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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Western Warplanes Begin Arriving In Cyprus

    Western Warplanes Begin Arriving In Cyprus

    Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/26/2013 17:59 -0400

    Remember what the 2012 leaked Stratfor memo said about the focal point of western airborne power? Here it is again: "Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not an easy one. The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use Cyprus as their main air force base." (sic) Well, it has begun. Guardian reports that "Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria."



    From the Guardian:

    Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca on Monday told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe.

    Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also say activity there has been much higher than normal over the past 48 hours.

    If an order to attack targets in Syria is given, Cyprus is likely to be a hub of the air campaign. The arrival of warplanes suggests that advanced readiness – at the very least – has been ordered by Whitehall as David Cameron, Barack Obama and European leaders step up their rhetoric against Bashar al-Assad, whose armed forces they accuse of carrying out the chemical weapons attack last Wednesday that killed many hundreds in eastern Damascus.

    More on Akrotiri airbase from wikipedia:

    Akrotiri has played a crucial role during Britain's recent operations in the Middle East. During both major campaigns against Iraq, in 1991 and 2003, and also during the no-fly zone operations between, it operated as a staging post for British forces en-route to the region.

    A constant problem of airfields located outside the territory of the country whose forces are based there is that of overflight rights. The UK has a treaty with Cyprus that guarantees British access to Akrotiri in any circumstances. Under the treaty, the stations employ many locals and contribute to the local economy.

    A sizeable over-the-horizon radar antenna was erected within the base raising concern for the effect on local wildlife and on the health of people living in nearby Limassol. Several demonstrations and protests took place, with most memorable incident the act of MP (MEP since 2004) Marios Matsakis to chain himself on the antenna. Amateur radio operators report that the radar is causing interference in bands allocated for amateur radio use by the ITU. From the international amateur radio union region 1 monitoring system news letter (April 2002): The lowest frequency was 18000 kHz, the highest frequency so far during the current solar cycle is 30500 kHz. The bandwidth is normally 50 to 60 kHz, the signal strength S9 + 70 dB thus causing very harmful interference to the Amateur Radio Service.

    Akrotiri was also the location of the main transmitter of the well known numbers station, the Lincolnshire Poacher, although transmissions ceased in 2008. Akrotiri is also the location of the Limassol BBC Relay that broadcast the BBC World Service radio signal to the Middle East.

    Due to the station's relative proximity to the Middle East, it is often used by British allies when needed, such as for casualty reception for Americans after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing[5] and as a staging post before heading into theatres of combat in the Middle East/Persian Gulf theaters.

    The U-2s of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing were used in Operation Cedar Sweep to fly surveillance over Lebanon, relaying information about Hezbollah militants to Lebanese authorities, and in Operation Highland Warrior to fly surveillance over Turkey and northern Iraq to relay information to Turkish authorities. These flights were the topic of acrimonious diplomatic cables between British officials and the American embassy, later leaked by Wikileaks, with David Miliband saying that "policymakers needed to get control of the military". The British were concerned that the flights over Lebanon were authorised by the Lebanese Ministry of Defence rather than the entire cabinet, and that the intelligence so gained could lead to the UK being complicit in the unlawful torture of detainees. After warnings that these issues "could jeopardize future use of British territory", John Rood, a senior Bush administration official, and Mariot Leslie, the Foreign Office's director general for defence and intelligence, became involved. Leslie said that the U.S. was not actually expected to check on detained terrorists, but that future spy missions would require full written applications.

    In July 2006 RAF Akrotiri played a major role as a transit point for personnel evacuations out of Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict (see International reactions to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and Joint Task Force Lebanon).

    In March 2011, the station was used as a staging base for support aircraft involved in Operation Ellamy. Tanker support and logistical units were based here to support aerial operations over Libya.

    Akrotiri is also the winter training grounds of the RAF display team, the Red Arrows.

    The station hosts the main hospital for British Forces Cyprus, The Princess Mary's Hospital (TPMH), located on Cape Zevgari.

    Now: about those Russian warships - are they still parked in Cyprus?

