Russian Aircraft Buzzes USS Cook in Black Sea 12 Times

"The Donald Cook is more than capable of defending itself against two Su-24s," Colonel Warren

That statement is probably the understatement of the year.  Does President Putin think this saber rattling is going to influence the US into giving in?  If he does, then he must be watching Fox News and listening to the Republicans in Congress who keep dissing President Obama over Ukraine and siding with the Russians time and time again which makes no sense.   What do the Koch Bros have to gain with the GOP siding in many cases with the Russians?  Becoming more obvious by the day that the Koch Bros are pulling the puppet strings of the GOP who are doing their bidding.

Then you have former AR Governor Mike Huckabee talking about North Korea is more free then US which is mind boggling.  Offered today to set up a PAC to help him move, willing to help pack him up, and even throw in some boxes from previous moves.  The man is a lunatic.  From the Daily Mail United Kingdom:

Fox News personality and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee stunned a New Hampshire crowd on Saturday by likening the federal government's treatment of airport passengers to the totalitarian regime of Kim Jong-un. 

'My gosh, I'm beginning to think that there's more freedom in North Korea sometimes than there is in the United States,' he told a partisan crowd at the inaugural New Hampshire Freedom Summit. 

'When I go to the airport, I have to get into the surrender position, people put hands all over me, and I have to provide photo ID in a couple of different forms to prove that I'm not going to terrorize the airplane,' he deadpanned. 

In a speech filled with jokes, Huckabee seemed deadly serious.

Would  Huckabee rather have no security and let terrorists fly on our planes.  Guess he figures N. Korea has no security for their flights.  Is the man even sane to make the comparison?  Yet he is running for the Presidential nomination as a Republican.

When I received this email from American Forces News Service which covers the Pentagon, I wasn't really shocked.  Been waiting for something like this to happen.  Does Putin know how stupid Russia looks buzzing a guided missile destroyer of the US.  Bet the Russians are the butt of some jokes on the destroyer.  Has Putin totally lost it because it is hard to see what Russia can gain from this:

Russian Aircraft Flies Near U.S. Navy Ship in Black Sea

04/14/2014 01:03 PM CDT
By Jim Garamone 

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2014 - A Russian attack aircraft repeatedly flew near the USS Donald Cook in international waters in the Black Sea on April 12, a Pentagon spokesman said today.

USS 

Donald Cook is the first of four Arleigh Burke-class

 guided-missile destroyers to be stationed in Rota.

The USS Cook was patrolling in the western Black Sea when an unarmed Russian Su-24 Fencer attack aircraft repeatedly flew near the Navy ship, Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters.

"The aircraft did not respond to multiple queries and warnings from Donald Cook, and the event ended without incident after approximately 90 minutes," Warren said. "This provocative and unprofessional Russian action is inconsistent with international protocols and previous agreements on the professional interaction between our militaries."

Two Russian aircraft were present, but only one took part in the provocative actions, Warren said. The aircraft flew from near sea level to a couple of thousand feet, he added, but never overflew the U.S. Arleigh Burke-class destroyer." 

The Russian plane made a total of 12 passes," he said. 

The wingman stayed at a considerably higher altitude, Warren said. 

Officials later said the aircraft approached within about 1,000 yards of the ship. The USS Cook was never in danger, Warren said. 

"The Donald Cook is more than capable of defending itself against two Su-24s," the colonel said. 

Warren said he does not think this is an example of a young pilot joyriding. "I would have difficulty believing that two Russian pilots, on their own, would chose to take such an action," he said. "We've seen the Russians conduct themselves unprofessionally and in violation of international norms in Ukraine for several months, and these continued acts of provocation and unprofessionalism do nothing to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, which we called on the Russians to do." 

The Cook arrived in the Black Sea on April 10. The ship is now making a port call in Constanta, Romania.

We have all this going on and our illustrious Congress is not in town -- time for another vacation when they just came back from a week off.  Yet Rep Moran (D-VA) thinks they are underpaid in comparison to CEO's. Think they are overpaid for time worked.   

Monday, Apr 28, 2014 2:00 p.m.: Convene and begin a period of morning business.
5:30 p.m.: Proceed to executive session to consider nominations.

Previous Meeting Friday, Apr 11, 2014 The Senate convened at 4:00 p.m. and adjourned at 4:14 p.m. No record votes were taken.

We have the Russians who invaded Crimea in the Ukraine, hold a phony referendum, take back Crimea, and Republicans are either siding with the Russians or calling the President weak in his policy. Here are some headlines:

GOP skewers Obama’s ‘weak’ response in Ukraine 

"feckless" Foreign Policy for Ukraine Crises by none other then Sen McCain who still has a lot to answer for over the years but now he is the expert.  Seems he has never gotten over his loss in 2008 to President Obama.

