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Military Matters
(1) Iraq: Mercenaries Mount Offensive (2) Russia, China Begin First Joint Military Exercises (3) China Preparing For War And Few Notice
(4) Janes
Military News Briefs
(1)
Retention of key
combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from
federally hired "private security companies" -- as their executives
insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector
of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained
fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million
dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year's worth of salary --
certainly better than Army pay. OLEAN -- There are plenty of aspects about the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq that approach sitting-duck status for criticism. The fighting in Iraq is, as the military likes to define promising battlefields, a "target-rich environment" for journalists, academics, politicians, peaceniks, talking heads and sidewalk opponents of the war alike. But one important facet of the controversial war -- until recently -- has drawn little attention from the critics. The Pentagon, using your money and mine, has gone into a costly competition with itself for able bodies to take on dangerous security assignments that include almost routine combat. If a dunderhead college student submitted this loser business plan in Industrial Management 101, he'd flunk. We've all heard and read the stories about troubles the Army and Marines are having meeting recruiting goals as the unpopular war rages. In the early part of 2005, for the first time in years, both branches missed recruiting goals by a wide margin for several months in a row. The Pentagon -- which hasn't had the draft to rely upon for new personnel since 1973 -- reacted. More recruiters were thrown into the breach. Signing bonuses were increased from $6,000 to $10,000 to -- in some cases -- $20,000. College scholarships ballooned from $50,000 to $70,000. Standards were relaxed. The percentage of allowable volunteers without a high school degree was raised dramatically. TV and print commercials were changed to target reluctant parents instead of the sons and daughters. Some recruits were told they'd only have to serve 15 months instead of the normal two years. Despite the 1,800 dead and 14,000 wounded in Iraq, the new strategies seemed to work. The numbers are up for July -- with the Army and Marines back above monthly goals -- but the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard are all expected to fall below annual recruitment targets by Sept. 30, when the federal fiscal year ends. But the shortened training times now in force and the hurry-up aspect of shipping new grunts directly to Iraq soon after boot camp have made retention of trained, hardened and skilled veteran personnel -- particularly Special Operations, Delta Force, Navy Seal and Ranger types -- especially important. This is where the people running this war have painted themselves into a costly corner. Special Forces personnel -- key to any eventual success in Iraq -- are now being offered re-enlistment bonuses of up to $150,000 each. And these huge amounts are being spurned. That's because retention of key combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from federally hired "private security companies" -- as their executives insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year's worth of salary -- certainly better than Army pay. These men, of course, are mercenaries -- professional soldiers hired for pay in an outfit other than their country's armed forces. The "private security companies" recoil from that designation, but that is what they are, nonetheless. They are private, well-paid gunmen. In one of its best articles of the year, The New York Times Magazine of Aug. 14 detailed the quiet expansion of these new hybrid forces in Iraq. Author Daniel Bergner writes there are about 80 private firms, maybe 100, with approximately 25,000 armed men -- about 15 percent of the weapons-carrying allied personnel in Iraq -- guarding big American corporations that are reconstructing Iraq. They, side by side with American troops, shield American compounds from attack, keep safe workers who are rebuilding power stations and sewage plants, guard generals, protect military bases, and hold off insurgents so supplies can be delivered. Some of the private gunmen -- not all Americans -- are drop-outs from law enforcement and soldiers of fortune who participated in other global conflicts in past decades. Many come from Chile, Ukraine, Fiji, Great Britain, Romania, South Africa, even Iraq itself. No one seems to be keeping track of how many there really are, or of the totals being paid these firms, or who authorized them, approved them, or signed the contracts. The Pentagon, after promising these details to The New York Times, stiff-armed the newspaper and "detoured fully around the questions," according to Bergner. The Defense Department would only state that "private security companies" are not being used "to perform inherently military functions." (That word "inherently" carries a lot of freight. The private armed firms, all by themselves, have already held off unexpected full-scale insurgent attacks upon regional Coalition Provisional Authority compounds in the Iraqi towns of Kut and Najaf.) But one can do the math. One of the biggest private firms -- Triple Canopy (headquartered in the United States), with about 1,000 men in Iraq -- receives about $250 million a year from the Defense Department, and is so highly regarded in Washington that the State Department has designated it one of three such companies that will divide $1 billion a year in new protection work in powder-keg nations around the planet -- formerly a job the Marines usually performed. That's just one firm. The North Carolina private security firm Blackwater USA (the firm whose four employees in Fallujah last year were killed, and their charred body parts hung from a bridge) is thought to receive at least as much. The above number of private personnel on the ground in Iraq doesn't even include the 70,000 more unarmed civilians -- some of them Iraqis -- working for American firms and agencies that provide former military duties in Iraq, the most notable of which is Halliburton and subsidiaries, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company. Halliburton, which received incredibly mammoth no-bid federal contracts at the start of the war for things like providing