    Recall: Russian Pacific Fleet Warships Enter Mediterranean For First Time In Decades, To Park In Cyprus

    in a historic event, the Russian Pacific fleet, for the first time in decades, crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean,direction Cyprus' port of Limasol (hi Cyprus - Russia will be arriving shortly) in what is now the loudest implied warning to the US and Israel amassing military units across Syria's border that Russia will not stand idly by as Syria is used by the Israeli "Defense" Forces for target practice. “The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said. This is what is also known as dropping hints, loud and clear.

    The group, including the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, the tanker Pechenga and the salvage/rescue tug Fotiy Krylov left the port of Vladivostok on March 19 to join Russia’s Mediterranean task force.


    Admiral Panteleyev destroyer

    Admiral Nevelskoi

    The task force currently includes the large anti-submarine ship Severomorsk, the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, the salvage/rescue tugs Altai and SB-921 and the tanker Lena from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, as well as the Ropucha-II Class landing ship Azov from the Black Sea Fleet. The task force may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said last Sunday.

    Shore leave for a whole lot of submarines just a few hundred kilometers from Syria? Surely. From Rian.

    The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said.

    The Defense Ministry said in April Russia has begun setting up a naval task force in the Mediterranean, sending several warships from the Pacific Fleet to the region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in March a permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean was needed to defend Russia’s interests in the region.

    A senior Defense Ministry official said the Mediterranean task force's command and control agencies will be based either in Novorossiysk, Russia, or in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

    Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, head of the parliamentary defense committee, previously told RIA Novosti that the Mediterranean task force should be comprised of 10 warships and support vessels as part of several tactical groups tasked with attack, antisubmarine warfare and minesweeping.

    The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy's 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels.

    It appears that the squadron is being reincarnated and quite rapidly at that.

    It also appears that the two key naval forces in the Mediterranean are finally starting to position themselves for what may soon be a face off.

    * * *
    This was the May rehearsal. Now, it's the real thing.


    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...rriving-cyprus


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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Assad: Failure Awaits the USA

    Submitted by Pivotfarm on 08/27/2013 15:13 -0400





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    Syrian President Bachar al-Assad has warned President Obama not to take military action against his country since: “Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day”. Assad’s declaration will probably be more damaging to the over-inflated ego of the world’s policeman that believes that it has to export democracy to countries around the world. At least that’s the official version as to the invasion of countries. The non-official version is much more down-to-earth and crossing the line is far more mercantile. But is Assad right? Does failure await the USA? It all depends from which angle you look at it. Has the USA lost every single war since the Vietnam War?

    It all depends on where you decide to place ‘lost’ along the scale, doesn’t it?

    Every one of the wars was a loss in terms of military personnel, for sure. Every one of the wars was a loss in terms of money that was wasted trying to gain control of countries, either to set up democracy or to eradicate Communism or the political regime there and to set up a capitalist economy. Every one of the wars was a failure in some sense of the term; so technically-speaking Assad is correct. But, even more so today, the Obama administration will have to think very carefully about undertaking an invasion and launching an attack on Syria today. Assad will more than likely respond to that and it won’t be with a rose sticking out of the end of his rifle. They don’t do flower power in Syria it seems.



    Bachar al-Assad

    The USA has attempted many different types of style of warfare of the past decades since the Vietnam War. We have witnessed the no-holds barred and gloves-off fights till the bitter end in countries like Afghanistan with small skirmishes and flirting with the enemy all over the Middle East. But, all of the wars that the US has fought since the date that Assad mentions are indeed failures because they ended in stalematepositions. Two small tentative steps forward were made and then a couple back. The US is preparing to pull out of Afghanistan. For more than a decade they have struggled to bring so-called democracy to a country (despite the fact that the US is undemocratic itself as revealed by the recent NSA scandals). But, nothing has occurred of any democratic nature. Al-Qaeda still exists and has not been eradicated despite President Bush’s promises to destroy the ‘rogue states’ and pull down the great ‘axis of evil’. The only result was that for decades the terrorist groups have retrenched themselves in secluded places on the outskirts of the country and in the mountainous terrain that is impossible for the USA to gain control of. Women are still veiled in all but the capital. Women still ‘prefer’ to wear the veil where fundamentalists control the area.

