North Korea’s Underwater War

Posted on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

S. Korea slams North over submarine, artillery deployments

Seoul (AFP) – North Korea has mobilised dozens of submarines and doubled its artillery units along the border, South Korea said Sunday, accusing Pyongyang of undermining top-level talks aimed at averting a military confrontation.

A defense ministry spokesman said 70 percent of the North’s total submarine fleet — or around 50 vessels — had left their bases and disappeared from Seoul’s military radar.

The movement of such a large number of submarines was “unprecedented,” the spokesman said, adding that Seoul and Washington were beefing up their military surveillance in response.

“The number is nearly 10 times the normal level… we take the situation very seriously,” he said.

The North has also doubled the number of artillery units along the heavily-fortified land border with the South, he added.

The move came as top officials from both Koreas resumed a talks aimed at easing military tensions after a marathon negotiating session the night before ended without final agreement.

“The North is adopting a two-faced stance with the talks going on,” said the spokesman.

Yonhap news agency, citing military officials, said the submarine deployment was the largest since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“No one knows whether the North will attack our warships or commercial vessels… we are mobilising all our surveillance resources to locate them,” it quoted one military official as saying.

The North operates more than 70 submarines — one of the world’s largest fleets — compared to about 10 in the South, according to Seoul’s latest defense white paper.

The South accused Pyongyang in 2010 of using a submarine to torpedo a Seoul warship resulting in the loss of 46 lives — a charge the North denied.

Tension flared on the Korean peninsula after Seoul accused Pyongyang of planting landmines across the border that earlier this month maimed two South Korean soldiers.

Pyongyang denied involvement but Seoul retaliated by resuming loudspeaker propaganda broadcast hated by the North along the border on August 10.

The North’s leader Kim Jong-Un last week ordered his military to move to a war-footing after an exchange of artillery fire on Thursday that claimed no casualties but further escalated tensions.

We have counter-measures my friends but this is a dangerous time, no doubt.

There are more measures and operations is full use, but it would not be prudent to note those here, for operational security reasons.

However, it should be know that China has yet another piece of advance technology that we should know about.

Embedded image permalink

We have those too and certainly more lethal.

Remember, China never innovates, they only imitate, which is to say they hack and steal anything and everything. Question is who are they sharing it with… Some sources for underwater technology are here.

Why Should the Civil War in Syria Concern You?

Posted on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

Latakia, Syria is one of the locations of Bashir al Assad’s homes. It has been yet one of many sites of deadly hostilities since the civil war began.

Syrian airstrikes just killed 50 rebels that have been taking the fight against the Assad regime.

Latakia is 4th largest city in Syria, made up of mostly Alawites, a culture from the 9th century and the Assad family dynasty is Alawite, which is to say, an Alawite is known to be from Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son in law of the prophet Mohammad. During the Ottoman Empire, the Alawites were suppressed and an attempt was make to convert them to Sunni.

Anyway, Latakia is no more the destination of choice for the elites of the Middle East. The video above demonstrates how ordinary citizens have become crafty fighters, trained on their own and resourceful when it comes to using powerful military gear, weapons, procurement and to what end?

Consider, there has been a generation that has now passed where children are now adults and their only known education is a battlefield, shelling, fighting, use of weapons and no peace. No one can determine how long this war will continue, yet with the Iranian war machine in full support of Bashir al Assad, it will continue. For generations to come, new breeds will be battlefield tested and experienced and where will our own in the United States be?

Let that sink in.

Who is at Fault When it Comes to Syria Refugees?

Posted on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

This matter comes down to no policy on the war in Syria and the misguided, yet no less corrupt leaders in this matter include the National Security Council at the White House, Barack Obama himself and the failed control and management at the State Department which began with Hillary Clinton and now with John Kerry.

The United Nations is at the core of the mismanagement and Western countries are left to clean up the mess, while some are now saying NO.

U.N. Calls on Western Nations to Shelter Syrian Refugees

“In the case of Syrian refugees, our intelligence on the ground is alarmingly slim, making it harder to identify extremists,” said Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, has stepped up calls for industrialized countries, including the United States, to shelter 130,000 Syrian refugees over the next two years.

The figure is a fraction of the nearly four million refugees who have poured into the countries bordering Syria — chiefly Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey — straining their resources and plunging many displaced people into poverty.

So far, the high commissioner’s pleas have not been met. Governments around the world have promised to take in just under two-thirds of what the United Nations is urging, while a great many more Syrians have chosen to make perilous journeys by land and sea in search of asylum in Europe. More here from the New York Times.

