ARSENAL SHIP

 

BUSH CALLS FOR REVIVAL OF ARSENAL SHIP

AuthorAuthor

By WASHINGTON BUREAU and PILOT ONLINE

PUBLISHED: April 9, 2000 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 17, 2019 at 8:40 p.m.

 

If George W. Bush wins the White House, the Navy may be required to create a revolutionary new warship that was widely panned as impractical a few years ago. The Texas governor’s defense platform calls for taking another look at building an “arsenal ship,” which was designed to be the most heavily armed and lightly manned warship ever built. With a skeleton crew of maybe 20 sailors, the surface combatant would be packed with 500 long- range missiles that could strike deep inside enemy territory.

 As originally conceived, the ship – essentially a floating missile storehouse – would offer military commanders massive firepower in the opening days of a regional war at a fraction of the cost of aircraft carriers or submarines. Critics, both within the Navy and on Capitol Hill, dismissed the project at the time as a “sitting duck” that would be highly vulnerable to attack – and an obvious early target because of its huge arsenal of weapons.

Local lawmakers never fought hard for the ship, partly out of fear that the project would compete for funding against carriers and submarines, the core work of Newport News Shipbuilding. The shipyard was part of a team of contractors that bid on the arsenal ship in 1996. The Navy scrapped the program a year later, citing inadequate funding by Congress. But a Bush administration would re-examine the ship as part of an effort to modernize U.S. forces, campaign aides said.

The issue is seldom mentioned on the campaign trail, mostly because defense policy in general has played almost no role in the presidential race and is not a top concern of voters. But in a speech last fall at The Citadel, where Bush offered his most detailed outline of defense policy to date, the Republican governor made clear his determination to press ahead with revolutionary weapons systems.

 “On the seas, we need to pursue promising ideas like the arsenal ship – a stealthy ship packed with long-range missiles to destroy targets from great distances,” he said. Vice President Al Gore, like Bush, has called for strengthening the military, particularly to improve the quality of life of troops and make up for years of neglected weapons modernization. But the Democratic presidential contender has stopped short of calling for revolutionary programs.

 Perhaps the leading advocate of the arsenal ship within the Bush campaign is Richard L. Armitage, a veteran ambassador and foreign policy adviser who served as an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Armitage was a member of the National Defense Panel, a group of strategic military thinkers that was created by Congress to critique the Pentagon’s reform plans. The panel’s final report, issued in 1997, faulted the Navy for canceling the arsenal ship, which it said would provide a valuable “test bed” for new technologies. In reviving the concept of an arsenal ship, Armitage said, the Bush campaign is hoping to stress the need for transforming all the armed services into more mobile and cost-effective fighting forces.

 “We know of no better way to signal it than to encourage the Navy to explore such concepts as arsenal ships,” he said. The proposal won a qualified endorsement last week from Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has talked to Bush informally about defense policy.

 “I come down foursquare in support of the concept,” Warner said. In recent months, Warner has urged the armed services to develop revolutionary weapons that will respond to the public demand for few or no casualties – a result, he said, of the successful 78-day air war over Kosovo last year that was free of U.S. combat casualties. Warner has urged the Air Force to set a goal of making a third of its strike aircraft unmanned within a decade. And he has encouraged the Army to try making a third of its ground combat vehicles unmanned by 2015.

 For the Navy, Warner said, the arsenal ship – at least in theory – would meet the same objective. “We’ve got to move toward maximizing America’s technology to deliver incredible quantities of firepower in order to limit casualties,” he said. To Pentagon reformers, the appeal of the arsenal ship was easy enough to understand. With 500 vertical-launch missile tubes, a single ship with 20 or 30 sailors could unleash massive firepower on enemy shores without tying up an aircraft carrier and its 5,000-man crew and air wing.

 And the ship’s estimated price tag of roughly $500 million, not including the missiles, would be a bargain compared to a $5 billion carrier or even a $2 billion submarine. “Here’s a way, without requiring a large-deck carrier, we can kill people at a great distance,” said naval analyst Norman Polmar, an early advocate of the arsenal ship who has consulted informally with the Bush campaign.

 “We’re talking about a ship with considerable capability at relatively low cost with few people.” But resistance to the arsenal ship is formidable. At the Pentagon, the ship was widely considered a personal initiative of Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, the former chief of naval operations. “The Arsenal Ship Program is among the highest- priority programs within the Navy,” Boorda wrote in a 1996 memo, which was cosigned by other top defense officials.

 But when Boorda committed suicide later that year, support for the arsenal ship quickly evaporated. Boorda’s successor, Adm. Jay L. Johnson, has shown little interest in the ship. The Navy has not bothered to discuss it – much less promote it – since killing funding for the program in 1997.

 In Congress, the arsenal ship was little more than a mysterious concept without a political constituency. Since no one knew which shipyard would get the work, congressmen were more concerned with protecting funding for their own ships than diverting scarce money for an experimental program. “For that reason, the program received a skeptical reaction on the Hill,” recalled Ronald O’Rourke, a naval expert with the Congressional Research Service. Beyond the political concerns, many lawmakers expressed legitimate doubts about the arsenal ship’s potential effectiveness.

First and foremost among the myriad concerns was the ship’s perceived vulnerability to attack. Designed primarily as a low-cost vessel housing missiles, the ship would lack the extensive air- defense and anti-submarine warfare systems of other surface combatants. For all its cost efficiencies, the arsenal ship would be dependent on cruisers or destroyers for protection and could not travel unguarded into hostile waters.

 “Five hundred missiles on a platform that can’t fight back?” asked Rep. Norman Sisisky, D- Petersburg, the senior Democrat on the House military procurement subcommittee. At an estimated cost of $1 million per missile, Sisisky noted, “That’s $500 million that can be attacked.” Even supporters of the ship, including Warner, acknowledge the vulnerability problem and say more study must be done to limit the danger. While expressing support for the concept, Warner said he was not wedded to a specific ship design and would seek “successor-type options” to the original arsenal ship model.

Critics also argue that if the Navy wants a stealthy ship loaded with missiles, it need look no further than the submarine, which can operate covertly off enemy shores. Each new submarine, however, would cost as much as four times the price of an arsenal ship. Sisisky said there might be alternatives, such as retaining some Trident nuclear submarines that are scheduled to be decommissioned and converting them for conventional warfare. The Navy is already exploring that option and set aside about $1 billion in next year’s budget that could be used for that purpose.

