Busy, busy weekend... sorry for no newsbiting over it, my friends!
I'm back though!
Indeed... postponing BodyPump (taking the 5:30 p.m. class instead of the 10:45 a.m. class) in order to get started "bright and early."
(*CHUCKLE*)
Mary and I had a wonderful dinner at the Sicilian Sun Ristorante in Hohokus, NJ on Saturday. (It's BYOB and as you'd expect... we did!)
We had originally planned on dinner at the Hohokus Inn, but for whatever reason the moment my eyes took in the Sicilian Sun I couldn't resist the pull of "Italian." (We did however stop at the Tap Room in the Inn for pre-dinner beers! (They had Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA on tap!)
Anyway... as always... just enter the comments section and you'll find today's newsbites!
Cao!
5 comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/with-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-american-military-gear-sold-as-scrap/2013/10/19/910e68fe-359d-11e3-89db-8002ba99b894_story.html
The armored trucks, televisions, ice cream scoops and nearly everything else shipped here for America’s war against the Taliban are now part of the world’s biggest garage sale.
Every week, as the U.S. troop drawdown accelerates, the United States is selling 12 million to 14 million pounds of its equipment on the Afghan market.
Returning that gear to the United States from a landlocked country halfway around the world would be prohibitively expensive, according to U.S. officials. Instead, they’re leaving behind $7 billion worth of supplies, a would-be boon to the fragile Afghan economy.
But there’s one catch: The equipment is being destroyed before it’s offered to the Afghan people — to ensure that treadmills, air-conditioning units and other rudimentary appliances aren’t used to make roadside bombs.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
“Many non-military items have timing equipment or other components in them that can pose a threat. For example, timers can be attached to explosives. Treadmills, stationary bikes, many household appliances and devices, et cetera, have timers,” said Michelle McCaskill, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency.
* ARE TIMERS REALLY THAT HARD TO GET ANYWAY...??? FORGIVE ME IF I DOUBT IT.
That policy has produced more scrap metal than Afghanistan has ever seen. It has also led to frustration among Afghans, who feel as if they are being robbed of items such as flat-panel televisions and armored vehicles that they could use or sell — no small thing in a country where the average annual income hovers at just over $500.
* WHAT A FUCKING WASTE...
In Afghanistan, nicknamed the “graveyard of empires,” foreign forces are remembered for what they leave behind. In the 1840s, the British left forts that still stand today. In the 1980s, the Russians left tanks, trucks and aircraft strewn about the country. The United States is leaving heaps of mattresses, barbed wire and shipping containers in scrap yards near its shrinking bases.
“This is America’s dustbin,” said Sufi Khan, a trader standing in the middle of an immense scrap yard outside Bagram air base, the U.S. military’s sprawling headquarters for eastern Afghanistan.
The scrap yard looks like a post-industrial landfill in the middle of the Afghan desert, a surreal outcropping of mangled metal and plastic. There’s a tower of treadmills 50 feet high and an acre of American buses, trucks and vans, stripped of seats and engines. An ambulance is perched unsteadily atop a pile of scrap, as if it fell from the sky. A mountain of air-conditioning units sits next to a mountain of truck axles.
When U.S. officials began planning for their exit, the idea was to ship home the majority of their equipment, especially expensive military gear such as mine-resistant vehicles. That calculus has changed. The Pentagon has budgeted $5 billion to $7 billion to ship gear back to the United States. But that sum isn’t enough to take everything currently in Afghanistan. Wanting at least a small return on its investment, the U.S. military decided to sell the leftovers for pennies on the pound.
* I FEAR THAT ONCE AGAIN OUR GOVERNMENT IS PISSING AWAY BILLIONS...
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/world/asia/chinas-arms-industry-makes-global-inroads.html?_r=0
For years, Turkey’s military had relied on NATO-supplied Patriot missiles, built by the American companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, to defend its skies, and the system was fully compatible with the air-defense platforms operated by other members of the alliance.
