—DISPATCHES FROM ERIC ZUESSE—

Eva Bartlett, an independent journalist who is the first Western reporter who has travelled through the areas of Syria that have been freed from jihadist control by the Syrian government with Russian air-support, is reporting, at the sott.net website, that everyone she speaks with has stories of horror to tell, and that in many instances the jihadists who were inflicting the horrors were U.S.-armed and backed, basically supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey — often “al-Nusra,” the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. As Seymour Hersh and others have reported, the U.S. has worked with the Sauds, Qatar, and Turkey, to get men and weapons to al-Nusra.

 

Christians were caught and killed by ISIS in Libya. They have done the same in Iraq and Syria to any and all creeds, except Sunnis, and many of those were murdered for failing to pass the “purity test.” The ISIS lunatics are ruthless killers. This is the horrible Frankenstein created by Washington and its accomplices in the region.

“The terrorists attacked us, terrorists from Turkey, from Chechnya, and from Arab and other foreign countries. They had tanks and guns, like an army, just like an army. [The Sauds had bought those from the U.S.; the equipment is sent into Syria via Turkey.] For 73 days we were surrounded in the citadel of Harem. They hit us with all kinds of weapons. We had women and children with us. They showed no mercy. When they caught any of us, they slaughtered him, and then send his head back to us. They killed over 100 people, and kidnapped around 150… children, civilians, soldiers. Until now, we don’t know what’s happened to them,” he said.

---

 

ISIS terrorist (of the real kind) beheading a prisoner. A trail of unmatched horrors.

ISIS mass execution of Syrian soldiers at Palmyra. One of the many ghastly crimes committed by this revolting entity.

=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable

THE WEST’S GREAT WAR AGAINST RUSSIA
Syria, the Ukraine, and other battlefields are just proxy conflicts. The object is the defeat and destruction of Russia as an independent world power.

[First iteration on 12.11.2014]

Topol ICBM with mobile missile launcher: nearly impossible to detect and neutralize.

It was the first strategic agreement, after the treacherous policy of Democrats, in which Russia managed to win significant advantages. In the treaty, the Americans, for the first time in history, undertook to reduce their strategic nuclear potential, while Russia won an opportunity to increase it. Furthermore, the new treaty removed important limitations that existed in the previous START 1 and START 2 treaties. It goes about the size of areas for the deployment of mobile ICBMs, the number of multi-charge ICBMs, and the possibility to build railway-based ICBMs. Russia did not make any concessions.

Having written off Moscow as a serious geopolitical rival, flying on the wings of inaccessible military and technological superiority, Washington drove itself into a trap, from which it does not see a way out even on a medium-term perspective.

Recently, a lot has been said about so-called “sixth-generation wars” and high-precision long-range weapons that should ensure victory over the enemy without coming into direct contact with its armed forces. This concept is highly questionable. (The US failed to achieve victory in such a way both in Iraq and Afghanistan). Yet, this is the point where Russia enters the parity line as well. The proof is long-range cruise missiles of a new generation that will soon be deployed on submarines of the Black Sea Fleet and missile ships of the Caspian Flotilla.

In today’s Russia, many find this hard to believe. This is a common belief for many of those, who still enthusiastically remain in captivity of the myths about the absolute “weakness” of Russia and the absolute “superiority” of the West. The myth was made up in the 90’s under the influence of Boris Yeltsin and his betrayal of Russian national interests. One has to admit that during that time, the myth was real, if one may say so.

The TU-160 Supersonic strategic bomber.

Times have changed. One can easily understand the new state of affairs.

For example, let’s consider the potential of conventional weapons of Russia and the West in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). In this area, it is generally believed that NATO is a lot stronger than Russia. Yet, a first encounter with reality smashes this misbelief into pieces.

As is known, the main striking force, the core of combat power of the ground forces is tanks. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Armed Forces had about 20,000 tanks in the ETO.

The Americans, in turn, deployed 6,000 heavy Abrams tanks on the territory of the allied group. Despite this, the combined potential of NATO forces in Europe was still significantly inferior to the Soviet potential. To compensate this imbalance, NATO strategists were forced to resort to tactical nuclear weapons (TNW).

Russian tanks drive through Tskhinvali, the regional capital of Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia, moving to the Russian border, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008. Russia has long been a world leader in tank technology.

In the first half of the 1950s, NATO conducted a research about what kind of forces the bloc should have to show reliable resistance to large-scale ground offensive of superior forces of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. The calculations showed then that one required at least 96 full-fledged divisions for the purpose. Yet, the cost of armament for one of such divisions exceeded $1 billion. Plus, one required two or three more billion to maintain such a large group of troops and build appropriate infrastructure. This burden was clearly beyond the power of the economy of the West.

The solution was found in a move to deploy a group of US tactical nuclear weapons on the continent, and that was done soon. By the early 1970s, the US arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons counted about 7,000 units of ammunition. The highest achievement in the area was the creation of weapons of selective action – neutron warheads (for guns of 203-mm and 155-mm caliber, and for Lance missiles) with a capacity from 1 to 10 kilotons. The warheads were seen as the key in combating land forces personnel, particularly Soviet tank crews.

Given the nuclear factor, to deflect “Soviet aggression,” NATO required to deploy only 30, rather than 96 divisions, and so they were deployed.

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ow do things work in this area now? In early 2013, the Americans withdrew the last group of heavy Abrams tanks from Europe. In NATO countries, over the last 20 years, one new tank would replace 10-15 old, yet still capable, tanks. At the same time, Russia was not decommissioning its tanks.

As a result, today Russia is the absolute leader in this regard. In mid-2014, the balance of the Defense Ministry had as many as 18,177 tanks (T-90 – 400 pcs., T-72B – 7,144 pcs., T-80 – 4,744 pcs, T-64 – 4,000 pcs, T-62 – 689 pcs, and T-55 – 1200 pcs.).

Of course, only a few thousand tanks are deployed in permanent readiness units, and most of them remain at storage bases. Yet, NATO has the same picture. Therefore, the decisive superiority of Russian tanks has not gone anywhere since the times of the USSR.

Here is another surprise. As for tactical nuclear weapons, the superiority of modern-day Russia over NATO is even stronger.

The Americans are well aware of this. They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it’s too late.

To date, NATO countries have only 260 tactical nuclear weapons in the ETO. The United States has 200 bombs with a total capacity of 18 megatons. They are located on six air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. France has 60 more atomic bombs. That is pretty much it. Russia, according to conservative estimates, has 5,000 pieces of different classes of TNW – from Iskander warheads to torpedo, aerial and artillery warheads! The US has 300 tactical B-61 bombs on its own territory, but this does not change the situation against the backdrop of such imbalance. The US is unable to improve it either, as it has destroyed the “Cold War legacy” – tactical nuclear missiles, land-based missiles and nuclear warheads of sea-based Tomahawk cruise missiles.

This report is in 2 parts. Read part 2 here.

Pravda.Ru

Дмитрий Судаков

Russia takes advantage of Western military errors
{First iteration 13.11.2014]

Continued. Read Part 1 of the article on page 1.

The advanced tactical fighter SU-34.

How can Russia – the country that lost the Cold War – be ahead of NATO in terms of military power? One should look into the history of the problem to try to understand.

It is believed that by the beginning of 1991, the USSR had about 20-22,000 units of tactical nuclear weapons. They are nuclear warheads of air bombs, warheads for tactical missiles “Luna”, “Tochka”, “Oka”, nuclear warheads of antisubmarine weapons of the fleet, special warheads of air defense system missiles, nuclear mines and nuclear artillery shells of the Ground Forces.

This impressive arsenal was the result of forty years of an intensive arms race. It is noteworthy it was not the “totalitarian” USSR that started the arms race, but the [supposedly] liberal and democratic USA, which began developing and testing various types of tactical nuclear weapons in the early 1950s, with a view toward nuclear and tactical superiority. The first example of a warhead of this class was the warhead for a 280-mm gun with the capacity of 15 kilotons. The warhead was tested in May 1953. Afterwards, nuclear warheads would be produced smaller in size, thus leading to the creation of warheads for self-propelled howitzers of 203-mm and 155-mm caliber that had a capacity from one to ten kilotons. Until recently, they were remaining in the arsenal of US troops in Europe.

The SU-35: few planes match this aircraft’s array of capabilities.

Afterwards, the US Armed Forces received the following tactical missiles outfitted with nuclear warheads: Redstone (range 370 km), Corporal (125 kilometers), Sergeant (140 kilometers), Lance (130 kilometers) and several others. In the middle of the 1960s, the USA finalized the development of tactical Pershing-1 missiles (740 kilometers).

In turn, the Soviet military and political leadership decided that the equipment of American forces in Europe with TNW was creating a fundamentally new balance of forces. The USSR took decisive steps to create and deploy multiple types of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons. Already in the early 1960s, tactical missiles T-5, T-7, “Luna” were passed into service. Later, the non-strategic nuclear arsenal was expanded with medium-range missiles RSD-10, P-12, P-14 medium-range bombers Tu-22 and Tu-16, as well as tactical missiles OTR-22, OTR-23 and  tactical ones – P-17, “Tochka”, nuclear artillery of 152 mm, 203 mm and 240 mm caliber, tactical aviation aircraft Su-17, Su-24, MiG-21, MiG-23.

The OTR-22 model.

It is again noteworthy that the Soviet leadership had repeatedly offered Western leaders to start negotiations on the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons. Yet, NATO would persistently reject all Soviet proposals on this subject. The situation changed considerably only when the Union started shattering as a result of Gorbachev’s “perestroika”. It was the time when Washington decided to take advantage of the moment to weaken and disarm its main geopolitical rival.

In September 1991, US President George H. Bush launched an initiative on the reduction and even elimination of certain types of tactical nuclear weapons. Gorbachev, in turn, also announced plans to radically reduce similar weapons in the USSR. Subsequently, the plans received development in the statement from Russian President Boris Yeltsin “On Russia’s policy in the field of arms limitation and reduction” from January 29, 1992. The statement pointed out that Russia had stopped producing nuclear artillery shells and warheads for land-based missiles and undertook to destroy a stockpile of such weapons. Russia promised to remove tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships, attack submarines and eliminate one-third of those weapons. A half of warheads for anti-aircraft missiles and aircraft munitions was to be destroyed too.

After such reductions, the arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons of Russia and the United States were to keep 2,500-3,000 tactical nuclear warheads.

Russian military exercise.

However, it turned out otherwise. The illusion of world supremacy played a cruel joke on Washington.

American strategists wrote off the “democratic” Russia after the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, during the Gulf War, US high-precision weapons successfully completed several large-scale combat tasks that had been previously planned for TNW. This prompted Washington to put all stakes on a technological breakthrough. This led to the creation of “smart” weapons that were  becoming more and more expensive. The USA was gradually cutting the production of such weapons, and NATO’s high-tech arms proved to be completely inadequate for conducting large-scale combat actions with an enemy that would be at least approximately equal to the West from the point of view of its technological level.

Meanwhile in Russia, experts were quick to agree that against the backdrop of the post-Soviet geostrategic situation, reducing and eliminating tactical nuclear weapons was unacceptable. After all, it is tactical nuclear weapons that serve as a universal equalizer of forces, depriving NATO of its military advantage. In these circumstances, Russia simply borrowed NATO’s thesis of the need to compensate enemy superiority in conventional weapons by deploying a tactical nuclear arsenal on the European Theater of Operations.

The situation had been developing according to the above-mentioned scenario for over two decades. The West, having discarded Russia, had been cutting its tanks and destroying tactical nuclear weapons. Russia, feeling its own weakness, kept all tanks and tactical nuclear weapons.

Eventually, Russia overcame the inertia of collapse and started reviving its power, while the West, being lulled by sweet day-dreams of the liberal “end of history,” castrated its armed forces to the point when they could only be good for leading colonial wars with weak and technically backward enemies. The balance of forces in Europe has thus changed in Russia’s favor.

When the Americans realized that, it was too late. In December 2010, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, sounded the alarm. The Russians had more tactical nuclear systems than the USA, she said.  According to her, the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons was to be the next step.

In 2010, the Europeans, in the face of foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden, insolently demanded Russia should single-handedly establish two nuclear-free zones – the Kaliningrad region (enclave) and the Kola Peninsula – the territories of priority deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. The regions serve as the main bases for the Baltic and Northern Fleets. In case of the Northern Fleet, the region is a base for most of Russian SNF.

Since then, the Americans have repeatedly offered Russia to follow the flawed way of solving the “problem of tactical nuclear weapons.” They stubbornly insist on reaching an agreement to eliminate disparities on stocks of tactical nuclear weapons. They even tried to stipulate a condition for the effect of the START-3 Treaty. Thus, in accordance with Senator Lemieux’s amendment (Amendment 4/S.AMDN.4908), the START-3 was to come into force after the Russian side agreed to start negotiations on the so-called liquidation of imbalance of tactical nuclear weapons in Russia and the US.

On February 3, 2011, Barack Obama wrote in a letter to several key senators saying that the United States was going to start negotiations with Russia to address disparity between tactical nuclear weapons of the Russian Federation and the United States to reduce the number of tactical nuclear warheads in a verifiable way.  Alas, in 2012, Putin returned to the Kremlin, and the hopes of the West to deceive Russia though unilateral disarmament failed.

Pravda.Ru

Дмитрий Судаков

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable

 By Matt Agorist 

No one doubts the sheer size of the US Navy, easily three times its closest rivals. But it is a navy primarily designed for offensive missions, not national defense. Imperial power projection around the globe is its chief task, albeit one carefully concealed from the US public. (Photo: Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69).

On Thursday, the US Navy announced they dispatched a small armada to the South China Sea. Consisting of the John C. Stennis aircraft carrier, two cruisers, two destroyers, and the 7th Fleet flagship, the US is making their mission clear — we are not scared of kicking off World War III.

Confirmed by the Navy Times, the stand-off has been heating up on both sides. After news in February that the Chinese deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile battery to the Paracel Islands, U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Harry Harris told lawmakers that China was militarizing the South China Sea.

“In my opinion, China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea,” Harris testified on Feb. 24. “You’d have to believe in a flat Earth to believe otherwise.”

However, China is not the nation sending warships halfway across the globe in a clear attempt to provoke a fight.3

While China is no saint, they are not the country with nearly 700 military bases in dozens of countries across the globe who’ve been responsible for the total destruction of multiple nation-states in just the past decade.1

The reason the Chinese have shown a military presence in the region is due to the nature of the dispute over who lays claim to the Paracel Islands chain.

The Paracel Islands, also known as Xisha in Chinese and Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese, is a group of islands, reefs, banks and other maritime features in the South China Sea. It is controlled (and occupied) by the People’s Republic of China and also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

This dispute over who lays claim to the region dates back decades, and physical violence has erupted between the disputing parties on multiple occasions as recently as 1974. However, since then, the dispute has remained peaceful — until now.

The US is attempting to claim that the Chinese presence in the region is some new conflict and are touting strawmen such as closed trade routes as a reason for flexing their military sway. But there is no evidence that trade will be affected at all.

No country in their right mind would hinder its ability to export, and China shows no signs of halting exports any time soon.

Stating the obvious, Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China’s National People’s Congress said,

“The accusation [that China is militarizing the region] can lead to a miscalculation of the situation. If you take a look at the matter closely, it’s the US sending the most advanced aircraft and military vessels to the South China Sea.”

Defense Secretary Ash Carter seems hell bent on escalating the situation. On Tuesday, Carter, in an evident failure of logic and confirming Ying’s statement, warned China to halt their militarization of the region, or the US will further militarize the region.

Backing up Ying’s claims about US militarization, Carter noted that the US is unafraid of increasing military deployments to the Asia-Pacific region and would spend nearly $425 million to pay for more joint military exercise with countries that feel threatened by Beijing.

“China must not pursue militarization in the South China Sea,” Carter said in a speech in San Francisco. “Specific actions will have specific consequences.”1

As the global economy teeters on the edge of collapse, the U.S. has ramped up its saber rattling, not only with China but with the Russians as well. While America spends more on war than anyone else in the world, the idea that they can take on China and Russia simultaneously is deadly insane.

---

About the Author

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world.

Follow @MattAgorist

---

 

SIMULCAST WITH: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/u-s-entire-carrier-strike-group-confront-china/#dM7M0KlkZrdMjUO6.99

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience. 

=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=By= Vincent Emanuele

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or the last several years, people around the world have asked, “Where did ISIS come from?” Explanations vary, but largely focus on geopolitical (U.S. hegemony), religious (Sunni-Shia), ideological (Wahhabism) or ecological (climate refugees) origins. Many commentators and even former military officials correctly suggest that the war in Iraq is primarily responsible for unleashing the forces we now know as ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, etc. Here, hopefully, I can add some useful reflections and anecdotes.

When I was stationed in Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines from 2003-2005, I didn’t know what the repercussions of the war would be, but I knew there would be a reckoning. That retribution, otherwise known as blowback, is currently being experienced around the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, France, Tunisia, California, and so on), with no end in sight. Back then, I routinely saw and participated in obscenities. Of course, the wickedness of the war was never properly recognized in the West. Without question, anti-war organizations attempted to articulate the horrors of the war in Iraq, but the mainstream media, academia, and political-corporate forces in the West never allowed for a serious examination of the greatest war crime of the 21st century. As we patrolled the vast region of Iraq’s Al-Anbar Province, throwing MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) trash out of our vehicles, I never contemplated how we would be remembered in history books; I simply wanted to make some extra room in my HUMVEE.

Years later, sitting in a Western Civilization history course at a university, listening to my professor talk about the cradle of civilization, I thought of MRE garbage on the floor of the Mesopotamian desert. Examining recent events in Syria and Iraq, I can’t help but think of the small kids my fellow marines would pelt with Skittles from those MRE packages. Candies weren’t the only objects thrown at the children: water bottles filled with urine, rocks, debris, and various other items were thrown as well. I often wonder how many members of ISIS and various other terrorist organizations recall such events. Moreover, I think about the hundreds of prisoners we took captive and tortured in makeshift detention facilities staffed by teenagers from Tennessee, New York, and Oregon. I never had the misfortune of working in the detention facility, but I remember the stories. I vividly remember the marines telling me about punching, slapping, kicking, elbowing, kneeing and head- butting Iraqis. I remember the tales of sexual torture: forcing Iraqi men to perform sexual acts on each other while marines held knives against their testicles, sometimes sodomizing them with batons.

Night Raids

However, before those abominations could take place, those of us in infantry units had the pleasure of rounding up Iraqis during night raids, zip-tying their hands, black-bagging their heads and throwing them in the back of HUMVEEs and trucks while their wives and kids collapsed to their knees and wailed. Sometimes, we would pick them up during the day. Most of the time they wouldn’t resist. Some of them would hold hands while marines would butt-stroke the prisoners in the face. Once they arrived at the detention facility, they would be held for days, weeks, and even months at a time. Their families were never notified. And when they were released, we would drive them from the FOB (Forward Operating Base) to the middle of the desert and release them several miles from their homes. After we cut their zip-ties and took the black bags off their heads, several of our more deranged marines would fire rounds from their AR-15s into the air or ground, scaring the recently released captives, always for laughs. Most Iraqis would run, still crying from their long ordeal at the detention facility, hoping some level of freedom awaited them on the outside. Who knows how long they survived. After all, no one cared. We do know of one former U.S. prisoner who survived: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.

Amazingly, the ability to dehumanize the Iraqi people reached a crescendo after the bullets and explosions concluded, as many marines spent their spare time taking pictures of the dead, often mutilating their corpses for fun or poking their bloated bodies with sticks for some cheap laughs. Because iPhones weren’t available at the time, several marines came to Iraq with digital cameras. Those cameras contain an untold history of the war in Iraq, a history the West hopes the world forgets. That history and those cameras also contain footage of wanton massacres and numerous other war crimes, realities the Iraqis don’t have the pleasure of forgetting.

Unfortunately, I could recall countless horrific anecdotes from my time in Iraq. Innocent people were not only routinely rounded-up, tortured, and imprisoned, they were also incinerated by the hundreds of thousands—some studies suggest by the millions. Only the Iraqis understand the pure evil that’s been waged on their nation. They remember the West’s role in the eight year war between Iraq and Iran; they remember Clinton’s sanctions in the 1990s, policies which resulted in the deaths of well over 500,000 people, largely women and children.

Then, 2003 came and the West finished the job. Today, Iraq is a devastated nation. The people are poisoned and maimed, and the natural environment is toxic from bombs laced with depleted uranium. After 14 years of the War on Terror, one thing is clear: the West is great at fomenting barbarism and creating failed states.

Living with Ghosts

The warm and glassy eyes of young Iraqi children perpetually haunt me, as they should. The faces of those I’ve killed, or at least those whose bodies were close enough to examine, will never escape my thoughts. My nightmares and daily reflections remind me of where ISIS comes from and why, exactly, they hate us. That hate, understandable yet regrettable, will be directed at the West for years and decades to come. How could it be otherwise? Again, the scale of destruction the West has inflicted in the Middle East is unimaginable to the vast majority of people living in the developed world. This point can never be overstated as Westerners consistently and naively ask, “Why do they hate us?” In the end, wars, revolutions, and counterrevolutions take place and subsequent generations live with the results: civilizations, societies, cultures, nations, and individuals survive or perish. That’s how history works.

In the future, how the West deals with terrorism will largely depend on whether or not the West continues their terroristic behavior. The obvious way to prevent future ISIS-style organizations from forming is to oppose Western militarism in all its dreadful forms: CIA coups, proxy wars, drone strikes, counterinsurgency campaigns, economic warfare, etc.

Meanwhile, those of us who directly participated in the genocidal military campaign in Iraq will live with the ghosts of war.x`x

Vincent Emanuele is a former marine, and an anti-war activist (vincent. emanuele333@gmail.com). This article was originally published by Telesur.

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

FRONTLINE NEWS—
•
Reports, News Flashes, and Commentary from Various Conflict Zones Around the Globe
HUMANITY IN TORMENT

=By= Sputnik

CC BY by DVIDSHUB

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]hinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking in Munich, said Beijing has urged the United States to abandon plans to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to South Korea.

“The facts are clear. The deployment of the THAAD system by the United States… goes far beyond the defense need of the Korean Peninsula and the coverage would mean it will reach deep into the Asian continent,” he said.

“This directly affects the strategic security interests of China and other Asian countries.”

The potential deployment comes in response to North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket that placed a satellite into orbit on February 7.

The United States and other nations swiftly condemned the launch. The United Nations said it defied a Security Council resolution banning North Korea from launching rockets that could be used as ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads.

A day after the launch, the Pentagon said it was planning to deploy THAADS “as quickly as possible” to South Korea to defend the region against what is described as the growing threat of the weapons capabilities of North Korea.

Wang said that Washington has ulterior motives for deploying the sophisticated missile system to South Korea, including possibly targeting China, which the United States is competing with for influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

“It doesn’t require experts. Ordinary people know that the deployment of the THAAD system is not just to defend South Korea, but a wider agenda and may even serve the possibility of targeting China,” he said.

Wang said China is prepared to back a wide-ranging UN Security Council resolution against North Korea over its recent rocket launch in an effort to get Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table.

“(We) support the United Nations Security Council to take further steps and in adopting a new resolution so that North Korea will pay the necessary price and show there are consequences for its behavior,” Wang said.

Related: US Using Pyongyang Space Launch to ‘Justify Military Buildup Against China’