Even so, the 150 missiles packed on a Trident sub could not match the 500 missiles on an arsenal ship. Providing more missile firepower – particularly the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile – has been a priority since the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when Tomahawks were used extensively. Whether the arsenal ship is the best way to deliver those missiles is far from clear, but the issue could be hotly debated in a Bush White House. The shipbuilding industry, assuming the program was dead, has not been pushing for an arsenal ship. A Newport News Shipbuilding spokeswoman did not rule out bidding on the ship if the program were revived, but the yard generally has resisted straying from its core business of carriers and submarines in recent years.

 And with so much uncertainty surrounding the controversial ship, even the Bush campaign is treading cautiously. “Mr. Bush is not saying he knows the answer,” Armitage said. “He’s wedded to the concept of experimentation. If we don’t have a test bed, we’ll never get there.”

 

SHIP AT A GLANCE

 

Concept: Stealthy surface combatant

 

Purpose: Provide massive firepower in opening days of a regional war

 

Weapons: 500 missiles, including Tomahawk land- attack cruise missiles

 

Design: Length of 500 to 800 feet, double hull

 

Number: Six vessels providing continuing presence around the globe

 

Crew size: Zero to 50

 

Cost: About $500 million per ship in 1998 dollars, not including missiles

 

David Lerman can be reached at (202) 824-8224 or by e-mail at dlerman@tribune.com

 

SMOKING GUN FOUND ON TWITTER

 

DON'T EXPECT SPOOKS TO GIVE YOU THE TRUTH

Does Clinton deserve all the blame? It was Dick Cheney who wanted to dismantle RU. He pushed for the collapse of the Soviet Union. He wanted to erase Russia as a major player. In the 1990's the US sponsored a Chechen proxy terrorist campaign inside RU. The aim was to break the Caucasus Region away from Russia. No one talks about the murders of Prime Minister Ruslan Outisiev of Chechnya and his brother in London. They were in London looking to procure 2000 Stinger missiles and they had made a deal with the Royal Mint to print currency, passports and stamps for Chechnya. This deal never happened. The assassination occurred on or about 26 February 1993. A few days earlier Clinton had just met with  UK PM John Major. The 26th is same day that the WTC was bombed taking out the Presidential Motorcade. 

The Russians were sending a message - STAY OUT OF CHECHNYA. Of course Clinton did not heed the warning.  Long story short. US meddling in Chechnya led to the spectacular attacks of 911 - the closest the World has ever come to nuclear war. All four E4-B's were in the air. Cheney hid in the PEOC - the White House fallout shelter bunker. Wolfowitz and others also hid in their bunkers. Bush was on Air Force One. His communications were jammed most of the day. The World is lucky to have survived 911. 911 was the day that Russia avenged American aggression on their soil - declaring war on American unipolar hegemony by attacking the administrative infrastructure of America's global empire.

THE LOGISTICS OF RECRUITING, THE TIMING AND THE PRECISION FLYING THE 911 AIRLINERS

One of the problems of the official 911 narrative is - how did Bin Laden's organization recruit 19 "suicide" hijackers without it getting picked up by US surveillance? It's impossible. How many people would have to be approached before you found 19 suicide hijackers? Because like most people even "terrorists" are not eager to commit suicide. 

Bin Laden's organization would have had to interview tens of thousands of potential hijackers before they found 19 men who might commit to the plot. In 2001 Saudi Arabia had a suicide rate of 5.00 per 100,000 males. In other words one out of 20,000 males in Saudi Arabia committed suicide. The vast majority of Saudi men are content with their lives. 

People also have loose lips. The candidates who said no to the plot would have told other people about it. Where are the men who said no to this plot? Why have they never been interviewed by television or print media? 

The reason why the plot was not picked up is -- there were no human pilots. There was no plot involving human hijackers to be picked up by US surveillance. The planes were electronically hijacked, plucked out the air mid-flight. Electronic hijacking also solves the problem of the tight timing of hijackings. Four planes were hijacked in the less than an hour and crashed into significant American landmarks. The level of precision to conduct the attack on the Navy Operations Center and Defense Intelligence Agency offices at the Pentagon required electronic hijacking as well. We go over why it was impossible here. 

https://thearea51blog.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-impossibility-of-flight-77s.html

Electronic Hijacking also explains why Norman Mineta ordered all planes to land. Because any plane could have been the next plane to be hijacked and used as a cruise missile. 

1. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SAU/saudi-arabia/suicide-rate#:~:text=Saudi%20Arabia%20suicide%20rate%20for,a%200%25%20increase%20from%202015.

Electronic warfare 'Russian Woodpecker'

 From The Miami Herald, 7 July 1982

Radio hams do battle with 'Russian Woodpecker'

By Dave Finley

Herald Staff Writer

Electronic warfare is usually associated with a shooting war. But not always.

From their own homes, many ham radio operators have quietly carried on an electronic war with the Soviet Union for the last six years and, in some cases, are winning. Their battle is with a powerful Soviet radar signal dubbed the "Russian Woodpecker."

The Soviets fired the first shot in 1976. Miami Springs amateur operator Andy Clark (W4IYT, now SK) remembers it.

Clark was operating a commercial aeronautical communications station, one which keeps contact with long-distance airliner flights by shortwave radio. Suddenly, powerful interference came on the air, disrupting communications.

"I named that damn thing the woodpecker," Clark said, when he asked the New York headquarters of his communications firm if they, too, were experiencing "this woodpecker noise." They were.

The signal, he said, was "raising hell with the airplanes. We just couldn't contact some of them."

The "woodpecker," as it is now almost universally known because of its unmistakable sound, still disrupts shortwave communications. Its signals have long since been traced to locations within the Soviet Union.

It is, experts agree, a Soviet over-the-horizon radar system. Radio waves in what is called the shortwave range, which are actually longer than those in the VHF or microwave range, are, unlike the others, "bounced" off upper regions of the Earth's atmosphere and returned to the ground. This is how you receive faraway foreign stations on your shortwave radio.

The "skip" also is used to get a radar signal over the horizon and back to detect incoming airplanes.

The Soviets, however, have ignored internationally~accepted rules about what frequencies can be used by whom, and simply transmitted their ultra-high-powered radar signals on any frequency where "skip" conditions are good at the particular time. Their signal also is unusually "wide," blocking out a large number of other stations.

The "woodpecker" regularly interferes not only with commercial and amateur communications but with international broadcasting stations.

The hams, along with many others, complained to the U.S. government, which relayed the protests to the Soviets. Officially, the Soviets don't even admit the signal is theirs.

Some hams, irate at the intrusion into their legally-allocated frequency bands, have gone beyond simple protests.

