US/ NATO v. Russia - Misperceptions.

[geordietaf]

A scurrilous remark. Our scythed chariots are state of the art.

[Machor]

16 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Military vessels and aircraft belong to their service of origin by international law.  It gets weird when you talk about defunct countries, and it is often disregarded by third parties (see illegal scrap operations on more shallow water wrecks).

There is poignant breaking news that the remains of the Battle of the Java Sea have all but disappeared:

"Mystery over Dutch WW2 shipwrecks vanished from Java Sea bed"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37997640

"Three Dutch World War Two ships considered war graves have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea, the Dutch defence ministry says.
All three were sunk by the Japanese during the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942, and their wrecks were discovered by divers in 2002.
A report in the Guardian says three British ships have disappeared as well.
The British government says it is "distressed" by the reports and is investigating.
A new expedition to mark next year's 75th anniversary of the battle found the wrecks missing.
The Guardian says it has seen 3D images, showing large holes in the seabed where HMS Exeter, HMS Encounter, the destroyer HMS Electra, as well as a US submarine, used to be.
Experts say salvaging the wrecks would have been a huge operation.
The Dutch defence ministry is to investigate the mysterious disappearance.
In a statement, it said that two of its ships had completely gone, with sonar images only showing imprints, while large parts of a third ship, a destroyer, were missing.
"The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence," the ministry said.
The UK's Ministry of Defence confirmed that it had contacted the Indonesian authorities.
An MOD spokesperson said, "Many lives were lost during this battle and we would expect that these sites are respected and left undisturbed without the express consent of the United Kingdom.""

[Erwin]

What with the disappearance of the Malaysian aircraft it would appear that the dam thievin' bastid aliens are back.  See the movie summer 2017 release.

[John Kettler]

Machor,

Was unaware of the whole HMS Poseidon business, let alone the simply astounding BBC report. The first thing I thought about was water depth, figuring any sort of wreckage retrieval would be in deep water. Practically a cattle pond by comparison. Average depth is a minuscule 151 feet/46 meters!  This radically changes the metal salvage recovery scenario but in no way minimizes the whole war grave desecration side of things. Also, your link says the depth of water is 70 meters/230 feet there, which is considerably more than the average depth. I imagine NIMA analysts are doing a retrospective look at all imagery from the area in order to determine what happened and when. Outright removal of all those warships is a recovery effort of immense scale, expense and considerable technical difficulty.

http://www.marineinsight.com/know-more/8-facts-about-the-java-sea/

Unless you're clever and/or use brute force methods!  Very good article in the Guardian, including the account of the already historic before this battle HMS Exeter of the fight against the KM pocket battleship Graf Spee fame. This sort of wholesale destruction of historical artifacts, let alone war graves, makes me want to vomit, not to mention the hypocrisy invlolved were the shoe on the other foot!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/16/british-second-world-war-ships-illegal-scavenging-java-sea

Regards,

John Kettler

[Jotte]

7 hours ago, Erwin said:

What with the disappearance of the Malaysian aircraft it would appear that the dam thievin' bastid aliens are back.  See the movie summer 2017 release.

Looks like a co-worker here is right then... He maintains he is the last man on Earth, seriously. All the rest of us are aliens, weather we know it or not.

Wonder how someone pulled of such salvage operations without getting noticed?

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, TJT said:

Wonder how someone pulled of such salvage operations without getting noticed?

Good question. The ocean is a big place, but I would expect those waters to be traveled fairly frequently and would-be salvagers would not be assured to go unnoticed. Plus, I wonder if there is any regular satellite coverage. An operation of this sort would have needed to be carefully planned and financed and probably required someone fairly high up in the Indonesian government. Many unanswered questions...

Michael

[Machor]

Thank you for the sympathy and links, @John Kettler. I happened to learn about the Battle of the Java Sea little more than a year ago - for those who may not be aware of its significance, "At the time, the battle was the largest surface ship engagement since the Battle of Jutland in 1916." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Java_Sea ). Now the wrecks are gone before the 75th anniversary expedition had a chance to shoot documentary footage. The BBC came out with a new article exploring what may have happened:

"How could a shipwreck disappear?"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38010130

"Dutch and British World-War-Two shipwrecks have mysteriously disappeared from the Java Sea, prompting outrage. The BBC asks experts what could have happened to the vessels.
For decades the wreckages of three Dutch warships - HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java and HNLMS Kortenaer - were lost to the world, sitting at the bottom of the Java Sea.
The victims of a fierce 1942 sea battle with the Japanese, the ships had gone down along with 915 Dutch and 259 Indonesian sailors.

