Negative Blogs

The largest joint military exercise by the United States and South Korea in years is underway in the Sea of Japan.  These war games were called in response to North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean navy ship, Cheonan, an incident that killed 46 sailors in March. 

Throughout the day, on calm seas and under clear skies, F-18 Hornet fighter jets and other aircraft were catapulted from the flight deck of this nuclear-powered carrier.

About 200 aircraft are participating in the four-day drill, known as Invincible Spirit.  Some took part in live fire exercises.  For the first time, an exercise here also includes four of the U.S. Air Force’s most advanced fighters, F-22 Raptors.

In the sea are 20 American and South Korean naval vessels, advancing no closer than 200-kilometers south of the maritime boundary with North Korea in the eastern sea. 

In the Command Direction Center of the aircraft carrier, U.S. Navy Commander Peter Walczak says the exercise is similar to what routinely occurs on the carrier, except for the additional component of cross-training with South Korean forces.   A key component in the drill is detecting enemy submarines and defending against them. 

North Korea’s threat to unleash a nuclear attack in response to the joint war games, Commander Walczak says, is not causing undue alarm for the U.S. 7th Fleet.

“The only extra precaution is that, maybe, were more observant to what is going on in the area.  A little more sensitive to intel reports, what have you.  The ship itself, the airplane flying, the schedule, it is pretty much what we do with standards operations.  Our alert posture is not necessarily any higher than any other time during normal operations,” he said. 

The carrier’s strike group is under the command of Rear Admiral Dan Cloyd.  He calls the current exercise, “purely defensive in nature” and says there’s no reason for North Korea to be provocative.

“Our intent is to improve defense capabilities in areas such as anti-submarine warfare, air defense and anti-surface warfare,” Cloyd said. “Our intent is not to provoke reactions from any nation, be it North Korea, or any other here in the Western Pacific region.”

North Korea denies responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea on March 26.  The incident has escalated tension on the Korean peninsula, which, on Tuesday, marks the 57th anniversary of the armistice that halted the Korean War.  The two sides have yet to sign a peace treaty.

By Steve Herman

The aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) departs Busan, Republic of Korea, 25 July 2010

The ousted Kyrgyz president ruled out on Friday any involvement by Russia and the United States, who both have military bases in Kyrgyzstan, in the bloody coup d’etat in the ex-Soviet Central Asian state.

“I do not believe that Russia or the United States of America had a hand in these events,” AFP news agency quoted Kurmanbek Bakiyev as saying on Friday. He declined to elaborate.

His comments were at odds with previous remarks made in an interview with Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy on Thursday that he could not exclude the role of other countries in organizing popular protests that sparked the coup.

Although the ousted Kyrgyz leader did not name any country that might have organized the events, he said “such a coordinated operation could not have been carried out without foreign help.”

Both Russia and the United States have vested interests in Kyrgyzstan. Russia has been angered by the presence of the U.S. military base in Manas, used by the United States for its operations in Afghanistan.

In February, 2009 Kyrgyzstan ordered the base to be shut down, a step widely seen to be influenced by Moscow, which had just granted Kyrgyzstan a large financial aid package.

However, Kyrgyzstan and the U.S. signed on June 22, 2009 an agreement to establish a transit center at Manas international airport, which allows the U.S. to continue sending troops and supplies to Afghanistan.

Protests began in the northwestern Kyrgyz town of Talas on Tuesday and spread to other regions of the country including the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday and Thursday. At least 76 people were killed and more than 1,500 injured in the unrest.

Bakiyev, who fled the capital Bishkek amid the violent riots, has so far refused to resign although he no longer has any real power. Kyrgyzstan is now under the control of an interim government, formed by the opposition.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other senior officials have dismissed talks of Russia’s alleged role in the Kyrgyz coup.

However, a telephone conversation between Putin and the opposition-nominated Kyrgyz Prime Minister Roza Otunbayeva on Thursday was a clear sign that Russia is not opposed to the provisional government in Kyrgyzstan.

Senior White House adviser on Russia Michael McFaul has dismissed talks of Russia’s participation in the events.

“This is not some anti-American coup. That we know for sure and this [is] not a sponsored by the Russians coup,” he told Reuters.

Opposition supporters burn a billboard displaying Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

WASHINGTON: One is a assemblyman in California; the other a piano tuner in Pennsylvania.

But when they independently looked at online aerial imagery of nuclear power plants and other sites, they had the same reaction: They said they feared that terrorists might be doing the same thing.

Now, both have launched efforts to try to get Internet map services to remove or blur images of sensitive sites, saying the same technology that allows people to see a neighbor’s swimming pool can be used by terrorists to chose targets and plan attacks.

“It is disturbing to me that terrorists can now perform considerable surveillance without visiting the targeted site,” piano tuner and nuclear watchdog Scott Portzline wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Portzline is asking the Department of Homeland Security and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to seek voluntary compliance from satellite and aerial imagery companies to blur images of nuclear plants.

Joel Anderson, a member of the California Assembly, has more expansive goals. He has introduced a bill in the state Legislature that would prohibit “virtual globe” services from providing unblurred pictures of schools, churches and government or medical facilities in California. It also would prohibit those services from providing street-view photos of those buildings.