food, laundry, soft drinks, equipment washers and gasoline deliveries to the troops in Iraq, has recently been accused by Senate Democrats, whistle-blowers, Army auditors and the Pentagon's own Defense Contract Audit Agency of billing taxpayers more than $1.4 billion in questionable unsupported charges. (One food manager for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root told Pentagon investigators that KBR officials threatened to dispatch any workers who talked to federal auditors to more dangerous zones of Iraq.) These daily duties now outsourced to private firms used to be handled by members of the Armed Forces themselves. At least a general or other high officer could crack down on waste and corruption in those saner days without fighting bureaucrats and needing a congressional investigation to get started. The high pay for our armed mercenaries in Iraq is probably necessary to attract such danger-loving security workers. Triple Canopy employees -- in just half a year in 2004 -- were attacked by insurgents at least 240 times and got in about 40 firefights. The company stopped keeping track, but estimates the frequency of assaults is about the same this year. The Pentagon's difficulty in trying to retain Special Ops experts with non-competitive bonuses was evident in the article when the Times garnered a quote from a Delta Force veteran of 15 years who ignored the fervent pleas of his commanding officer and joined Triple Canopy instead of re-upping: "There was no way. Here (in the private security company) I get to be with the best and make so much more money." Using mercenaries to fight your wars was basically outlawed by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and pretty much ended after centuries of use in the 1700s, when sovereign nations came to the fore and better weapons required less professional skill. Nations found it easier to train any simple clod to fight and become cannon fodder rather than pay big sums to hire professionals. (We all were taught in grade school how dastardly and conniving King George III was in hiring 30,000 Hessians to spare British lives in fighting our brave boys in the American Revolution.) But after 9/11 and even before we invaded Iraq, the Bush administration hired about 40 private gunmen from the U.S. company DynCorp to guard new president Hamid Karzai once we took over Afghanistan. Once we invaded Iraq in 2003, the commanding general, now retired, Jay Garner, immediately hired Nepalese Gurkhas and South Africans from a British security company to protect himself and his staff. It was off to the races. No one has raised much of a fuss. Almost a year ago, Congress asked the Pentagon to provide a detailed plan for listing, managing, accounting for, and overseeing private contractors, but despite repeated promises, the Defense Department has yet to provide it. One obvious reason the Pentagon and Bush administration warriors like the idea of mercenaries who don't draw much attention is that it allows them to pretend we have far fewer war fighters on the ground in Iraq than we really do. If any mode of operation makes it easy to fudge the figures or cloud the costs, the Bush White House and Pentagon like it. Army chief of staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said in a Kansas City speech over the weekend there are now 138,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, and that plans to keep such a force there until 2009, if need be, are already drawn up. That number swells when you consider all the private armed gunmen. There are a couple of dire conclusions here. One -- It's going to be quite difficult in the near future to appeal to a sense of duty and patriotism in young Americans, as we have for two centuries when it came to fighting wars, when on the other hand we are using pure monetary gain as the main cudgel in keeping our people on the battlefield and showing up at boot camp. Two -- This dangerous conundrum is merely a symptom of a larger and more deadly cultural problem: corporate greed. For the Iraq war, when you think about it, is being conducted by the Bush administration on the same crippling and wrongheaded strategy that has become so popular with the big business greedheads who are ruining our economy and the nation for their own personal gain: drastically downsize the workforce to free up billions of untrackable dollars, then outsource the vital production services to like-minded privateers, whether they be American or foreign. Oh, and while you're at it, close down scores of military bases, shipyards and airfields in the name of economy, promise false savings, and ruin local economies across the nation. Do American citizens and taxpayers get screwed in the end? Of course. Do our leaders of government care? Of course not.
John Hanchette, a
professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former
editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning
national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today
and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of
the past 25 years. (2)
Russia, China Begin BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Russia began their first joint military exercises on Thursday aimed at boosting cooperation between the former adversaries and sending a message to the United States about their growing influence.
Eight days of war games between the giant neighbours, who share a 4,300-km (2,700-mile) border, also present a commercial opportunity for Russia, China's biggest supplier of arms and weapons technology, to flog its wares, analysts say.
"The main target is the United States. Both sides want to improve their position for bargaining in terms of security, politics and economics," said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at the People's University of China.
Both countries say "Peace Mission 2005", which involves 10,000 troops and army, navy and air force exercises, is aimed at building ties between their militaries and analysts say it is not targeted at any third country.
"Military cooperation is linked with political and economic cooperation as part of a bigger package," said Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor for Jane's Defence Weekly. "It's not an adversarial posture."
But with the drills also helping to "strengthen the capability of the two armed forces in jointly striking international terrorism, extremism and separatism", according to China's Xinhua news agency, they are likely to be viewed with concern by others in the region.