...

Ship salvage experts told the BBC that any attempt to raise and tow huge ageing warships from such depths would be a massive operation involving multiple barges, cranes and trained divers.

...

What was more likely was that locals clandestinely stripped the wrecks in a piecemeal fashion over the years until nothing was left.
Bas Wiebe, commercial manager of salvage company Resolve's Asia operations, said they could have cut away parts of the rotting wreckage using mechanical equipment known as grabs.
"If time is not of the essence, you have a barge and equipment, you could just nibble away," said another expert who declined to be named citing political sensitivities.
Another possibility is that the ships were blown up into smaller pieces - a cheaper and faster way to disintegrate wrecks.
"It is not like an huge explosion like you see on TV. It's basically fairly contained but enough to break apart the vessel and if you do it a few times, you can just fish out the pieces," said Mr Wiebe."

And here I was displeased with the micro-salvaging of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow: "The remaining wrecks lie in deeper waters, in depths up to 47 metres (154 ft), and there has been no economic incentive to attempt to raise them since. Minor salvage is still carried out to recover small pieces of steel. This low-background steel is used in the manufacture of radiation-sensitive devices, such as Geiger counters, as it is not contaminated with radioisotopes, having been produced prior to any chance of nuclear contamination." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_in_Scapa_Flow )

[John Kettler]

Was doing some research on George Soros's activities, when I found this.  The author, F. William Engdahl, is a heavy hitter, with a stack of highly rated books to his credit. Among other places, he writes for N.E.O., a Russian (therefore Putin approved) journal. Its stated goals seem laudable. That doesn't mean they are, in fact, the real ones.

An American Oligarch's Dirty Tale of Corruption

http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/12/an-american-oligarch-s-dirty-tale-of-corruption/

In it, there's a link to  Russian hacker collective CyberBerkut's  Soros document directly pertinent to our discussion here. It talks specifically about Putin's perceived objectives, including military, in Ukraine and evidences Soros was/is doing some high powered string-pulling in Ukraine.  The title is "A Short and Medium-Term Comprehensive Strategy for the New Ukraine in Ukraine" and is called Draft Non-Paper No. 14  This is from Soros to Poroshenko.

http://cyber-berkut.org/docs/Soros_Ukraine_March_non-paper _2015_v14.pdf

Zero Hedge considers it important.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-01/hacked-emails-expose-george-soros-ukraine-puppet-master

My technical woes aside earlier when FF repeatedly wouldn't let me Paste, this seems important to our discussion. Not only is he talking about what Putin's goals are, but what Ukraine should and shouldn't do militarily. The site Morning Consult's Tech Brief for August 12, 2016 on the DNC hack says it, the Wesley Clark hack and the Soros hack are all Russian sourced. There is, of course, the strong possibility that NSA may be the source of the first.

https://morningconsult.com/briefs/tech-brief-hack-dnc-extended-nato-soros/

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

Edited November 18, 2016 by John Kettler

[Wicky]

Yes truly Kettlerian - because Engdahl has wriiten a book doesn't make what he writes true esp. with the proliferation of self-published authors, it makes anything possible.

and the relatively recent PDF supposedly created by Soros's wife is in alll likelihood fake as the file's author can be easilly added in any name by using Adobe Acrobat Pro / properties or when the it was exported from MS Windows > 

https://cl.ly/1w171u462I1H/Soros_Ukraine_March_non-paper _2015_v13.pdf

"Engdahl published his artice in the Executive Intelligence Review, the comically misnamed journal of arch crackpot Lyndon LaRouhe. LaRouche soon adopted Soros as his favourite new evil mastermind.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qQoXpyR3MXIC&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=William+Engdahl+anti+semite&source=bl&ots=a_huXLn0ag&sig=nyI0TBu1UJa2xa9h45JqpEPPsdM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja2sHO17LQAhWCTRoKHXjhCOsQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=William Engdahl anti semite&f=false

"In 2002 Arnaud de Borchgrave, Editor-in-Chief for The Washington Times, called Executive Intelligence Review "an anti-Semitic potpourri of disinformation, factoids, rumor, gossip, loony tunes and an occasional fact."

