drills by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015. The drill, named Great Prophet 9, was the first to involve a replica of a US carrier. (photo credit: AP Photo/Iran TV)
The Guards announced they had test-fired a “new strategic weapon” during the drill, saying the system would play a key role in any future battle against the United States.
The White House said on Friday it was “confident” that it could get the deal “in place” by June 30. But key differences have emerged between the sides on what was agreed to date, and Iranian leaders warned over the weekend that they will resume higher-level uranium enrichment and other nuclear activity if they deem that the world powers are not keeping to what they consider the terms of the agreement.
Iran “will be able to return” its nuclear program to the same level if the other side fails to honor the deal, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani highlighted one of the central areas of disagreement Sunday — the timing and scale of sanctions relief. While the US has made clear that economic sanctions will be lifted in phases, an official Iranian foreign ministry fact sheet provides for the immediate lifting of all sanctions as soon as a final agreement is signed. “During the negotiations, we have always planned for the termination of the economic, financial and banking sanctions and we have never negotiated on their suspension, otherwise, no understanding would be made,” Rouhani said on Sunday. “We will have a difficult path ahead in the stage of drafting the final deal,” Rouhani noted.
Sunday’s Israeli TV report also claimed that Saudi Arabia was furious with the P5+1 negotiators over aspects of the framework deal, notably clauses relating to inspection of Iranian facilities. The failure to ensure “anytime, anyplace” inspection constitutes a central flaw in potential supervision of Iranian activities, Saudi diplomats were reported to be complaining.
US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif (right). (photo credit: AFP/Brian Snyder, Pool)
Ehud Ya’ari, Middle East analyst for Israel’s Channel 2 News and an international fellow at the Washington Institute think tank, said the six discrepancies represent “very serious gaps” at the heart of the framework accord. They relate to issues as basic as when sanctions will be lifted, and how long restrictions on uranium enrichment will remain in place.
He cited gulfs on issues including the timing and extent of sanctions relief, enrichment restrictions, ongoing research on advanced centrifuges, inspections, the fate of Iran’s stockpile of lower-enriched uranium, and the possible military dimensions of the Iranian program.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Russia has offered Iran its latest Antey-2500 missiles, the head of Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec said on Monday according to media reports, after a deal to supply less powerful S-300 missiles was dropped under Western pressure.
Sergei Chemezov said Tehran was now considering the offer, TASS news agency reported.
Russia scrapped a contract to supply Iran with S-300 surface-to-air missiles under Western pressure in 2010, and Iran later filed a $4-billion international arbitration suit against Russia in Geneva, but the two countries remain allies.
The United States and Israel lobbied Russia to block the missile sale, saying it could be used to shield Iran's nuclear facilities from possible future air strikes.
There was no immediate response to Chemezov's comments from Iran, Israel or the United States.
"As far as Iran is concerned, we offered Antey-2500 instead of S-300. They are thinking. No decision has been made yet," Chemezov was quoted as saying.
Rostec includes state-owned arms exporting monopoly Rosoboronexport, which has the sole right to export and import arms in Russia.
The Antey-2500 was developed from the 1980s-generation S-300V system (SA-12A Gladiator and SA-12B Giant). It can engage missiles traveling at 4,500 meters per second, with a range of 2,500 km (1,500 miles), according to the company that makes it, Almaz-Antey.
The S-300 missiles have a 125-mile range and Russia has stoked tensions with the West by trying to sell them to Syria and other Middle Eastern countries.
Chemezov told reporters conflicts in the Middle East had helped boost Russian arm sales, according to TASS.
"I don't conceal it, and everyone understands this, the more conflicts there are, the more they buy off weapon from us. Volumes are continuing to grow despite sanctions. Mainly, it's Latin America and the Middle East," he was quoted as saying.
Last year, Russian foreign arm sales totaled $13 billion, he added.
Chemezov was sanctioned by the U.S. government in April over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.
