Showing posts with label Missiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Missiles. Show all posts
Monday, August 6, 2018
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Anyone Who Would Ignore North Korea Or Its Ambitions Is Foolish
President Donald Trump says after North Korea's latest failed rocket launch that communist leader Kim Jong-Un will eventually develop better missiles, and "we can't allow it to happen."
South Korean protesters stage a rally to oppose a plan to deploy the advanced U.S. missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, April 29, 2017. A North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch Saturday, South Korea and the United States said. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
By FOSTER KLUG and KIM TONG-HYUNG - Associated Press
Sunday, April 30th 2017, 23:42 pm EDT
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — President Donald Trump said after North Korea's latest failed rocket launch that communist leader Kim Jong-Un will eventually develop better missiles, and "we can't allow it to happen."
In a taped interview broadcast Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," the president would not discuss the possibility of military action, saying: "It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is."
Separately, Trump's national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, said North Korea's most recent missile test represents "open defiance of the international community." He said North Korea poses "a grave threat," not just to the U.S. and its Asian allies, but also to China.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," McMaster said it is important "for all of us to confront this regime, this regime that is pursuing the weaponization of a missile with a nuclear weapon."
"This is something that we know we cannot tolerate," McMaster said.
On Saturday, a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile broke up a few minutes after launch, the third test-fire flop this month. The program's repeated failures over the past few years have given rise to suspicions of U.S. sabotage.
In the CBS interview, the president was asked why the North's rockets keep blowing up.
"I'd rather not discuss it," he said. "But perhaps they're just not very good missiles. But eventually, he'll have good missiles."
He added: "And if that happens, we can't allow it to happen."
Trump also called North Korea's leader "a pretty smart cookie" for being able to hold onto power after taking over at a young age. "People are saying, 'Is he sane?' I have no idea," the president said.
North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped weapon that can hit the U.S. mainland.
McMaster said that Trump "has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or the other," but that the president's preference is to work with China and others to resolve it without military action.
That means, McMaster said, working to enforce current U.N. sanctions and perhaps ratcheting them up. "And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary," he said.
Trump said he believes China's president, Xi Jinping, has been putting pressure on North Korea over its missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The launch comes at a point of particularly high tension in the region. Trump has sent a nuclear-powered submarine and an aircraft carrier to Korean waters.
The U.S. and South Korea also started installing a missile defense system that is supposed to be partially operational within days.
Residents in the village of Seongj, where the missile defense system is being installed, scuffled with police on Sunday. About 300 protesters faced off against 800 police and succeeded in blocking two U.S. Army oil trucks from entering the site, local media reported. A few residents were injured or fainted from the scuffle and were taken to a hospital.
The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is controversial in South Korea, and presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in has vowed to reconsider the deployment if he wins the May 9 election.
He has said that the security benefits of THAAD would be offset by worsened relations with China, which is the country's biggest trading partner and is opposed to its deployment.
Trump raised eyebrows in South Korea last week when he said would make Seoul pay $1 billion for the missile defense system. McMaster said Sunday that the matter is subject to negotiation.
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Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Iron Dome Goes To Sea
Israeli Navy Warships Refitted With Double Iron Dome to Protect Gas Rigs From Hezbollah
“For He will give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” Psalms 91:11 (The Israel Bible™)
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/idf-navy-.jpg
An IDF navy Missile Boat armed with anti-ship missiles. (Photo: Abir Sultan/Flash90)
Threats posed to Israel’s offshore gas rigs by the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah’s missile arsenal have prompted the Israeli Navy to add extra missile defense systems to its warships.
Four Israeli Navy Sa’ar 6 missile ships, which are currently being manufactured in Germany, will now be equipped with dual Iron Dome missile defense systems—as opposed to featuring a singular Iron Dome battery, the original plan for each ship.
A senior Israeli naval officer explained the upgrade to the ships’ defense systems stems from the threat posed by Hezbollah’s large weapons cache of medium- and long-range missiles, including Iranian Fajr-5 missiles, M-600 rockets, Zelzal-2 missiles, short-range M75 rockets and Katyushas, Defense News reported.
A senior Israeli Air Force officer stated the primary threat from Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal relates to the terror group’s acquisition of missiles with larger warheads capable of reaching further distances.
Israel estimates that Hezbollah’s weapons stockpile consists of more than 100,000 missiles—17 times the amount it possessed a decade ago, when the United Nations adopted Security Council Resolution 1701 to end the Second Lebanon War.
Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/85852/refitted-israeli-warships-feature-dual-iron-domes-protect-offshore-gas-rigs/#3Yk03Kqs7uiryd01.99
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Iran Does Not Care About Sanctions As It Knows Obama Will Never Institute Them
jihadwatch.org, Robert Spencer
Iran: We designed our missiles to hit Israel from a safe distance
That is a clear declaration of war. And at the same time they warned the U.S. to back off and remember who’s boss.
“Iranian military official warns US: Stay away from Iran’s red lines,” Jerusalem Post, April 4, 2016:
“Iranian military official warns US: Stay away from Iran’s red lines,” Jerusalem Post, April 4, 2016:
Iran warned the US on Monday that any attempt to encroach on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program would constitute the crossing of a “red line.”
“The US calculations about the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation are fully incorrect,” Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig-Gen Masoud Jazayeri was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying.
“The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, specially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation’s red lines and a backup for the country’s national security and we don’t allow anyone to violate it,” Jazayeri said.
