Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

The Korea Herald
May 13, 2012

A U.S. congressional committee is pressuring the Obama administration to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

The House Armed Services Committee, dominated by Republicans, approved an amendment to the fiscal 2013 national defense authorization bill Thursday that calls for the re-introduction of the sensitive weapons to South Korea, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

It also would require Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to submit a report on the feasibility and logistics of redeploying nuclear weapons to South Korea, added the magazine.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who reportedly sponsored the amendment, and his staff were not available to confirm the report.

“We in the last many years have appealed to China to help us negotiate with North Korea to bring them in line in the quest for peace in the world… China has now embarked on selling nuclear components to North Korea,” Franks was quoted as saying in the committee’s markup.

The North has carried out two underground nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, and is suspected to be preparing for a third.

Some South Korean conservatives have also raised the issue of redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea to counter the North’s missile and nuclear threats. …

Read on: www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120513000248

RT.com
May 10, 2012

As US officials reopen the debate on placing elements of the country’s global missile defense system in space, one Russian analyst says it would always be possible to breach such out-of-this-world defenses.

­The United States cannot build an absolutely invulnerable missile defense system even if it deploys some of its elements in outer space, says Yury Zaitsev, an academic advisor of the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.

“Even a brief review of possible measures to neutralize such a comprehensive missile defense system shows that it is absolutely unnecessary to fully destroy it,” Zaitsev said, commenting on American plans to build a global missile defense system. “It is enough to make a breach in [the missile defense system] by affecting its most vulnerable elements, [thereby] delivering a retaliatory strike powerful enough to be unacceptable to an aggressor.”

“These are missile detection, global positioning, communications, control and other systems,” he added.

US military officials have once again introduced the idea of deploying interceptor missiles in outer space because, according to the leading Russian academic, they understand that any ground-based missile defense system will be unable – even in the distant future – of protecting the country from ballistic missiles, especially those armed with multiple warheads.

Read on: http://rt.com/politics/us-missile-defense-space-russia-923/

Reuters
By Jim Wolf
May 10, 2012

U.S. forces said they had destroyed a target in the first successful test of the Navy’s newest anti-missile interceptor, designed to protect allies from attacks by countries like North Korea and Iran.

A target ballistic missile was downed near Hawaii late on Wednesday by the latest Raytheon Co-built Standard Missile-3 interceptor, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said.

The advanced interceptor is key to the next phase of an anti-missile shield being built by the United States in and around Europe.

The United States plans to deploy increasingly capable SM-3 versions up to around 2020 to boost defenses against missiles that could be fired by Iran and North Korea.

“Initial indications are that all components performed as designed,” the agency said in an emailed statement.

The interceptor, called the SM-3 Block 1B, had failed to knock out its target in its maiden intercept test in September. This led to a continuing delay in Raytheon’s production.

The shield under construction in Europe involves ground- and ship-based hardware as well as space-based sensors. …

Read on: www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/us-usa-missile-idUSBRE8490CY20120510

Arirang News
May 10, 2012

A U.S. bill to construct a new East Coast missile defense site is becoming one of the most contentious issues at Congress.
The Republican-backed legislation contains an initiative to ready the country’s third missile defense system on the East Coast by 2016, adding to existing sites in California and Alaska on the West Coast.
It also includes a 1-hundred million U.S. dollar pre-construction review of the potential project.
Republicans say the increasing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea highlight the need to build the new site, but Democrats are playing down the security threats, calling the estimated 4-billion dollar project “politically motivated.”
Democrat lawmakers are planning to take out the 1-hundred million dollars from the defense authorization bill at this week’s House Armed Services Committee markup.

www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=129565&code=Ne2&category=2

MDAA (Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance)

The National Academy of Sciences is casting more doubt on whether the Obama administration’s European-based missile defense shield can protect the United States and recommends scrapping key parts of the system.
The academy’s assessment could complicate White House efforts to persuade Congress to fund the still-developing program. Though the academy says the plans would protect Europe effectively, some lawmakers already are asking why the U.S., at a time of tight budgets, should spend billions of dollars on a system that provides limited homeland defense.
The conclusions from the academy, which advises the government on science and technology, are contained in a letter to lawmakers obtained by The Associated Press.
The academy’s letter bolsters two earlier reports by Defense Department advisers and congressional investigators that said the European system faced significant delays, cost overruns and technology problems.
The letter is dated April 30 and addressed to the chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, and the panel’s top Democrat, California Rep. Loretta Sanchez. It is based on unclassified parts of a broad academy report on U.S. missile defense capabilities not yet released.
Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, said he was unaware of the academy’s report and declined to comment.
Republicans, who have been questioning President Barack Obama’s national security credentials ahead of the November elections, are likely to seize on the letter to bolster their argument that the European plans were poorly thought through and designed to appease Russia.
The defense shield is one of Obama’s top military programs. Soon after he took office in 2009, he revamped a Bush administration missile defense plan that had been a chief source of tension with Russia. The Russian government believed the program is aimed at its missiles, while the U.S. said the system was designed to counter any Iranian missile threat. …