Original taken from imp_navigator colleagues More details about the prepared Iranian armored car
At the moment it is presented MRAP prototype. The development is industrial complex Shahid Cola Douz (Shahid Kolah Dooz Industrial Complex) Defence Industries Organisation of Iran. As a base it looks like the original Streit Typhoon 4x4 used KAMAZ chassis as the engine Set Kama V8 turbocharged diesel engine with 360 hp
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
In an official ceremony Iran's defense minister General Hossein Dehghan unveiled Karrar main battle tank, concurrently it's mass production line at Doroud's Bani Hashem armored production complex was also unveiled.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Russia’s Pearl Harbor 2.0 Asymmetrical War Plans, Gulftainer, Club-K, and EMP
Translations from a Russian defense journal and from a secret Iranian military handbook suggest that Russia and Iran have developed a Pearl Harbor 2.0 plan to sink the entire U.S. Navy fleet as part of coordinated asymmetrical attacks against the United States and U.S. military bases around the world
Russia’s Pearl Harbor 2.0
Asymmetrical War Plans, Gulftainer, Club-K and EMP
An Occasional Paper for the Center for Security Policy
By Mary Fanning and Alan Jones
24 October 2018
Image source: Russian Federation State-Owned Enterprise ROSOBORONEXPORT
Translations from a Russian defense journal and from a secret Iranian military handbook suggest that Russia and Iran have developed a Pearl Harbor 2.0 plan to sink the entire U.S. Navy fleet as part of coordinated asymmetrical attacks against the United States and U.S. military bases around the world.
The plan is to launch Russian Kalibr cruise missiles from submarines, freighter ships, and Trojan Horse Club-K Container Missile System intermodal cargo “containers” that can be smuggled into U.S. ports and moved into the U.S. interior aboard trains and semi-trucks.
In 2015 the Russian journal “Natsionalnaya Oborona” (translation: National Defense) outlined a plan to “hit them in their ports” with Kalibr cruise missiles that could sink entire US Navy fleets docked in ports across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
The journal published a paper, written by Aleksandr Mozgovoy, called “RUSSIAN NAVY’S LONG ARM: KALIBR MISSILE FAMILY.” Mozgovoy writes (translated from Russian):
Thanks to the (Kalibr) cruise missiles, nuclear and conventional submarines will no longer have to change ship targets all over the ocean, but strike them in their ports, attacking from long ranges. They can now attack a wide range of land targets and from directions poorly protected by air defenses. This also applies to attacks on surface ships. In the near future, Russian submarines, missile boats, and surface ships will be able to hold at risk all important sites in Europe and in the Middle East. While the nuclear subs will have the US as their potential target...We believe that the idea of placing Kalibrs in standard 40-foot containers (the Kalibr-K system) installed on civilian ships, including riverine ones. Such concealed floating arsenals can operate on seas and rivers unnoticed. Club-S export version is also enjoying success. It has been installed on more than twenty diesel-electric submarines delivered to Algeria, Vietnam, India, and China. Iranian sailors are casting covetous gazes at them.
The West clearly understands the power of the Kalibr system. Not fornothing did they name it the “Sizzler.” Russia has been shifting to an asymmetrical cruise missile strategy by retrofitting Russian submarines and surface warship fleets with Kalibr cruise missiles and the Club K Container Missile Launch System. This information on the Kalibr retrofitting of Russia’s naval fleets was confirmed by a “high ranking Russia defense industry official” according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence.
Russia is also equipping freighter ships and ice breakers near Alaska with the Club-K Container Missile System. Russia is selling the Club-K to America’s enemies. Iran has purchased the Club K missile launching system per Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, America’s foremost authority on ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP).
Europe, the Middle East, and U.S. Coasts in Range of Russian Kalibr Cruise Missiles U.S. military bases along the coast are in range of Russian Kalibr cruise missiles that can be launched from submarines and freighters at sea, according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project.
Russia already “holds” most of the Europe and the Middle East in range of Russian Kalibr cruise missiles, the same type of missile used in the Club-K Container Missile System, a map from the Office of Naval Intelligence reveals.