From the moment Turkey announced plans two years ago to acquire a long-range missile defense system, the multibillion-dollar contract from a key NATO member appeared to be an American company’s to lose. There were other contenders for the deal, of course. Rival manufacturers in Russia and Europe made bids. Turkey rejected those — but not in favor of the American companies. Its selection last month of a little-known Chinese defense company, China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp oration, stunned the military-industrial establishment in Washington and Brussels.
* YOU'RE READING THIS, RIGHT...?!?! BAD ENOUGH OUR NATO ALLY DOESN'T BUY FROM US... BAD ENOUGH OUR NATO ALLY DOESN'T BUY FROM ANOTHER NATO NATION... BAD ENOUGH THEY'RE NOT BUYING FROM A "FRIENDLY" NATION ALIGNED WITH AMERICA AND THE WEST...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* BUT, NO... THIS BEING THE AGE OF OBAMA THEY'RE ACTUALLY BUYING FROM THE FRIGGIN' COMMUNIST CHINESE...!!!
Industry executives and arms-sales analysts say the Chinese probably beat out their more established rivals by significantly undercutting them on price, offering their system at $3 billion. Nonetheless, Turkey’s selection of a Chinese state-owned manufacturer is a breakthrough for China, a nation that has set its sights on moving up the value chain in arms technology and establishing itself as a credible competitor in the global weapons market.
“This is a remarkable win for the Chinese arms industry,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms sales and transfers.
“China will be competing with us in many, many domains, and in the high end,” said Marwan Lahoud, the head of strategy and marketing at European Aeronautic Defense and Space, Europe’s largest aerospace company. “Out of 100 campaigns, that is, the commercial prospects we have, we may have the Chinese in front of us among the competitors in about three or four. They have the full range of capabilities, and they are offering them.”
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
The Stockholm institute released a report this year on global weapons transfers that found the volume of Chinese conventional weapons exports — which included high-end aircraft, missiles, ships and artillery — jumped by 162 percent from 2008 to 2012, compared with the previous five years.
* ONE MORE TIME...
[T]he volume of Chinese conventional weapons exports — which included high-end aircraft, missiles, ships and artillery — jumped by 162% from 2008 to 2012, compared with the previous five years.
* CHANT IT WITH ME, FOLKS... O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
Pakistan is the leading customer.
* I SEEM TO RECALL HEARING ON THE RADIO THE OTHER DAY THAT OBAMA HAS REOPENED THE SPIGOT OF (BORROWED) AMERICAN DOLLARS GOING TO "AID" OUR "ALLY" PAKISTAN. (THINK ABOUT IT... WE BORROW DOLLARS FROM CHINA TO SEND TO PAKISTAN WHERE THEY'RE USED TO PURCHASE CHINESE ARMS - ARMS THAT ARE AT LEAST SOMEDAY LIKELY TO BE TURNED AGAINST US!
The institute now estimates that China is the fifth-largest arms exporter in the world, ahead of Britain. From 2003 to 2007, China ranked eighth.
* WITH OBAMA CAME PROGRESS, HUH?
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
China’s investment has been heaviest in fighter planes — both traditional and stealth versions — as well as in jet engines, an area in which China had until now been dependent on Western and Russian partners, said Guy Anderson, a senior military industry analyst in London with IHS Jane’s.
* HERE'S THE THING: AS PART OF "PARTNERSHIP" DEALS OUR AEROSPACE COMPANIES SET UP FACTORIES IN CHINA AND EXPORT OUR TECHNOLOGY, TRADE-CRAFT, AND TECHNIQUES. THIS SHIT STARTED IN EARNEST UNDER CLINTON.
“China has been throwing billions and billions of dollars at research and development,” he said. “They also have a strategy of using the gains they get from foreign partnerships to benefit their industrial sector. So they should not have any trouble catching up with their Western competitors over the medium term, and certainly over the long term.”
