Wednesday, November 9, 2011

O Joy. Now It’s Fake Weapons Parts from China

New post on Fellowship of the Minds

O Joy. Now It's Fake Weapons Parts from China

Whose bright idea is it to outsource our weapons manufacturing to China?

Given China's abysmal track record in counterfeit products -- including fake pet food (that killed American dogs and cats), fake drugs, fake milk and infant formula (that have killed Chinese babies), and fake rice (mixed with plastic pellets, I kid you not) -- having U.S. weapons parts made in China is just asking for trouble.

Yesterday, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, we are told that the Pentagon's supply chain is "inundated" with suspect counterfeit electronics, mostly from China, which can "possibly" endanger the lives of our troops.

Donna Cassata reports from the Associated Press, Nov. 8, 2011, that company executives, a Defense Department official, government investigator and a representative from the semiconductor industry testified before the committee about a "ticking time bomb" of suspect counterfeit electronics ending up in weapons system. They described counterfeiters operating openly in Chinese provinces with Beijing unwilling to crack down on the deception.

Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the committee, said, "The failure of a single electronic part can leave a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine vulnerable at the worst possible time. A flood of counterfeit electronic parts has made it a lot harder to have confidence that won't happen."

The counterfeit weapons parts are mixed with fake ones in hopes that the counterfeits will not be detected when companies test the components for multimillion-dollar missile systems, helicopters and aircraft. That practice is called "sprinkling".

The committee's ongoing investigation found about 1,800 cases of suspect counterfeit electronics being sold to the Pentagon. The total number of parts in these cases topped 1 million. By the semiconductor industry's estimates, counterfeiting costs $7.5 billion a year in lost revenue and about 11,000 U.S. jobs.

Richard J. Hillman, an official with the Government Accountability Office, told the committee that they created a fictitious company to investigate counterfeit parts, purchasing them through the Internet. They were able to buy 13 parts and after analysis of seven found that none was authentic.

USAF C-17 Globemaster

The committee investigators found that counterfeit or suspect electronic parts were installed or delivered to the military for several weapons systems, including military aircraft such as the Air Force's C-17 and the Marine Corps' CH-46 helicopter, as well as the Army's Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defense system.

THAAD

THAAD or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense is a U.S. Army system to shoot down short, medium, and intermediate ballistic missiles in their terminal phase using a hit-to-kill approach. The missile carries no warhead but relies on the kinetic energy of the impact. THAAD was designed to hit Scuds and similar weapons, but also has a limited capability against ICBMs.

Missing from the long list of witnesses at the hours-plus hearing was a representative from China. Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the panel wrote the Chinese ambassador but he declined to send someone to testify. Instead, China's foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing "attaches great importance to and has actively promoted cooperation in fighting fake and shoddy goods with competent authorities of other countries...." Blah, blah, blah.

~Eowyn

Dr. Eowyn | November 9, 2011 at 5:22 am | Tags: C-17, Carl Levin, CH-46 helicopter, Chinese counterfeits, counterfeit electronics, Senate Armed Services Committee, sprinkling, THAAD | Categories: crime, Idiot Law Makers, Insanity, Military, Technology, United States | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-auj

Comment

See all comments

Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/o-joy-now-its-fake-weapons-parts-from-china/

Thanks for flying with

WordPress.com

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

The most dangerous woman in America

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/the-most-dangerous-woman-in-america/

What Does the GOP Really Want in 2012?

http://lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski278.html

Why Gingrich Could Win

"In today's WSJ, Dorothy Rabinowitz pumps up Newt, the latest "savior" of the GOP, and in the process makes one of the most egregious remarks about Ron Paul's foreign policy insights. She accuses Ron of saying that the 9/11 attacks were somehow "justified." This is a libelous statement. Ron has explained over and over again how the U.S. government's foreign policy causes blowback, an acknowledged fact by CIA analysts. The warmongers at the Journal never oppose any U.S. military action, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional." -- Murray Sabrin

OPINION
NOVEMBER 9, 2011
Why Gingrich Could Win
Herman Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from a woman who showed up in person, with detail.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

Newt Gingrich's rise in the pollsfrom near zero to the third slot in several pollsshould come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings.

"Substance" is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds attending these forumsin their expressions, caught on C-SPAN's cameras, in the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich talk begins. Their disengagementthe tendency to look around the room, chat with their neighborsvanishes. The room is on high alert.

The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last monthan occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth abortiona history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located support for his views on the dollar.

There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, "because stupid people are running America." The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else's remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.

He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.

He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the detailsin the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likelyeven imminent.