Source: Office of Naval Intelligence
Additionally, Russia is building up military bases in the arctic near Alaska, as revealed in a map from the office of U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
EMP Commission dismantled by Obama holdovers as North Korea tested “Super EMP” capable hydrogen bomb
Foremost EMP expert Dr. Peter Vincent Pry wrote in Israel’s Arutz Sheva.
One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.
Iranian military documents describe such a scenario —including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.
Dr. Pry headed the Congressional EMP Commission until it was dismantled by Obama administration holdovers in September 2017, just as North Korea was testing a hydrogen bomb that could be used in a super EMP attack.
“The people who sabotaged the EMP Commission, Obama holdovers, are still at the Department of Defense. They have not been replaced by the Trump administration. This is happening not just with the vitally important EMP Commission” Dr. Pry told World Net Daily. “They held back money for a whole year. They held back security clearances. They tried to stop the commission’s staff from working, arguing that ‘you need a contract in order to work for the EMP Commission.’ They wouldn’t even let me work, or other staff, pro-bono. We did anyway.”
The EMP Commissions was comprised of America’s top scientist, a brain trust of national defense experts.
Gulftainer in joint venture with ROSTEC, exporter of Russia’s Club-K Container Missile SystemIn 2014 the Obama administration handed over Port Canaveral’s cargo container terminal to UAE-based container and ports management company Gulftainer.
Gulftainer is linked to Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs and to Russia. FOR FURTHER READING: “THE PERFECT STORM” Delaware officials just approved a plan to hand over the Port of Wilmington to Gulftainer for the next 50 years.
Gulftaineris co-owned by a UAE ruler and Iraqi oil billionaire Hamid Dhia Jafar.
Hamid Jafar was under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department and three congressional committees for his “Oil-For-Superweapons” scheme to fund Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program, directed by Hamid’s brother Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar.
Gulftainer is in a joint venture with Russian state-owned weapons conglomerate ROSTEC, ROSTEC exports the Club-K Container Missile System through its wholly-owned subsidiary ROSOBORONEXPORT. President Trump just placed ROSOBORONEXPORT under sanctions, which had been lifted by the Obama administration.
VIDEO: CLUB-K CONTAINER MISSILE SYSTEM
The Club-K’s Kalibr cruise missiles can deliver nuclear, EMP, chemical, biological, and conventional payloads. Submarines can also launch Kalibr cruise missiles.
Russia and other U.S. adversaries could smuggle Club-K Container Missile System units through U.S. ports such as Port Canaveral and the Port of Wilmington. Club-K units look identical to standard intermodal shipping containers.
Dr. Joseph King is the former Chief of the National Security Section, Department of Homeland Security’s New York City office. In an exclusive interview with these reporters, Dr. King stated:
The detailed information that has been amassed regarding Project Pelican makes it clear that the threats to our Ports and Terminals, our first line of defense, and the corruption and criminal conduct in these conspiracies, surpass the scope of the “Iran Contra” and “Whitewater” affairs combined.
Dr. King elaborated:I find it mind-boggling that this Byzantine attack on our national security has been swept under the rug by the previous administration. I hope that someone in the Trump administration will pursue this dangerous and criminal attack on our Ports and Terminals and ultimately our national security so that, unlike Churchill, we will not have to fight them on our beaches.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
BY: Bill Gertz
Free Beacon
December 10, 2018 4:59 am
Russia is deploying nuclear-capable Tu-160 Blackjack bombers to Venezuela this week as part of an increasingly provocative pattern of bomber training flights, according to American defense officials.
At least two Blackjacks will fly from a strategic forces air base in Russia to Venezuela as part of a series of training exercises that will include long-range refueling, said officials familiar with Russian plans for the flight.
The bomber foray to South America will be Russia's seventh training flight for Blackjack bombers in the past three months.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon official and specialist on the Russian military, said Tu-160 flights are unusual and increasing.
"There were six announced Tu-160 flights of the ‘provocative' type during the last three months, which is a lot," Schneider said.
The most recent incident took place near Norway in late October when Tu-160s were shadowed by British and Norwegian jet fighters over the Barents Sea.
