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Tuesday 12 January 2010

China test-fires interceptor


China announced its first test of a ground-based mid-range missile interception system Monday within Chinese territory, a move that military experts claim is a breakthrough in the air defense capabilities of the nation's military.

Details were sparse, but the official Xinhua News Agency said the test achieved the "expected objective" without elaborating further.

The missile is "defensive in nature" and did not "target any country," Xinhua said.

Yang Chengjun, a senior military strategist of missile studies, told the Global Times that the test ushered China into a new phase in terms of missile interception technologies.

"China needs an improved capability and more means of military defense as the country faces increasing security threats," Yang said, adding that it is China's legitimate right to carry out such tests.

"Compared with a previous test of anti-satellite technologies, the missile interception system is more advanced as the targets are moving objects and the satellite was flying within a preplanned orbit," Yang said.
China said it successfully tested its anti-satellite system in 2007.

The United States and Russia are the only two countries that have missile interception technologies.

Yang said China should display its determination and strength in national defense and the capability to safeguard its core interests on appropriate occasions.

Jin Canrong, a deputy director of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, said the development of missile interception technologies is a step further on the country's course to military modernization.

"China has been pursuing a defense strategy. The missile interception system will not alter such a discipline, but strengthens the national defense strategy," Jin said.

The report of the Chinese missile test followed the Obama administration's approval last week to sell PAC-3, an upgraded Patriot air-defense missile system, to Taiwan. The PAC-3 can shoot down Chinese short-range missiles.