Mr. Gingrich predicted, too, that late on Election Nightafter it was clear that President Obama had been defeated along with the Democrats in the Senatethe recovery would begin, at once. His audience roared with pleasure. No other Republican candidate could have made the promise so persuasive.

Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. "I think I can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total confusion in the economy."

When it came time to answer questions from a panel of journalists, he was asked first about energy, one of those vital subjects that don't tend to yield lively commentary. How would Mr. Gingrich's policies differ from those of the current administration?

Mr. Gingrich launched into a lethal thumbnail description of the Obama administration's energy policy. The president, he said, had gone to Brazil and told the Brazilians he was really glad they were drilling offshore and that he would like America to be their best customer. "The job of the American president," Mr. Gingrich told the panel, "is not to be a purchasing agent for a foreign country -- it's to be a salesman for the United States of America."

The former speaker of the House is a dab hand at drawing listeners in, for good reasonhe showers them with details, facts and history in a degree no candidate in recent memory has even approached. Audiences have a way of rewarding such trust.

No one listening that night to candidate Gingrich's reflections on the menace of radical judges from Lincoln's time on down could have ignored the power of his fiery assessmentincluding the Dred Scott decision, others by courts today that threaten our national security, and much in between.

The Iowa contest ahead is all important for Mr. Gingrich. The same is truer still for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Ms. Bachmann has been looking increasingly aware that her hopes are fading. Mr. Santorum now seems to inhabit a world so nearly exclusive in its focus on family and family values that it's hard to imagine him a successful contender for the presidency of a large and varied nation of Americans with other concerns, the non-family kind included.

Then there's Congressman Ron Paul, who last weekend let it be known that if he doesn't like the views of the person who wins the nomination, he won't support the Republican candidate. This is a good reasonone of manyfor Mr. Paul to retire himself from further debates. It's a certainty, to put it mildly, that he's not going to be the nominee.

It would be passing strange to have as a candidate for the presidency of the United States an envenomed crank who regularly offers justification for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the annihilation of 3,000 Americans. It was an act, Mr. Paul explains in these exculpatory sermonettes, to which the terrorists were driven by American policies. Mr. Paul may get all the fond buddy treatment in the world from his fellow debaters, but few Americans outside of his devoted army of isolationist fanatics will forget these views.

That leaves Mitt Romney, and Messrs. Perry, Cain and Gingrich heading the list of competitors for Iowa. Mr. Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from another womanone who showed up in person, with plenty of detail. Charges of lies, financial motives and conspiracies notwithstanding, it's hard to see how Mr. Cain weathers this disaster. No outsider can know what actually did or did not happen. But all the snorting in the world about Gloria Allred, the accuser's attorney, isn't going to change the impact of this highly specific accusation.

Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There's no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.

His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich's qualifications all 'round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577026041280212400.html

Obama make Rajapaksa accountable

http://williamgomes.org/?p=207

Obama make Rajapaksa accountable

Posted by admin Sri Lanka Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Edit This Post

Mr. President,

I am William Nicholas Gomes, a journalist and Human Rights activist from Bangladesh presently based in Hong Kong. Today I am writing you urgent attention on the situation of Sri lanka while you and other Americans are preparing for Christmas, people are going through unexplainable suffering in Sri Lanaka, due to gross violations of people's rights violations by Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.

Mr. President,

Many Civil, political, economical and cultural rights are a dream for the people in Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa regime had forced the nation into a situation where people are deprive from their basic human rights.

Mr. President,

I am writing to you because you have promised a change to USA and to the world. United States enjoys cordial relations with Sri Lanka that are based, in large part, on shared democratic traditions.

U.S. policy toward Sri Lanka is characterized by respect for its independence, sovereignty, and moderate nonaligned foreign policy; support for the country's unity, territorial integrity, and democratic institutions; and encouragement of its social and economic development. The United States is a strong supporter of ethnic reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

According to US department of State, U.S. assistance has totaled more than $2 billion since Sri Lanka's independence in 1948. Through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), it has contributed to Sri Lanka's economic growth with projects designed to reduce unemployment, improve housing, develop the Colombo Stock Exchange, modernize the judicial system, and improve competitiveness. At the June 2003 Tokyo Donors' Conference on Sri Lanka, the United States pledged $54 million, including $40.4 million of USAID funding. Following the 2004 tsunami, the United States provided $135 million in relief and reconstruction assistance. The United States provided over $51.4 million in humanitarian assistance in 2009, and pledged at least $34.5 million for 2010.

Mr. President,

You can bring a positive change into lives of many in Sri Lanka.

