Something Is Wrong When You Need A High Rate Of Fire But The Ammunition Costs $500 Million Per Shot

North Korea was just reminded how it could ruin the United States:

The Pentagon plans to spend almost $18 billion to develop, produce and support its new interceptor to stop incoming nuclear missiles from North Korea or Iran, the first major defense procurement award of the Biden administration, according to newly released figures.
...
The interceptors are designed to crash into and destroy incoming missiles from an adversary such as North Korea or Iran. They would be installed on missiles based in Alaska. Each of the 31 interceptors is estimated to cost about $498 million.

The new interceptor is intended to correct the mistakes of a failed warhead program that spanned the Obama and Trump administrations before it was canceled in August 2019 after $1.2 billion was spent on a project meant for deployment in 2023.

Out of the 31 interceptors 10 will be for testing and only 21 will be deployed.

To hit an incoming warhead or decoy three interceptors must be fired to reach a kill probability above 95%. 21 interceptors could defeat 7 targets. That are probably more than North Korea has.

But North Korea could MIRV its missiles, i.e. put Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles on top of each of them. They do not need to carry expensive nuclear warheads. One missile carrying seven decoys would be enough to empty all of the Ground Based Missile Defense (GMD) silos. That would leave the U.S. unprotected from the next shot which could or could not come.

One missile, build for probably a few million dollars, could easily put the new $18 billion defense missiles to waste.

Could Kim Jong Un release some photos that show a MIRV-ed North Korean missile? Could he hold a parade with more missiles on show? That might induce the U.S. to buy more interceptor missiles. Rinse and repeat and the U.S. is ruined.

The Government Accountability Office just published its 2020 report on the Missile Defense Agency. Unsurprisingly the MDA delivered less than planned, tested less than planned while many of its tests still failed. The whole agency is a huge waste of money that has no discernible way to success.

Missile defense is a boondoggle for weapon producers. That is the only reason why Congress keeps financing it.

U.S. Four Star Generals Ask DNI To Stop Lying

These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is spilling over the world:

Dear Director of National Intelligence,

we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents.

We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those judgments

Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide.

You say that Russia thought to manipulate Trump allies and to smear Biden, that Russia and Iran aimed to sway the 2020 election through covert campaigns and that China runs covert operations to influence members of Congress.

Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately no soldier got hurt by those rumors.

Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things.

They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries.

Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET.

We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments.^*

Sincerely

 

The Generals

----
PS: ^*Either that or shut the fuck up.

The above may well have been a draft for the letter behind this report:

Cont. reading: U.S. Four Star Generals Ask DNI To Stop Lying

'ALLEGED That The United States Had Persuaded Brazil To Deny The Vaccine Approval'

alleged - adjective

Definition of alleged

1. accused but not proven or convicted
   - an alleged burglar
2. asserted to be true or to exist
   - an alleged miracle
   - an alleged conspiracy
3. questionably true or of a specified kind: supposed, so-called
   - bought an alleged antique vase

NYT, Apr 27 - Brazil’s health authority rejected importing Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

The official Sputnik V Twitter account pushed back on Monday in a series of tweets, in Portuguese, saying that the vaccine’s developers had shared “all the necessary information and documentation” with Anvisa. In another tweet, it said Anvisa’s decision “was of a political nature” and had “nothing to do with access to information or science,” and alleged that the United States had persuaded Brazil to deny approval.

'Alleged' seems to be the wrong word for this:

WaPo, Mar 16 - U.S. officials pushed Brazil to reject Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, according to HHS report

Buried deep in the dry, 72-page annual report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lay a startling admission: U.S. health officials under President Donald Trump worked to convince Brazil to reject Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.
...
Brazil, which has the second-highest coronavirus death toll worldwide, has struggled to obtain adequate vaccine supplies. But the Health Attaché office within HHS’s Office of Global Affairs pushed the country to turn down offers of help from the Russians last year, according to the report.

