Neo-Cold War

We need to wake up a Neo-Cold War is already here . We need to get on the proper footing to deal with Putin and his Free Market Authoritarian regime. Call Palin a crack pot if you like but she gets it. Wake up America our enemies are out there and all they have been doing is waiting for a opportunity to kick us while we are down or occupied. So if you think appeasement Mr. Obama is the right way to go ask Europe how that turned out in the 1930's. Mr Putin is every bit as bold and cunning as Hitler ever was and frankly I believe just as dangerous. The below article is just a example of whats on the way. "Peace Through Strength" worked for 46 years it is time to bring it back.

Russia pilots proud of flights to foreign shores

By DAVID NOWAK – 1 day ago

ENGELS AIR BASE, Russia (AP) — The Russian long-range bombers that have resumed missions into the Western Hemisphere nearly 20 years after the end of the Cold War are delivering a clear message: Russia wants to be seen as a global superpower once again.

At the base from which the missions have been taking off during the past year, the pilots were delighted, feeling they are back in action after a long layoff.

Foreign reporters were afforded a rare look at the Engels base on the windswept shores of the Volga River in early August. They were able to speak to the pilots, who described a friendly rapport with the NATO aircraft that are scrambled to escort them when they skirt foreign shores.

The day after the visit, conflict broke out between Russia and Georgia, a U.S. ally. There's no telling whether the rapport has changed, but the pilots have ridden out many storms in U.S.-Russia relations since the flights resumed.

The renewal of the long-range bomber flights in August 2007 has escalated tensions between the West and a Russia eager to reassert itself globally. This was highlighted by the arrival of two of Russia's top-of-the-line bombers in Venezuela on Wednesday, the first flights to come so close to American shores.

They landed there ahead of joint war games scheduled for November. Russia has said it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes for the exercises, which appear to be a response to the relaunch of the U.S. Fourth Fleet in the Caribbean. The fleet had been dissolved after World War II.

The Venezuela landing was the first in the Western Hemisphere by Russian military aircraft since the Cold War ended, and gave the West a close-up look at the world's largest supersonic bomber, known here as the White Swan.

The sleek, white bombers were conducting patrols over the Caribbean this weekend ahead of their return to Russia on Monday.

When the reporters visited Engels, Lt. Col. Alexander Khaberov had just landed his White Swan after a 12-hour sortie over the North Atlantic, and was exhilarated to be back on patrol.

"The feeling when the order came in was unbelievable," he said, shouting over the plane's engine noise.

"We get to do our thing. A real man's job," he said. "This place has more energy now. Before, there was a stagnation about the base."

Fresh-faced, immaculately uniformed with not a blond hair out of place, Khaberov looked the model pilot, showing no sign of fatigue after his long flight.

Lt. Col. Gennady Stekachyov was similarly energized.

"Pilots are made to fly. When someone needs you, it elevates you. People are configured that way. When no one needs you, all you want to do is sleep," said Stekachyov, who flies an older bomber known as the Bear.

The base is home to both of Russia's strategic bombers: the Tu-95, the Soviet answer to the American B-52 and known universally as the Bear; and the modern Tu-160, the White Swan, with its Concorde-style pointed nose, called the Blackjack in the West. Both bombers have conducted patrols over the Atlantic and Arctic.

Around the runway, six Tu-160s and eight Tu-95s were in view. A low-level camouflaged radar was rotating near by. The base, dormant for so many years, was now a hive of activity.

But despite record defense spending in recent years, none of the buildings open to reporters looked new or refurbished. Flight crews chowed down on a Soviet-era diet of canned beef with powder-based mashed potatoes.

"Of course, everyone was happy when the missions restarted. But the only real changes around here are that a few more flights are now planned," said Lt. Col. Vladimir Dyagov, a military spokesman.

The pilots, the more senior of whom earn only about $800 per month, appeared genuinely content and particularly excited about the mid-air camaraderie when U.S., Norwegian and British fighters approach.