McCaul Says Admitting Unvetted Syrian Refugees into the U.S. is “Very Dangerous”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Chairman Michael McCaul, of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter to President Obama last Thursday expressing concerns over the Administration’s announced plans to resettle some 2,000 Syrian refugees in the United States this year. Terrorists have made known their plans to attempt to exploit refugee programs to sneak terrorists into the West and the U.S. homeland. Chairman McCaul’s letter points out the potential national security threat this poses to the United States.

Chairman McCaul: “Despite all evidence towards our homeland’s vulnerability to foreign fighters, the Administration still plans to resettle Syrian refugees into the United States. The Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the Deputy Director of the FBI both sat before my Committee this Congress and expressed their concern with admitting refugees we can’t properly vet from the global epicenter of terrorism and extremism in Syria. America has a proud tradition of welcoming refugees from around the world, but in this special situation the Obama Administration’s Syrian refugee plan is very dangerous.”

Read Chairman McCaul’s letter HERE.

The Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing on June 24th to examine the refugee resettlement program and discuss vulnerabilities to our security exposed by the Administration’s plan.

It was last year that Barack Obama lifted restrictions on the refugee program.

U.S. eases rules to admit more Syrian refugees, after 31 last year

President Barack Obama’s administration announced on Wednesday that it had eased some immigration rules to allow more of the millions of Syrians forced from their homes during the country’s three-year civil war to come to the United States.

Only 31 Syrian refugees – out of an estimated 2.3 million – were admitted in the fiscal year that ended in October, prompting demands for change from rights advocates and many lawmakers.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been taken in by neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

The rules changes granted exemptions on a case by case basis to the “material support” bar in U.S. immigration law, according to an announcement in the Federal Register signed by Secretary of State John Kerry and Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security.

That bar had made it impossible for anyone who had provided any support to armed rebel groups to come to the United States, even if the groups themselves receive aid from Washington.

The advocacy group Human Rights First said, for example, that the existing law had been invoked to bar a refugee who had been robbed of $4 and his lunch by armed rebels, and a florist who had sold bouquets to a group the United States had designated as a terrorist organization.

“These exemptions will help address the plight of Syrian refugees who are caught up in the worst humanitarian crisis in a generation,” Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, chairman of the U.S. Senate subcommittee on human rights, said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how many Syrians would be affected by the rules change.

By early January, 135,000 Syrians had applied for asylum in the United States. But the strict restrictions on immigration, many instituted to prevent terrorists from entering the country, had kept almost all of them out.

Washington has provided $1.3 billion in humanitarian assistance to aid Syrian refugees. This year, the United Nations is also trying to relocate 30,000 displaced Syrians it considers especially vulnerable. Witnesses at a Senate hearing last month had testified that Washington would normally accept half.

More Than Once Israel on the Cusp of Attacking Iran

Posted on August 22, 2015August 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

RFE: Israel’s Channel 2 TV reported August 21 that a plan for Israel to strike Iranian nuclear facilities was blocked on three separate occasions in recent years.

In an audio recording of former defense minister Ehud Barak obtained by the TV station, Barak said that he drew up the attack plans against Iran, and they were approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He said Israeli army chief Gabi Ashkenazi blocked one planned attack in 2010, by refusing to certify that the army was prepared to carry out the attack.

A second attack was aborted when hawkish Israeli ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Yuval Steinitz withdrew support, he said, while in 2012, Israel decided the timing was bad for an attack because of a U.S.-Israel military exercise.

The TV station said Barak tried to prevent broadcast of the bombshell revelations, but Israel’s military censor allowed it.Ya’alon and Steinitz issued a statement expressing bewilderment at the military’s decision to permit the broadcast.

The report comes as Israel has been strenuously lobbying against a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that aims to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions’ relief.

TOI: According to the August 21, 2015 edition of The Times Of Israel

Israel aborted a planned military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in 2012 — because the time selected for the operation coincided with a U.S. military exercise in the region. Earlier planned military strikes in 2010 and 2011, were reportedly thwarted by deliberate leaks by those opposed to such an operation. Israel’s Channel 2 News, reports that the U.S. was adamantly opposed to such an Israeli strike on Iran in 2012; but, that the Israeli political leadership had decided to proceed any way. But, Tel Aviv ultimately decided to abort the mission, because the strike would have occurred at the same time that the U.S. and Israeli were conducting a joint military exercise. Israel’s Channel 2 News reported that it relied on tape recordings of former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak; and, other unnamed foreign reports — to reach the judgment that Israel had decided to strike Iran, only to abort the mission later.

“The attack [pre-emptive military strike], was being readied for January 2012; but, that [time period] coincided with the long planned, Austere Challenge 12 Exercise, the largest planned joint U.S./Israeli military exercise. “We intended to carry it out, so I went to (then U.S Defense Secretary Leon) Panetta; and, asked him if we could change the date of the exercise,” former Defense Minister Barak said in a recording broadcast by Channel 2. “So, they delayed it as much as they could….to a few days before the U.S. election (in the U.S. that November). However, The Times of Israel reports, the new date set for a pre-emptive Israeli military strike – was also not convenient.”

