View Full Version : Why are we buying helicopters from Russia
jimnyc
12-07-2013, 12:27 PM
And from a company that was forbidden just a few short years ago, as they were providing "sensitive military technology" to Iran and Syria. And we want a contract with them?
Some answers to questions about how the United States ended up buying more than $1 billion in new helicopters from the Russian arms export agency that has supplied weapons to Syria's military.
—Why Russia? Defense Department officials have maintained that Afghanistan's national security forces need heavy-duty helicopters capable of moving troops and supplies in rugged conditions, and that Russia's Mi-17 is best suited for the mission. The Afghans have years of experience flying the Russian chopper.
—Why couldn't an American-made helicopter do the job? Turns out one actually could. A top-secret Pentagon study found that the Chinook, a heavy-lift helicopter built by Boeing in Pennsylvania, was the most cost-effective option for the Afghans. Congressional critics of the Mi-17 contract said the Pentagon used the study to prove the necessity of buying Mi-17s and never mentioned the Chinook. The Pentagon declined to speak on the record about the study or provide any details about its conclusions.
—What is Rosoboronexport? That's the Russian arms export agency the U.S. signed a contract with a few years ago for the Mi-17s. Doing business with Rosoboronexport before then was forbidden. The Bush White House had imposed penalties against the agency in 2006 after it determined Rosoboronexport had provided sensitive military technology to Iran and Syria. The Obama administration lifted the sanctions in 2010, one of a number of diplomatic moves aimed at "resetting" relations between the former Cold War adversaries.
—How many members of Congress are opposed to buying Mi-17s? A lot. From both political parties, too. In July, for example, more than 80 House members voiced their opposition to the contract with Rosoboronexport in a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/glance-why-us-buying-russian-125805204.html
Kathianne
12-07-2013, 12:37 PM
Me, being me I had to look for some history. Found the following, it's interesting to say the least.
Some background, note the mention of 'Syria'? Notice too that this predates the 'Russian solution' for the impasse between US and Syria?
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-12/world/40533068_1_rosoboronexport-afghanistan-sanctions
Congress fuming over U.S. purchase of Russian helicopters for Afghanistan
By Karen DeYoung,July 12, 2013
By the end of 2016, Afghanistan’s air force is due to have 86 Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters. Most of them will have been purchased by the United States from Rosoboronexport, the same state weapons exporter that continues to arm the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Congress is not pleased — but has struggled to do anything about it.
The Pentagon says that there is no better, cheaper helicopter than the Mi-17 to operate in Afghanistan’s desert expanses and high altitudes, and that it is the aircraft the Afghans know best.
...
Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
12-07-2013, 12:47 PM
And from a company that was forbidden just a few short years ago, as they were providing "sensitive military technology" to Iran and Syria. And we want a contract with them?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/glance-why-us-buying-russian-125805204.html Trust me , obama had his hand in this somewhere along the way.. Too big a deal for him not to be in on it and it hurts our economy and U.S. based companies. ALWAYS AN OBAMA GOAL.--Tyr
Kathianne
12-07-2013, 01:13 PM
Whenever one looks at Russia, must consider its interests. Currently Iran is the lede would be Iran. Looking at Iran, Syria comes to mind. I.e., Iran is Russia's proxy; Syria is Iran's:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/great-reckoning/
A Great Reckoning in a Little Room
Posted By David Solway On December 7, 2013
Back in July of 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Sderot, the southern Israeli city battered by rocket fire from Gaza, and delivered a speech (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/obama-tours-sderot-and-says-all-the-right-things-1.250305) [1] emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself and stressing that “peace should not undermine its security.” He vowed that he would not, as president, force Israel to make dangerous concessions and warned (http://www.haaretz.com/news/obama-in-sderot-world-must-prevent-iran-from-obtaining-nukes-1.250298) [2] that “the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” The Israeli leadership — not least the irresponsible and spineless Ehud Olmert — and many of the country’s citizens, including the leftist, anti-Zionist newspaper Haaretz, could scarcely restrain their enthusiasm for the fine words and noble sentiments expressed by the president-in-waiting.