Stekachyov said he usually gives them a thumbs-up.

"In the air we meet like colleagues," he said. "It's really nice to socialize with our foreign counterparts. It's not like some make it out to be. There are always nice gestures and smiles."

Russia said NATO planes escorted the Venezuela-bound sortie.

The long-range bomber flights were suspended in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union. One pilot likened life on the base during the base's 15 years of stagnation to that of a dog chained to a tree, but Stekachyov said it hadn't dulled the pilots' skills.

"We tried to maintain our skills during the lull as much as possible," he said. "But the backbone of the crew brought up in the Soviet system, of which I am one, is still around. There are even people with experience from World War II here. We are now improving our skills and passing them on to the new generation of pilots."

Rather than hostile to the West, the pilots seemed more keen that Russia be taken seriously as a military superpower once again.

"I respect the opinions of every country," said Col. Dmitry Kostyunin, a veteran of Cold War sorties.

"But I would like our opinion to be respected everywhere."

A Tupolev-160 warplane during combat training flight near the Engels air force base in the Saratov region, about 700 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow in this December, 1997, file photo. The Tu-160, known as the Blackjack in the West, is a long-distance strategic bomber capable of carrying out nuclear strikes. Two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday as part of military maneuvers an unprecedented deployment to the new ally's territory amid increasingly tense relations with the United States. The Russian Defense Ministry said the two Tu-160 bombers flew to Venezuela on a training mission and will conduct training flights over neutral waters in the next few days before returning to Russia, according to a statement carried by Russian news wires. (AP Photo/ File)

English Electric Lightning

Cold War plane honored

A British Cold War plane that soared through the skies with speeds of more than 1,500mph has received its own "medal of honour" in Lancashire.

Former pilots and staff who worked on the English Electric Lightning will be reunited with the plane at its current home at BAE Systems in Warton.

The award came from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

South Korean cemetery keeps Cold War alive

Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:53pm EDT

By Jon Herskovitz

PAJU, South Korea (Reuters) - There is no resting in peace at South Korea's "Enemy Cemetery".

On a quiet hill, just south of the heavily armed border that divides the Korean peninsula, wooden grave markers with fading white paint are aligned in neat rows above bodies no one wants to claim at plots few dare visit.

In black ink splattered with mud, the Korean word for "Anonymous" marks almost all of the burial mounds for nearly 550 North Korean and Chinese soldiers and spies.

"The graves are pointed to the North. They are facing home," said South Korean First Lieutenant Choi Won-joon, who served as a military guide to the graveyard.

The cemetery, which opened in 1996, is a reminder of the lingering hostilities between the Cold War foes.

Last month, the Defence Ministry said the cemetery was nearing capacity as hundreds of bodies of North Korean soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean war have been dug up in recent years and buried in the graveyard. North Korea refuses to take back the bodies.

"As far as the North Koreas are concerned, the entire peninsula is rightfully theirs. They are still in Korean soil as far as they are concerned and they are looking at unification as just a matter of time," said Brian Meyers, a specialist in North Korea's state ideology at Dongseo University in Busan.

The cemetery also contains the remains of North Korean commandoes sent on missions to kill. If the North claimed these bodies, it would also have to accept responsibility and apologize for the missions that Pyongyang has so far disavowed.

At the cemetery, a warning sign tells people to keep away and a small plaque tucked under a tree says: "The cemetery for North Korean soldiers and Chinese soldiers".

"In the military, this place is officially known as the 'Enemy Cemetery'," Lt Choi said.

CAPTURED ALIVE, HIS COMRADES DEAD

In one grave lies Kim Sung-il who planted a bomb on a Korean Air flight in 1987 that killed more than 100 people on board. Other graves hold the remains of North Koreans killed trying to infiltrate the South in a mini-submarine in 1998.

