Russian jets buzz U.S. destroyer in the Baltic Sea.

[Angela]

This has happened more than 30 times in the last week.

See:
http://abcnews.go.com/International...-navy-destroyer-close-range/story?id=38364404

It's important to note the ship was in international waters, which apparently didn't matter to Putin.

"On Monday, the destroyer was conducting flight operations with a Polish military helicopter that was conducting landing operations on the ship, the official said.
A pair of unarmed Russian SU-24’s then “conducted a series of low passes over the ships, came within 1,000 yards and within 100 feet of altitude," the official said, noting that the aircraft eventually conducted twenty passes over the destroyer."

This was followed by the predictable calls for the President to do something. I personally like the blase response of the U.S. Navy Commander: You don't kill somebody for being annoying.

How childish. Putin had better get all the game playing out of his system. Unless I'm very mistaken whoever next becomes the U.S. President will have more you know what than Obama, even Hillary. Well, unless we get Bernie. He'll figure Putin must be cranky because he's sick and send over chicken soup.

 

[Silesian]

If I recall USS Liberty was in international waters also. I guess just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[bicicleur 2]

when I was doing my military service, this wouldn't happen
now that I left, the Russians have become much more bold ...

 

[Fire Haired14]

when I was doing my military service, this wouldn't happen
now that I left, the Russians have become much more bold ...

Councidence? Looks like they're more bold because that Belgian stud bicicleur left the military. We need your help as soon possible.

 

[Yetos]

when I was doing my military service, this wouldn't happen
now that I left, the Russians have become much more bold ...

a man who had served military obligations for me has honor,
+1 from me

 

[bicicleur 2]

a man who had served military obligations for me has honor,
+1 from me

maybe it should be that way,
but it was 10 months of utter boredom
I've never seen such unorganised and unmotivated organisation
it made me lose all respect and pride I might have had for my own country

I hope they are better organised today

 

[ElHorsto]

What was the destroyer's mission? Flight operations. But maybe also a little bit spying by the way. We don't know.
Hard to believe this was just for fun without an agenda. Military activities have multiplied in eastern europe since 2014, and this is just the tip of the ice berg.

 

[DejaVu]

[h=1]These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America[/h]

 

[DejaVu]

Russian jets fly DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to a US warship, which is dangerously close to Russia.
https://www.facebook.com/inthenowrt/videos/607951272688579/

 

[Angela]

Oh for goodness' sakes. Last time I checked "international waters" means "international waters".

Those are the rules. Keep them.

This was a provocation and an extremely childish one at that; that destroyer could have bombed them all to kingdom come, but instead the U.S. Navy commander treated it with the respect it deserved, which is to say-none.

The one who should be ashamed is Putin, who played with the lives of young Russian men who could have crashed doing those kinds of maneuvers, and all for the sake of sticking out his tongue at America. He and Trump would make a good pair; loud mouthed clowns who unfortunately can turn out to be very dangerous for the world.

If your country isn't spying on other countries I suggest you vote them out, unless, of course, you live in Russia, where you don't really have any say in anything; you might as well be living under the Czars.

 

[Angela]

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

Please....and one man controls all the media in Russia. You might just as well call all their media outlets Pravda.

It's amazing to me how some of you still buy all the old Soviet propaganda. Decades of communism, a few of robber baron capitalism high jacked by ex-KGB operatives, and Russia is still a third world autocracy, albeit one that has nuclear and biological weapons. Worked out really well, right?

Why do you think Putin wants to take over the Baltic states and the newly freed Eastern European countries now that they're finally starting to become prosperous? To rob them blind, of course, just like the Soviet Union did after the Second World War. My God, look what East Germany was like compared to West Germany, as just one example. They had to build a wall not to stop immigration, as America may have to do, but to keep everybody prisoner there who wanted to get out. People can vote with their feet, guys.

 

[LABERIA]

This are dangerous games.

 

[DejaVu]

Gallup International’s poll of 68 countries for 2014 found the US as the greatest threat to peace in the world, voted three times more dangerous to world peace than the next country.

Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence.

To put this in perspective:
* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.
* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president. Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”
* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.
* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

The United States spent more on its military than the next 13 nations combined in 2011

• U.S. military spending dwarfs all other countries:

“The United States is responsible for 41% of the world’s total military spending. The next largest in spending are China, accounting for 8.2%; Russia, 4.1%; and the United Kingdom and France, both 3.6%. . . . If all military . . . costs are included, annual [US] spending amounts to $1 trillion . . . . According to the DOD fiscal year 2012 base structure report, ‘The DOD manages global property of more than 555,000 facilities at more than 5,000 sites, covering more than 28 million acres.’ The United States maintains 700 to 1000 military bases or sites in more than 100 countries. . . .”

• The U.S. launched 201 out of the 248 armed conflicts since the end of WWII:

“Since the end of World War II, there have been 248 armed conflicts in 153 locations around the world. The United States launched 201 overseas military operations between the end of World War II and 2001, and since then, others, including Afghanistan and Iraq ….”

​

• Around 90% of all deaths in war are civilians:

“The proportion of civilian deaths and the methods for classifying deaths as civilian are debated, but civilian war deaths constitute 85% to 90% of casualties caused by war, with about 10 civilians dying for every combatant killed in battle.”
​

• Swanson notes: “A top defense of war is that it must be used to prevent something worse, called genocide. Not only does militarism generate genocide rather than preventing it, but the distinction between war and genocide is a very fine one at best.”