Ukraine Crisis:  Republicans say Weak Obama Policy Caused Russians to Invade (CBS)

The GOP Just Screwed Ukraine Out of Billions to Hurt Obama (Michael Tomasky) (excerpts)

Agreeing to IMF reforms would have helped him. So now Republicans’ mission to weaken the president is spilling over into foreign policy, too.You know those people who carry on all the time about how the United States looks weak to the world, and how we have to do everything we possibly can to help poor Ukraine stand up to the evil Vladimir Putin? Well, guess what they just did? They just made the United States look weak to the world—and they actually just reduced (yes, reduced) the amount of global aid that can flow to Ukraine to help it stand up to the evil Vladimir Putin.

And so it happens that the people who caterwaul about America being weak in the world become the very people who make it weaker. What does the world think as it watches this? Maybe some think merely that Obama is weak. But I’d wager most don’t. I’d wager most Europeans and others reach the right and reasonable conclusion: That American partisan dysfunction, driven far more by Republicans than by Democrats, now weakens not just our ability to carry out domestic politics but our foreign-policy aims as well. 

The more the Republicans ran to the microphones and Sunday shows, you realized that they had the same narrative -- some went as far as to defend what Putin had done and side with Russia which they had been doing since last fall.

Therefore, when Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, many on the right rallied around the former KGB agent and asked that Obama follow Putin’s lead. In his column, Putin asked that the United States respect the United Nations and follow the advice of the Security Council (which Russia is a part of) and practice caution on any action related to Syria. Putin also stated that peaceful dialogue and diplomacy should be utilized first and foremost and that military action should only occur with a consensus of other nations. 

At that time, you had members of the right-wing in this country go ga-ga over Putin. Pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Erick Erickson and Sean Hannity were praising the Russian President for his stance. Other Republicans like Pat Buchanan and Ralph Peters claimed that Putin was providing the type of leadership that the US apparently lacked at that moment. Basically, if you tuned into Fox News or talk radio during that time, you got a whole lot of Putin hero-worshiping.

What we have is a Republican Party who would rather weaken President Obama then do the right thing not only domestically but in our foreign policy but yet want re-elected.  Time to tell the Republican candidates for the most part to take it and shove.  Let them find out what the unemployment line is like except they probably will become lobbyist and make more money.   What the Republican Party has done by selling out this Country to wealthy donors like the Kochs and Adelson should be  crime especially now that it has gone over into foreign policy.

Never could figure out the love affair that some conservatives had with Putin except he is white and Obama is black.  These people supported a former? KGB agent like he was a hero which shocked me at the time.  Frankly it still does and Huckabee is carrying on tradition bragging about North Korea and yet some of these people want to be President -- give me a break.

JUST NO TO Republicans running for Congress!

Rockets Loaded with Sarin were used in the August 21st Attack According to Just Released UN Report

This a war crime!  (Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after receiving and reading the report from his inspectors.)

That is probably the understatement of the year and the perpetrators should go on trial at the World Court because this was a crime against humanity.  The first report did not assess the blame but it doesn't take a rocket scientists to know that the delivery of the chemical weapons were rockets used by the regime.  Definitely not saying this is all one sided but the huge human disaster of the August 21st attack  IMHO points right at Assad.

The release of the report came as a separate panel of investigators from the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva said they were investigating 14 episodes of suspected chemical weapons use in the conflict and would use the report to help identify those responsible for the Aug. 21 attack.

Whoever is responsible for this attack needs to be punished.  Sincerely hope that a diplomatic solution that sounds like has been reached holds and we don't have to bomb anyone so that innocent people do not get hurt again.  The people of Syria have suffered enough.  The New Times has one of the best descriptions of what is ongoing I have found to date and have excerpted below.

From the New York Times::

U.N. Report Confirms Rockets Loaded With Sarin in Aug. 21 Attack 

By RICK GLADSTONE and NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
Published: September 16, 2013  

Rockets armed with the banned chemical nerve agent sarin were used in a mass killing near Damascus on Aug. 21, United Nations chemical weapons inspectors reported Monday in the first official confirmation by nonpartisan scientific experts, saying such munitions had been deployed “on a relatively large scale” in the Syria conflict. 

Updates on Syria

• 12:14 PM   U.N. Report Echoes Open-Source Investigations

• 12:13 PM   Syria's War, Through Iranian Eyes

• 11:32 AM   Full Text of U.N. Report on Chemical Attacks in Syria

MORE UPDATES »

• DOCUMENT: The Chemical Weapons Report 

Although the widely awaited report did not ascribe blame for the attack, it provided in graphic and clinical detail the evidence of sarin residue in three neighborhoods in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, the precise types of projectiles and trajectories to deliver it and the symptoms of the victims. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the attack the most horrific use of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein of Iraq gassed the Kurdish village of Halabja a quarter century ago. 

