Uzbekistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan all when faced with the prospect of takeover from elections rigged to install Washington puppets conferred in length with Hu and adopted extremely hard line stances toward the foreign backed candidates and their minions. Some of these leaders were nuts to begin with but seemed to become even more toughened after conferencing with China.
China knows this and seems to be passing the word along not to be intimidated.
China is making significant headway bringing North Korea back home to China. #msg-9932251
North Korea fired two missiles which look to be an effort to help Iran. #msg-10064988
China has a natural gas deal with Iran for as much as 200 billion dollars. #msg-4431516
In the following text, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats the same mantra as China. Flexing muscles would be a reference to our military, among other things, with bone fractures or vulnerabilities.
"China's leaders consistently characterize the United States as a 'hegemon', connoting a powerful protagonist and overbearing bully that is China's major competitor, but they also believe that the United States is a declining power with important military vulnerabilities that can be exploited." #msg-10051566
Iran also attacked "warmongers in Washington" for what it said was an unjust accusation that Tehran's nuclear intentions were mainly for military use. It also suggested America was vulnerable, despite its strength.
"Surely we are not naive about the United States' ... intention to flex muscles," the statement said. "But we also see the bone fractures underneath”.
These guys are networking. I might be tempted to go as far and say China is leading the pack. Albeit some of these leaders would have chosen a hardened position without Hu, there is something here that points to China behind the curtain.
-Am
Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain'
Updated 8:49 AM ET March 8, 2006
Listen to Audio Clip
By GEORGE JAHN
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.
But the United States and its European allies said Iran's nuclear intransigence left the world no choice but to ask for Security Council action. The council could impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.
The statements were delivered to the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is meeting to focus on Tehran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.
The meeting is in effect the last step before the Security Council begins considering Iran's nuclear activities and international fears they could be misused to make weapons. It began with both Iran and nations which oppose its enrichment plans sticking to their positions, reflecting the deadlock that prompted the IAEA board to seek Security Council intervention.
"The United States has the power to cause harm and pain," said a statement delivered by the Iranian delegation. "But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll."
The statement did not elaborate on what Iran meant by "harm and pain," and Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment.
But diplomats accredited to the meeting and in contact with the Iranians said the statement could be a veiled threat to use oil as an economic weapon.
Iran is the second-largest producer within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and a boycott could target Europe, China or India.
The republic also could cause difficulties in southern Iraq. On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Tehran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.
Iran's statement was unusually harsh, reflecting Tehran's frustration at failing to deflect the threat of Security Council action against it in the coming weeks. Tehran maintains its nuclear program is for generating electricity.
"Our nation has made its decision to fully use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and all have to give in to this decision made by the Iranian nation," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in Iran. "We have made our choice."
Iran also attacked "warmongers in Washington" for what it said was an unjust accusation that Tehran's nuclear intentions were mainly for military use. It also suggested America was vulnerable, despite its strength.
"Surely we are not naive about the United States' ... intention to flex muscles," the statement said. "But we also see the bone fractures underneath."
It also threatened broader retaliation, without being specific, saying Iran "will adapt our policy and adjust our approach to conform with the new exigencies."
Earlier, U.S. delegate Gregory Schulte insisted in comments to the board that "the time has now come for the Security Council to act."
He ticked off Iran's decision to curtail agency inspections, its expanding uranium enrichment program and worrying conclusions by IAEA inspectors that suggest at least past interest in nuclear arms as contributing to "mounting international concerns" about Tehran's nuclear intentions.
"Iran has still not come clean," he said.
Schulte listed Tehran's possession of plans that could only be used to make nuclear warheads, links between its nuclear programs and the military, and its determination to develop a large-scale enrichment program that could be misused to make nuclear arms.
"IAEA inspectors have no doubt this information was expressly intended for the fabrication of nuclear weapons components," Schulte said of documents showing how to form fissile material into warheads.
Separately, France, Germany and Britain, which spearheaded the Feb. 4 IAEA resolution clearing the path for Security Council action, warned that what is known about Iran's enrichment program could represent only "the tip of the iceberg."
It also spoke of "indicators of a possible military dimension to Iran's (nuclear) program" as "a legitimate source of intense concern."
"We believe that the time has ... come for the U.N. Security Council to reinforce the authority" of the IAEA and its board, the European statement said.
Ahmadinejad's comments _ and U.S. and Russian statements the day before rejecting any compromise allowing Tehran to enrich uranium domestically _ set the stage for Security Council action once the IAEA board meeting hears about the latest investigations into Iran's nuclear program and debates the issue.