Wayne Green, publisher of the ham magazine 73, in a recent editorial urging hams to "attack" the problem, described the process:

"If you want to screw up a radar signal, all you have to do is send a return signal on its frequency which blocks out the echos. Hams, from the earliest woodpecker days, have been driving the monster off their bands by getting on the frequency and sending properly spaced dots back. The screen somewhere in Russia blanks out and the operators utter some Russian oaths and change the frequency to get rid of the interference."

It works, too, say many hams who have tried it, although it greatly helps if several hams in different locations "gang up" on the radar's frequency. Green advocated better organization for doing just that.

Hams in Texas have tried such tactics and dubbed their group The Russian Woodpecker Hunting Club.

Robert Haviland, a Daytona Beach amateur, has heard "woodpecker hunting" on the air. There are several difficulties, he said, with transmitting on exactly the right frequency and sending the dots at exactly the right speed to interfere with the radar.

However, if it's done right, he said, "a shift in frequency of the woodpecker comes very quickly."

And an American ham operator has just won a one-on-one match with a massive Russian radar installation.

###

Copyright 1999 the Miami Herald.

Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald.

No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.

SEPTEMBER 11TH / 911 : PUTIN'S CALL AND THE THREAT ON AIR FORCE ONE "ANGEL" WERE PHONED IN AT THE SAME TIME.

SEPTEMBER 11TH / 911 : PUTIN'S CALL AND THE THREAT ON AIR FORCE ONE WERE PHONED IN AT THE SAME TIME. 

(10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001: White House Receives Phone Call in Which Caller Threatens Air Force One

Between 10An anonymous phone call is received at the White House in which the caller says Air Force One, the president’s plane, will be the next terrorist target and uses code words indicating they have inside information about government procedures. [CHENEY, 9/11/2001; NEW YORK TIMES, 9/13/2001; WOODWARD, 2002, PP. 18] Air Force One is currently flying toward Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, with President Bush on board (see (10:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 325] The White House receives a call from an anonymous individual, warning that the next target of the terrorist attacks will be Air Force One. The caller refers to the plane as “Angel.” [SAMMON, 2002, PP. 106-107; WOODWARD, 2002, PP. 18; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 554; DARLING, 2010, PP. 60-61] “Angel” is the Secret Service’s code name for Air Force One. [WILLIAMS, 2004, PP. 81; CBS NEWS, 11/25/2009] An unnamed “high White House official” will later say the use of “American code words” shows the caller has “knowledge of procedures that made the threat credible.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 9/13/2001]

Government Officials Told about Threat - News of the threatening call is promptly passed on to government officials in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC)—a bunker below the White House—and reported on the Pentagon’s air threat conference call. [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 9/11/2001 pdf file; NEWSWEEK, 12/30/2001; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 554; DARLING, 2010, PP. 60-61] Vice President Dick Cheney, who is in the PEOC, will comment that the news “reinforced the notion here… that the government has been targeted and that we need to be extra careful about making certain we protected the continuity of government, secured the president, secured the presidency.” [WHITE HOUSE, 11/19/2001] According to Major Robert Darling of the White House Military Office, who is also in the PEOC, “The talk among the principals in the room quickly determined that the use of a code word implied that the threat to Air Force One and the president could well be from someone with access to [the president’s] inner circle—possibly someone who was near the president at that very moment.” [DARLING, 2010, PP. 61]

Accounts Conflict over Who Receives Call - It is unclear who at the White House answers the call in which the threat against Air Force One is made. The call is received by the White House switchboard, according to some accounts. [SAMMON, 2002, PP. 106; FLEISCHER, 2005, PP. 141-142] Other accounts will indicate it is received by the White House Situation Room. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 554; DARLING, 2010, PP. 60-61] Eric Edelman, a member of Cheney’s staff who is in the PEOC, will say the call is received by the Secret Service. [WHITE HOUSE, 10/25/2001] But two Secret Service agents who are on duty today will deny “that their agency played any role in receiving or passing on a threat to the presidential jet,” according to the Wall Street Journal. [WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/22/2004 pdf file] However, a Secret Service pager message will be sent at 10:32 a.m., which states that the “JOC”—the Secret Service Joint Operations Center at the White House—has received an “anonymous call” reporting that “Angel is [a] target.” [CBS NEWS, 11/25/2009]

Military Officer Passes on Details of Threat - Officials in the PEOC reportedly learn about the threat to Air Force One from a military officer working in the center. Although Cheney will say the threat “came through the Secret Service,” he will say later this year that he is unsure who passed the details of it to those in the PEOC. [MEET THE PRESS, 9/16/2001; WHITE HOUSE, 11/19/2001] An official in Cheney’s office will say in 2004 that Cheney was informed of the threat by “a uniformed military person” manning the PEOC, although Cheney and his staff are unaware who that individual was. [WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/22/2004 pdf file] National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will say that those in the PEOC are told about the threat by a “communicator,” meaning one of the military officers who works in the PEOC, and is responsible for “establishing phone lines and video lines, and staying in touch with the National Military Command Center” at the Pentagon. [WHITE HOUSE, 11/1/2001] The military officer Rice is referring to may be Darling. Darling will recall that he answers a call from the White House Situation Room about the threat to Air Force One and then passes on the information he receives to Rice, telling her, “Ma’am, the [Situation Room] reports that they have a credible source in the Sarasota, Florida, area that claims Angel is the next target.” Rice immediately passes on the news to Cheney, according to Darling. [DARLING, 2010, PP. 60-61] Cheney will subsequently call Bush and tell him about the threat (see (10:32 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [SAMMON, 2002, PP. 106-107; CBS NEWS, 9/11/2002]

Reason for 'Bogus' Threat Unclear - The threat will be determined to be “almost surely bogus,” according to Newsweek. [NEWSWEEK, 12/30/2001] The Secret Service’s intelligence division tracked down the origin of this threat,” the 9/11 Commission Report will state, “and, during the day, determined that it had originated in a misunderstanding by a watch officer in the White House Situation Room.” Although the 9/11 Commission will say it found the intelligence division’s “witnesses on this point to be credible,” Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, will dispute this account. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 554] By the end of 2001, White House officials will say they still do not know where the threat came from. [NEWSWEEK, 12/30/2001] Darling will write in 2010, “To this day, it has never been determined why either the ‘credible source’ or Situation Room personnel used that code word [i.e. ‘Angel’] in their report to the PEOC.” [DARLING, 2010, PP. 62] “The best we can tell,” Rice will say, is that “there was a call that talked about events—something happening to the president on the ground in Florida. And that somehow got interpreted as Air Force One.” She will say that the fact the caller knew the code name for Air Force One is “why we still continue to suspect it wasn’t a crank call.” [WHITE HOUSE, 11/1/2001] However, former Secret Service officials will say the code name wasn’t an official secret, but instead “a radio shorthand designation that had been made public well before 2001.” [WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/22/2004 pdf file]