Read on: http://missiledefense.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/more-doubts-cast-on-european-missile-defense-plan/

Space Daily
May 7, 2012

The US plans to conduct ‘the largest ever test launch’ of its missile defense program elements to intercept and destroy five ‘enemy’ missiles- three medium-range ballistic missiles and two cruise missiles, the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency Gen. Patrick O’Reilly told Congress on Wednesday.

It is planned to use several surface-to-air guided missileair defense systems, including Patrior, TAAD and Idjis.

The US has been working with other NATO countries to locate such defense systems in the Asia-Pacific region and in the Middle East.

Read more: www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_to_conduct_largest_ever_missile_defense_test___Pentagon_999.html

Daily News & Analysis
By Bruno Waterfield (Daily Telegraph)
May 4, 2012

Russia has threatened Nato with military strikes in Poland and Romania if a missile defence radar and interceptors are deployed in Eastern Europe.

General Nikolai Makarov, Russia’s most senior military commander, warned Nato that if it proceeded with an American missile defence system, force would be used against it.

“A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens,” he said.

General Makarov has threatened to target Nato bases hosting an anti-missile system designed by the US to protect European allies against attack from states such as Iran.

He said that Russia would counter Nato deployment by stationing short-range Iskander missiles in the Russian Kaliningrad enclave near Poland, creating the worst military tensions since the Cold War. …

Read on: www.dnaindia.com/world/report_russia-threatens-to-strike-at-nato-missile-defence-bases_1684335

U.S. News & World Report
By Desmond Butler (Associated Press)
May 4, 2012

The National Academy of Sciences is casting more doubt on whether the Obama administration’s European-based missile defense shield can protect the United States and recommends scrapping key parts of the system.

The academy’s assessment could complicate White House efforts to persuade Congress to fund the still-developing program. Though the academy says the plans would protect Europe effectively, some lawmakers already are asking why the U.S., at a time of tight budgets, should spend billions of dollars on a system that provides limited homeland defense.

The conclusions from the academy, which advises the government on science and technology, are contained in a letter to lawmakers obtained by The Associated Press.

The academy’s letter bolsters two earlier reports by Defense Department advisers and congressional investigators that said the European system faced significant delays, cost overruns and technology problems. …

Read on: www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2012/05/04/more-doubts-cast-on-european-missile-defense-plan

RT
March 10, 2012

Only days after clearing Congress, US President Barack Obama signed his name to H.R. 347 on Thursday, officially making it a federal offense to cause a disturbance at certain political events — essentially criminalizing protest in the States.

RT broke the news last month that H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, had overwhelmingly passed the US House of Representatives after only three lawmakers voted against it. On Thursday this week, President Obama inked his name to the legislation and authorized the government to start enforcing a law that has many Americans concerned over how the bill could bury the rights to assemble and protest as guaranteed in the US Constitution.

Under H.R. 347, which has more commonly been labeled the Trespass Bill by Congress, knowingly entering a restricted area that is under the jurisdiction of Secret Service protection can garner an arrest. The law is actually only a slight change to earlier legislation that made it an offense to knowingly and willfully commit such a crime. Under the Trespass Bill’s latest language chance, however, someone could end up in law enforcement custody for entering an area that they don’t realize is Secret Service protected and “engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct” or “impede[s] or disrupt[s] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.” …

Read on: http://rt.com/usa/news/trespass-bill-obama-secret-227/

Marietta Daily Journal
by Marcus E. Howard
April 29, 2012

A number of Lockheed Martin-built F-22 Raptors have been deployed to the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, near Iran, signaling escalating concerns by U.S. officials over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The stealth jet fighters have been quietly deployed to hangars at the UAE’s Al Dafra Air Base, less than 200 miles from Iran’s mainland, according to a recent report by Aviation Week, a trade publication.

While an Air Force spokesman confirmed to ABC News that the Raptors have been deployed to a base in southwest Asia, which includes the UAE, he assured the network that the presence of the jets was not meant to be a threat to Iran.

“This is a very normal deployment to strengthen military relationships, promote sovereign and regional security, improve combined tactical air operations and enhance interoperability of forces,” Lt. Col. John Dorrian told ABC. He declined to tell the network what the Raptors’ mission was or how many planes had been deployed, citing operational security. …

Read on: http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/18399174/article-F-22s-head-to-United-Arab-Emirates