Russia and China, which have Security Council vetoes, may use them to foil any resolution in that chamber that would meaningfully increase pressure on Iran, their political and economic ally. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing appealed Tuesday for more negotiations and suggested Security Council involvement was not needed.
The Chinese and Russian statements to the board were relatively moderate, said delegates inside the closed meeting. China urged "more time for diplomacy" before any Security Council action, one delegate said on condition of anonymity, quoting from the Chinese statement.
_ Associated Press reporter Palma Benczenleitner contributed to this report.
by Philip E. Coyle UPI Outside View Commentator Washington (UPI) Mar 13, 2006 The addled thinking of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency was on full display in late January when MDA officials conducted a missile defense war game on Capitol Hill.
In this war game, Midland, a fictional island nation located in the Sea of Japan, decides to attack its neighbors, South Korea and Japan. According to the formal briefing presented to participants and observers, this is because: "Tensions between Midland and Japan and South Korea have increased over oil reserves and fishing rights." In this war game, Midland is not allowed to also attack North Korea because, well, Midland is North Korea. To be politically correct, MDA just doesn't say so. Midland also attacks the United States, launching seven long-range missiles to "preclude U.S. involvement," according to the briefing.
To preclude U.S. involvement? MDA forgot to "Remember Pearl Harbor." I promise you, if someone fires seven intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United States, we are going to get involved. Yet MDA postulates that without missile defenses, this action by North Korea, excuse me, Midland, will "constrain U.S. engagement."
This is the kind of fuzzy thinking that has affected so much of the U.S. planning in missile defense. MDA postulates a goofy threat -- that attacking the United States will keep us from getting involved -- and then justifies tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to counter the goofy threat.
A recent Pentagon briefing claims the threat from enemy missiles is growing and shows missiles in 20 countries. But all but two of those 20 countries -- Iran and North Korea -- are either friends, allies, or countries from which we have no missile threat, e.g. Israel, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, South Korea, Moldova, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.
Moldova? Yes, Moldova.
And, with the exception of Russia and China, none of those 20 countries -- including Iran and North Korea -- have missiles that can reach the United States anyway.
The most futuristic missile defenses we can imagine will not be effective against the ICBMs in Russia and China, so we'd better get down to business to be sure we avoid war with -- or even accidental or unauthorized launches from -- Russia or China. Or even Midland.
The purpose of the recent war game -- conducted just as President George W. Bush's new defense budget was headed for Capitol Hill -- was for members of Congress, their staffs and the press to see a missile defense fantasy, and then support that fantasy with billions of new taxpayer dollars.
To get support for missile defense, the Pentagon needs a better story. But after 20 years trying, they still don't have one.
It would be astonishing if Midland, or any other country real or imaginary, didn't know that it would guarantee our involvement by firing scores of missiles at our friends and allies, and seven more at the U.S. homeland.
What's more astonishing is that the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency doesn't know it.
Philip E. Coyle is a senior advisor at the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank. United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.
Source: United Press International related report
BMD Focus: MDA War Game Taught Key Lessons Washington (UPI) Mar 13 - It is easy to ridicule war games. For playing at war is obviously a very different thing from actually waging it. Nevertheless, the series of war games that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency carried out with members of Congress and invited journalists to in late January dramatized and clarified many fundamental issues of life or death significance for tens of millions of people.
The war game hypothesized a mass intercontinental ballistic missile launching by a supposedly imaginary or hypothetical "rogue" state that was an island in Northeast Asia threatening both South Korea and Japan named "Midland." It was not hard to re-imagine "Midland" as North Korea.
In the war game, "Midland" launched seven intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United States and the players in the game held what would be real positions in the U.S. command structure, forcing them to make decisions as to which of their limited number of anti-ballistic missile interceptors they should launch to protect threatened U.S. cities and military targets.
In the Jan. 24 war game this correspondent participated in, all the U.S. interceptors that were launched worked perfectly. Skeptics pointed out that in two major tests over the previous eighteen months the U.S. interceptors being tested never even took off from their silos.
War games, it is true, tend to assume that everything will work perfectly, whereas in reality, as the great Prussian military theorist Carl von Clauswitz pointed out in the early 19th century, war generates complexity and chaos. There is no human activity or experience more redolent of Lord Kelvin's Second Law of Thermodynamics. All things in war tend towards entropy -- a state of chaos and confusion. And they do so very fast.