At the front of the cemetery, in graves marked with the word "spy" followed by their actual names, lie 30 North Korean agents killed in a failed mission to assassinate then South Korean President Park Chung-hee in 1968, a military official said.

"The North Koreans agents in those graves are the victims of North Korean propaganda. So they, as victims, deserve better treatment," said Kim Shin-jo, a former North Korean commando who was the only member on the Park assassination team captured alive.

Kim was later pardoned by the South Korean government and became a pastor in the South, as well as a fierce opponent of the North Korean government.

The graves of North Koreans sit on one hillside and Chinese on another, flanked by green fields of rice and soybeans. The burial mounds are covered with weeds and grass.

The graveyard plots began filling up quickly after 2000 when South Korea, facing criticism from veterans' groups for not doing enough to find the remains of those killed in the Korean War, began a intensive search for the bodies of its fallen soldiers.

As of early September, it had unearthed 2,677 bodies, including those of 599 enemy soldiers, military officials said.

The parties fighting in the Korean War -- North and South Korea, China, and U.S.-led United Nations forces -- reached an agreement in 1992 for the repatriation of soldiers' remains.

But the repatriation is mostly one-sided as North Korea has shown no interest in receiving the bodies of its fallen troops.

Most of the bodies that have been handed over were remains of U.S. troops found in the North and dug up with the help of American experts.

"The North Korean propaganda apparatus has been extracting a lot of comic relief over the American Army's search for the remains of its soldiers in North Korea. They gloat over the fact that the Americans left so many dead bodies," Myers said.

KEEPING WATCH

In the first few years after the enemy cemetery opened, visitors placed flowers on the graves. This prompted South Korea to keep an eye on the cemetery in the hope of finding North Korean sympathizers visiting fallen comrades.

Once people knew they were being watched, they stopped coming. South Korea says it no longer monitors the site.

Ties have chilled in recent months with North Korea refusing to talk to the South because it is angry at its President Lee Myung-bak, who took office in February with a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang.

Lee has called on the North to hand over about 1,000 South Koreans who were abducted by North Korean agents or were prisoners from the Korean War who were never allowed to return home.

The North has denied holding people against their will, which has infuriated many in the South who see the communist state as playing politics with humanitarian issues.

For many in the South, the enemy cemetery serves as a reminder of the differences between the two states.

"Under international convention, we are required to treat the bodies of our enemies with respect. That is why we have this place," Choi said.

"They were our enemies. We have respected their remains."

(Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun; Editing by Megan Goldin)

Group Discusses Possible New ‘Cold War’ At USD Forum

By Travis Gulbrandson
travis.gulbrandson@yankton.net

Published: Thursday, September 11, 2008 12:06 AM CDT

VERMILLION — The recent struggles between Russia and Georgia have led some to question whether the United States, as well as other countries, could be facing another Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

A group of academics addressed the issue at a forum at the University of South Dakota Wednesday afternoon.

Their verdict was that while possible, a new Cold War isn’t likely.

Dr. Don Pryce asked, “Is this a new Cold War? I don’t think so. It’s clear that the United States is not going to take military action and cannot take military action, and is assessing the situation in Georgia, thinking about reconstituting the Georgia military, but has not reached a decision yet.”

LTC Damian Donahoe said the United States’ — as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s — primary function in the Georgia/Russia conflict will be that of provider of humanitarian assistance.

“That’s where you’ll see the greatest amount of military presence,” Donahoe said.

However, Dr. David Burrow pointed out that Vladimir Putin’s view is that NATO is now anti-Russian, “that it exists to confine Russia — no matter what the leaders in the European Union, no matter what members of NATO say, it exists solely to handle Russian power.”

Dr. Joerg Winterberg said the primary concern of the European Union regarding Russia is focused on values.

“We are focused on questions like bringing democracy and human rights to the world,” Winterberg said. “We are not focused on the question of who is the new world power.”