Additionally, Russian forces utilized both Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers during a recent strategic nuclear forces drill, and the Defense Ministry announced that the recent Ocean Shield exercise in the Mediterranean involved Blackjacks that were described by the Russian defense ministry as involving undisclosed new tactics.
"The announced Tu-160 flight over the North Pole is also unusual as well as clearly aimed at us," Schneider said. In August, two Blackjacks flew to the North Pole.
The Pentagon is expected to closely monitor the Blackjacks because of their potential to fire nuclear-armed cruise missiles at U.S. targets. A Pentagon spokesman could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in January 2018 that the military is investing $2.8 billion to modernize the Tu-160 fleet with new engines and advanced avionics.
Putin recently stepped up threatening rhetoric against the United States following the announcement by the Trump administration that it will pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty over Moscow's violations of the accord.
Russia used Tu-160s in Syria in firing long-range cruise missiles.
In March, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov announced the Tu-160, a supersonic jet that is the largest combat aircraft in the world, is undergoing a major upgrade and carries nuclear-tipped KH-55 cruise missiles, as well as conventional KH-555 and KH-101 conventional cruise missiles.
"We are going to … carry out deep modernization of the planes [that are currently] in service when only the fuselage would remain while all the avionics equipment and engines would be replaced," Borisov said.
"One cannot even compare the Tu-160 aircraft equipped with the X-55, X-555, and X-101 missiles and a plane that we are hoping to get by 2030 equipped with new air-delivered ordnance that would have completely different effective distance," Borisov added.
At least five upgraded Tu-160s are currently deployed, along with 11 older variants.
The Russians dispatched two Blackjacks to Venezuela in September 2008 as part of a training mission in support of Venezuela's leftist then-President Hugo Chavez.
The latest flights are expected to be similar to those in 2008, when the bombers conducted training flights over international waters near Venezuela.
Disclosure of the bomber flights comes as Venezuela is experiencing political and economic crisis under the regime of President Nicolas Maduro that has become increasingly dependent on Russia for aid.
Maduro visited Moscow last week and was promised an estimated $6 billion in investment pledges in the oil and mining sectors aimed at propping up the regime in Caracas and its collapsing economy.
Maduro said Moscow also promised to help modernize Venezuela's military.
Defense ministers from the two countries met in Moscow last week and agreed that Russian air force and naval forces would continue to use Venezuelan ports and airports.
Russian officials, however, played down expectations of a major bailout for Venezuela, the Financial Times reported Monday.
The Russian state oil company Rosneft previously lent $6 billion to Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov last week declined to comment on the new aid package for Venezuela but said: "A whole range of issues related to bilateral co-operation has been discussed. There is no doubt that Russia will continue supporting Venezuela to one degree or another."
Russia has sought closer ties to the anti-U.S. regime in Venezuela in response to U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow for its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.
Russian chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said recently that in response to U.S. missile defenses Russia will be upgrading its nuclear forces, including equipping its current strategic bombers by expanding their range of weapons.
"In the next several months I expect additional threats including more bomber provocations and possibly significant military action against Ukraine," Schneider said.
"Normally in December they release a lot of information about their plans for the nuclear Strategic Missile Force. I expect they will make this as threatening as possible. I believe there will be more provocative bomber flights."
Russian supersonic Tu-160 'Blackjack' bombers heading to Venezuela, intercepted by British fighter jets off Scotland https://t.co/rNOkc7pizD
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) December 10, 2018
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed hope that Russian aircraft will continue landing at Venezuela’s airfields with naval fleets being serviced in the South American country’s ports, during unscheduled talks with his Venezuelan counterpart Vladimir Padrino Lopez in Moscow on Thursday.
“We do a good job in the field of education and in providing opportunities for our aircraft to make landings and our fleet to be serviced at airfields and in the ports of Venezuela. I think we will continue with it," said Shoigu noting that such military cooperation favours the interests of both Venezuela and Russia.