“You demand that the U.S. respect your sovereignty; and, decide you want to do it (strike Iran), even if America is opposed to it — and, is contrary to their interests,” Minister Barak said in the recording. “You can’t find yourself then going back on that — by trying to force America to be party to (the strike), just as it comes here [Israel], for a pre-planned [joint military] drill. That’s how it [the pre-emptive military strike] ran into difficulties in 2012,” he explained.

Israel’s Channel 2 News added that Barak’s revelation about a thwarted 2012 military strike – was only one in a series of bombshells in the tape recordings of his conversations broadcast Friday night in Israel. Defense Minister Barak also “detailed how he and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to strike [Iran] in 2010 and 2011; but, were thwarted by opposition by the Army’s Chief of Staff and ministerial colleagues.” These new revelations “come from conversations related to a new biography of Minister Barak — being written by Danny Dor, and Ilan Kfir. The Times of Israel adds that the former Defense Minister and Prime Minister, “attempted to prevent the broadcast of the recordings but Israel’s military’s censors allowed Channel 2 to play them.”

I believe these reports are accurate. As to the reasons why Israel did not go through with a pre-emptive strike? I suspect the reasons are more nuanced and complicated than portrayed here. Some reliable reporting in Israel suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu never really intended to authorize a pre-emptive military strike against Iran; but, was in fact bluffing – in an attempt to influence U.S. elections; and, perhaps extract additional military concessions from Washington.

Turkey, ISIS, Kurds and the Why

Posted on August 21, 2015August 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

U.S. confirms ISIS chemical weapons use against the Kurds

MilitaryTimes: U.S. military officials in Iraq have issued preliminary confirmation that Islamic State militants used mustard gas in a mortar attack on Kurdish forces in August, a Defense Department official said.

After an Aug. 11 attack that reportedly sickened dozens of Kurdish troops, the Kurds provided U.S. officials with fragments of shells that later tested positive for the presence of “HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard,” said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

The attack occurred in the town of Makhmour in northern Iraq near the front lines of the Kurdish forces’ fight against the Islamic State, according to Killea, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

Killea cautioned that this was a “presumptive field test,” and further analysis is needed to possibly determine the source of the chemical weapon.

Both Iraq and Syria have in the past maintained stockpiles of chemical weapons, and U.S. officials say it is unclear whether the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has seized any of those weapons.

The HD strain of mustard is listed as a “Schedule I” chemical weapon and is strictly banned under the international treaty known as the Chemical Weapons Convention. When sprayed or released from artillery shells, mustard agents blister skin and can damage lungs if inhaled.

Killea said the potential confirmation of the Islamic State’s use of chemical weapons will not necessarily have any impact on U.S. policy.

“We really don’t need another reason to hunt down ISIL and kill them wherever we can and whenever we can,” he said. “Any indication of the use of a chemical warfare agent, purely from our perspective, reinforces our position that this is an abhorrent group that will kill indiscriminately without any moral or legal code or restraint.”

***

What is Erdogan and Turkey really doing as a NATO country…

Politico: On July 23 virtually every news outlet in the United States ran some version of the following headline: “Turkey Joins the Fight Against ISIL; Opens Air Base to Coalition Forces; Washington and Ankara Agree to Safe Zone in Syria.” The media, being what it is, dubbed Ankara’s decision to order up airstrikes on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces a “game changer,” which is what journalists say when they have nothing else to say, do not understand a situation and are itching to get back to covering Donald Trump. The only game that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is actually interested in changing is the political one that he has been uncharacteristically losing since mid-June when his Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the parliamentary majority it has held since November 2002. Erdogan’s military actions against the self-proclaimed Islamic State are best understood as one part a desperate, highly complex attempt by Erdogan to win back the power he lost. If his plan fails, the risky multi-front war Erdogan has just launched may become his undoing.

It’s hard to believe that Erdogan took a fresh look at what was happening in Syria and Iraq and came to the conclusion that joining the American-led fight against the Islamic State was in Turkey’s national interest. The prevailing theory among Turkey watchers instead is this: Ankara agreed to fight against the Islamic State so America would allow it to attack the Kurds (who are also at war with ISIL) and therby improve the AKP’s political prospects in parliamentary elections that will be scheduled for the fall. This may sound like Turkey geeks inside the Beltway have watched “Wag the Dog” one too many times, but the rationale and rationality of Erdogan’s moves are hard to dispute.