He also added that Russia and most European countries are too entwined for a Cold War to be feasible.

But, Winterberg said, differing viewpoints could lead to another Cold War.

Burrow said this would be welcomed in some quarters in Russia.

“I think there are people that like the old paradigm of the Cold War and that sort of stability, so it’s gotten possible to fall into that,” he said.

Pryce said many Russians are also concerned about the United States’ missile defense system, which is currently being constructed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Although the system is meant for defense against Iran, the worry is still there, he said.

“According to American strategic doctrine of the Bush administration … the United States has not renounced first use of nuclear weapons,” Pryce said. “But if it comes to a first nuclear strike, according to some observers, an American first strike could wipe out enough Russian strategic assets that missile defense would then be effective. That seems to be part of what the Russians are worried about.”

Despite this, Donahoe said, “You’re not going to see an increase in nuclear proliferation. There are several other factors that make it difficult ... expense being one.”

Pryce said there is a problem that arises in talking about the Cold War and the possibility of a nuclear war taking place.

“I notice that as we discuss it as academics, the consensus is that it wouldn’t make sense, meaning the European nations need Russian energy resources, and the Russians need money,” he said. “It’s that simple.

“But if people always made sense, we wouldn’t be doing things like this,” he said. “So the problem, of course, ... is to get people to think in terms of their interests rather than their emotions, to analyze these things in terms of what makes sense.”

The cold war’s grooviest relic

By Peter Aspden

Published: September 13 2008 01:32 | Last updated: September 13 2008 01:32

The Jested telecommunications tower stands proud and lonely on top of a tree-strewn mountain just over an hour’s drive from Prague. On a clear day, you can see across the border to Germany and Poland, where a belching factory pours out clouds of smoke. This is not a post-industrial landscape. New factories and warehouses open every month, testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of a region that used to be at the heart of the Soviet bloc. The only reminder of that dispiriting time today is, paradoxically, the modernist marvel that is Jested.

It was built in the 1960s as part of a cultural propaganda battle between east and west that is the subject of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s next big exhibition, Cold War Modern. Jested is a phenomenal piece of engineering for the time, its concrete core sunk deep into the mountain’s bedrock to make the sleek lines of the building appear part of the geology itself. Its spire thrusts elegantly skywards, a heavenly approach that architects have for hundreds of years employed to simulate close contact with divinity but that was here conceived to serve the modern gods of television and politics.

When the architect Karel Hubacek entered the competition to design a new hotel and telecommunications tower to replace the gothic mountain lodge that had burnt down in 1963, he had the novel idea of combining the two functions into one dramatic building. This served his political masters in two important ways: it was symbolic of the technological superiority that eastern bloc countries still believed they held over the west; and it attracted a domestic public that needed to be convinced of precisely that message.

Once inside, the hikers and skiers that had come to spend a weekend of fresh air and exercise were confronted with a blizzard of 1960s space age effects that might have come from the set of Star Trek. In the curved lobby, huge, sliced spheres of glass were embedded into an undulating concrete wall, simulating the effect of a meteor attack (a reminder that cold war paranoia was as much concerned with hostile galaxies as with the other side of the communist/capitalist divide).

Stroll into the restaurant and hotel areas, and guests were straight into the dazzling modernist universe that was so brilliantly captured in the early James Bond movies: a huge chandelier made of tubular steel lights, hourglass bar stools, shag-pile egg-shaped chairs dangling seductively from the ceilings. This might have been the refuge where Austin Powers spent his honeymoon, once he had settled down.

And here is the heart of the paradox that is explored in the V&A show and screams from every shiny plastic fitting in Jested: how was it that the dour, freedom-hating regimes of eastern Europe, obsessed with controlling dissent and taming the unfettered imagination, could end up sponsoring just about the coolest building on the planet?