Entity Tags: Eric Edelman, Condoleezza Rice, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Deborah Loewer, US Secret Service, Robert J. Darling, White House

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline:32 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. September 11, 2001: Russian President Calls the White House

Russian President Vladimir Putin phones the White House, wanting to speak with the US president. With Bush not there, Condoleezza Rice takes the call. Putin tells her that the Russians are voluntarily standing down a military exercise they are conducting, as a gesture of solidarity with the United States. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/27/2002] The Russian exercise began on September 10 in the Russian arctic and North Pacific oceans, and was scheduled to last until September 14. [NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 9/9/2001; WASHINGTON TIMES, 9/11/2001] It involved Russian bombers staging a mock attack against NATO planes that are supposedly planning an assault on Russia. [BBC, 2001, PP. 161] Subsequently, Putin manages to talk to Bush while he is aboard Air Force One (see (After 11:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001).

Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

Late March 1989 and After: Defense Secretary Cheney Advocates Enforced Regime Change in Soviet Union

Late March 1989 and After: Defense Secretary Cheney Advocates Enforced Regime Change in Soviet Union

When Dick Cheney becomes defense secretary (see March 20, 1989 and After), he brings into the Pentagon a core group of young, ideological staffers with largely academic (not military) backgrounds. Many of these staffers are neoconservatives who once congregated around Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (see Early 1970s). Cheney places them in the Pentagon’s policy directorate, under the supervision of Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, himself one of Jackson’s cadre. While most administrations leave the policy directorate to perform mundane tasks, Wolfowitz and his team have no interest in such. “They focused on geostrategic issues,” one of his Pentagon aides will recall. “They considered themselves conceptual.” Wolfowitz and his team are more than willing to reevaluate the most fundamental precepts of US foreign policy in their own terms, and in Cheney they have what reporters Franklin Foer and Spencer Ackerman call “a like-minded patron.” In 1991, Wolfowitz will describe his relationship to Cheney: “Intellectually, we’re very much on similar wavelengths.”

A Different View of the Soviet Union - Cheney pairs with Wolfowitz and his neoconservatives to battle one issue in particular: the US’s dealings with the Soviet Union. Premier Mikhail Gorbachev has been in office for four years, and has built a strong reputation for himself in the West as a charismatic reformer. But Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the others see something far darker. Cheney opposes any dealings with the Soviets except on the most adversarial level (see 1983), and publicly discusses his skepticism of perestroika, Gorbachev’s restructuring of the Soviet economy away from a communist paradigm. In April, Cheney tells a CNN news anchor that Gorbachev will “ultimately fail” and a leader “far more hostile” to the West will follow in his footsteps. Some of President Bush’s more “realistic” aides, including James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, and Condoleezza Rice, as well as Bush himself, have cast their lot with Gorbachev and reform; they have no use for Cheney’s public advocacy of using the USSR’s period of transitional turmoil to dismember the nation once and for all.

Cheney's Alternative Policy - Cheney turns to the neoconservatives under Wolfowitz for an alternative strategy. They meet on Saturday mornings in the Pentagon’s E ring, where they have one maverick Sovietologist after another propound his or her views. Almost all of these Sovietologists echo Cheney and Wolfowitz’s view—the USSR is on the brink of collapse, and the US should do what it can to hasten the process and destroy its enemy for good. They assert that what the Soviet Union needs is not a reformer guiding the country back into a papered-over totalitarianism, to emerge (with the US’s help) stronger and more dangerous than before. Instead, Cheney and his cadre advocate enforced regime change in the Soviet Union. Supporting the rebellious Ukraine will undermine the legitimacy of the central Soviet government, and supporting Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian Republic, will strike at the heart of the Gorbachev regime. Bush and his core advisers worry about instability, but Cheney says that the destruction of the Soviet Union is worth a little short-term disruption.

Failure - Bush will not adopt the position of his defense secretary, and will continue supporting Gorbachev through the Soviet Union’s painful transition and eventual dissolution. After Cheney goes public one time too many about his feelings about Gorbachev, Baker tells Scowcroft to “[d]ump on Dick” with all deliberate speed. During the final days of the Soviet Union, Cheney will find himself alone against Bush’s senior advisers and Cabinet members in their policy discussions. [NEW REPUBLIC, 11/20/2003]

Entity Tags: George Herbert Walker Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Boris Yeltsin, Franklin Foer, US Department of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, James A. Baker, Henry (“Scoop”) Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, Mikhail Gorbachev, Spencer Ackerman

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

POTUS BUSH WAS BEING BRIEFED AT 17:20 (5:20PM) OF SECOND ROUND OF ATTACKS SAME TIME WTC 7 IS BOMBED

It's not a coincidence that WTC 7 drops at the same time Bush is being briefed on a second round of attacks. WTC 7 was the beginning of a second wave of attacks.  

(5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001: CIA Briefer Tells President Bush about a Possible Second Wave of Attacks

Mike Morell, President Bush’s CIA briefer, passes on to Bush all the information the CIA currently has relating to today’s terrorist attacks, which includes a warning the agency received about the possibility that a group of al-Qaeda terrorists is in the United States, preparing for a second wave of attacks. [TENET, 2007, PP. 169; BUSH, 2010, PP. 136; POLITICO MAGAZINE, 9/9/2016] While he was at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Bush conducted a meeting of the National Security Council in a secure video teleconference (see (3:15 p.m.) September 11, 2001). During the meeting, CIA Director George Tenet said the CIA had information linking al-Qaeda to today’s attacks. [WOODWARD, 2002, PP. 26-27; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 326; PRIESS, 2016, PP. 243] Before the meeting ended, Morell slipped out to phone Ted Gistaro, Tenet’s executive assistant, at the CIA’s operations center and asked to have the information Tenet provided to Bush sent to Air Force One. [TENET, 2007, PP. 169; MORELL AND HARLOW, 2015, PP. 57]

Fax Includes All of the CIA's Information on the Attacks - A few minutes after Air Force One took off from Offutt, heading for Washington, DC (see (4:33 p.m.) September 11, 2001), Morell received a six-page fax that included all the intelligence the CIA had relating to the attacks. It included the talking points Tenet used to brief Bush during the teleconference, along with a lot of information Tenet was unable to cover in the meeting. Morell read through the material several times and highlighted several passages.