Media groups have alleged that media freedom has been curtailed in Sri Lanka during Rajapaksa's term as President. In 2008 Reporters without borders ranked Sri Lanka 165th among 173 countries in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. The next year, the country was ranked 162. By 2010, following the end of the war, the RSF ranking was 158th. However these ranking have been questioned by independent Sri Lanka newspapers.

RSF's 2010 Press Freedom Index has Sri Lanka at number 158, nearly tied with Saudi Arabia. This makes the rankings somewhat suspect. In Saudi Arabia, all newspapers are owned by the royal family or their associates. All TV and radio stations are government owned. Saudi journalists are forbidden by law to criticise the royal family or religious authorities and writers and bloggers are routinely arrested.

Very recently Sri Lanka has blocked five news websites www.lankaenews.com, srilankamirror.com, srilankaguardian.com, paparacigossip9.com and www.lankawaynews.com, claiming that they had committed character assassination and insulted people including key political leaders, officials.

Sri Lankan laws do not restrict the press from criticizing leaders. The government did not describe what content it opposed.

Media groups criticized the moves as undemocratic, and the U.S. Embassy recently raised concerns about press freedom in Sri Lanka.

Prominent journalist Frederica Jansz, the editor of The Sunday Leader,was threaten to kill and the media professional are facing challenges in everyday work.

Mr. President,

Mahinda Rajapaksa regime has turned out to be a tool not to spur international peace and security .

Worst of all, the regime is continuously ignoring appeal of the international community to respectful to the rights of the people, targeting daily lives of ordinary people. Institutionalized torture, extrajudicial killings , enforced disappearance and other forms of gross human rights violations became a daily issue and that have a tragic impact on the rights recognized in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Mr. President,

In today's worlds the most violent place in Asia at the moment is Sri Lanka, and until today the state has not taken any serious steps to bring it under control. Very recently on the occasion of the 47th Session of CAT — the government makes empty statements without firm commitments to halt violations.

According an issued statement of Asian Human Rights Comission, the government delegation gave the state report relating to the questions raised by the Committee against Torture (CAT) at the 47th Session of the CAT Committee. Mr. Mohan Peiris, a former Attorney General and now an advisor to the government presented the report. For the session earlier The 12 organizations that have submitted their reports are: 1.Amnesty International 2.Asian Human Rights Commission 3.Freedom from Torture 4.Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children 5.International Commission of Jurists 6.International Disability Alliance 7.Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada 8.REDRESS 9.REDRESS, Asian Legal Resource Centre & ACAT-France 10.Sri Lankan NGO Collective 11.Tamil Information Centre 11.TRIAL

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has documented nearly 100 cases of torture and killings in police custody since January this year in Sri Lanka. Apart from that AHRC had also documented 1500 cases of torture in police custody since 1998 in Sri Lanka.

UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has once again called on Sri Lanka to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Very recently in a presentation Mr. Basil Fernando, the Director of Policy and Programmes explains the causes of police torture in Sri Lanka and the consequences of having a policing system that has lost its internal control structure.

Fernando also explains how the CAT Act, Act No 22 of 1994 is no longer being implemented in the country and how there is no credible complaint mechanism or witness protection law available to the citizens. The overall consequence of losing a law-based policing system is the creation of extra-legal measures to control crime.

These extra-legal measures include torture, and extra-judicial killings. "Wide spread torture is only a symptom of the much larger problem of lawlessness created by the operation of 1978 constitution", tells Fernando

Mr. President,

I will also provide a copy of the letter to all 435 members of the House of Representatives.I belive all of you will jointly think of how to help the people towards better democracy and better life before Christmas. I hope as you are an agent of change will give a good chirstmas gift to the people of sri lanka by making accountable the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime before the US institution for further bilateral co operations. U.S. assistance has totaled more than $2 billion since Sri Lanka's independence in 1948. But now I hope US government would think of the situations mentioned above before grating any further assistance to Mahinda Rajapaksa regime.

Mr. President,

In conclusion, I will urge you to impose pre conditions to insure the international standards of Civil, Political, economic, social and cultural rights before the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime in signing or renewing any further economic co-operation with Sri Lanka.

Thank you very much.

William Nicholas Gomes
Journalist & Human Rights Activist
80/ B Bramon Chiron, Saydabad,
Dhaka-1203, Bangladesh.
Cell: +88 019 7 444 0 666
E-mail:William [at] williamgomes.org,editorbd[at]gmail.com
Skype: William.gomes9
Face book: www.facebook.com/williamnicholasgomes
Twitter: twitter.com/williamgomes
Web site :www.williamgomes.org

http://williamgomes.org/?p=207