Otakar Binar, a taciturn, modest man in his 70s, was Jested’s interior designer. We sat for dinner last week at the asymmetric hexagonal table and under the extraordinary tubular chandelier that he had designed for the restaurant’s private salon. Jested is still used as a hotel and restaurant today. Hip hotel lovers take note: there may be more luxurious destinations but there is no hipper hotel, for sheer aesthetic bravura, than this.

I asked Binar if he had been aware of being used as a political tool when he and Hubacek, part of a collective of architects, created Jested. No, he said, shaking his head, it was hard for people like me to understand but all they felt at the time was the sheer joy of being able “to build something like this,” opening his hands to the walls.

Asked what had influenced his designs, he looked again as if I simply didn’t get it. “We were completely cut off. We were living in the dark. There were one or two architecture magazines from the west in the university department but they were not easily available. We had to chat up the professors’ assistants to see them.”

Library flirtations aside, the members of the creative team behind Jested evidently worked to their own imperatives. One of them, Karel Wunsch, said he was influenced by Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious when he decided on orange, rather than white, tablecloths. It was that sort of era.

When work slowed down on Jested in the mid-1960s due to the difficulty of the project, Hubacek had to appeal to his president for support. He stressed the scientific and technological ambition of the plans for the building leaving out, presumably, the shag-pile chairs. The Czechoslovakian authorities saw only the opportunity to press the claims for the excellence of socialism and backed the architect.

There was a brief confluence of interests between art and politics but it was only brief. The wider picture in the country was changing fast. Hubacek became a signatory of the “2,000 Words”, a charter that pressed for greater freedoms. It was a professional death warrant; he never worked on another big project.

When Jested won the influential Auguste Perret prize for architecture in 1969, Hubacek was prevented from leaving the country to receive it. The government, never to be accused of lacking a sense of humour, handed him back his passport an hour after the aircraft took off.

By the time Jested finally opened to the public in 1973, Hubacek was deemed sufficiently odious to the authorities as not even to be invited to its opening. He couldn’t bear the slight and was smuggled in by sympathetic staff through the back door.

Jested today is fast becoming technologically redundant – television has new technologies to spread its divine word – and its appeal to retro-loving sophisticates on day-trips from Prague will only take it so far. The current hotel management is evangelical in its campaign to have the tower listed in the Unesco list of world heritage sites. It surely deserves it, as proof that the creative spirit can flourish in the cruellest times, and that to be groovy, baby, was once more than just a statement of style.

Cold War Modern’ opens at the V&A on September 25

peter.aspden@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/aspden

Walking Wounded

Note: Buffalo NY has established a Veterans Court. A pilot program that I believe should be expanded nationally . This Court came together with the help of the local Buffalo chapter membership of Vietnam Veterans of America.

Western New York Chapter 77 member Jack O'Connor has put together a program called Veterans Court in conjunction with the Buffalo Police Department, Buffalo City Court Judge Robert T. Russell, Jr., and the Buffalo VA Medical Center. The object of the Veterans Court program is to keep veterans who are arrested for low-level crimes out of jail. The program provides VA counselors to work with these veterans with the idea of getting them into appropriate treatment programs. If a veteran successfully completes the program, which Judge Russell monitors, charges may be dropped and the veteran will not have to serve jail time.

Wade Sanders | September 11, 2008

It is a cold fact that up to a third of the men and women in our nation's prisons are veterans. It is also a cold fact that recidivism is a major problem in the United States. This revolving door of incarceration is all too often attributable to a prison system that is little more than a graduate program in advanced crime. This is unacceptable. We need to be more discerning about providing this education. Fortunately, with regard to combat veterans who are caught up in the criminal justice system, there are new tools emerging: new laws offering a new approach to an old problem with Veterans' Courts to administer them. In California, and an emerging number of states, that is an alternative sentencing law.