"The New York Review of Books said that Executive Intelligence Review "echoes Kremlin propaganda"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Intelligence_Review#Criticism

 

As for > zerohedge.com > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge#Readership.2C_views.2C_and_stances

"The New York Times described Zero Hedge in 2011 as "a well-read and controversial financial blog." The site was described by CNNMoney as offering a "deeply conspiratorial, anti-establishment and pessimistic view of the world." Financial journalists Felix Salmon and Justin Fox have characterized the site as conspiratorial"

Lokey, a former paid Zero Hedge writer who left the website in 2016 over disagreements in editorial direction, characterizes the site's political content as "disingenuous," summarizing its political stances as "Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft."

 

Edited November 18, 2016 by Wicky

[John Kettler]

Wicky,

2 hours ago, Wicky said:

Yes truly Kettlerian - because Engdahl has wriiten a book doesn't make what he writes true esp. with the proliferation of self-published authors, it makes anything possible.

I never said they were true, merely that he had a stack of well-reviewed ones. Stop misrepresenting what I said. Additionally, I note your sweeping generalization ref self-publishing as a way to discredit and dismiss. Unlike you, I decided to check. Seeds of Destruction, which deals with genetic manipulation of crops, is published by Global Reserach.org's Center for Globalization. Full Spectrum Dominance is published by Third Millenium Press. Myths, Lies and Oil Wars is self-published by something called edition.engdahl. Target: China is published by Progressive Press. So in four titles I simply picked from his list on Amazon, you were right once!

2 hours ago, Wicky said:

and the relatively recent PDF supposedly created by Soros's wife is in alll likelihood fake as the file's author can be easilly added in any name by using Adobe Acrobat Pro / properties or when the it was exported from MS Windows > 

https://cl.ly/1w171u462I1H/Soros_Ukraine_March_non-paper _2015_v13.pdf

I don't know anything about Soro's wife regarding this, but your link is to the exact same doc I described. Claims of ease of manipulating authorship beg the question. Seems to me there is enough Soros internal material to be able, with the right software, to determine whether or not he is the author, for writing style tends to be distinctive. I think it would be wise to look at what Soros is alleged to have E-mailed Poroshenko in the context of his other known activities. Pattern and practice, as it were. Instead of simply writing off the document, why not look at what Soros has done elsewhere, why and what he has gained or lost as a result?

2 hours ago, Wicky said:

"Engdahl published his artice in the Executive Intelligence Review, the comically misnamed journal of arch crackpot Lyndon LaRouhe. LaRouche soon adopted Soros as his favourite new evil mastermind.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qQoXpyR3MXIC&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=William+Engdahl+anti+semite&source=bl&ots=a_huXLn0ag&sig=nyI0TBu1UJa2xa9h45JqpEPPsdM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja2sHO17LQAhWCTRoKHXjhCOsQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=William Engdahl anti semite&f=false

 I know who runs EIR, learned it long ago, in fact. I can't read your link, so can't speak to it. Authors publish in all sorts of places, so rejecting the information out of hand simply because it comes from a tainted source in the view of some doesn't necessarily invalidate it. TASS is arguably a tainted source, yet we have zero compunction about discussing content from there, from RT and other Putin-controlled media. What would your reaction be if instead the very same article were to be published in, say, CounterPunch, a very much Left US magazine? What then? I haven't read any of Mr. Engdahl's books, but I thought his article which was in my OP was well worth my time. If EIR's slant is pro-Kremlin, then I think it's good to know this, just as we've learned what the blatant pro-HRC slants were of the thoroughly discredited US MSM types in the recent electoral event. Again, even the most controversial sites may have something useful, but as Dad used to opine, "You have to learn to sort the rat manure from the coffee." In assessing what Russia's plans were for Ukraine, Steve didn't rely solely on Ukrainian sources. That's for sure.

There are useful nuggets all over the place, and rejecting things out of hand because of where they're published, if trying to arrive at the big picture, is ill-advised. I rather doubt the CIA and any number of other intelligence agencies, whether here or abroad, summarily reject something simply because of where it's published. Or should they simply abandon open source analysis from denied countries simply because you disagree with the source? You'd best believe that when Kim Jong-un or any other NK source says something, however seemingly in passing, it's gone over minutely by highly trained analysts. For a look at what the MSM isn't telling you, here is Project Censored's list of the top 25 censored stories of 2015-2016. Project Censored is a highly respected operation, but if it says something you don't like, will you reject it, too?