“The report makes for chilling reading,” Mr. Ban told a news conference after he delivered the report to the Security Council. “The findings are beyond doubt and beyond the pale. 

This is a war crime.” 

Tracking the Syrian crisis and the international response. 

Speaking to reporters later, the American ambassador, Samantha Power, and British ambassador, Sir Mark Lyall-Grant, were emphatic in their assertions that the report implicated Mr. Assad, whose government has amassed one of the largest stockpiles of chemical munitions over the past two decades, and only last week admitted it possessed them. 

“This was no cottage-industry use of chemical weapons,” said Sir Mark said. The evidence “confirms, in our view, that there was no remaining doubt that it was the regime” that used the chemical weapons. 

Ambassador Power concurred, saying: “The technical details of the U.N. report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large scale of chemical weapons attack.”
The report carried the conclusions of a team of inspectors headed by Ake Sellstrom, a Swedish chemical weapons expert, under the auspices of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a Hague-based institution that monitors compliance with a 1997 treaty outlawing such munitions. 

The report said the facts supporting its conclusion included “impacted and exploded surface-to-surface rockets, capable to carry a chemical payload,” which “were found to contain sarin.” The facts also included sarin-contaminated areas at the sites, more than 50 interviews given by survivors and health care workers, clear signs of exposure in patients and survivors, and blood and urine samples by those patients and survivors that were “found positive for sarin and sarin signatures.”

HIGHLIGHTS

• 8:52 am U.N. Inspectors Confirm Sarin Use in August Attack
• 5:27 am U.S. and Allies Push for Strong Measure on Syria's Arms
• 1:40 pm Opposition Coalition Denounces Syrian Move

U.N. Report Echoes Open-Source InvestigationsWriting on Twitter, Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch noted that details in the United Nations report on the type of rockets used in the deadly chemical attacks outside Damascus on Aug. 21 seemed to confirm crucial findings in the independent investigation carried out by his organization, which noted that “these are weapon systems known and documented to be only in the possession of, and used by, Syrian government armed forces.” 

Secretary of State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reached an agreement over the weekend on what to do with the Syrian Chemical Weapons:

U.S. and Russia Reach Deal to Destroy Syria’s Chemical Weapons, But Is it Realistic?By Daniel Politi
Posted Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013, at 2:07 PM 

Following three days of intense negotiations in Geneva, the United States and Russia reached an ambitious agreement that would see all of Syria’s chemical weapons put under international control and destroyed by the middle of next year. Secretary of State John Kerry recognized the agreement was “ambitious,” others call it unprecedented and incredibly difficult to fulfill. The United Nations will issue a resolution warning of possible consequences, including sanctions, if Syria fails to comply, notes the Washington Post. But White House officials had already said any U.N. resolution would likely not include authorization to use force against Syria if it fails to comply with the destruction of chemical weapons. What penalties the United Nations could impose are still to be determined, points out Reuters. But Kerry made it clear the United States would still reserve the right to attack. For now, Syria must give a “comprehensive list” of its chemical weapons within a week. 

Whether it will be possible to even fulfill the agreement remains in question though with the New York Times calling the deal “one of the most challenging undertakings in the history of arms control.” One expert tells the paper that the deal Moscow and Washington sealed Saturday attempts to condense “what would probably be five or six years’ worth of work into a period of several months.” And that’s without considering the fact that it would have to be undertaken in the middle of an ongoing civil war. 

Rebel leaders quickly implied they won’t go out of their way to make things easier for the international chemical weapons inspectors, saying they would facilitate safe passage but won’t actually stop fighting, reports the Associated Press. The rebels were quick to express their deep disappointment Saturday. "Let Kerry-Lavrov plan go to hell. We reject it and we will not protect the inspectors or let them enter Syria," one rebel commander tells Reuters. The rebels say that Washington’s backing away from military strikes has emboldened Assad that “now believes that the whole international community can’t punish it, or stop it, so it will do it all,” as a rebel spokesman tells the Washington Post.

If it was up to me, I would be telling the rebel leaders to get on board with the agreement or expect no further help from the United States.  Those chemical weapons need destroyed and you would think the rebels would agree.  Personally think the two sides should be in a coliseum somewhere and let them shoot it out like a Western because there seem to be atrocities on both sides.  Waiting for the Human Rights report which give more details and assign blame.

The key is whether Russia and Assad will keep their word or will the agreements fall apart.  President Obama has done masterful job so far because he is someone who could less about taking the credit just wants to get things done.  The very fact there is already an agreement reached with the Russians to take to the United Nations shows that the President puts diplomacy first but he is not naive enough not to leave open the military option.  Without the military option, the Russians would not be talking or putting pressure on Assad IMHO!

Now it is time for the Republican Party in Congress to keep their mouths shut and let this play out instead of trying to score points with misleading statements and comments.  Time for them to grow up and put America first.