No one doubts that combat veterans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, touched by the horrors of war and returning home, are forever changed. Some will cope, but a large percentage are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or related psychological problems. In addition, there are still thousands of Vietnam and Desert Storm veterans who are struggling with combat-related issues. Regrettably, many of them are, and will, come into contact with law enforcement. Our society put them in harm's way, and it shares responsibility for their damage in our service. Parades, flag-waving and patriotic slogans are great, but we owe them far more than that. They have earned a level of consideration that is commensurate with their sacrifice. This is not giving special treatment; it is recognizing how special their service has been.

The new laws provide sentencing options that are an alternative to incarceration. In California it is Penal Code Section 1170.9, signed into law in 2007, which recognizes the veteran's sacrifice and society's responsibility. It provides the criminal justice system as a whole, the prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, and judges, with new options in dealing with veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Depending on the nature of the offense, and wherever possible, the new laws give judges the discretion to apply what some refer to as "problem-solving justice" in framing remedies. Punishment where appropriate, but not for punishment's sake, and avoid unnecessary harm if possible.

This new approach is still so new that very few defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges are aware of its existence. In essence, it provides that once a combat veteran is convicted, and is otherwise eligible for probation, and certain requirements are met, the judge has an option other than sentencing the combat veteran to prison or jail. Once a clear connection is established between the offense and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, or psychological problems stemming from service in a combat theater in the United States military, the judge may order the defendant into a local, state, federal, or private nonprofit treatment program. Of course, the veteran has to agree to this alternative. If the veteran successfully completes the program, the court may dismiss the charges.

In California, and other states, there are a many such private programs, as well as some that exist within the Veterans Administration and Counties. Some the better known ones are Veterans Village in San Diego (which already has a court referred defendant) and U.S. Vets in Long Beach. These are residential facilities that deal with the victims of post traumatic stress injuries are a vital asset for the courts and for the recovery of our veterans to a productive life. Prison is no remedy.

Currently the debate regarding this code section centers on the nature of offenses that will be considered for alternative sentencing. Although, in California, the only requirement concerning the offense is that the defendant be eligible for probation, there may be some offenses that will not be considered by District Attorneys or Judges. Violent felonies, for one, are difficult choices. The bottom line is that the judge will have the discretion to determine, on a case by case basis, which offenses to accept.

Education is the key to any new approach. Our entire criminal justice system needs to recognize and understand this new approach and accept that we share a significant responsibility for the welfare of our combat veterans. This brings me to the second new remedy: Veterans' Courts. Already, in some jurisdictions, such as Orange County, California and Buffalo, New York, Veterans' Courts are being established within the state court system. And, U.S. Senators Kerry, Murkowski, and Durbin have introduced Senate Bill 3379 which, if passed, will provide funds for the establishment of these courts nationwide. This is an issue which grows with importance with every year this nation is at war, and for the generations that will follow.

Clearly this dialogue cannot begin too soon. The clock is ticking, and every day another combat veteran is overwhelmed by the damage he or she has suffered in our service. We cannot afford to be as unprepared to care for our veterans as we were for the present war. The dialogue between all elements of the criminal justice system and veterans' services should begin immediately, and it is incumbent upon members of law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, the judiciary and probation departments to make an aggressive beginning. Does anyone doubt that we owe our combat veterans anything less?

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

Court Aims to Help Vets with Legal Troubles

You Can Listen Now, brings up NPR Player.

Morning Edition, April 29, 2008 · As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan put renewed focus on the issue of veterans' mental health, a judge in Buffalo, N.Y., has created a special court to assist veterans who wind up in the criminal justice system.

Gary Pettengill wanted to make a career out of the military, but the Army made him take a medical discharge in 2006 after he injured his back in Iraq. At the time, Pettengill was 23 and married, with a third child on the way.

To cope with what he says were empty days and nightmares caused by post-traumatic stress disorder, Pettengill says he started smoking marijuana. Then he began selling it to pay his bills. In February, he was arrested during a drug sweep and accused of being in possession of two pounds of marijuana.

Read Rest Here