* AS... I... WAS... SAYING...
(*HEADACHE*)
He estimated that China was still a decade away from competing head-to-head with Western nations on the technology itself.
* NOTICE, FOLKS, IN THIS PARTICULAR NYT ARTICLE THE NUMBER BEING CITED IS "A DECADE." YET ELSEWHERE YOU'LL READ THAT WE'RE STILL 30-35 YEARS AHEAD OF CHINA MILITARILY. AND YET ELSEWHERE YOU'LL READ WE'RE ALREADY BEING BEATEN AT THE CYBERWAR LEVEL...
(*SIGH*)
* MY POINT? EVEN I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE AND I'M CONSTANTLY READING SHIT LIKE THIS!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
New customers for Chinese equipment include Argentina, which in 2011 signed a deal with the Chinese company Avicopter to build Z-11 light helicopters under license. Mass production for the Argentine military began this year, and 40 helicopters are expected to be built over the next several years. The value of the contract has not been made public.
Two fighter jets made by Chinese companies are being closely watched by industry analysts and foreign companies for their export potential. One is Shenyang Aircraft’s J-31, a fighter jet that Chinese officials say has stealth abilities. A People’s Daily report last month said that the J-31 was being made by Shenyang, an AVIC subsidiary, mostly for export, citing an interview with Zhang Zhaozhong, a rear admiral in the Chinese Navy. In March, the airplane’s chief designer, Sun Cong, told People’s Daily that the J-31 could become China’s main next-generation carrier-borne fighter jet.
The other jet is the JF-17, a less-sophisticated aircraft that an American official said had been in the works for about two decades in an “on-again, off-again” project. The jet was ostensibly the product of a joint venture between Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation, also an AVIC subsidiary, but China did the real work, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding military projects. So far, Pakistan is the only client, and the official said he believed Pakistan had made a “political decision” to buy it.
China is Pakistan’s biggest ally, and each relies on the other to help counter India. Besides the JF-17, the two nations have had official joint production agreements on a frigate, a battle tank and a small aircraft.
* AGAIN... HOW MUCH AMERICAN MONEY GOES TO PAKISTAN...???
This year, a Chinese company was competing against foreign counterparts, including at least one American company, for a $1 billion Thai contract for naval frigates, but lost to Daewoo of South Korea.
* MEANING THE U.S. TOO LOST TO DAEWOO OF SOUTH KOREA...
(*SIGH*)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/20/uk-afghanistan-army-idUKBRE99J06T20131020
An Afghan army special forces commander has defected to an insurgent group allied with the Taliban in a Humvee truck packed with his team's guns and high-tech equipment, officials in the eastern Kunar province said on Sunday.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
Monsif Khan, who raided the supplies of his 20-man team in Kunar's capital Asadabad over the Eid al-Adha religious holiday, is the first special forces commander to switch sides, joining the Hezb-e-Islami organisation.
* THE FIRST... SPECIAL FORCES COMMANDER...
* HMM... HOW'BOUT JUST PLAIN AFGHAN SPECIAL FORCES OFFICERS AND MEN...???
"He sent some of his comrades on leave and paid others to go out sightseeing, and then escaped with up to 30 guns, night-vision goggles, binoculars and a Humvee," said Shuja ul-Mulkh Jalala, the governor of Kunar.
Zubair Sediqi, a spokesman for Hezb-e-Islami, confirmed that Khan had joined the group, saying he had brought 15 guns and high-tech equipment.
The NATO-led coalition is grappling with a rise in "insider attacks" by Afghan soldiers who turn on their allies, undermining trust and efficiency. (It has reported four lethal incidents over the past month taking the total number this year to 10, according to a Reuters tally.)
* ARE WE SURE THE COMMANDER ISN'T SIMPLY ON SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER... YOU KNOW... FAST AND FURIOUS II?
(*SMIRK*)
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