Source: Department of Health & Human Services - 2020 Annual Report (pg 48) - bigger

Meanwhile the European Medical Agency, the drug regulator for the European Union, is intentionally slow walking its approval of Sputnik V by probing the 'ethical standards of the Sputnik vaccine trials'. No other vaccine trial has been questions in this regard.

This while the slow vaccine roll out and continuing lockdowns are costing EU countries billions of Euros per day.

Saudi Broadcaster 'Leaks' Context Free Quotes From Iran's Foreign Minister Talk - Should It Be Trusted?

A rather weird leak from Iran appeared yesterday. But even weirder is the reporting about it. From the New York Times:

Iran’s Foreign Minister, in Leaked Tape, Says Revolutionary Guards Set Policies

Javad Zarif of course did not say what the headline claims:

In a leaked audiotape that offers a glimpse into the behind-the scenes power struggles of Iranian leaders, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the Revolutionary Guards Corps call the shots, overruling many government decisions and ignoring advice.

In one extraordinary moment on the tape that surfaced Sunday, Mr. Zarif departed from the reverential official line on Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the Guards’ elite Quds Force, the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s security apparatus, who was killed by the United States in January 2020.

The general, Mr. Zarif said, undermined him at many steps, working with Russia to sabotage the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and adopting policies toward Syria’s long war that damaged Iran’s interests.

If the Revolutionary Guard really 'calls the shots' and was against the nuclear deal why was it signed and sealed?

If Soleimani and/or Russia really wanted to 'sabotage the nuclear deal' why did it come into existence?

Russia by the way would have had no need to 'sabotage' the deal. It simply could have vetoed it during the negotiations or later at the UN Security Council.

“In the Islamic Republic the military field rules,” Mr. Zarif said in a three-hour taped conversation that was a part of an oral history project documenting the work of the current administration. “I have sacrificed diplomacy for the military field rather than the field servicing diplomacy.”

Well - if your ally Syria is under attack from U.S. backed Al-Qaeda terrorists and your neighbor country Iraq gets overrun by the Islamic State there is little that diplomacy can achieve. Those are issues and moments where the military is needed before diplomacy can take over.

Then comes a paragraph that is typical for the manipulative lying that distinguishes NYT scribbling from real reporting:

The audio was leaked at a critical moment for Iran, as the country is discussing the framework for a possible return to a nuclear deal with the United States and other Western powers. Talks through intermediaries have been taking place in Vienna.

It is not Iran that is discussing 'for a possible return to a nuclear deal'. Iran never left the deal. It is the U.S. that wants to reenter a deal the U.S., but not Iran, had left. Iran isn't discussing with 'the United States and other Western powers' but, through intermediaries, with the U.S. alone. That's because the other powers involved in the deal are a. not solely 'western' but include China and Russia and b. also never left the deal.

As for the authenticity of the 'leak' and real meaning of the selected few quotes from Zarif's talk consider the source:

The recording, of a conversation in March between Mr. Zarif and an economist named Saeed Leylaz, an ally, was not meant for publication, as the foreign minister can repeatedly be heard saying on the audio. A copy was leaked to the London-based Persian news channel Iran International Iran International, which first reported on the recording and shared it with The New York Times.

Iran International is not a 'London-based Persian news channel'. It is a Saudi government news channel with a studio in London that broadcasts in Farsi:

The media outlet is funded by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman via a Royal family tycoon owner and has close ties with all Saudi-backed groups and allies, including the son of the dethroned Pahlavi Regime, Reza Pahlavi and pro-Pahlavi monarchists who have long had intimate relations with Riyadh as well as the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI) terrorists.

Given the source of the 'leak' and the very few context free Zarif quotes the NYT provides from it no conclusions should be drawn from them.