Speaking after the talks, the Venezuelan Minister of Defence noted that to date Russia and Venezuela have achieved certain results in the bilateral military engagement since the onset of the military relationship during the term of Former President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez.
“At this stage, the armed forces and services of the armed forces of the Republic of Venezuela have risen to an appropriate level and is quite prestigious. All this was done thanks to the support of the Russian Federation,” said Lopez.
He added that the Venezuelan armed forces’ level of preparation meets “the modern doctrine” and enables “to maintain peace and order” in Venezuela. It is the third time Lopez has arrived in Moscow as a member of the Venezuelan delegation headed by President Nicolas Maduro.
Two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers, an An-124 transport and an Il-62 plane have carried out a 10,000-kilometer flight from Russia to Venezuela, being shadowed by Norwegian F16s along the way, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The flight of the Russian air group was conducted over the Atlantic Ocean, the Barents Sea, the Sea of Norway and the Caribbean Sea. “During some parts of the route, the Tu-160 bombers were escorted by the F16s of the Norwegian Air Force,” the ministry said.
Moscow pointed out that the impressive journey was performed “in strict accordance with the international regulations on the use of airspace.”
The planes landed at the Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, on Monday. Venezuelan Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, was among the officials greeting the Russian aviators at the landing field.
Lopez also said that the Tu-160s will perform joint flights with Venezuela’s Air Force, without elaborating on the program, or the drills, any further. Pentagon sources told US media that the Russian exercise will also include refueling in the air.
“Nobody in the world” should be afraid of the presence of Russian bombers in Venezuela because Caracas and Moscow “are builders of peace, not war,” the minister said as cited by local El Universal paper.
Lopez also said that a delegation from Moscow is expected to arrive in the country to help the Venezuelan military to optimize the use of Russian military equipment.
The Russian planes traveled to Venezuela less than a week after the country’s President Nicolas Maduro visited Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin.
It’s not the first time the Tu-160s (NATO reporting name ‘Blackjack’) are seen in Venezuela as the strategic bombers already visited it in 2008 and 2013.
Last week, Russia’s Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu, that such flights will continue and that Russian Navy vessels will also dock at Venezuelan ports.
By Antonio Maria Delgado
December 08, 2018 10:16 AM Updated 5 hours 16 minutes ago
Venezuela and Iranian leaders Nicolas Maduro and Hassan Rouhani. AFP-Getty Images
An announcement that Iran may deploy new-generation warships to Venezuelan waters is being regarded by analysts as the mother of all provocations because it could alter the region’s geopolitical balance and almost certainly disturb the U.S. government.
“The arrival of these Iranian ships would upset the regional order,” said Rocio San Miguel, president of Control Ciudadano, a non-governmental organization that monitors Venezuela’s armed forces. This is going to bother neighboring countries and “generate an undesirable situation,” she added in a telephone interview from Spain.
Amid the growing tensions between Washington and Tehran, the Iranian government last week launched a destroyer, built in the Islamic country, with stealth properties that allow it to avoid radar detection.
In one of its first official comments on the new Sahand destroyer — which can carry helicopters, fire torpedoes and shoot down airplanes — Iran said it could deploy two or three of them to Venezuela.
“Our plans for the near future include sending two or three ships, with special helicopters, to Venezuela on a South American mission that could last for five months,” the deputy commander of the Iranian navy, Rear Admiral Touraj Hassani Moqaddam, was quoted as saying in a Reuters news agency report.
Venezuela has become an important strategic ally of Iran over the past 20 years of Chavista rule, and the two countries have signed economic and military agreements valued in the billions of dollars.
San Miguel said that despite the agreements, none of the joint projects have been successful.
But if the Tehran announcement proves correct, that could prove to be very negative for both countries, warned Mart*n Rodil, an expert on Iran-Venezuela relations.
“This is extremely dangerous. It’s crazy to send three warships to the U.S. backyard,” Rodil said from Washington, D.C. “If it happens, the only thing it will do is that Washington will send an aircraft carrier to the Venezuelan coast.”
“Iran today is the most critical point of U.S. foreign policy. It’s one of the issues that President Donald Trump has spent the most time on, and sending those ships would be a provocation the administration could not ignore,” he added.
