tagged w/ Missle Defense
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Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing outside his home in Lake Township, Ohio heard the whine of an engine in the sky above him.
Moments later two red lights broke through the low clouds, heading almost directly toward the ground. It was a light aircraft, and for a second, as it descended below the tree line, the man thought it would climb back up. Instead, there was a terrible thud, and the sky turned orange. When the fire crews arrived, they found the burning wreckage of a Piper Saratoga strewn across a vacant lot. The plane had narrowly missed a house, but the explosion was so intense that the home’s plastic siding was on fire. So was the grass. The pilot had been thrown from the plane and died instantly. Body parts and pieces of twisted metal were scattered everywhere. A prayer book lay open on the ground, its pages on fire.
The crash would have remained a private tragedy confined to the pages of the local press and the hearts of the pilot’s widow and four children, but within days the blogosphere was abuzz with rumors and conspiracy theories: The plane, it was said, had been sabotaged and the pilot murdered to cover up the GOP’s alleged theft of the Ohio vote in the 2004 presidential election. At the center of this plot was the Saratoga’s pilot, a prodigiously gifted IT expert named Michael Connell, whose altar boy charm and technical brilliance had made him the computer whiz of choice for the Republican Party. Left-wing Web sites openly referred to Connell as “Bush’s vote rigger” and claimed that his fingerprints were on all the most controversial elections in recent history. There were dark whispers of electronic pulses or sniper fire being used to bring down the plane—a black ops attack designed to keep him from testifying against his former cronies. Right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts derided such claims as the twisted delusions of liberal nut jobs and tinfoil hatters. The mainstream press sat on its hands.
But while the rumors, innuendos, and allegations continue to swirl through the ether, evidence has recently emerged that suggests the Ohio vote may have been hacked, and that Connell was involved.
More...Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing... more
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The Obama administration is accelerating the deployment of new defenses against possible Iranian missile attacks in the Persian Gulf, placing special ships off the Iranian coast and antimissile systems in at least four Arab countries, according to administration and military officials.
The deployments come at a critical turning point in President Obama’s dealings with Iran. After months of unsuccessful diplomatic outreach, the administration is trying to win broad international consensus for sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which Western nations say control a covert nuclear arms program.
Read the rest of the story at the link
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/world/middleeast/31missile.html?th&emc=thThe Obama administration is accelerating the deployment of new defenses against... more
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The U.S. military's Missile Defense Agency will practice protecting the United States from a simulated Iranian missile attack next month in an exercise using the agency's newest missile-killing technology, Pentagon officials said Friday.
Previous tests have been focused on a missile trajectory that mimics an attack from North Korea, but the January test will have a trajectory and distance resembling an intercontinental ballistic missile launch from Iran.
At the same time, the agency will be testing its new "Capability-2" technology, with upgraded software and sensors loaded inside an interceptor missile that will be fired at the fake Iranian missile.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/18/us.missile.test/index.htmlThe U.S. military's Missile Defense Agency will practice protecting the United... more
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Associated Press Writer= BRUSSELS (AP) â The head of NATO called Friday for the U.S., Russia and NATO to link their missile defense systems against potential new nuclear threats from Asia and the Middle East, saying that the old foes must forget their lingering Cold War animosity.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen appealed for unity a day after the U.S. shelved a Bush-era plan for an Eastern European missile defense shield that has been a major irritant in relations with Russia.
"We should explore the potential for linking the US, NATO and Russia missile defense systems at an appropriate time," Fogh Rasmussen said.
"Both NATO and Russia have a wealth of experience in missile defense. We should now work to combine this experience to our mutual benefit," he added.Associated Press Writer= BRUSSELS (AP) â The head of NATO called Friday for... more
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The United States is to shelve plans for a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, cheering Russia but triggering concern in Central European capitals.
Citing unnamed current and former US officials, the Journal said Washington will base its decision "on a determination that Iran's long-range missile program has not progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental US and major European capitals".
"The findings, expected to be completed as early as next week following a 60-day review ordered by President Barack Obama, would be a major reversal from the Bush administration, which pushed aggressively to begin construction of the Eastern European system before leaving office in January," it added.The United States is to shelve plans for a missile-defense system in Poland and the... more
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PRAGUE – President Barack Obama has decided to scrap plans for a U.S. missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland that had deeply angered Russia, the Czech prime minister confirmed Thursday.
NATO's new chief hailed the move as "a positive step" and a Russian analyst said Obama's decision will increase the chances that Russia will cooperate more closely with the United States in the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
Premier Jan Fischer told reporters that Obama phoned him overnight to say that "his government is pulling out of plans to build a missile defense radar on Czech territory."PRAGUE – President Barack Obama has decided to scrap plans for a U.S. missile... more
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When the Pentagon ordered a Navy ship to shoot down a crippled U.S. spy satellite last February, it claimed the operation was necessary to prevent a harmful fuel from being dispersed in the atmosphere. At the time, critics charged that the Bush administration was using the toxic fuel as an excuse to demonstrate missile-defense and antisatellite capabilities.
Now, there is new evidence that the critics were very likely right.
Astrophysicist Yousaf Butt obtained U.S. government documents showing that NASA's own analysis concluded that the satellite's fuel tank was expected to burn up completely during re-entry—even though NASA probably overestimated the tank's chances of survival. "Despite its optimistic oversimplifications, the released study indicates that the tank would certainly have demised high up in the atmosphere," Butt, a staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, writes in an article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Up to now, U.S. officials had refused to release any of the prelaunch analyses regarding the fuel tank, claiming they contained sensitive information.
But Butt says that the newly released documents clearly contradict the official explanation for the shoot-down, which was seen at the time as provocative and risky. The Bush administration had protested loudly when China conducted its own antisatellite weapons test by shooting down an aging weather satellite in January 2007. One major concern was the amount of space debris generated by the fragmented satellite.
Beyond the stated concern about the toxic fuel, U.S. officials also were probably trying to prevent any fragments of the highly classified National Reconnaissance Agency imagery satellite from falling into the hands of U.S. adversaries.When the Pentagon ordered a Navy ship to shoot down a crippled U.S. spy satellite last... more
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Poland and the United States struck a deal Thursday that will strengthen military ties and put an American missile interceptor base in Poland, a plan that has infuriated Moscow and sparked fears in Europe of a new arms race.
Poland and the United States struck a deal Thursday that will strengthen military ties... more
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