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-031

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• April 19 - Why Washington's Anti-Russian Policies Are Likely To Intensify
  Related:
  - Putin should refuse Biden’s offer of a summit: Americans will bring only political theatrics & threats, nothing will be achieved - Glenn Diesen / RT

> The fundamental misperception appears to be the assumption that Russia aims to find its way back into the US-led order; rather, Russia is pursuing an organized decoupling from the US-led order. Furthermore, the willingness to reach a political settlement is absent. The US and Russia view each other as increasingly less relevant actors and no longer the main focus of their respective foreign policies.
...
Until a new format for cooperation is established that restores sovereign equality, any summit between the two world leaders will likely fall victim to political theatrics and harmful posturing. Moscow should politely reject the offer and instead rely on less public formats to negotiate pragmatic and mutually beneficial arrangements. <

• April 20 - Xi's Boao Forum Speech And The Messed Up Reporting Around It
  Related:
  - Say Hello to the New Multilateral Boss - Pepe Escobar
  - Uighurs set to be imperialists’ scapegoats - Asia Times
  - Unlocked: Uyghur Birth Genocide: Deceptions and Delusion - Peter Lee aka Chinahand

• April 21 - Vladimir Putin On Petty Tabaquis And International Issues
  Related:
  - Unlearned History Lessons - Dmitry Medvedev / Sputnik News
  - Putin rewrites the law of the geopolitical jungle - Pepe Escobar
  - Putin signs decree on countermeasures to other states’ unfriendly actions - TASS

• April 22 - The Ukraine Crisis Recedes - But A False Narrative Of It Leads To Bad Conclusions
  Related:
  - From Prague with love – what’s behind the Czech spy scandal - Politnew
  - Russia’s ‘Reality-Czech’ for European Provocation and Hysterics - SCF
  - Czech counterintelligence finds no proof of Russians’ presence in Vrbetice - president - TASS
  - 'Acting like a tiny pooch': Czech ex-president ashamed of Prague’s policies towards Russia - TASS
  - Russia withdraws from the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples - Estonian World

• April 23 - When Regime Change Does Not Change A Thing
  Related:
  - Biden’s Appeasement of Hawks and Neocons Is Crippling His Diplomacy - Naked Capitalism

• April 23 - Covid Say - What Monroe Doctrine? What Commonwealth? - by Debs is Dead
  Related:
  - Modi Govt’s vaccine diplomacy unravels—within India and abroad - Indian Punchline
  - ‘Americans first’: US cites domestic priorities to reject India's vaccine plea - Times of India
  - U.S. defends restrictions on export of COVID-19 vaccine raw materials amid India's request to lift ban - The Hindu
  - The West does not have any moral high ground over China, their conduct during Covid crisis is further proof of it - OpIndia

Brahma Chellaney @Chellaney - 5:55 UTC · Apr 24, 2021
Thanks to COVID-19, many nations learned hard lessons about China-reliant supply chains. And the Quad agreed to build resilient supply chains. But now, thanks to Biden's hoarding of vaccines and raw materials, many nations are learning hard lessons about US-reliant supply chains.

• April 24 - Investigation Launched Into Premature Release Of Turtle Through Windscreen Story
  Relaated:
  - How Capitalism Created Doomscrolling - Tribune Mag
  - TSMC founder doubts US competence in chip-making - Asia Times

• April 24 - NYT Investigates U.S. Jewish Billionaire Funding For Anti-Islamists - Then Distracts With Loads Of Anti-Russian Slander
  Related:
  - Hundreds of Jewish supremacists chant 'Death to Arabs' as tensions boil over in Jerusalem clashes - Yahoo

---
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-031

NYT Investigates U.S. Jewish Billionaire Funding For Anti-Islamists - Then Distracts With Loads Of Anti-Russian Slander

A current New York Times report finds that the British anti-Islam agitator and grifter Tommy Robinson was financed by American Jewish billionaires who promote Zionist colonialism in Palestine.

For several years Robert J. Shillman, founder and chairman of Cognex Corporation, and Nina Rosenwald, an heiress of the Sears Roebuck fortune funneled a monthly check to Robinson via the exteremist Middle East Forum run by the notorious Daniel Pipes. Shillman sits on the boards of The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Rosenwald has served on the board of directors of many pro-Israel organizations and was vice president of Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Another donor involved was the Jewish hedge fund manager Robert Mercer who gives to many extreme right causes.