Trump withdrew the United States from an international accord signed by the Obama administration to contain Iran’s nuclear program, and has reintroduced economic sanctions on Tehran.
Trump argued that the accord has grave errors because it did not halt Iran’s development of ballistic missiles.
Despite warnings from Washington that Iran continues to be a danger to the Western world, the Nicolas Maduro regime in Caracas has continued to maintain warm relations with Tehran.
That relationship, on top of Tehran’s relations with Havana, Moscow and more recently Istanbul, has been generating fears in Venezuela, especially because of the growing tensions between those countries and the United States.
The opposition Grand National Alliance has alleged that Maduro is willing to create an international crisis if needed to strengthen his relationship with those countries at a time when the rest of the international community has been denouncing his regime for human rights violations, rarely seen levels of corruption and the destruction of Venezuelan democracy.
“These actions, which are part of a script written in Cuba, would be designed to create an international conflict with the goal of keeping Maduro in power after Jan. 10, when his presidential term is supposed to expire, in exchange for handing control of our national territory to Russia, China, Cuba, Iran and other countries,” the Alliance said in a communique.
“Maduro knows he’s cornered. The U.S. government and the president-elect of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, have clearly said that they will act to reestablish democracy in Venezuela,” it added.
“The foreign minister of Chile announced publicly that several nations will end their recognition of the Venezuelan regime starting on Jan. 10,” it added. “More and more evidence turns up abroad about the gross corruption among the leaders and allies of the (Chavista) revolution; and Maduro suffered a humiliating defeat during his recent visit to Mexico.”
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
The deputy chairman of the Academy of Missile Sciences and Russian Artillery, Colonel Konstantin Sivkov, has listed the places where he thinks local conflicts could trigger a Third World War in the coming future.
In his article published in the daily Russian journal The Military-Industrial Courier, Sivkov describes his view that military conflicts are “intensifying because of the aggravation of regional tensions” by Western countries.
“Once trigger could be the emergence of a Kurdish state with the separation of a part of Iraq and Syria,” the expert warned.
Sivkov also does not exclude that the internal problems of large countries, for example Turkey, could provoke civil wars.
According to him, “there is the possibility of aggression by the United States, Israel, NATO countries and their allies of the Persian Gulf monarchies against Iran.”
“This will be a local scale war,” Sivkov writes, the pretext being “the resumption of Iran’s nuclear and missile program or the beginning of a military conflict between Tehran and one of the key countries in the Persian Gulf, most probably Saudi Arabia.”
“The geopolitical basis of these, and other conflicts in Africa, will be opposition to Saudi Arabia and the United States, on the one hand, and China and Iran on the other, for dominance in the region,” the analyst forecasted.
In particular, Sivkov pointed to the war in Afghanistan, where China might be involved, the “sharing of spheres of influence” in the Arctic, and the commitment of some Latin American countries to liberating themselves from US tutelage as other potential flashpoints.
According to the analyst, in Asia, the main sources of medium-term military tensions lie on the Korean peninsula, between Japan and China over disputed islands, and between Japan and Russia over the Kuril Islands, as well as the Taiwan issue.
Sivkov is recurrently known for his insistence that American military power is inferior to Russia’s, and his hyper-climactic military proposals. In February 2018, Sivkov proposed creating a thermonuclear mega-missile at the cost of 210 billion dollars to liquidate the threat of asteroids. On multiple occasions, he has recommended the deployment of weapons of mass destruction to oppose the US.
For example, in November 2017, he advised Russia, in response to the US’ exit from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, to position non-conventional nuclear arms. For example, he has argued that Russia must create very powerful nuclear warheads capable of “initiating catastrophic geophysical processes on US territory, for example, the explosion of Yellowstone volcano.”
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Re: Russia behind Iran - to start WW3
Originally Posted by MinutemanCO
Brendan Smialowski/AP
Iran nuclear talks in final stretch
Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus on January 31, 2014. Photo by Reuters
4
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks