FUUCK OFF BERNSWEIN

FUUCK OFF BERNSWEIN

FUUCK OFF BERNSWEIN

Well this board has turned rather nasty...Here is a topic for discussion. Some claim that UN sanctions on Iraq are hurting Iraq children. sadam boasts this. Well today ole sadam threw a 11 million dollar birthday party for himself. Once again he shows he doesn't care about the welfair of his own people.

An arms sale amid objections

Foreign Affairs Opinion (Published)
Source: Sun Spot
Published: 04/28/00 Author: Kevin McKiernan
Posted on 04/28/2000 07:20:13 PDT by Miss Antiwar
JUNE 15 may be a record payday for Bell Textron, the Texas-based company that makes helicopter gunships. By that date, Turkey is expected to award a $4 billion contract for 145 attack helicopters, one of the largest single arms deals in history.

International competition for the lucrative contract has been fierce, with five companies including Boeing Aircraft and Bell Textron submitting bids. Last month, Turkey eliminated Boeing's Apache helicopter from consideration, and now Bell's King Cobra is the odds-on favorite to win the award.

About 80 percent of the Turkish arsenal already is U.S.-made, and the Turkish army has relied on Sikorsky Blackhawks and both Apache and Cobra helicopters to win the long (and under-reported) war with Kurdish rebels in the country's southeast.

In 1997, the Clinton administration granted Boeing and Bell market licenses to build the attack helicopters, brushing aside human rights objections from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about Turkey's abuse of its ethnic population.

Since President Clinton took office in 1992, more than $6 billion in U.S. weaponry has been delivered to Turkey. If Bell wins the helicopter contract, as expected, the administration may again override human rights concerns and, in effect, broker the sale to Turkey by granting export licenses.

American-made helicopters are well-known to the Kurds. I have often encountered refugees from destroyed villages in southeast Turkey whose only English were the words "Sikorsky" and "Cobra." Villagers know that the soldiers who burn their houses arrive in Blackhawk helicopters, the troop transports that are made by the Connecticut-based Sikorsky company. And they easily recognize the rocket-equipped Cobras, which are manufactured at the Bell Textron plant in Fort Worth.

Turkish Kurdistan is a rugged, mountainous region, and helicopters have proved essential in the army's scorched-earth campaign. So far, more than 3,000 Kurdish villages have been burned, depriving the guerrillas of vital logistical support. Estimates of civilian Kurds displaced by the war range from 500,000 to 2 million.

It has been a dirty war, and both sides have been guilty of atrocities.

The Kurds are a large and diverse group, and their numbers spill across the borders of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria and parts of the former Soviet Union. With a combined population of 25 million to 30 million, they represent the largest ethnic minority in the world without their own state.

The first Kurds I met were in Iraq, where I was shooting television news at the end of the Persian Gulf war. At that time, the networks had an appetite for stories of Saddam Hussein's abuses (the Iraqi dictator had destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages), and I had lots of work.

But when I started covering the Kurdish uprising a few miles away in Turkey, I found I couldn't give the stories away.

I got taken to lunch, patted on the back and told the Turkish-Kurdish war just "wasn't on the radar."

Last year, after Turkey captured rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, tried him for treason and sentenced him to death, it looked as if the 15-year-old uprising might fade away.

Ocalan told his fighters to quit, and they eventually issued a declaration to end the armed struggle and to work for Kurdish rights "within the framework of peace and democratization."

But Turkey has repeatedly rejected such overtures. Earlier this month, Ankara dispatched U.S.-made F-16s to northern Iraq to bomb rebels who had withdrawn from Turkey.

Last December, the European Union, after years of rejection, voted to consider Turkey for EU admission, but only on the condition that it clean up its human rights record.

Now the EU may be having second thoughts. For more than a month this spring, Turkey blocked an EU delegation from visiting Leyla Zana, the imprisoned Kurdish member of the Turkish Parliament who has received the EU's peace prize. Then a Kurdish educational foundation was indicted on criminal charges of "inciting separatist propaganda" because it advertised a scholarship for students who could "read and write in Kurdish."

The government recently ordered a CNN television affiliate off the air for 24 hours because a reporter asked a guest if history might one day regard Ocalan as a Turkish version of the South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela.