Nevertheless, the MDA war game was far from being as unrealistic as its detractors have claimed. First, under the driving leadership of MDA chief Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering III, major progress has been made in correcting the very basic problems that caused the failures of the interceptors to ignite in those two tests.
The main problem had been rushed construction and deployment of the interceptors without adequate testing. But most of the senior civilian Pentagon officials who had pushed breakneck deployment without sufficient testing and quality control of key components, or sufficient inspection of the missile silos, have been removed. And, as happened with the legendary Apollo Moon program in the late 1960s after the fire that killed three astronauts on their launch pad in early 1967, the MDA has been going over the immediate reasons for the failures and flawed leadership culture that generated them with a fine toothcomb. Given the striking record of test successes that the U.S. ballistic missile defense program has racked up over the past nine months, it is not unreasonable to assume that of the relatively small number of interceptors already deployed, almost all, if not all of them, will indeed work as they are supposed to.
Second, the MDA war game highlighted a crucial lesson of modern human history. Until now, nuclear-armed missiles are about the only infernal, new weapon of war that has not yet been used in anger. Machine-guns, poison gas, and even atomic bombs have all been used to kill millions of people. As long ago as the Civil War, there were discussions among Confederate officials about trying to use biological weapons -- specifically trying to spread smallpox in the cities of the Union. It was never done. But some 85 years earlier, Gen. George Washington seriously believed that the British Empire was trying to spread smallpox among the small military forces and cities of infant America.
In other words, when a new destructive weapons capability exists -- however apparently diabolical or unprecedented it is -- the historical record overwhelmingly documents that it will eventually be used.
Therefore, given the increasingly rapid and widespread proliferation of ballistic missile and nuclear technology, sooner or later, nuclear-armed ICBMs will almost certainly fly -- to one target or another. And it is far from inconceivable that some "rogue" state leadership, if not now, then, in the future, might decide to press its button and send one or several missiles against American, Northeast Asian or European targets.
If that ever happens, other very clear lessons of the Jan. 24 war game will quickly become clear. However many ABM missiles seemed sufficient to defense planners before the crisis, once the missile starts flying they will always seem like far too few.
Also, decisions of life or death for tens of millions of people will be made by young officers and servicemen and women over split seconds. Decisions in the war games about which interceptors to fire at missiles threatening different cities had to be made in time envelopes of only a few minutes. Only 10 ground-based interceptors were available in the war game to intercept those seven ICBMS. Not very good odds. However, the current rapid deployment program being conducted will very significantly improve them over the coming months.
My old friend and colleague Bill Gertz, the legendary intelligence correspondent of The Washington Times, had to decide to let a target in the Aleutian Islands get hit in order to have sufficient interceptor resources to defend and save the huge, densely populated cities of California. Good call, Bill. A message to old friends out in the Aleutians: Sorry, folks.
Nor will any commander have all or perhaps even most of the ideal information he will require to make a certainly correct decision. Retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Dave Frost put it very well: "No operational commander can be sure he knows what he needs to know."
A picture, it is often said, is worth a thousand words. Participation in a war game against incoming ballistic missiles with nuclear war heads dramatizes and clarifies the issues and the stakes more than a hundred congressional hearing or 10,000 op-ed articles.
More than half a century ago, a despairing Albert Einstein famously said, "There is no defense against the weapons that can destroy civilization." The BMD systems we and other nations are now feverishly developing do not yet offer by any means the prospect of any sure and secure shield. But they are a lot better than nothing and a vast amount of genuine commitment and effort is going into making them a lot better than they already are. The future of this country and of civilized life around the world depends on proving Einstein wrong.
An Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon from the 35th Fighter Squadron in Kunsan AFB (S Korea) crashed into the West Sea during a training mission at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The aircraft's pilot ejected safely and was rescued by a South Korean air force helicopter at about 10:25 a.m.
The pilot was transported to the Kunsan Air Base medical clinic and is in good condition.
Eight Fighter Wing leaders praised the swift response of the Korean HH-60 helicopter crew that recovered the pilot from waters estimated at 41 degrees by base weather officials.
“Today’s rescue shows the great cooperation and support we receive from our ROKAF partners and reaffirms the benefit of joint training,” said Col. Brian Bishop, wing commander. “We’re very happy that the pilot has been safely recovered and is back at Kunsan in good condition.”
A board of qualified officers is investigating the accident.
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