Briefer Goes Over the CIA's Information with Bush - Now, about 30 minutes later, Andrew Card, Bush’s chief of staff, comes to the staff cabin and tells Morell that Bush will see him to go through the information. Morell therefore accompanies Card to the conference room on the plane and the two men meet with Bush there. Morell goes over the material he has been sent with the president, allowing Bush to read as much of it as he wants. [STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE, 9/2006 pdf file; MORELL AND HARLOW, 2015, PP. 57; POLITICO MAGAZINE, 9/9/2016]

Briefer Reports the Possibility of a Second Wave of Attacks - The material includes information provided by French intelligence, explaining that it has detected signs that al-Qaeda has “sleeper cells” in the US that are planning a second wave of attacks. Bush is concerned when he learns this. He will later describe receiving the information as “one of the darkest moments of the day.” “I believed America could overcome the September 11 attacks without further panic,” he will write. “But,” he will add, “a follow-on strike would be very difficult to bear.” [TENET, 2007, PP. 169; BUSH, 2010, PP. 136; POLITICO MAGAZINE, 9/9/2016] After Morell has finished briefing the president, Bush thanks him and he returns to his seat in the staff cabin. This meeting apparently takes place at around 5:20 p.m., since Morell will comment that Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapses while he is briefing the president and this incident occurs at 5:20 p.m. (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE, 9/2006 pdf file; NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, 11/2008, PP. 15]

Entity Tags: Andrew Card, Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush, Michael J. Morell

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, George Bush

Lebed attack on Russia's handling of Chechen War

 Lebed attack on Russia's handling of Chechen War

13 Aug 1996

By Marcus Warren in Moscow

RUSSIA'S security chief, Gen Alexander Lebed, took charge of policy towards Chechnya yesterday, meeting the Chechen chief of staff near Grozny before launching an outspoken attack on Russia's military and politicians for their conduct in the war. Russian commanders announced a halt to air strikes against rebels but fighting continued for a seventh day, with Chechen irregulars retaining control of much of the city.

Gen Lebed also voiced suspicions that his appointment as President Yeltsin's special representative to Chechnya last weekend was "part of some bureaucratic games" designed to ruin his political career. "I am not against my being appointed, but I am against the way my appointment has been interpreted," he said. "Someone really wants to wring my neck with this one."

Gen Lebed, returning from a lightning visit to Chechnya, where he held three hours of talks during the night with Gen Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen military commander, announced that there was a real chance of ending the current bloodshed in the rebel republic soon. Its capital, Grozny, is suffering its heaviest fighting in 18 months, the result of a shock offensive by Chechen rebels and Moscow's attempts to win back control of the city and relieve hard-pressed Russian positions.

Russian officials have admitted more than 180 soldiers have been killed and 618 wounded in the battle, which shows no sign of abating a week after the rebels entered the city. Neither is there any evidence that the rebels intend to withdraw. In typical Lebed fashion, the former paratrooper was blunt about the shortcomings of the Russian troops he met on his brief visit to Chechnya, calling them "little runts".

The young conscripts manning Russian checkpoints are invariably demoralised and badly turned out, some even missing buttons from their tunics."These little runts, hungry, frail, half-dressed, cannot represent the Interior Ministry or the Defence Ministry," Gen Lebed said. "Partisans in World War Two were better dressed."

The Chechens, by contrast, were "good warriors", he added. The Russian soldiers are also trigger-happy and highly dangerous to all sides. As Gen Lebed travelled to his meeting with the Chechen leadership, his motorcade was fired at twice. Agency reports implied that Russian troops were to blame. Gen Lebed was scathing in his criticism of the lack of command and control among the Russian military in Chechnya and their low morale. He called for the withdrawal of those units that had been deployed there as "cannon fodder".

He was equally contemptuous about the politicians who have been trying to negotiate peace in the war, which has raged since the end of 1994. Senior figures in the pro-Moscow Chechen government were displaying symptoms of "megalomania" and the state commission on Chechnya had been "extremely passive".

Gen Lebed's trip to Chechnya and his outspoken remarks on his return marked his most striking move since being appointed the Kremlin's security chief nearly two months ago. He seemed almost to have disappeared from public view after being co-opted by President Yeltsin following his strong performance in Russia's elections. There may be some truth in his assertion that he has been passed the poisoned chalice of Chechnya to damage his political future.

Few details emerged about his talks with Gen Maskhadov, although a Chechen spokesman described them as "constructive". After being briefed by Mr Lebed, Mr Yeltsin, who had been expected to leave Moscow on his summer holiday, postponed his trip for a week.

12 August 1996: Yeltsin demands heads roll for Grozny debacle

Lebed Says Russia Has Lost Track of 100 Nuclear Bombs

Sections

WORLD & NATION

Lebed Says Russia Has Lost Track of 100 Nuclear Bombs

BY RICHARD C. PADDOCK

SEPT. 9, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

MOSCOW —  Alexander I. Lebed, the former Russian general and presidential hopeful, has been broadcasting his claim over the past week that Russia has lost track of 100 nuclear bombs the size of suitcases. “A very thorough investigation is necessary,” Lebed reiterated to reporters Monday. “The state of nuclear security in Russia poses a danger to the whole world.” The general’s allegations are roundly denied by Russian officials, who contend that all of Russia’s nuclear weapons are safely under control.

In his previous post as President Boris N. Yeltsin’s top security advisor, Lebed might have been in a position to know about such secrets. But the president fired him nearly a year ago. Now Lebed--who negotiated last year’s peace accord with Chechnya--is a political outsider who is trying to revive his career and build a base for a potential run for the presidency in 2000, when Yeltsin must step down.

“How can a serious politician make such a sensational statement without checking the facts first?” asked Vladimir F. Uvatenko, chief spokesman for the Defense Ministry. “This scandalous statement was clearly made by Alexander Lebed to get the attention of the press and boost his waning political image and declining popularity.”

Despite the official denials, Lebed is pursuing his allegations undeterred. In an interview on CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes” aired Sunday, Lebed said the suitcase bombs were ideal weapons for terrorists because they could be armed and detonated by a single person within half an hour. One of the 1-kiloton bombs could kill 100,000 people, he said. Of 250 suitcase devices made by the former Soviet Union, he said, 100 are unaccounted for.

On Monday, Lebed told the Interfax news agency in Moscow that he had learned of the existence of the bombs 11 months ago when he was Yeltsin’s security advisor. Since that time, he said, he has been able to prove to his own satisfaction that the weapons were real. “I started to look into the matter and managed to find out that such cases do exist,” he said. However, he added, he “did not have time to find out how many such nuclear charges there were.”

