Daily Headlines:

U.S. Warships 'Easy' Target For Iran

With no new progress in recent talks in Moscow between Iran and the West along with tougher sanctions being implemented by the European Union against Iranian oil exports, Iran has warned that U.S. naval warships could be “easily reached and attacked” if Israel or the United States attacks Iran’s nuclear sites

U.S. Adds Forces To Persian Gulf Against Iran Threat Of Blockade

The US has quietly added forces to its presence in the Persian Gulf to ward off Iran's threat of blocking the Strait of Hormuz,according to The New York Times.

The buildup comes at a time when the US and allies have begun enforcing a broader embargo against Iran, to pressure it to give up its nuclear program, said The Times.

A senior Defense Department officials told The Times, "The message to Iran is, 'Don’t even think about it,' Don’t even think about closing the strait. We’ll clear the mines. Don’t even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We’ll put them on the bottom of the gulf."

U.S. Builds Up Military Assets In Gulf To Counter Iran

The scale of the reinforcements is the most significant since the beginning of the West's stand off with Iran over its nuclear programme and reflects the growing seriousness of the confrontation since recent diplomatic efforts to end the impasse faltered.

With tensions escalating, fears that Israel could launch military action on its own have mounted. It would regard an Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to its existence given Tehran's repeated apocalyptic rhetoric against the Jewish state.

Saudis Are Buying Nuclear-Capable Missiles From China

The predicted arms race in the Middle East has arrived:

Saudi Arabia has set its feet on the path to a nuclear weapon capability and is negotiating in Beijng the purchase of Chinese nuclear-capable Dong-Fen 21 ((NATO-codenamed CSS-5) ballistic missile.

China, which has agreed to the transaction in principle, would also build a base of operations near Riyadh for the new Saudi purchases.
As we reported last year, Saudi Arabia has struck a deal with Pakistan for the availability on demand of a nuclear warhead from Islamabad’s arsenal for fitting onto a ballistic missile.
Riyadh owns a direct interest in the two most active Middle East issues: Iran and Syria.
Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been advancing for two decades regardless of countless attempts at restraint by every diplomatic tool under the sun and a rising scale of sanctions – to no avail.

Russia's Cold War

On May 3, 2012, Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov warned that Russia would deploy its strategic nuclear rockets in Kaliningrad Oblast, potentially to destroy the U.S. antiballistic missile defense system, planned for Europe. Makarov went even further, warning of a possible preemptive nuclear attack. “A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens,” Makarov said.

The planned U.S. missile defense system to protect Europe from a nuclear missile attack has caused much friction between Russia and United States. Russia considers the antiballistic missile system an encroachment on its traditional “sphere of influence” and a threat to its national security

Today, Russia possesses a total of 12,987 nuclear warheads. This is more than the amount owned by the United States and the rest of the world combined. Despite its nuclear supremacy, Russia has an even far more formidable weapon in its military arsenal.

EMP

Since 1963, the Soviet Union has conducted an array of tests with non-nuclear EMP weapons for potential use against the U.S. in a first strike attack. EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, is a burst of electromagnetic radiation capable of destroying all electrical power, radio waves, and digital signals over a wide area. The burst of electromagnetic radiation moves instantaneously, making ordinary surge protectors useless and would neutralize all electrical equipment, such as computers, laptops, television sets, landline telephones, cellular phones, air conditioners, refrigerators, electric stoves, microwaves, automobiles, airplanes, trains, ATM machines, hospital equipment, computer-run waterways and sewage systems.

Nevertheless, an EMP attack could shut down the entire U.S. power grid, Wall Street, the banking system, airports, and hospitals. People living on pacemakers and other hospital equipment would die. The lack of refrigeration and running trucks would spoil U.S. food reserves and supermarket goods, resulting in mass starvation. According to Dr. Lowell Wood, Ph.D., an astrophysicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and who worked on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the Reagan administration, an EMP attack could “literally destroy the American nation and might cause the deaths of 90% of its people and set us back a century or more in time as far as our ability to function as a nation.”

In a May 2012 article in The Journal of Counter Terrorism & Homeland Security International, Col. Dickerson wrote, “Russia and China have conducted extensive research into their [EMP] development and possible deployment against the U.S.” In May 1999, Congressman Roscoe G. Barlett (R-Md.) relayed the following:

We met with three of our Russian counterparts on the Duma International Affairs Committee, including its chairman, Vladimir Lukin, and senior Communist Party member Aleksandr Shabonov. The Russians chastised the United States for military aggression in the Balkans and warned Russia was not helpless to oppose Operation Allied Force. Lukin said, “If we really wanted to hurt you with no fear of retaliation, we would launch an SLBM [submarine launched ballistic missile] and detonate a single nuclear warhead at high altitude over the United States and shut down your power grid and communications for six months or so.” Shabonov added, “And if one weapon wouldn’t do it, we have some spares.”

“I don’t agree that the Cold War is back. It never ended,” said Andrei Lugovoi, a representative in the Duma, Russian parliament, in 2000. In 2007, Vladimir Putin reiterated the continuation of the Cold War by threatening the West with a “new spiral in the arms race.” In the eyes of Russia, the Cold War never ended; they are still fighting. In 1960, warning about the Soviet menace, Senator Barry Goldwater, in The Conscience of a Conservative, wrote, “Our enemies have understood the nature of the conflict, and we have not. They are determined to win the conflict, and we are not.” Goldwater’s words resonate today as Russia continues to fight the Cold War through the use of EMP weapons and its reliance on satellite states.

U.S. Sends Floating Base For Special Forces To Gulf

Who Lost Egypt?

This article is worth reading in full. The bottom line can be found below:

President Obama was instrumental in assisting the Muslim Brotherhood emerge from the shadows and come to power. For example, over the strenuous objections of his hosts, Mr. Obama demanded that the Brotherhood’s representatives be included in his June 2009 “outreach to the Muslim world” address at al-Azhar University.

Less than two years later, Mr. Obama declared that Hosni Mubarak had to yield power within days of the Muslim Brotherhood’s operatives and other demonstrators taking to the streets demanding his overthrow. In the months that followed, his administration began “engaging” with the Brotherhood and its formal political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party.

Then, a few months ago, in the face of bipartisan objections from Capitol Hill, the Obama administration transferred $1.5 billion in a lump-sum, no-strings-attached grant to the Egyptian government. This occurred at a time when Muslim Brotherhood and allied “Salafist” legislators were in charge of its parliament and drawing up a new constitution.

Most recently, Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have welcomed the ascendancy of the Brotherhood’s Morsi. They are evidently considering giving tangible expression to that sentiment by accommodating his demand for the release the Blind Sheikh as they allowed Hani Noor Eldin, a top member of Abdul Raman’s terrorist Gema’a al-Islamiyaa organization, to enter the U.S. and discuss the idea with their subordinates.

Should Team Obama now take this step, it would have an absolutely devastating effect – and not just in Egypt, where it would validate America’s utter submission to the Brotherhood agenda. It will also be seen as further evidence that the global Islamist enterprise, of which the Brotherhood is the institutional and ideological vanguard, is succeeding in making the West – as the Quran puts it – “feel subdued.”

In short, the practical effect of “losing” Egypt in this way will be, pursuant to the doctrine of shariah, to invite a redoubled effort, including through the use of violence, to achieve the Brotherhood goals of imposing that totalitarian, repressive and supremacist code worldwide. President Barack Obama must be held accountable for the consequences.

Also see:

Jedi Mind Tricks

Imposing Taxes Without Consent