2 hours ago, Wicky said:

As for > zerohedge.com > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge#Readership.2C_views.2C_and_stances

"The New York Times described Zero Hedge in 2011 as "a well-read and controversial financial blog." The site was described by CNNMoney as offering a "deeply conspiratorial, anti-establishment and pessimistic view of the world." Financial journalists Felix Salmon and Justin Fox have characterized the site as conspiratorial"

Lokey, a former paid Zero Hedge writer who left the website in 2016 over disagreements in editorial direction, characterizes the site's political content as "disingenuous," summarizing its political stances as "Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft."

If Zero Hedge is irrelevant, why do so many read it? People who read finance blogs are generally very busy, so if it's a waste of time, then why read Zero Hedge? You may also wish to carefully consider that Wikipedia today isn't what it once was.  If you go to the Project Censored link, you'll see that one of the stories had to do with NYPD officers altering the Wiki piece on police brutality by NYPD! Real confidence builder, that. 

2 hours ago, Wicky said:

(Deleted because it was misplaced and I couldn't move the quote.)

Summing up, I think you're in a big hurry to discredit, have used several sweeping generalizations (which I have blown big holes in) to do so, and are resolutely close minded to anything not coming from sources you approve of. All I care about is the truth. It matter not in the least to me how repellent, hideous or ghastly, nor how many cherished assumptions must die or sacred cows be slaughtered as a result. What is, is.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited November 18, 2016 by John Kettler

[sburke]

John, I strongly suggest you change direction. I think you know already how well those sources will be received here. Just a suggestion. 

[Wicky]

1 hour ago, John Kettler said:

I don't know anything about Soro's wife regarding this, but your link is to the exact same doc I described

In the PDF (Draft Non-Paper/ v14) you linked to the author was indicated to be Soros's wife, 'Tamiko Bolton' - supposedly to give it a tinge of 'authenticity' cos not much else does considering its unknown but dodgy provenance (any other supporting and corroboratiing documents obtained in the hacking heist?)

With a little jiggery-pokery it can be made to appear authored from anyone on creation of a PDF or subsequently - suggest you download the PDF I linked to (Draft Non-Paper/ v13) and check who authored it ;-) 

Because a highly dubious digital file ends up written about by a self-published conspiracy theorist, is repeated by a half-baked conspiracy site and enthusiastically thrust into this thread as a source by another barely restrained conspiracy theorist - doesn't lend much credence to it as a source of truth.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Wicky

[John Kettler]

Wicky,

I read PDFs and was unaware you could extract what you did. I don't see any need for gilding the lily with her name, since I believe the doc speaks for itself. Or doesn't. In any event, I shall decline your authorship offer to me!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Codename Duchess]

USNI is reporting via a translation  of a Russian press release (linked in that article) that the lost MiG-29 suffered dual engine failure while in holding for a foul deck to be cleared after the second of three planes broke an arrestor cable (it happens). Probable cause is fuel starvation. That should not have happened. Why wasn't their a tanker airborne, or provisions for the fighter to divert to Syria or even Cyprus?

[VladimirTarasov]

11 minutes ago, Codename Duchess said:

USNI is reporting via a translation  of a Russian press release (linked in that article) that the lost MiG-29 suffered dual engine failure while in holding for a foul deck to be cleared after the second of three planes broke an arrestor cable (it happens). Probable cause is fuel starvation. That should not have happened. Why wasn't their a tanker airborne, or provisions for the fighter to divert to Syria or even Cyprus?

Good question... Why do you think that happened? Miscalculation? 

[Codename Duchess]

1 hour ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Good question... Why do you think that happened? Miscalculation? 

I couldn't say. I know in US Naval Aviation there are few cardinal sins, but poor fuel awareness is right at the top of the list.

[Holien]

Some interesting comments about sop of dumping fuel before landing? Could maybe account for the situation?

[Codename Duchess]

3 hours ago, Holien said:

Some interesting comments about sop of dumping fuel before landing? Could maybe account for the situation?

USN aircraft used to have dump fuel and bombs before advances in arresting gear and aircraft design means we don't have to, usually. Thing is it shouldn't be SOP to dump to a point of no return/no safe alternate, or there should have been a tanker airborne. He should have immediately been sent to land if he was that fuel critical. If that wasn't possible then it's a massive institutional no-no to make it SOP where you have 0 alternatives.

[Holien]

Yep agree as the cost of not having an alternative is way too high.

The loss of one plane of that quality is an expensive one.