As the Times summarizes it:

Mr. Robinson’s American connection was deeper than previously known. Interviews and internal documents newly released in court show how the U.S. research institute, the Middle East Forum, provided him with financial backing for three years, using cash from an American tech billionaire and Trump donor, while its president helped shape his message.

The details are quite intriguing and the reporting on the financial ties is well done.

But for the Times the fact that right-wing U.S. Zionists billionaires are financing proto-fascist anti-Islam movements in Europe is not the core concern.

Instead it uses a short visit to Russia Robinson made a year ago to smear and agitate against that country and its government.

That push of the story, not justified by any facts as we will show below, starts with the misleading headline:

U.K. Far Right, Lifted by Trump, Now Turns to Russia.
The anti-Islam agitator Tommy Robinson struck gold in America. Keeping it might require help from Moscow, where other British far-right activists are also finding friends.

The first part of the story introduces Robinson and lists his deep U.S. connections. It then turns to his short trip to Russia:

Now that Mr. Trump is out of office and the American money is apparently drying up, Mr. Robinson and some other far-right figures are turning to Moscow. Mr. Robinson, who is fighting a potentially costly libel case in London this week, did a media tour of Russia last year but three associates told The New York Times that part of his agenda was kept secret — to seek accounts with Russian banks.

“Why else would you visit Russia?” said Andrew Edge, a former senior figure in the English Defence League and another far-right group, Britain First, who said that he discussed moving money to Russian banks with Mr. Robinson and Britain First’s leader, Paul Golding.

In many ways, Mr. Robinson is now useful to the Kremlin — which has often encouraged fringe political figures who might destabilize Western democracies — for the same reasons he was welcome in Mr. Trump’s Washington.

How please has a discussion about opening a Russian bank account, to move money from Britain because it is under thread of being impounded, related to being 'useful to the Kremlin'?

Hint - it isn't.

It follows another long section describing in detail Robinson's connections to the U.S. Zionist billionaires and his various crimes. It reports of a riot during a pro-Robinson / anti-Islam rally in London:

Cont. reading: NYT Investigates U.S. Jewish Billionaire Funding For Anti-Islamists - Then Distracts With Loads Of Anti-Russian Slander

Investigation Launched Into Premature Release Of Turtle Through Windscreen Story

An investigation was launched into the premature release of this year's 'turtle through windscreen' story. The report was, as usual, scheduled to run during May.

Woman gashed in the head after turtle crashes through windshield - April 22 2021

bigger

Turtle crashes through Georgia driver’s windshield along Savannah freeway - May 26, 2020

Cont. reading: Investigation Launched Into Premature Release Of Turtle Through Windscreen Story

Covid Say - What Monroe Doctrine? What Commonwealth? - by Debs is Dead

by Debs is dead
lifted from a comment

Covid Say - What Monroe doctrine? What Commonwealth?

The Monroe Doctrine first established in 1823 really continues until today, ostensibly created to "prevent European Imperialism throughout the Americas", the real primary purpose of James Monroe's new foreign policy was aimed at ensuring that only America could colonise the rest of the two continents.

That policy continued through the 20th century - after all what was the 'Cuban missile crisis' about? The Monroe Doctrine that's what, America has consistently refused to allow any administration anywhere in North or South America that they believe may favour a closer relationship with a nation other than America.

This is why Venezuela, Peru, Nicaragua & Brazil for example have fallen foul of the American blob whenever they appear to reject America as their closest 'big brother'.

Mexico is copping it big time at the moment, simply because there is currently a slightly left of center administration in Mexico, an administration which sometimes questions when America instructs it how to behave.