Jazayeri accused US President Barack Obama of making vows and breaking them by saying removal of sanctions on Iran would be conditioned on the Islamic Republic halting its ballistic missile program.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) test-fired two ballistic missiles last month that it said were designed to be able to hit Israel, defying a threat of new sanctions from the United States.
The launches followed the test-firing of several missiles as part of a major military exercise that the IRGC says is intended to “show Iran’s deterrent power and… ability to confront any threat”.
The IRGC fired two Qadr missiles from northern Iran which hit targets in the southeast of the country 1,400 kms (870 miles) away, Iranian agencies said. The nearest point in Iran is around 1,000 km from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“The reason we designed our missiles with a range of 2000 km is to be able to hit our enemy the Zionist regime from a safe distance,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the ISNA agency…
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Obama Asleep At The Switch Again! Ignore The Threat And It Will Go Away?
NORTH KOREA NUKE-CAPABLE MISSILES 'CAN REACH U.S. MAINLAND'
'We have little time to solve this problem'
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Photo: Twitter)
With the world focused on a major terrorist attack in Belgium and the intensifying presidential race, a renowned expert on the Far East says North Korean missile tests and their detention of an American college student ought to be very concerning to the Obama administration and other world leaders.
In recent days, North Korea test-fired numerous ballistic missiles in a manner designed to menace its neighbors and also sentenced University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier to 15 years of hard labor for tearing down a poster of the late Kim Jong-Il inside a North Korean hotel.
The missile tests followed a statement from dictator Kim Jong-Un that he wanted the military to have nuclear weapons ready for use “at any time.”
Columnist and author Gordon Chang has studied China and North Korea up close for years and is author of “Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World.” He says the communist regime has reasons for doing what it’s doing.
“North Korea will continue to test short and intermediate-range missiles,” Chang told WND and Radio America. “They want to show their customers that these things work. Also, they want to rattle the international community.”
But he said the U.S. had better be paying attention, too.
“What we’re concerned about, however, is their testing of long-range missiles,” Chang said. “They do have two launchers that can reach 48 states. Therefore, we’ve got to be concerned because, eventually, if not now, they’ll be able to put nuclear warheads on those missiles and, therefore, threaten America.”
On Thursday came news that U.S. intelligence analysts believe North Korea “probably” already has a miniaturized nuclear warhead.
Chang said much of what we’re seeing from North Korea in recent weeks is out of fear of the world cracking down on its behavior.
“We see a number of sanctions that have been imposed on North Korea, not only by the U.N. but unilaterally by South Korea, Japan and the United States,” he said. “North Korea’s got to be concerned that these are actually going to throttle its economy, especially the economy as it relates to the regime members.”
Instead of Kim acting more responsibly to ease sanctions, he expects the dictator to antagonize the world even more.
“Kim Jong-Un, the ruler, is going to continue to do these things, including making threats about incinerating Manhattan, which he did about four or five days ago, as he tries to change the status quo,” Chang said.
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Gordon Chang:
All of this leads back to the question the United States and the world have been trying to answer for decades: What is the most effective response?
Chang said it should start with being serious about the new sanctions.
"What we need to do is not only impose sanctions but, more important, to enforce them," he said. "There's a pretty heavy set of sanctions already in place before this year, when there was the nuke and missile test. If we actually started to enforce these sanctions, we might get the attention of China, especially if we impose sanctions on Chinese banks doing business with North Korea."
He said getting China on the right side of the North Korea problem is pivotal.
"We haven't been willing to do that for various reasons, neither this administration nor the prior one," Chang said. "We've got to look at North Korea in a very new light and understand we have very little time to solve this problem."
In addition to the ominous aspects of the North Korean threat, Chang said the United States should also be taking advantage of the dysfunction in Pyongyang.
"This administration really has yet to come to grips with one fact, and that is that inside the regime in North Korea, there seems to be a lot of intense infighting, especially Kim Jong-Un struggling with his four-star officers," Chang said. "He's killed at least two of them in the last 13 months and a third one has recently disappeared."
Chang implores leaders to see the challenges posed by North Korea with clarity.
"We can talk all we want about what North Korea should do, but the issue is what North Korea is going to do," he said. "I don't think the policy community in Washington and in other capitals has really understood the dynamic, the very dangerous dynamic, in the Kim regime."
The Warmbier case presents a very different headache for U.S. officials, but it's one they've faced several times before. Chang said North Korea relishes having American citizens in custody to use as "bargaining chips." He believes Warmbier made a mistake even traveling to North Korea and should have known better than to pull down the poster, but the punishment grossly exceeds the offense.
"I don't think he should have gone to North Korea," he said. "Americans should not do that. It is extraordinarily dangerous. Now that he has done it, we need to continue to put pressure on North Korea to release him because obviously this sentence is way out of bounds for what anyone would expect for something like this. This was a prank. It doesn't deserve 15 years hard labor."
Chang said the U.S. cannot reward North Korea by making concessions in exchange for Warmbier.
"We should not reward the regime for taking Americans because all that does is give them incentive to take more," Chang said. "We sent President Carter, President Clinton, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. These are big propaganda coups for North Korea, so they get something when we take Americans back who have been released from captivity."
He said a smarter analysis reveals the U.S. has more leverage in these situations than it realizes.
"The regime has an incentive to let these people go anyway," Chang said. "They do not want to hold them. So we should play a little tougher with them on this because we need to stop this dynamic. It's great to get Warmbier out, but we've got to worry about the next Warmbier and the one after that."
Copyright 2016 WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/north-korea-nuke-capable-missiles-can-reach-u-s-mainland/#kkRwwzGx5IGZy1g8.99
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