The speech was a stirring one for those who had not tracked Obama’s less-than-stellar record to that date, who had not examined his chequered past and problematic mentors and acquaintances, and who wanted desperately to believe in the empty mantra of “hope and change.” As I watched the YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsxlGiJV3FE) [3]* clip of Obama’s address and listened to those familiar sinusoidal cadences, I knew instantly that the man did not mean a word he said, a conclusion that anyone who had done his homework would have reached. Regrettably, it has taken much of the world five more years to realize that Obama is a trained prevaricator (http://www.activistpost.com/2013/11/23-obama-quotes-that-turned-out-to-be.html) [4] of the first water, whether the issue is government transparency, receding oceans, competitive bidding, citizen surveillance, deficit cutting, the closing of Gitmo, unilateral military action, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, and, in the realm of foreign policy, Iran and Israel. Obama’s evasions and hollow assurances on this latter file demonstrably imperil the future of the Middle East and, quite possibly, the safety of the planet. It certainly spells imminent danger for Israel.
A recent article (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Our-world-The-goal-of-Obamas-foreign-policy-332993) [5] by Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick claims that the nuclear deal reached with Iran, eagerly pursued by the Americans, was “not just to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power…the goal of Obama’s foreign policy is to weaken the state of Israel.” Her thesis is cogently argued and based on persuasive evidence. Behind-the-scenes negotiations have been going on for an entire year, “yet the deal reflects Iran’s opening position.” Since nothing had changed from day one, why did Obama wait until the present moment to conclude an agreement?
The answer Glick provides makes considerable sense. Obama needed the year to marginalize the Jewish state, to work against its interests by portraying it as a belligerent nation trying to conscript the U.S. into an unnecessary war, and compelling it once again to enter negotiations with the Palestinian Authority “engineered to weaken Israel strategically and diplomatically” and furnishing support to the European Union’s propaganda blitz and economic war against it. Obama knew full well that Israel’s inevitable rejection of the Palestinians’ outrageous and unacceptable demands would make the country look intractable and bellicose to a denunciatory world. Within that portico time-frame, Obama gave his blessing to the anti-Zionist Jewish organization J Street, appointed anti-Israeli officials to key positions, and managed to embarrass the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. “When we consider Obama’s decision,” Glick writes, “to wait a year to sign the deal that enables Iran to become a nuclear power in the context of his main activities over the past year, we understand his foreign policy.”
Glick’s analysis should not come as a surprise. One recalls the contemptuous usage Obama meted out to Benjamin Netanyahu in their March 2010 encounter in the White House, with the Israeli prime minister ushered in furtively through the back door, left to stew in a room while Obama dined with his family, and unceremoniously ushered out minus a photo session and a joint statement between heads of state. It should have been clear by then, if not years earlier, that Obama’s geopolitical intention was to box Israel in and to treat the Jewish state as an international pariah. The humiliation suffered by Netanyahu was a kind of tableau vivant, a metaphor or analogy of the treatment Obama had in store for the country itself.
The interim agreement signed in Geneva was implicit in that vulgar White House drama, establishing a political homology that was to play itself out three years later. The relation between Obama and Netanyahu in the White House meeting reflected and prefigured the relation between the U.S. and Israel on the international and diplomatic stage, culminating in an agreement with Iran in which Israel had no part and was effectively ostracized. To say that Obama has no love for Israel is to put it mildly.
It would be interesting in this context to see the Khalidi/Obama video (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/09/20/in-wake-of-secret-romney-vid-los-angeles-times-reaffirms-it-will-not-publish-mysterious-obama-recording/) [6] squirreled away by the Los Angeles Times. Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO spokesman and current Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, makes no secret of his hatred for Israel. Obama and Khalidi were good friends, and as Discover the Networks reports (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1347) [7], “In 2003 Obama would attend (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuyBenson/2008/04/24/debunking_obamas_ayers_fact_sheet) [8] a farewell party in Khalidi’s honor when the latter was leaving the University of Chicago to embark on his new position at Columbia.” The event was filmed and one may plausibly wonder what revelation the LAT is suppressing with regard to Obama’s participation, especially as Obama had praised Khalidi for having “challenged my thinking.” Israpundit’s Ted Belman puts it (http://www.israpundit.com/archives/63591926#more-63591926) [9] succinctly: “What was said at this event was presumably so damaging to Obama’s political career that the LA Times, that liberal bastion, who came into possession of a tape of the event, refused to release it.”
In any case, everything Obama has done vis à vis the Jewish state — favoring anti-Zionist rabbis and organizations, inveighing against housing construction in its own capital city, supporting the Palestinians in fruitless rounds of “peace talks,” insisting that Israel retreat to its indefensible pre-1967 borders, leaking military secrets about Israeli pre-emptive actions against Syria and Hezbollah — indicates that Obama would like to see Israel confined to a tiny sliver of land, boxed in between the sea and the Arabs, reduced to a rump state at the mercy of its enemies, and eventually ushered out of the corridors of history. This puts him in league with the ayatollahs. This is Obama’s version of the knockout game.