Yet there is a completely unashamed lack of reciprocity between America and the other nations of the Americas. Even Brazil, currently suffering under the jackboot of the Bolsonaro mob who appear to exist solely to do as Washington DC instructs, but which is suffering an unimaginable number of Covid-19 deaths each day, is ignored by America. The American vaccination program is only for Americans - close friends and neighbours can jam it up their arses as far as America believes "we're all right Jack - bugger you!" has been the response of America to the people of South & Central America.

England is equally screwed up. Queen Betty and the rest of the royal bludgers have always been big on promoting joints such as Pakistan, India, Nigeria & South Africa for example; as being the closest friends England has, nothing to do with the oil, minerals, cheap labour and burgeoning markets, of course, /snark that is why the Commonwealth matters to England with Queen Brenda at the front, always shouts, yet even as England is getting close to total vaccination, What has England done?

Not only has it hoarded all available vaccines for itself, now it has decided to ban all arrivals from those Commonwealth countries whose inability to secure vaccines have left 'em vulnerable.

I jacked up a few weeks ago when Aotearoa temporarily blocked arrivals from nations where those arrivals were averaging close to 50% Covid positive. Why? because many of those who were coming to Aotearoa were Kiwi citizens - maybe they had been born in Pakistan or India, but they lived and worked here before going back to the villages they had been born in to celebrate a wedding or funeral.

Whack em in quarantine for two weeks & then they can get back into kiwidom just like everyone else coming back.

The government who had implemented a successful Covid elimination program refused to accept the risk of Covid seeping out of hotel quarantine.

I disagree on human rights grounds but at least since Aotearoa is Covid free, I get what they reckon they are trying to achieve,

Covid is rampant in America & England, yet particularly in England, politicians have 'blacklisted' a mob of nations such as Pakistan & India, preventing even Englander citizens from returning to their homes. WTF? Englanders have consistently failed to keep Covid to a minimum and now it seems that both they & America are warping the process to restrict the arrivals of brown people citizens or not?

How low can you go, eh?

When Regime Change Does Not Change A Thing

Some people think that a change in government actually changes things. Not so.

Venezuela - Before - After:

Ukraine Before - After:

Cont. reading: When Regime Change Does Not Change A Thing

The Ukraine Crisis Recedes - But A False Narrative Of It Leads To Bad Conclusions

Some two month ago we discussed how the U.S. focus on narratives will let it collide with reality. It is certainly not only the U.S. government that creates narratives, comes to believe in them, and then fails when it is confronted with reality. Carried by think tanks and media the narrative mold has grown throughout the wider 'western' world.

On the danger of this development the above piece quoted Alastair Crooke who wrote:

[B]eing so invested, so immersed, in one particular ‘reality’, others’ ‘truths’ then will not – cannot – be heard. They do not stand out proud above the endless flat plain of consensual discourse. They cannot penetrate the hardened shell of a prevailing narrative bubble, or claim the attention of élites so invested in managing their own version of reality.

The ‘Big Weakness’? The élites come to believe their own narratives – forgetting that the narrative was conceived as an illusion, one among others, created to capture the imagination within their society (not others’).

They lose the ability to stand apart, and see themselves – as others see them. They become so enraptured by the virtue of their version of the world, that they lose all ability to empathise or accept others’ truths. They cannot hear the signals. The point here, is that in that talking past (and not listening) to other states, the latters’ motives and intentions will be mis-construed – sometimes tragically so.

Over the last weeks we passed through a crisis that easily could have had a tragic ending.

Since February the Ukraine built up a force to retake the renegade Donbas region in east-Ukraine by military force. After waiting several week to see the situation more clearly Russia started to assemble a counterforce backed up by statements that were sufficiently strong to deter the Ukraine from continuing its plans. The danger of a Ukrainian assault has now receded.

Today the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave orders for the troops to return to their bases. Much of the equipment though will stay on training grounds near Ukraine until the regular fall maneuvers later this year take place. That minimizes transport costs and gives a little time advantage should someone in the Ukraine again have silly ideas.

Russia has clearly won this round.

Cont. reading: The Ukraine Crisis Recedes - But A False Narrative Of It Leads To Bad Conclusions