According to Lebed, the suitcase bombs, measuring about 23 by 16 by 8 inches, were deployed by the Soviet Union in special brigades in some of the empire’s remote regions. After the breakup of the Soviet state, many of the suitcases vanished in what became independent republics, where they could fall into the hands of terrorists, he said.

“We should realize that a moron with such a device in New York is ‘great fun’ for all humankind,” he said.

In Washington, U.S. officials said they had no information that any of Russia’s nuclear weapons, whatever their size, have been offered for sale on the world’s black markets. Lebed’s U.S. broadcast brought denunciations from a host of officials, including Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, who called his contention “absolutely impossible.”

COINCIDENCES FROM 1979 TWO MOVIES STARRING JAMES BOND ACTORS WITH SPACE WEAPONS

29 JUNE 1979 release date

MOONRAKER starring Roger Moore as James Bond.

19 OCTOBER 1979 release date

METEOR starring Sean Connery a former James Bond. 

The shuttle can be clearly seen here behind Karl Malden.

The true star of both of these movies was the space shuttle. In the movie METEOR the role was more subliminal. The shuttle appears in artwork in an early scene. The space shuttle was a weapon system hidden in plain sight. It was built to service two satellites - the KH-9 (orbital bombardment system) and the KH-11 (Space Based Laser). The interesting thing about "METEOR" is that it features an orbital bombardment system. One way to cloak a sneak attack from orbit is to hide your warheads in a meteor shower. So, we believe that both of these movies were meant to send a chilling message to the Soviets. 

The Soviets knew the Shuttle was a weapons system and protested its deployment. This article by "James Oberg", a pseudonym for a CIA spook lampooned Soviet claims about the Space Shuttle & attempted to gaslight them as paranoid.   

This article from Mechanix Illustrated 16 years prior to the movies released, claimed the US would have a deployable laser weapon by 1971. 

https://thearea51blog.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-miracle-light-beam-from-mechanix.html

 

Chinese scientists look to 6G to hunt submarines, testing device small enough to fit on drone​

• Defence researchers say sensors can identify extremely small surface vibrations produced by a low-frequency sound source in the open sea
• UAV-mounted platform could work in concert with other submarine detection methods such as a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD), microwave radar or laser

Published: 11:00pm, 29 Aug, 2023

An experimental Chinese terahertz device identified extremely small surface vibrations produced by a low-frequency sound source in the open sea. The developers said it would help pinpoint a submarine. Photo: Xinhua

China has tested the world’s first submarine-detecting device based on next-generation communication technology, according to researchers.

The terahertz device identified extremely small surface vibrations produced by a low-frequency sound source in the open sea, scientists involved in the experiment said.

These ripples were as tiny as 10 nanometres tall, well below the detection range of existing technology.

Tracking and analysing these waves can not only help find the submarine but also gather critical intelligence, such as noise signature or the submarine model, according to the researchers.

The technology “will have significant application potential in underwater vessel detection and other areas,” said the project team with the National University of Defence Technology. Their work was published on August 11 in the Journal of Radars, a Chinese-language peer-reviewed journal

Terahertz is a frequency range between microwave and infrared radiation. Terahertz technology has been proposed as a potential solution for achieving high data rates and low latency for the next generation of communication technology, or 6G.

Electromagnetic signals in this range not only carry a lot more information than existing communication methods but can collect information about the environment. Some airports in China, for instance, use terahertz screening devices to detect illegal items concealed under passenger’s clothes.

Generating powerful terahertz signals used to be difficult but thanks to an increasing investment in 6G in recent years, scientists in China and other countries have achieved breakthroughs that make mass application of the technology possible.

“A small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform has the advantage of good mobility, low cost and flexible deployment,” they said in the paper.

And it could work in concert with other submarine detection methods such as a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD), microwave radar or laser.

“As a supplement to existing detection methods, it can provide important information for the detection and identification of submarines,” they added.

The paper did not state when the experiment was conducted but said it was at an unspecified location off the northeastern city of Dalian in the Yellow Sea. At the time of the test, the weather was fair but breaking waves produced lots of bubbles, according to their paper.

The military scientists used an artificial sound source to simulate the noise emitted by a submarine. And to mimic drone flight, the submarine detector was carried by an extended arm of a research ship.

When a submarine is travelling at high speed, “it produces significant radiated noise that propagates to the water surface and excites surface vibration”, the researchers said.

But the disturbance is extremely weak by the time it reaches the surface. Separating it from the natural waves of the ocean was previously thought impossible.

In the test, the terahertz sensor picked up man-made ripples with amplitude ranging from 10 to 100 nanometres, depending on the sea conditions.

The team said the result was a miracle of both hardware and software.

The terahertz waves’ high frequency made it ultra-highly sensitive. The Chinese scientists say they have also developed the world’s first algorithm that can effectively identify nanometre-size ripples over the wobbling ocean.

The same technology could be used in submarine communication, they said.

A submarine sometimes needs to establish contact with friendly aircraft to coordinate their movements in a large-scale military operation. The captain could encode messages in surface vibrations too small to be detected by enemy forces.

“By detecting acoustically-induced surface vibration signals, it is possible to invert the information conveyed by underwater sound sources,” the team said.

The sea test results suggested the terahertz technology “has high signal resolution” for cross-medium communication, which remains a challenge to naval powers, they said.

The 6G technology has been used in separate close-range communication experiments between water and the air, which had also produced successful outcomes, they said.

China claims breakthrough in US nuke sub detection

https://asiatimes.com/2023/08/china-claims-breakthrough-in-us-nuke-sub-detection/

Chinese scientists claim existing tech allows for detection of the nearly imperceptible tiny bubbles nuclear submarines produce

By GABRIEL HONRADA

AUGUST 16, 2023

China may have landed on a way to better detect stealth nuclear submarines, a development that could jeopardize US operations in the contested South China Sea and more significantly undermine the survivability of its underwater nuclear deterrent. This month, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter discovered an ultra-sensitive submarine detector based on existing technologies that can detect traces of the most advanced submarine from great distances.

The science team, led by Zou Shengnan, published their findings in the peer-reviewed Chinese Journal of Ship Research, run by the China Ship Scientific Research Center and noted for its history of being at the forefront of ship and ocean engineering developments. SCMP notes that the Chinese science team used computer modeling to determine the possibility of detecting the near-imperceptible bubbles a nuclear submarine produces. It says that the extremely low frequency (ELF) signal generated by these bubbles could be many times stronger than the sensitivities of advanced magnetic anomaly detectors.