A few days later, Turkey arrested the Kurdish mayors of three cities on vague charges of separatism. There are 37 elected Kurdish mayors, and many observers hoped that their political leadership would provide a nonviolent alternative to the bloody civil war in Turkey that since 1984 has taken 37,000 lives, most of them Kurds.

Turkey already has hired a stable of former leading members of Congress to pave the way for licensing the King Cobras. The lobbyists include former House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Soloman (R-N.Y.) and former Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.). Best known is former House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston (R-La.),who reportedly won a $1.8 million contract to lobby for Turkey.

While Turkey is a valuable ally, what U.S. exports need at the moment is "gun control" - oversight that demands leadership from Washington. If Bell Textron gets the green light from Turkey, the Clinton administration ought to hold up the $4 billion in gunships until Ankara shows a willingness to deal democratically with its own citizens.

Originally published on Apr 28 2000

Turk let's hear you rail about genocide committed by Turks against innocent Kurd civilians.

It's already a couple of weeks this board goes nasty.

Kim seems to be fed up as well...
Well, despite all this crap, we all come back! Can't help it!

Gonzo, Sadam is 63! I didn't know him so old.
It seems everytime the american try to crack down a dictator, the latter become harder and harder.

Uzbeki, Did the rebels took back Grozny?
(I shall repeat this question in one month)

Fred

"Uzbeki, Did the rebels took back Grozny?"

That is a stupid question. That should bring back the memories of last year when Russians "controlled" Grozny for 1.5 years. As I've said before, for the Chechens it is not a race against time. They are too few and heavily unarmed to engage in frontal fighting. They have other ways to deal with the Russians. However, I will clarify my point and elucidate what I've been hearing in the news. The Russians do not fully control Grozny and it should be obvious to you. There have been several shootouts in and around Grozny during the past several months. Don't tell me you never heard this because just today "several" soldiers were killed in a shootout in Grozny. And last month some 20 soldiers were killed in a deadly ambush. According to the Russian Media, there are still hundreds of fighters holed up in Grozny. This is my question to you: Why haven't the Russians been able to take complete control of Grozny?

Fowl mouthed Igor with the urine stained pants

Is this how your uneducated Russian goy parents raised you?

A filthy FOWL MOUTHED Russian who lives of the backs of taxpayers. The Sephardic would like to wash your dirty mouth out with plenty of soap.

My sword is that of truth and DECENCY. The Sephardic fear no man.


You WILL apologize

I humbly accept the sword of truth and justice to serve the weak and those in need, and to fight evil (fowl mouthed) filth that exists on earth.

COME AND TRY IT BERNSWEIN

BERNSWEIN YOU ARE A CARTOON CHARACTER WITH THOSE SCRAWNY ARMS,NO WONDER YOU NEED THAT SWORD.BRING IT WITH YOU I WILL ADD IT TO MY COLLECTION

US missile shield no match for Russian nukes: US documents
WASHINGTON, April 28 (AFP) -
Russia would be able to annihilate the United States with hundreds of nuclear warheads even if it were attacked first and the proposed US missile defense system were in place, US negotiating documents published Friday assert.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which posted the documents on its website, said the documents were presented to Russia in January by US negotiators seeking changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM). A change in the treaty would allow deployment of the first phase of a US national missile defense system.

The documents include a draft protocol modifying the treaty, as well as US talking points that explain the changes and responses to Russian concerns that the system would pose a threat to its nuclear deterrent.

The US anti-missile shield under consideration -- a site in Alaska with 100 interceptor missiles designed to defend against a limited "rogue state" attack -- would be able to knock out at most 20-25 warheads with comparatively primitive defense penetration aids, the document said.

A two-site system with 200 interceptor missiles could destroy 40 to 50 warheads, the document said.

"We do not think that reducing Russia's ability to counterattack by 20 to 50 warheads would substantially affect Russia's strategic deterrent, even at START III levels," the document said.

The proposed treaty protocol would allow a single site, 100-interceptor system to be deployed in Alaska, but would leave to future negotiations a second site with more interceptors.

A single site system would involve building a super high frequency radar in Alaska and upgrading five early warning radars -- at Clear, Alaska; Thule, Greenland; Fylingdales, Britain; Beale Air Force Base in California; and Ottis Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Yet even with upgrades, the early warning radars will still not be accurate enough "to achieve effective defense against attack by more than a dozen warheads accompanied by the simplest defense penetration aids," the document said.

Even a large number of super high frequency radars, which Washington wants to deploy in the future, "would not be able to deal with an arsenal the size and sophistication that Russia would likely deploy under START III," according to the document.

Russia has suggested cutting US-Russian nuclear arsenals to as low as 1,500 warheads under START III, down from 3,000 to 3,500 warheads allowed under START II, which the Russian Duma approved April 15.

"These strategic forces give each side the certain ability to carry out an annihilating counterattack on the other side regardless of the conditions under which the war began," the document said.

"Forces of this size can easily penetrate a limited NMD system of the type that the United States is now developing," it said.

In the unlikely event of a nuclear first strike, Russia could deliver a minimum of a few hundred warheads in retaliation, the document said.

With tactical warning, Russia's response to a nuclear attack "would obviously be to send about a thousand warheads, together with two to three times more decoys, accompanied by other advanced defense penetration aids," the document said.

Saturday, April 29 4:21 AM SGT

Planned US anti-ballistic missile shield could fail, scientists say
UNITED NATIONS, April 28 (AFP) -
A system of satellites and interceptor rockets which the United States wants to build against missile attack by North Korea could be thwarted by aggressors, nuclear scientists said Friday.

The scientists, some of whom have worked for the US government, said counter-measures to confuse or overwhelm a missile shield were inexpensive and could be supplied by Russia or China.

"We are not testing this system in anything remotely like the conditions it would encounter in an attack," Stephen Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, told AFP in a telephone interview.

Under a plan being studied by President Bill Clinton, the United States would deploy 100 interceptor missiles in Alaska by 2007 and an additional 150 interceptors in North Dakota by 2015. Interceptors would be guided by land-based radar and by space-based sensors.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that the system would cost 49 billion dollars, compared with a Pentagon forecast of 26 billion.

The system was designed to shoot down "a few dozen warheads" fired by a rogue state, the CBO said.

It said an extra 10.9 billion dollars would be needed for 24 low-orbit infrared satellites to distinguish between warheads and decoys.

Opponents of the system said decoys were only one of a range of counter-measures that might be used.

Writing in the March/April issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Richard Garwin, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, compared intercepting a warhead to "hitting a bullet with a bullet."

The warhead would be travelling at 10 kilometers (six miles) a second through the vaccuum of space and would be especially hard to detect if it were not spinning, he said.

"Spin is added for re-entry accuracy, but the first-generation ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles) of rogue states would be so inaccurate" it would make little difference if they did not spin, he said.

Garwin has worked for the US government on anti-submarine warfare, sensor systems, nuclear weapons and satellite systems.

He quoted a National Intelligence Estimate of September 1999, which said "Russia and China each have developed numerous counter-measures and probably are willing to sell the requisite technologies."

They included shrouds of aluminium-coated plastic, which could be fitted closely over a five-foot warhead and inflated to 30 feet in diameter as the warhead re-entered the atmosphere, he said.

If an interceptor hit the shroud, it would not necessarily destroy the warhead, which might have more shrouds to inflate.

Kurt Gottfried, a physicist at Cornell University, said a rogue state would be more likely to attack the United States with biological weapons "delivered by bomblets" scattered from a warhead in the upper atmosphere.

"The planned missile defence system could not defend against such an attack," he wrote in a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The report was released for the five-year review of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the United Nations, which began on Monday.

Garwin said it would be much easier to destroy an ICBM immediately after launch by homing in on its flame.

"A missile under power is a thousandfold more visible than the same missile once the burn has ended," he said.

"The third stage of an ICBM intercepted 10 seconds before burnout would fall about 5,000 kilometers short of its target," he wrote.

A missile typically takes 250-400 seconds to reach ICBM velocity, Garwin said, and to be effective, an interceptor must reach that speed within 100 seconds.

Garwin said interceptors could be fired from sea close to the attacking state and pointed out that that they were not banned by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty because "they would not be effective against a single ICBM launched from the interior of Russia."