The U.S. Is Still No.1 at Selling Arms to the World
http://time.com/4161613/us-arms-sales-exports-weapons/

The United States remains the world’s preeminent exporter of arms, with more than 50 percent of the global weaponry market controlled by the United States as of 2014.
Arms sales by the U.S. jumped 35 percent, or nearly $10 billion, to $36.2 billion in 2014, according to the Congressional Research Service report, which analyzed the global arms market between 2007 and 2014.
Trailing the U.S. in weapons receipts is Russia, with $10.2 billion in sales in 2014, followed by Sweden with $5.5 billion, France with $4.4 billion and China with $2.2 billion, reports The New York Times.
The top weapons buyer in 2014 was South Korea, a key American ally, which has been squaring off with an increasingly belligerent North Korea in recent years.
Iraq was the second biggest weapons buyer, as the country seeks to build up its military capacity following the withdrawal of the bulk of American ground troops there. Brazil was the third biggest buyer, primarily of Swedish aircraft.

​

 

[bicicleur 2]

I wish Europe would spend a little more for its own defence
and Merkel would stop licking Erdogans' arse
I think that is a more dangerous game going on

 

[ElHorsto]

If your country isn't spying on other countries

The speculation was not about civil spying but military spying using radars. The russian military base was only 70 km away.

 

[Angela]

@Deja-Vu
Honestly, a European is going to talk about other countries being militaristic? How many died in World War I, started by Germany, which the U.S. entered only in the latter stages to save the bacon of the Allies? That was a rhetorical question. The answer is 18 million.

How many people died in World War II, also started by Germany? Answer: 60 million. In neither case did the U.S. want to get involved.

How many of its own people did Russia kill? Stalin alone is responsible for tens of millions.
http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789

Shall we go on? How about your own Balkans where people who are virtually indistinguishable from one another genetically tried to ethnically cleanse each other and thought rape as a weapon of war was a good idea?

You want to go back further yet?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe

America isn't even in the running for war mongering.

As for America's military, it's the only reason Western Europeans were never serfs of the Soviets like the poor Eastern Europeans. It's the only reason that South Koreans had the freedom to develop a system where they are educated, prosperous, and modern instead of starving, ill, automatons like the North Koreans. It's the only reason Japan was able to develop its modern economy and maintain its independence.

That military is now on its knees because of our current President, so will Europe be happy if the next one is just as feckless, and there's no one to prevent Russian tanks from rolling through Europe again? If anyone thinks that the military forces of the European countries can stop them, think again. Bicicleur has pointed out what is the case for all of them, with the exception of Britain. It would be just what an ungrateful Europe deserves.

As for opinion polls, I'm totally uninterested in "world" opinion, opinion which has been formed by decades of Marxist propaganda in schools and media and natural envy and resentment of the "big dog". After World War II Europeans thought it was a good idea to unilaterally disarm, which may be one of the most abysmally stupid opinions ever expressed. Even five year olds should know better.

@El Horsto.
You spy using the best technology and resources available, if that's even what was going on. You have a perfect right to sit in international waters and train your radar on a military base. Can you really believe that Russia doesn't do the same? Heck, they came onto the grounds of the American embassy in Moscow, which is technically American territory, and bugged the whole damn building, including the offices of the military attaches.

That's what countries do, althoughI don't see why it would be necessary, frankly. NSA satellites can pick out individual faces, so why the heck would they be dependent on a destroyer's radar?

What countries should not be doing is risking the lives of their young flight crews on dangerous stunts, stunts which could also provoke an actual military escalation if American leaders were as childish and reckless as Putin.

 

[ElHorsto]

@El Horsto.
You spy using the best technology and resources available, if that's even what was going on. You have a perfect right to sit in international waters and train your radar on a military base. Can you really believe that Russia doesn't do the same? Heck, they came onto the grounds of the American embassy in Moscow, which is technically American territory, and bugged the whole damn building, including the offices of the military attaches.

That's what countries do, althoughI don't see why it would be necessary, frankly. NSA satellites can pick out individual faces, so why the heck would they be dependent on a destroyer's radar?

What countries should not be doing is risking the lives of their young flight crews on dangerous stunts, stunts which could also provoke an actual military escalation if American leaders were as childish and reckless as Putin.

Would you please consider only what I actually wrote and not what I didn't. Thank you!

 

[Angela]

Would you please consider only what I actually wrote and not what I didn't. Thank you!

My apologies if I misunderstood your post. There are disadvantages to being quite so cryptic and laconic.

 

[Silesian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE

 

[Angela]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE

I don't see the relevance to this thread, but the CIA definitely thought he had them, the Russians thought he had them, the Brits thought he had them, the Israelis thought he had them. Every intelligence agency of which I'm aware thought he had them. Why is that conveniently forgotten? It's not the first time there's been a massive intelligence failure, unfortunately.

The data recovered since then indicates that Hussein deliberately tried to give the impression that he had them in order to intimidate his neighbors in the Middle East. That was a fatal miscalculation, which should give pause to other countries inclined to bluffing.

Had Iraqis been less corrupt, and more capable of rising above petty tribal and religious differences, they could have, with the help of the U.S., created a model of what the Middle East could become. They didn't deserve the blood and treasure expended. They weren't capable of it, but then I wonder whether some European countries are capable of maintaining a liberal democratic form of government. For what percentage of its history has Russia been an autocracy of one form or another? Virtually all of it.