The bubbles form when a submarine cruises due to increased kinetic energy and a corresponding decrease in potential energy expressed as pressure. This happens because the system’s total energy remains constant but the balance between kinetic and potential energy shifts. The SCMP report notes that this creates turbulence and can lead to an electromagnetic signature through the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect, with computer models showing that electric field signals could be detected around different parts of the hull. The researchers found that electromagnetic emissions produced by the cavitation bubbles fluctuate over time, generating a distinct signal in the ELF range from 49.94 Hz to 34.19 Hz.

Lead researcher Zou said that the findings could be used to provide a reference for selecting electromagnetic communication frequencies for high-speed submarines, as ELF signals can travel great distances, penetrate water and reach the ionosphere, which reflects them to the Earth’s surface. Some suggest the discovery could be a game-changer for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations. In an August 2020 article for The Strategist, Sebastian Brixey-Williams notes that modern ASW uses active and passive sonar with magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) to extract submarine signals from ocean noise, noting the methods are expected to remain crucial for the foreseeable future.

Submarines are significant metallic anomalies moving in the upper portion of the water column, producing sound and changing the water’s physical, chemical, and biological properties, disturbing Earth’s magnetic field and unavoidably emitting radiation in the case of nuclear submarines. Brixey-Williams notes that as sensor resolution, processing power and machine autonomy improve, the range of detectable signals will expand, making it possible to distinguish other previously indistinguishable signals.

He also notes that non-acoustic detection techniques have been known for decades but only recently became exploitable due to faster computer processors, noting that oceanographic models can run in real-time. Moreover, according to a March 2021 paper by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the utilization of both commercial and open-source technologies such as commercial satellite imagery, synthetic aperture radar and social media disseminated tracking can enhance the identification of submarine fleets, track the development of submarines and submarine bases, and potentially gain insights into their patrol patterns and actions.

Given that, Roger Bradbury and other writers note in a March 2023 article that it’s very likely (90%) that oceans will become transparent by the 2050s, with at least a 75% chance in most modeled cases, with the software used in their analysis evaluating the estimates with a high certainty of above 70%. They stress that despite advancements in stealth technologies, submarines, including nuclear-powered ones, can still be detected in the world’s oceans due to parallel progress in science and technology.

Such developments may complicate US plans to hunt down and detect Chinese nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) patrolling the South China Sea. US nuclear attack submarines (SSN) are known to be operating in the South China Sea, with USNI reporting on November 2021 about the collision of the USS Connecticut against an uncharted seamount in the hotly-disputed semi-enclosed body of water.

USNI notes that the USS Connecticut is one of the US Navy’s three Seawolf-class SSNs, initially designed to take on Soviet submarines in the open ocean during the Cold War and since upgraded and modified to carry out some of the US Navy’s most sensitive missions, including shadowing China’s SSBNs. Asia Times reported in April 2023 that China now can mount round-the-clock SSBN patrols, keeping one of its six Type 094 SSBNs on patrol at all times. China’s JL-3 nuclear missile has a range of up to 10,000 kilometers, putting the US within closer range. Photo: Twitter / Handout

Those SSBNs are potentially armed with the new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which has a 10,000-kilometer range and allows China to hit the continental US from newly-developed and highly-protected bastions in the South China Sea. Although US SSBNs are considered highly survivable, the growing transparency of oceans and the possibility of China and Russia coming up with a breakthrough in submarine detection technology pose a rising threat to US dominance of the seas.

Despite those concerns, Matt Korda argues in a December 2020 article for Defense One that the US lead in submarine detection and stealth technology, favorable geographic position with no territorial chokepoints and the threat of US nuclear retaliation against an attack on its SSBNs ensures the continued relevance and survivability of US SSBNs as the country’s ultimate nuclear deterrent.

China deploys swarm of satellites to monitor military exercises in Australia Exclusive by defence correspondent Andrew Greene

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-18/china-deploys-swarm-of-satellites-to-monitor-military-australia/102742594

Hundreds of Chinese satellites are currently passing over Australia collecting intelligence on military training activities involving the United States and other regional partners. Commercial space data obtained by the ABC details the full scale of Beijing's surveillance on the recently completed "Exercise Talisman Sabre", as well as the "Exercise Malabar" naval drills now being held off Sydney. 

In July, Canberra-based defence company EOS Space Systems tracked three Chinese geostationary orbit satellites manoeuvring into position below the equator to monitor the Talisman Sabre war games across northern Australia.

China's Shiyan 12-01 satellite was detected drifting westerly over the northern Australia region, while the Shijian-17 and Shijian-23 satellites were tracked drifting easterly to observe multiple areas where exercises were being conducted. Since Exercise Malabar began on August 10, hundreds of much smaller low-orbit satellites (LEOs) have also been tracked completing thousands of flights at much lower altitudes over the Australian continent, focusing on the activity of warships around Sydney Harbour. 

"We've been collecting optical surveillance data on Earth observing Chinese satellites during the Talisman Sabre and Malabar exercises and what that's showing is quite a lot of activity surveying the ground during those events," James Bennett from EOS Space Systems said.

"We've seen over 300 satellites surveying ground-based activities and the number of overflights is over 3,000 since the start of the Malabar exercise centred around the Sydney Harbour bay area," Dr Bennett added.

Exercise Malabar involves joint naval exercises between Australia and warships from the United States, India and Japan. 

Space is considered an increasingly important domain for modern war-fighting operations across the globe, with Australia's recent Defence Strategic Review categorising it as a key element of a more integrated force. 

The data on China's recent space activity was collected using telescopes stationed outside Canberra and at Learmonth in Western Australia, which was then analysed by EOS staff to precisely identify the satellites and their flight paths.

Dr Bennett said the large number of geostationary and low-orbit Chinese satellites currently above Australia is providing Beijing with extremely detailed and "persistent observation" of what is occurring on the mainland and offshore.

"They can glean military intelligence on what the capabilities and equipment are, as well as processes of ground military activities; they can use this to drive a fair bit of intelligence on military operations in Australia."

The Defence Department has declined to give details on how it was monitoring and mitigating any risks posed by the substantial Chinese satellite activity over Australia during what it describes as "well-publicised, complex war-fighting exercises".

"The ADF takes prudent measures to safeguard the information security of Australian and participating forces," a defence spokesperson told the ABC.

"Defence tracks satellite movements as part of broader space domain awareness efforts." James Brown, the chief executive of the Space Industry Association of Australia, said the numbers of Chinese satellites dedicated to tracking the military exercises is in line with Beijing's growing presence in space.

"We've seen an extraordinary amount of Chinese intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites being launched in recent years and Australia is a target for all that activity; space is becoming a critical domain for any future conflict and any potential conflict," he said. 