    That looks like failure, doesn’t it?

    • Troops will leave Afghanistan in 2014.
    • President Obama sent 17, 000 extra troops in 2009 to try to stabilize the impossible situation in Afghanistan.
    • It had little effect except boosting the 36, 000 troops stationed there by 50%.
    • The drawdown began on 31st July 2011 and 650 troops were pulled out of the country and returned home to the USA.


    But, Assad failed himself in seeing the gains that were made by the US in going to war somewhere in the world.


    • Private companies have made billions from the US interventions.
    • One such example: Halliburton’s KBR Inc. gained $17.2 billion in Iraq from revenue made there between 2003and 2006 alone.
    • That represented 20% of their total revenue for 2006.
    • But, we were told by the then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 that Iraq was a country “that can really finance its own construction, and relatively soon”. The definition of relatively soon leaves a lot to be desired.
    • In one decade alone, the US government awarded Halliburton (once run by Dick Cheney, vice-president to G.W. Bush) a total of $39.5 billion in contracts.
    • There were more private companies and contractors in Iraq than in any other war in the history of the US to date and there were sometimes more of those people than the military personnel fighting the damn war.
    • Taxpayers’ money financed yet again in a complex and insidious manner the private companies of the cronies that had chums in high places.
    • The Commission on Wartime Contracting in 2011 estimated that in Iraq and Afghanistan $60 billion had been wasted by or defrauded from the US administration.
    • That works out to $12 million every day.
    • The last troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011.
    • But, there are still 14, 000 contractors there reaping the benefits, along with protection afforded by 5, 500 security personnel.



    Assad may well be right when he says that the US has lost every single war since Vietnam.

    But, there are not only losers in those wars. The winners will be the private companies that will again increase in number and that will once again be granted federal contracts to dip deeply into the riches as the country focuses on the boys on the front that are fighting for such ‘noble causes’ as humanitarian aid and people’s lives. The US will reap the benefits from such an invasion. There is just the waiting around for the right moment, making it look as if the United Nations Security Council still actually does have an ounce of authority left in the world today. We all know that it doesn’t. Antiquated and an old man in carpet slippers from a bygone era catapulted into modernity that just can’t keep up with the pace these days.



    Syria- Chemical Weapons - Assad or Washington?

    It won’t just be Obama, but he’ll simply be another in a long line of successive administrators that will enter a war for official and unofficial reasons. But, the UK-based defense contractor Britam was hacked months again now revealing that the red line needed to be crossed. An email revealed: “Phil We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington. We’ll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have. They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record. Frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?”

    ‘CW’ stands for chemical weapons. Exposure of the truth or intoxication? Who knows? Of course the email could have been created to discredit the US authorities and the West. But, the email does emanate from the IP range of Britam, and according to experts, that means that it is much harder to do so, but not impossible. Since 2009 Halliburton has been the parent company of Britam.

    Was the plan ‘Washington approved’? If it is true, then it makes a shoddy hash of principles. Waving the false flagwould mean that the whole system from A to Z is corrupt. The US, the West, NATO, the UN, the Security Council. Not one of them to save any of the others. Those people had principles instilled in them, they may have just chosen not to abide by them. But, as Gandhi once stated on the roots of violence in the world; it only stems from: “Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”.

    Wealth doesn’t necessarily need work, just warfare it would seem, and some people’s conscience went long ago along with morality. Politics never had principles, did it?

    US Bankrupt! | Septaper Will Open Floodgates | How Sinister is the State? | Food: Walking the Breadline | Obama NOT Worst President in reply to Obama: Worst President in US History?
    New Revelations: NSA and XKeyscore Program | Obama's Corporate Grand Bargain Death of the Dollar | Joseph Stiglitz was Right: Suicide | China Injects Cash in Bid to Improve Liquidity
    Technical Analysis: Bear Expanding Triangle | Bull Expanding Triangle | Bull Falling Wedge | Bear Rising Wedge | High & Tight Flag




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