Obama, of course, is programmatically deaf to the reasoned arguments advanced by Netanyahu: that the Palestinians are practiced deceivers and that their historical narrative of origins is provably false; that building in Jerusalem and the E1 area is verifiably legal; that retaining a portion of the Israeli ancestral and mandated homeland (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142772#.Upev9Zux5p8) [10] in Judea and Samaria, in particular the Jordan Valley and Judean Hills, as determined by no less an authority than the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (http://pjmedia.comu.s.%20joint%20chiefs%20of%20staff/) [11], is necessary for defensive purposes (the memorandum and map (http://www.sefer-torah.com/blog/2007/12/16/israel%E2%80%99s-defensible-borders-the-map-the-olmert-regime-withholds-from-the-public/) [12] were declassified on March 30, 1983); that an emboldened and nuclear Iran is bad for Israel, the U.S and the world; that functioning sanctions against Iran should not be dismantled without an ironclad guarantee of nuclear shutdown and foolproof monitoring; and that Israeli strength and Israeli technology benefit America. Netanyahu must feel somewhat like Touchstone in Shakespeare’s As You Like It (http://www.amazon.com/You-Like-Folger-Shakespeare-Library/dp/074348486X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385663805&sr=1-1&keywords=as+you+like+it+shakespeare) [13]: “When a man’s verses cannot be understood nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.” (This “great reckoning in a little room” refers to the murder of Christopher Marlowe, struck down in a tavern under mysterious circumstances.)
If Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, these premonitory words will apply to Israel as well.
*This is a truncated version of Obama’s Sderot speech; I was unable, several years later, to find the complete video clip.
Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
12-07-2013, 01:32 PM
Whenever one looks at Russia, must consider its interests. Currently Iran is the lede would be Iran. Looking at Iran, Syria comes to mind. I.e., Iran is Russia's proxy; Syria is Iran's:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/great-reckoning/ This from your linked quotes is something very big being hidden to save Obama IMHO.. As it almost certainly shows too much of the true Obama, his true allegiances and possibly even his a large view of his coming agenda. --Tyr
It would be interesting in this context to see the Khalidi/Obama video [6] squirreled away by the Los Angeles Times. Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO spokesman and current Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, makes no secret of his hatred for Israel. Obama and Khalidi were good friends, and as Discover the Networks reports [7], “In 2003 Obama would attend [8] a farewell party in Khalidi’s honor when the latter was leaving the University of Chicago to embark on his new position at Columbia.” The event was filmed and one may plausibly wonder what revelation the LAT is suppressing with regard to Obama’s participation, especially as Obama had praised Khalidi for having “challenged my thinking.” Israpundit’s Ted Belman puts it [9] succinctly: “What was said at this event was presumably so damaging to Obama’s political career that the LA Times, that liberal bastion, who came into possession of a tape of the event, refused to release it.”
In any case, everything Obama has done vis à vis the Jewish state — favoring anti-Zionist rabbis and organizations, inveighing against housing construction in its own capital city, supporting the Palestinians in fruitless rounds of “peace talks,” insisting that Israel retreat to its indefensible pre-1967 borders, leaking military secrets about Israeli pre-emptive actions against Syria and Hezbollah — indicates that Obama would like to see Israel confined to a tiny sliver of land, boxed in between the sea and the Arabs, reduced to a rump state at the mercy of its enemies, and eventually ushered out of the corridors of history. This puts him in league with the ayatollahs. This is Obama’s version of the knockout game.
Kathianne
12-07-2013, 01:44 PM
All of this falls under the executive, whether direct involvement or not. What is needed is documentation of involvement and by whom and what they reported up the chain...
revelarts
12-07-2013, 06:42 PM
All of this falls under the executive, whether direct involvement or not. What is needed is documentation of involvement and by whom and what they reported up the chain...
the pentagon is doing the purchasing. usually those exchanges are in the realm of the Mil-Ind-complex dark dealings. sometimes the rouge state dept or the presidents office puts their hands directly in the pot. but they usually can claim deniablity or ignorance. (ie Cheney had NOTHING to do with his old company getting DOD contracts , didn't benefit him at all, noo that's just liberal trash talk'n)
Congress asked why one contractor was still being granted contracts after repeated cases of rape and human trafficking had been exposed within the business in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld, the head of the DOD at the time, claimed no knowledge and hands being tied by contracts.
I've posted other funds issues where we are paying the enemy in Afghanistan, the congress and DOD claim their hands are tied there to. It's a game.
Heck Maybe we could become a DOD contractor, seems anyone can get some money no matter what your background.
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