"They have hundreds of military and intelligence satellites which are not only collecting on Australia and its allies but in some cases dazzling Australian and allied satellites and manoeuvring closely to other satellites.

"Australia by contrast doesn't own any military satellites and certainly doesn't have any capability to collect the sort of imagery that China's been collecting over Sydney Harbour this week."

In June, Labor announced it would scrap a Morrison government program to develop new Australian satellites to gather data on natural disasters, agriculture and marine surveillance, as it searches for budget savings.

"The irony being that whilst China has had 300 satellites focused on collecting observation data Australia this week, our own government just cut the program that would've given us our first four able to do the same thing," Mr Brown said.

A LATIN AMERICAN NATO?

I think the fact that Trump & fascists are threatening civil war shows he is an agent of a foreign power. A US civil war will open up the Americas to foreign military adventurism. The French moved into Mexico during the last Civil War. This time it could be China or Russia.Americans will be too busy fighting each other to do anything about it. This might even open up the US South West, under a foreign nuclear umbrella to an armed Mexican "reconquista" insurgency in the lands lost during the Mexican American War. America is vulnerable to divide and conquer. 

The American Ruling Class loves to use divide and conquer all over the globe. The tables could be turned, when the Civil War plutocrat rhetoric becomes reality. Fear of US interventionism in Latin America could lead a foreign power to creating a Latin American analog to NATO. The US used the fear of RU/Soviet invasion to create NATO. The same fear of US invasion can be used to create a Latin American NATO. If there is a Civil War in the USA, it will open up the Western Hemisphere to foreign military's moving into it. American plutocrat politics has become so self destructive. It might lead to unimaginable chaos for their overall global position. 

RITTER II

Scott Ritter answered one of my questions today on his live stream with Jeff. I admire his commitment to Free Speech. We Americans are good when it come to Free Speech more or less. I think he his wrong. The US should apologize for building up Hitler. The Anglo/US Ruling Class built up Hitler because they feared communism. US industrialists played a huge role in the slaughter that happened in Eastern Europe - USSR in the 1940's. This history is repressed. You have to search for it. It is not in the High School history books. The US continued to support Nazism through the Cold War. The Gehlen Org played a huge role in bring down the USSR/ WARSAW Pact. The Anglo/American Ruling Class has killed millions of Eastern Europeans. The US should admit to its role in this holocaust and apologize. Ultimately though Ritter's answer was a deflection. What the Soviets did or did not do is irrelevant. 

The biggest difference is that the US Ruling Class continued to support the Nazis for the duration of the war. The US is a corrupt oligarchy. The real government are the rich people who control the politicians with their money. There is no distinction to be made between private companies and the government. The oligarch's are the ruling class. Standard Oil refueled the German U boats during the war knowing that they would attack US naval vessels. Standard Oil and IG Farben had merged before the war. Farben manufactured the gas used to murder people in the gas chambers of the death camps. Standard Oil had a branch at Auschwitz. Ford and GM both received reparations from the US Government to rebuild their bombed out factories in Germany. The fact of the matter is the first US Nazi proxy army were the OG Germans. The US won the Cold War via the Nazis. The Nazis have always had their American benefactors. 
MORE LATER

A THEORY ON SCOTT RITTER AND THE SPOOK TAKEOVER OF THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

THE CHICAGO 7
THIS IS WHAT A LEGITIMATE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT LOOKS LIKE

One notable thing about US media is that the nations the American Ruling Class bully have no voice. Their diplomats do not get interviewed. Their views are not aired in the media. In a nation where voting is the only democratic power. It is crucial that the Americans have this information. We need to know what foreign nations really think. So, we can make informed choices. The fact the US media does not do this shows that the ruling class manipulates the people. They are manufacturing consent to ruling class imperial schemes. By denying WE THE PEOPLE the information we need to make informed voting choices. Jeffersonian Democracy is dead in America. 

I noticed this a long time ago watching Israeli - Palestinian relations. The two most prominent voices in the US media representing Palestinians are not Palestinians. They are Zionists like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. They get interviewed. When they should be interviewing the Palestinian ambassador to the UN or other diplomats to get their take on Israeli - Palestinian situation. But I digress.   

Now take the US-RUSSIA proxy war in In Ukraine, the media could easily interview the Russian Ambassador to get his side. This man should be interviewed on a regular basis giving the Russian take. The Russian voice has been completely muffled. Who do we have in their place? We have the CIA. We have some of the actual spooks like Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern who helped to run down the USSR, causing its collapse, killing millions of Soviets pretending to be the voice of the Russian side. They imported drugs into the USA to subdue the domestic black community and fund genocidal wars in the Third World. They sold heroin to US soldiers in Vietnam turning them into addicts. They trained child soldiers in the name of anti-communism.  They were ruthless. 

A CYNICAL TAKE? 

I think like Daniel Ellsberg that Scott Ritter is a deep cover spook. He works for the energy companies who want to pillage Russia. I conjecture that during the build up to the Second Invasion of Iraq he was sent in to confirm that Iraq had no WMD. This way the military knew the coast was clear before invading. He was then ordered to pretend to be antiwar and lead protests as a cover. 

More recently I think that Ritter sheep dipped himself last year on the radio Sputnik program hosted by Garland Nixon (probably another spook). When he claimed to support Russia's War in Ukraine. 

The CIA is using an old tool for the days of the Vietnam War to build credibility. That tool is the "enemies" list. Daniel Ellsberg was on Nixon's enemies list. That gave him credibility for the operation he was running to coopt the antiwar movement. Ritter is on a the Ukrainian list. He claims that he is under threat. It's pure hokum. No one is going to harm him. His being a spook precludes any of that. It's psychological manipulation designed to bolster Ritter's credibility. They want people to think he's telling the truth because his life is under threat.  

In the 1960s the USA actually had a legitimate antiwar movement. This movement was targeted domestically by military spies who penetrated the movement. We know this from the Church Committee Hearings. I think Ellsberg was running an operation to take the sting out of or building on the 08 March 1971 burglary into the FBI Offices in Media Pennsylvania. This burglary released the COINTELPRO papers and led to the removal of J Edgar Hoover from office. 

Today the movement has been completely taken over by spooks. It is completely illegitimate. There are no real leaders. The leaders you do see are "former" spooks. Taking over the movement falls into the US Ruling Class strategy of full spectrum dominance.

I conjecture Ritter is building his cover so he can negotiate a  Russian surrender during his planned book tour in Russia. He will be a back channel diplomat who will threaten Russia with nuclear annihilation, if they don't agree to get back into START. The treaty limiting Russia's nuclear weapons. This treaty has prevented them from developing their own Project PLUTO.