Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

AFP
August 20, 2011

Marshall Islanders living in the flight path of US missile tests expressed fears for their safety Saturday following two aborted missions.

Concerns were raised after a missile re-entry vehicle was blown up northeast of Kwajalein Atoll in July and a hypersonic glider disappeared on its way to a target near Kwajalein last week.

“It ditched, but where?” asked Kwajalein Senator Tony deBrum of the Falcon hypersonic glider.

“We are concerned that with all these ditched and aborted flights our constituencies down-range face increasingly significant risk of equipment failure or of tests simply gone awry.

“What hazard do these shots pose to people down range?” …

The hypersonic glider, an unmanned vehicle designed to deliver a weapons payload to any point on the globe, was reportedly traveling at about 13,000 miles per hour (21,000 kilometres per hour), nearly 20 times the speed of sound. …

Read on: www.spacedaily.com/reports/Marshall_Islanders_fear_aborted_US_tests_999.html

The Telegraph
By Ben Farmer, Kabul
August 19, 2011

America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024 …

The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.

The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan.

It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council. …

“In the Afghan proposal we are talking about 10 years from 2014, but this is under discussion.” America would not be granted its own bases, and would be a guest on Afghan bases …

Read in full: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8712701/US-troops-may-stay-in-Afghanistan-until-2024.html

Press Association
August 18, 2011

The US military has sent two more armed Predator drones to the Libya conflict in response to requests from commanders seeking more intelligence-gathering capabilities. …

President Barack Obama approved the use of armed drones in the Libya conflict in April. Since then, they have flown routine surveillance operations, but they can strike targets when needed …

www.independent.ie/breaking-news/world-news/us-to-send-more-drones-to-libya-2851121.html

Stara and Stripes
By Andrew Headland Jr.
August 14, 2011

A joint U.S.-Vietnamese team is working to clean up approximately 62 acres near Da Nang airport, the site of a U.S. base during the Vietnam where drums of Agent Orange were stored, The Asahi Shimbum reported.

The highly toxic defoliant still torments the land and exceeds international safety standards by 400 percent nearly 50 years after the chemical was first used by the U.S., the newspaper reported.

The U.S. will provide about $32 million to finance the decontamination work, which both governments aim to complete by 2013, Asahi reported.

More than 84,000 Vietnam veterans afflicted with heart disease, Parkinson’s disease or B-cell leukemia can now draw disability compensation when the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this month expanded the list of ailments presumed caused by exposure to herbicides, including Agent Orange.

A joint U.S.-South Korea investigation team earlier this month found no evidence of Agent Orange at Camp Carroll in South Korea despite recent claims to the contrary by former soldiers.

www.stripes.com/news/washington-backs-joint-agent-orange-cleanup-project-in-vietnam-1.152146

CBS News
By Tariq Malik
August 11, 2011

The U.S. military lost contact with an unmanned hypersonic glider shortly after it launched on a test flight today (Aug. 12) as part of a global strike weapons program to develop vehicles capable of flying at Mach 20 and reach any target in the world in an hour. …

According to DARPA updates, the test flight appeared to go well until the glide phase, when monitoring stations lost contact with the HTV-2 vehicle. …

“Range assets have lost telemetry with HTV2,” DARPA officials wrote in a Twitter post about 36 minutes after launch.

Monitoring stations further down range of the vehicle’s flight path over the Pacific Ocean also did not find the hypersonic HTV-2 glider. The vehicle is designed to crash itself into the ocean at the end of its mission.

“Downrange assets did not reacquire tracking or telemetry. HTV2 has an autonomous flight termination capability,” DARPA officials wrote.

Whether the test flight met all of its objecties still remains unclear, but this is the second test flight of the Falcon HTV–2 program that ended prematurely. An April 2010 test flight ended nine minutes into flight, also due to loss of contact. …

Read on: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/11/scitech/main20091239.shtml

Los Angeles Times
By W.J. Hennigan
August 10, 2011

The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 is part of a program that would deliver a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

An experimental, arrowhead-shaped aircraft that could reach blistering speeds of 13,000 mph above the Pacific Ocean is set to blast off on a test flight Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara.

The flight is scheduled to test new technology that would provide the Pentagon with a vehicle capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

The unmanned aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, is scheduled to be launched at 7 a.m. PDT into the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere aboard an eight-story Minotaur IV rocket …

Read on: www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vandenberg-hypersonic-aircraft-20110810,0,6272069.story

RT.com
August 10, 2011

The head of Russia’s air force says the country will launch a new flying radar system by 2016.

The plane will counter the activities of the US’s Airborne Early Warning and Control System.

Flying radar is used for collecting radio-electronic intelligence. The new Russian radio-location antenna has already been developed.

Two of the world’s most powerful cargo planes, the ANT-24 and the IL-76, may be used as carriers for the system.

Meanwhile, Russia has confirmed the creation of the world’s most advanced solid-fuel sea-based nuclear missile with payload capabilities surpassing all others developed by members of the “nuclear club”.

By distance/payload ratio, the new missile exceeds any analogues designed in the US, UK, France or China.

http://rt.com/news/prime-time/russia-launch-airborne-system/

Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
August 2, 2011

The Air Force has suspended decades-old Bible-centric ethics training intended to make Christian officers comfortable with the possible use of nuclear weapons. The training program was given to all new missile officers by Air Force chaplains.

“We’re in the process of reviewing that training and we’ll make a determination whether or not to continue [it] or if it will be a different course,” Air Education and Training Command spokesman Dave Smith told Military.com.

Smith said the ethics training has been in place more than 20 years, although he didn’t know exactly when it was begun.

The training slides include quotations from the Bible, portraits of Christian saints, prophets, and famous American generals known for their faith, including George Washington, Union Army Gen. Joshua Chamberlain, and Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

Every new missile officer had to take the training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, regardless of their own religious beliefs or lack of them, according to Smith.

AETC halted the ethics training last week after an article on the training was posted at Truthout.org. …

Read more: www.military.com/news/article/af-pulls-jesus-loves-nukes-training-.ht

Global Security Newswire
August 4, 2011

U.S. military and intelligence operatives are debating, strategizing, gaming and potentially even conducting drills on entering Pakistan and seizing the unstable nation’s nuclear weapons during a crisis, NBC News reported on Wednesday.

Relying on official congressional remarks, military documents and interviews with present and ex-U.S. officials, NBC News said this planning is taking place amid repeated statements by senior U.S. military officials that they have confidence in the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

“It’s safe to assume that planning for the worst-case scenario regarding Pakistan nukes has [already] taken place inside the U.S. government,” ex-White House Deputy Counterterrorism Director Roger Cressey said. “This issue remains one of the highest priorities of the U.S. intelligence community … and the White House.”

The specifics of the planning for any potential “snatch-and-grab” scenario, including if U.S. special forces would try to dismantle or eliminate the weapons, are a tightly held government secret, NBC reported.

A U.S. Congressional Research Service report last month concluded that terrorists would have the best chance of acquiring a Pakistani nuclear weapon following the collapse of the government in Islamabad.

The United States has worried about the security of the South Asian nation’s atomic assets since before the September 11 attacks and has provided advice to Islamabad in the years since on best practices for protecting the arsenal, which is thought to number between 90 and 110 warheads. …

Read on: http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20110804_7784.php

Fars News Agency
July 9, 2011

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that the US fleets of warships are no longer a threat to Iran since the IRGC now enjoys the capability to hit all US vessels and bases in the region.

“These vessels (US navy ships) are no longer a threat to us given the (desirable) level of our military capabilities,” Hajizadeh told reporters in a press conference on the achievements of the IRGC’s recent missile drills, codenamed “Payambar-e Azam (The Great Messenger) 6”.

“A large (aircraft) carrier with a length of 330 meters, 70 meters width, 6,000 forces and 70-80 aircraft aboard is an easy target for us, and if they want to threaten us, we will attack them” the commander added, but at the same time underlined that “Iran will never initiate a war”.

He also underlined Iran’s missile capabilities, and stated that about 70% of the US bases in the region are maximum 300 to 400 kilometers away from Iran, meaning that all of them are within the scope of the IRGC’s short and mid-range missiles.

Hajizadeh further stressed that the enemy cannot track or intercept the Iranian anti-ship and anti-vessel missiles since they are supersonic. …

Raed on: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9004183578