In exchange for granting American and coalition forces access to Turkish bases, the Obama administration stood aside as Turks renewed their fight with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—a terrorist organization that has been waging war on Turkey since the mid-1980s. The U.S. government also publicly agreed to help Ankara set up a “safe zone” for Syrian refugees in northern Syria, which makes it impossible for the Syrian Kurds to establish a territorially continuous independent canton in northern Syria. Conflict with the Kurds is very good politics for Erdogan as he seeks to shore up his nationalist base, which regards Kurds as mortal enemies. Erdogan is clearly calculating that turning up the heat on the PKK and dashing the hopes of Syrian Kurds for greater autonomy will reverse June’s electoral outcome and reproduce another parliamentary majority for the AKP by weakening Turkey’s legal Kurdish-based party, which he accuses of being an extension of the PKK.

The “Islamic State-Turkish Bases-Safe Zone-Fight the Kurds-Boost Erdogan’s Political Position” theory is not a bad one even if it seems to come perilously close to conspiracy mongering. Why else would the Turks change their position on the fight against the Islamic State? For the past year, Ankara has had a dim view of America’s strategy, which they believed was half-assed given that it did not address what Ankara considers to be the root cause of the Islamic State problem—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were also quite rightly concerned that, unlike New York City, Istanbul is relatively close to the Islamic State and that if Turkey signed up with the United States, blood was more likely to flow in Taksim rather than Times Square. Most importantly, the Turks have been worried that the violence and instability that has enveloped Syria and Iraq has improved the prospects that Kurds in these failing states will seek independence. Those concerns fuel fears that Turkey’s 14 million Kurds will do the same. To the extent that the Islamic State and Kurds were battling each other in northern Syria and Iraq, Ankara was content to watch them damage each other.

The idea that Ankara joined Washington’s anti-Islamic State effort in order to fight the Kurds has some added weight from anonymous U.S. military sources telling the Wall Street Journal that they believe the Turks snookered the White House. The whole explanation hinges on the fact that since the media declared a “game changer,” the Turkish air force has undertaken a single airstrike on the Islamic State while attacking PKK positions in southeastern Turkey regularly. The Iraqi government has also complained of Turkish raids against Kurdish fighters in the Qandil Mountains. As with everything, there seems to be some missing context. American commanders asked the Turks to hold off until American personnel could arrive at Incirlik and everyone could sort out what was likely to become a crowded airspace. That is certainly reasonable and explains why there have been so few Turkish warheads on ISIS foreheads, but it does not alter what seems to be Turkey’s overall strategy in service of Erdogan’s unbounded ambition.

Erdogan has proven himself to be a shrewd cat over many years, but there are risks for him everywhere in this strategy. It seems entirely possible that despite spinning Turkey up on a war footing, the outcome of new parliamentary elections will be the same as those held June when voters flocked to the AKP’s nationalist competitor and the party’s religious Kurdish constituency abandoned the party in droves. The result would be exactly the opposite of what Erdogan intends, permanently compromising and marginalizing the president. It is also possible that the current skirmish with the PKK becomes a lengthier and bloodier battle. Turks will, of course, place blame on the PKK first, but as the number of body bags increases and more Turkish soldiers are laid to rest, the public may very well turn against Erdogan and the AKP. There are scattered signs that this dynamic is already underway as Turks wonder why they are suddenly at war again after a two-and-a-half year lull. Finally, even if the Turks don’t fire a shot at the Islamic State, the very fact that Ankara has opened up its bases to coalition aircraft puts Turkey in the Islamic State’s crosshairs. In response to Turkey’s decision to allow coalition aircraft to use Incirlik and other bases, the Islamic State released a video on Tuesday vowing to conquer Istanbul and calling the Turkish leader an “infidel and traitor.” If, after carefully avoiding a confrontation with the terror group for the better part of a year, Turks are killed in Ankara’s Kizilay or along Istanbul’s Istiklal Caddessi, Erdogan would most likely be held responsible for this bloodshed.

The politics of the current moment represent the biggest challenge Erdogan has faced since his leadership of the country formally began in March 2003. Almost everything that Erdogan cares about is at stake—the executive presidency he desires, the future of the AKP and his legacy of peace. It is unclear how Erdogan resolves the crosscutting political pressures to his advantage. Any move to settle one creates another problem for him. It is hard for him to go back to the well and blame the United States—he invited them in—or any of Erdogan’s favorite bogeymen that have been used so deftly in the past to deflect the government’s failures. The president has no such luxury this time given how painfully obvious the multiple threats Turkey confronts are the result of both violent terrorist groups and Erdogan’s own political machinations. It is a sign of a weakening politician desperate to reverse his slide. If Erdogan solves the puzzle, he will get his executive presidency and he will continue his vision for the transformation of the country. If he does not, Turkey is in for an extended period of instability and violence. Either way, Turks will pay a steep price.