Source:Global Times

Dr. A’fia Siddiqui: VICTIM OF BUSH RAPE AND KIDNAP SQUAD


By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor


Next week, a mother of 3 children is facing trial for, supposedly, wrestling an M-16 away from a CIA torture squad and trying to kill them.  How did the CIA get her?  They bought her.  She was sold to them by a corrupt official in Pakistan as a "terror suspect," a common problem and a well known ploy in the George W. Bush phony war on terrorism.
Was she a terrorist?  There is no evidence of this, even after years of torture.  The only serious crimes we find her guilty of is being a house wife, mother and Islamic and, I forgot, having an education.  Her victims?  Crippled and 100 pounds, she took on a room full of former Navy Seals, Special Forces and "private interrogators."  The obvious truth, of course:  the charges are a fabrication by a pack of cowards and liars.
What do we really know?  We really don't know anything at all.  Nobody has any evidence that this woman, a scientist educated in the US did anything at all.  There is talk, empty talk about her sending money to charities that might be tied to terrorism.  The amount of money is about 2% of a typical payment from one of the Saudi royals that have funded terrorists and suicide bombers for years, but none of them are kidnapped, raped, shot or beaten.
They have oil. 
The case against her is made, at length, in the Wikipedia article about her.  It is a good read.  It makes me proud to be an American.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aafia_Siddiqui
What we see exposed, however, is the slave trade in "terror suspects" created during the Bush Administration fear frenzy when intelligence agencies around the world started dragging innocent people off the streets and selling them to the US for millions of dollars to supply the needed number of "terrorist arrests" to justify wild claims of a successful war on terror continually being made by Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the rest of the gang.
The crime is an amusing one.  A woman who was either just arrested or had been in custody for 5 years, depending on which of her captors you listen to.  This should seem like an interesting read:
"On 4 August 2008, shorty after press rumors suggested that Siddiqui had been in Bagram for the last five years, the US government announced that Aafia Siddiqui was arrested on charges related to her attempted murder and assault of United States officers and employees in Afghanistan
The US claims that Siddiqui was not captured in March 2003, that she was arrested on July 17, 2008 outside the home of the Governor of Ghazni.[24][25] The US account of the July 18, 2008 shooting is that FBI agents, interpreters, and several GIs entered arrived at the Afghan facility where Siddiqui was being held. The personnel entered a second floor meeting room—unaware that Siddiqui was being held there, unsecured, behind a curtain.
The Warrant Officer took a seat and placed his United States Army M-4 rifle on the floor next to the curtain .[26] According to the US account the GIs set down their weapons, whereupon Siddiqui burst from behind a curtain, grabbed an M-4, and opened fire. One interpreter who was accompanying the officers seized the firearm from her.
US officials claim they have no idea where Siddiqui has been in the five years since she was captured on March 17, 2003.
Siddiqui arrived in New York on August 4, 2008, and was presented before a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Siddiqui refused to accept the charges.[27][28][29] Siddiqui's lawyer stated that no one can believe the FBI story and that Siddiqui had actually been captured in Karachi, Pakistan along with three of her children.
On August 8, 2008 the Daily Times reported that Aafia was captured in Ghazni with her eldest son, Muhammad Ahmed.[31] The report stated that documents existed that confirmed that Affia and her children had been captured in March 2003."
REAL ISSUES FOR DECENT AMERICANS TO CARE ABOUT
This woman and her three children were kidnapped, and illegally held for 5 years under the most brutal conditions imaginable without any legal reason.  She had been accused of no crime.  After years of imprisonment, rape and torture, she is finally arrested for attacking those who tortured her.
REALITY CHECK:  TIME TO STAND PROUD IN OUR WAR ON TERROR
After 5 years of imprisonment, Dr. Siddiqui was a total physical wreck, barely able to walk, and seriously disabled from hundreds of torture sessions.  Yet she is accused of overpowering several Navy Seals and US Army Special Forces unarmed combat specialists, seizing a weapon and nearly killing all of them, this at a weight of 100 pounds.
"Nearly killing" is a bit of an overstatement.  In fact, nobody was injured at all.  The more we investigate this, the more this sounds like an outlandish war story cooked up to file for PTSD.
She faces 20 years for this crime and only this crime.  Since when was it a crime to attempt to escape from illegal imprisonment?  Any American who is illegally detained and imprisoned without due process can't be charged with a crime for resisting torture or imprisonment.
Americans consider such actions their patriotic duty.
PHOTO STUDY OF OUR SECURITY FORCES IN KABUL PROVING THEIR CHARACTER AND DISCIPLINE:
screenhunter_08_jan._10_21.07
screenhunter_07_jan._10_21.07
ONE OF THE GREAT SUCCESSES OF THE WAR ON TERROR
Attorney General John Ashcroft considered the kidnapping of this woman, along with her 3 children, one of the great victories of the War on Terror.  However, after 5 years of interrogation and 7 years of confinement, no charges could ever be filed against her other than trying to single handledly crawl out of her death bed and dispatch a room full of "drug store" Rambo types.
Ashcroft has many success in his career.  He is the only person in American history to have lost a seat in the US Senate to a dead man.
In an unpublicized but much more interesting case, Ashcroft and his band of merry US Attorneys, in their attempt to rack up arrests for terrorism without doing adequate homework actually managed to drag in an entire CIA intelligence organization which had, until broken up by John Ashcroft and gang, penetrated the highest levels of Al Qaeda.
Not much more can be said, but several top CIA operatives now have the embarassing history of having been arrested for terrorist related charges.  Ashcroft and later Gonzales have, through incompetence, done more to cripple US intelligence efforts than any group other than the Mossad.
Even the "outing" of CIA nuclear proliferation specialist Valerie Plame, believed to be responsible for North Korea getting nuclear weapons, involved much less utter bungling and inanity.
OBAMA, HOLDER AND A BUSH ERA "WITCH HUNT"
Nearly every legal expert in the world, including almost universal outrage among the legal community is Israel, has called this one of the most insane acts of abuse of any country that claims to have a functioning legal system and representative form of government.
Even the alleged "suspicious acts," which are, by the way, buying totally legal and harmless gun accessories, is in itself totally insane.  Am I going to have to register that dangerous combat assault flashlight I keep by my desk for when I drop my reading glasses? 
Any idiot who goes to gun shows knows that the weapons that small children carry around in Afghanistan are ten times better than the things Americans can get from sporting good stores or thru mail order.  Every time an American collector sees a photograph of a Taliban member who owns 2 goats carrying an AK rifle with forged receiver and top quality ART sniper scope, something worth $3000 or more in the US, the insanity of purchasing 3rd rate clone parts in the US to ship to a country that has enough assault rifles to supply the world for centuries begins to sink in.
Where is the NRA and ACLU? 
AMERICAN ANTI-GUN CRAZIES
Even if we weren't dealing with a kidnapped and raped mother facing trial for, not terrorism but for showing super human powers and violating, not terrorist laws but, moreover, the laws of physics themselves, I can't help but come back to an old theme.
If I buy a semi-automatic shotgun and the Black Helicopter Secret Police raid my home, is a US Attorney going to call it a "ultra-high powered special operations assault mid caliber artillery piece?"
Is my Ruger 10/22, purchased for plinking tin cans going to be an assault machine gun?
However, when Dr. Hasan went on his terror campaign at Ft. Hood using an FN Herstal 5.7mm 20 round assault pistol with classified ammunition available ONLY to our special operations troops, ammo specially designed for penetrating body armor, newspapers, TV, everyone was silent.  We can be so very "uncurious" when we need to.  I am still waiting to find out why we are concealing this.
WHO IS THE VICTIM HERE?
These things are obvious.  We paid criminals to kidnap an innocent person for cheap public relations gain, elections were coming up and our War on Terror was looking as phony as, well as phony as it actually is.
Then, after years of rape and torture, this frail Islamic woman tries to fight back, or so we are told, told by people who imprison innocent people, rape and torture.  Are these witnesses we would have in an American court?
She already considers herself dead.  What human can survive such brutality, injustice, humiliation and abuse.  Who are the real victims here?
Americans who know nothing of the trial, American who sat silently while this went on, Americans who thought their cowardice was buying them "safety."
We are the victims because we are despised around the world for brutality and injustice we know nothing of because we gave up our free press and our love of honor for, well, I don't actually know.  A picture of Sarah Palin comes to mind, her or "Joe the Plumber." 
and so it goes