The word separatism will give pause for thought to the residents of Taiwan, the self-governed island China claims as its own and which it has vowed must return to its rule -- by force if necessary.
Once Cold War foes, ties between Beijing and Moscow have been growing closer, in part due to China's efforts to tap into Russian energy resources to feed its booming economy. The two are also players in six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear crisis, reflecting shared security interests.
STABILITY
Russia and China also see common ground in Central Asia, both in trying to ensure political turmoil in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan does not spill into their borders and in checking the U.S. presence in the region.
After last year's "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, when demonstrators propelled a pro-Western government to power following street protests against rigged elections, Russia took the initiative to upgrade the scale of the exercise with China, Jin said.
In July, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional security forum grouping China and Russia with the Central Asian states, told U.S.-led troops to fix a date for their departure from military bases in the region.
That, along with the fact observers from other SCO countries will be at the war games, is further fuelling theories they are intended to send a message to Washington.
"This is above all an assault on the uni-polar world that has so suited Washington since the end of the Cold War," Russian daily Nezavismaya gazeta said.
The United States said the exercises supported a shared goal of regional stability, but added a word of caution.
"We would hope that anything that they do is not something that would be disruptive to the current atmosphere in the region," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The exercises are taking place in the Russian Pacific near Vladivostok and in the Chinese coastal province of Shandong and run through August 25.
With China gradually overhauling its military, streamlining troop numbers and buying high-tech weapons platforms from abroad, the war games are more likely to result in a shopping spree than any aggressive posturing.
Analysts say rather than cause alarm, the exercises should also be seen as making both militaries behave with more transparency and in line with international norms.
"I think they finally figured out it might be useful to learn something from other people," Karniol said of China. (3)
http://www.rense.com/general67/few.htm Ever since President Richard Nixon entered into détente with the communist regime in China, America has doggedly assisted in the commercial and military buildup of the Marxist nation. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have mollycoddled the Red Chinese to the point that now they have grown big enough to cause serious concern.
Both Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush have facilitated the transfers of billions of dollars of commercial assistance to Red China, not to mention vast amounts of technology which China has used to further its military machine. Each president refuses to identify China as an adversary, choosing rather to call it a "trading partner." However, China has not been hesitant to use this assistance to construct a formidable military apparatus. At the same time, the U.S. seems determined to reduce our military, especially our navy, to dangerously low levels.
For example, since Ronald Reagan left office, the United States has reduced its navy from a fleet of 600 ships and submarines to 288 and shrinking. To give the reader an idea of just how small our navy has become, our current navy fleet is equal in size to that when William Howard Taft was in office!
Beyond that, our carrier fleet is on its way to the elephant graveyard. Three of the five in service were built before 1975. Consider, too, that the number of fighter aircraft has dropped to fewer than 3,500 and is expected to fall to under 2,000. However, while the United States continues to mothball its military, Communist China is (with America's help) building its military like there is no tomorrow.
The Washington Times recently reported that "China soon will receive a new Kilo submarine from Russia, part of a naval buildup of modern warships and submarines that has triggered new fears for U.S. military planners.
"It is the first of eight advanced Kilos that China is acquiring, and intelligence officials say the submarine will be outfitted with advanced SS-N-27 cruise missiles, which are capable of attacking U.S. warships. Since 2002, China has built 14 submarines."
The Times report quoted one intelligence official as saying, "China's surface-to-air missile forces also are increasing, including new short- and long-range missiles, along with a new warhead that can maneuver to avoid missile defenses.
"If you take a step back and look at the entire array of Chinese weapons, the Kilos, the Songs, the Yuans, the ballistic missiles, this [maneuverable warhead] capability, more surface ships with anti-ship cruise missiles, these are all things that are going to give you capability to deal with any kind of naval force that comes toward you."
The China Reform Monitor recently ran a report saying, "Experts are warning that China is outpacing the United States in the development of attack submarines and could have as much as a three-to-one advantage over the United States by 2025."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently warned that "China's investment in missiles and up-to-date military technology posed a risk not only to Taiwan and to American interests, but also to nations across Asia that view themselves as China's trading partners, not rivals."
Most all China experts agree that the Marxist government in Beijing is planning to attack Taiwan and is preparing to take on the United States if we interfere. It has more than doubled its fleet of amphibious landing and troop-carrying ships. It has entered into an agreement with Russia which guarantees Russia will not help the United States should conflict erupt between the U.S. and China. And just weeks ago, China even participated in joint military maneuvers with Russia. But the Chinese threat is actually even more ominous.
Syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, recently quoted from a new > book written by former special assistant for national security affairs to Ronald Reagan and CIA national intelligence officer, Constantine Menges, entitled, China: The Gathering Threat. Thomas quotes Menges as noting that "China has defined America as its 'main enemy' and can launch nuclear weapons at the U.S. capable of killing 100 million of us.
Thomas continues quoting Menges as saying, "China has threatened to destroy entire American cities if the U.S. helps Taiwan defend itself against a military assault or invasion. China also buys Russian weapons designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers. It controls more than $200 billion in U.S. debt and sells more than 40 percent of its exports to America, using the profits to strengthen its economy and advanced weapons systems aimed at the U.S."
Furthermore, a World Net Daily report dated Tuesday, September 13, 2005, quotes a Chinese dissident as stating unequivocally that Beijing is planning nuclear war. The WND report states, "Wei Jingsheng, who spent 18 years in detention for his pro-democracy activism, told a forum at the National Press Club in Washington that China needs the distraction of a war with Taiwan to turn attention away from the people's frustration with rampant corruption and failed policies at home."
The WND report also quoted Jingsheng as saying, "The Chinese Communist Party is considering nuclear war, because it is not afraid to sacrifice China's people." Jingsheng cited Chinese general Zhu Chenghu's recent public declaration that "we [China] will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian" which would include Shanghai and Beijing. When one considers that China could lose the equivalent of the entire U.S. population and still have over 700 million people left, General Chengu's threat cannot be taken lightly.
So, while the United States continues to spend its manpower and monies on a mouse-size threat in Iraq, it is virtually ignoring-no, worse than that, it is commercially aiding and abetting-our most serious threat: Communist China. Just about everything we buy these days is stamped "Made in China," major American corporations have moved and are moving their plants and operations to China, and all of this is being encouraged by our own government in Washington, D.C. Lenin was right: we are purchasing the rope which will be used to hang us!
© Chuck Baldwin
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Please visit Chuck's web site at http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com. (4) Janes Military News Briefs
AUSTRALIAN DOD CLOSE TO CHOOSING COMMERCIAL PARTNER
LAND-BASED PHALANX TAKES AIM AT ROCKETS, ARTILLERY
AND MORTARS
Innovative Systems, Unparalleled Design L-3 Cincinnati Electronics’ offers leadership in the design and production of innovative infrared sensors, hybrid microelectronics and cryogenics for autonomous guidance, situational awareness and targeting. Battlespace commanders are afforded increased combat effectiveness for legacy platforms and sensor overmatch for future combat systems.
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Contact: Glenna Debo
NATO'S 'CLEAN HUNTER' LIVE FLYING EXERCISE PIONEERS
USE OF DATALINK MANAGEMENT CELL
INSENSITIVE MUNITIONS MAKE THE MILITARY LESS ACCIDENT
PRONE
METAL STORM ANNOUNCES HALF-YEAR NET LOSS
NDIA PURCHASES SCORPENES AND STRENGTHENS TIES WITH
FRANCE
KATRINA AFFECTS NORTHROP GRUMMAN'S SHARE PRICE;
DEFENCE COMPANIES RECEIVE CONTRACTS FOR CLEAN-UP OPERATIONS
QINETIQ LOOKS TO POSSIBLE FLOTATION IN EARLY 2006
FUTURE TENSE: Future Combat Systems
INDIAN PRESS REPORTS POTENTIAL FOR ICBM DEVELOPMENT VISIT JANE’S AT SEOUL AIR SHOW 2005
NAVAL FORCES NEWS - 30 SEPTEMBER
2005
ATLAS AND EDO COMBINE FORCES FOR MCM PROPOSAL TO US
NAVY
AUSTRALIA PICKS 'BABY BURKE' FOR DESIGN OF FUTURE AWD
DESTROYER
DENMARK SET FOR AIR WARFARE SYSTEM BIDS
JUEP TRIALS EXPAND SCOPE FOR MARITIME UAVS
US USES INTELLIGENCE-LED APPROACH TO COUNTER PORT
TERRORISM
AIR FORCES NEWS - 30 SEPTEMBER 2005
18 to 23 October 2005 We are pleased to once again be exhibiting at Seoul Air Show 2005. We will be demonstrating the recently launched, Jane’s Defence Forecasts-Military Aircraft Programme, a unique forecasting tool that tracks and projects military aircraft upgrades programmes up to and beyond 20 years in the future. Come visit us at the Jane’s booth, STAND C31 (Exhibition Hall C) to find out more about this highly sophisticated online service. We hope to see you there ------------------------------------------------------------
UK MULTIPLYING CLOSE AIR-SUPPORT CAPACITY [Jane's International Defence Review - first posted to http://idr.janes.com - 22 September 2005]
BRITISH AIRWAYS APPOINTS NEW CFO
JAPAN AIRLINES INTERNATIONAL EXTEND SIMULATOR RANGE
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