China now shoots down satellites.

[alittlelark]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21086358-5005961,00.html


WHY are they doing this NOW. The US Dollar is sinking, they own most of our debt......



Are we financing China's arms rush? Why did they do this test at this time? They sent a message. WHO got it?

[BayCityProgressive]

1. Because Bush doesn;t

understand talking..so they are communicating to him in another way...I think it translates roughly into "Don't fuck with us, asshole."

[Karenina]

13. Remember this???

[alittlelark]

19. That picture scares me

:scared:

[Karenina]

26. And well it should. As should these...

Oh, what cute and funny faux-pas!!!













NOT.

[BayCityProgressive]

20. what in the hell is Bush doing in that picture!?

[Canuckistanian]

38. Ah, yes, the "Hu Jintao Incident"

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=599452006

It will be talked about YEARS after the coming Chinese conquest.....

[Karenina]

44. I had a panic attack when I saw the picture.

Americans do not understand the significance OR the consequences of the MANY gaffes. Invading Hu's physical space sealed *dauphin's fate with Chinese. I recall reading in their press that *dimwit grabbed Hu "as if he were an errant child." The Chinese are patient and have L-O-N-G memories.

[XboxWarrior]

45. Here's what I think......

DU is little more than a highschool cheer leader contest!

I posted this "news" early this morn......with little or NO interest!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3162882

Guess my name needs to be KPETE2......lmao

see you in Crawford, TX 07!

[Rosemary2205]

2. I wonder that myself

if they cripple the United States they only hurt themselves. The only thing I can think of is to warn the neocons not go ahead with the plan to make GW el presidente for life.

[alittlelark]

7. Perhaps they are afraid we will renege on our debt.

How much is a satellite worth?


Honestly, this situation is disturbing to the Nth degree. The Chinese see the world in the long term, we see it as 'who won American Idol, last month.

[Cobalt-60]

24. The ASAT deployed by the Chinese

is good against vehicles in low orbit only.
Theirs is probably based on soviet ASAT tech, which is to say a guided bomb that snuggles up to the target and explodes.
Any nation with ICBMs can use them in the ASAT role.
That having been said, I'm sure we've seen this in response to the Chimp's ravings about militarizing space.

[StClone]

9. You have in reverse

We will be hurt if we don't heed China's warnings.

[babylonsister]

3. Because this admin put forth the idea of star wars and wouldn't back

off (and has lots invested in it), so China feels it has to defend itself. Yep, another * FUBAR!
(I got that from Olbermann tonight)

[Spazito]

4. Given bush's "Bring it On" policy regarding control of space

I am not surprised China decided to respond the way they did:

Bush issues doctrine for US control of space

George Bush has staked out a bold claim to the final frontier, asserting vigorously America's right to deny access to space to any adversary hostile to US interests, it emerged yesterday.
In a muscular overhaul of policy, the US president outlines the importance of space to the national interest, saying its domination is as crucial to America's defences as air or sea power.

The order also opposes the establishment of arms control treaties that would restrict US access to space, or set limits on its use of space. It calls for the development of space capabilities to support US intelligence and defence initiatives.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1925757,00.html

Edited to correct typo

[MikeNearMcChord]

5. Well Shrubous Boobious Maximus Chucklenutus

started this by saying the US Military want to control space, by militarizing it. And consider that China has the engineers and spending on science education, they probably can do it far better than us(gives new meaning to the statement IF YOU THINK EDUCATION IS EXPENSIVE, TRY IGNORANCE

[alittlelark]

11. Lets be honest.....

The Chinese are educating their ppl to the Nth degree. They are the next superpower (the PNAC states such). The PNAC are trying to starve them out ON THE CHEAP - with soldiers bodies, and US tax dollars.

[BayCityProgressive]

12. Why does PNAC

oopse them? Because they are socialist, because they don't want another super power or both??

[alittlelark]

17. Perhaps they just want their $$$$$$$ back

Think the Sopranos et al.

[StClone]

6. Bush ignored world ban or space militarization

Chickens come to roost...we have tested this same technology and we have plans for space weapons. Why is China the villain.

[BayCityProgressive]

8. Anyone who thinks we won the Cold War

is being proven wrong. Yes, the USSR collapsed but China is still communist and will be a world power, if it isn't already. Cuba, N Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Belarus are also all on the communist side...Moldova has elected a communist gov for 6 yrs now and Venezuela and Bolivia are headed toward socialism. I think the USSR was a setback to the world communist/socialist movement...but far from the end of it and they might get the last laugh.

[BayCityProgressive]

10. especially

if you facotr in our economy and current military messes...reminds me of the USSR during the Afgan war days....how irnoic if an Afghan war was the prelude to our fall as well.:scared:

[cool user name]

36. Gorbachev actually wrote an article about this a few years back.

Regarding the parallel demise of both superpowers. I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Karenina]

15. Anyone who thinks the Nazis lost

after WWII needs an education.

[rman]

21. Except that it's not cold any more

Everyone needs oil, and a lot of it is in the Middle East. And there's a war going on there. Be it not yet between super powers. Between China's exploding economy and the ever declining oil reserves it's likely something will happen.

Communism and Socialism should not be swept together, especially when it is also made to look as though Communism = Stalinism. Even under Lenin and Trotsky and certainly under Stalin whatever was going on in the USSR had very little to do with what is described in the Communist Manifesto.
And socialism - although related to communism - is quite different. For one thing, socialism does not exclude free enterprise. And it certainly does not exclude democracy.
Much of Latin America is implementing a mixed market-economy; socialism where it comes to social services and the common good, and regulation of corporations. Capitalism where it comes to free enterprise - just not unrestricted free, but in capitalism to corporations are regulated.

[cool user name]

37. Well said ... the USSR was a state capitalist enterprise ...

Shortly after the revolution, Lenin's model of a party vanguard decided to go rightward, implement the NEP (New Economic Policy), subsequent heavy industrialization, the Proletariet's continued alienation from the profits of their labor, the collectivization of peasant land, and then the sweeping fascism of Stalinism pretty much made the Soviet Union anything but a socialist experiment.

Suggested reading:

What Was The USSR? - Towards a Theory of the Deformation of Value Under State Capitalism

[cool user name]

35. The USSR and China was and are communist in name only.

But to put that aside, I think Trotsky's idea of worldwide, if inverted*, socialist revolution is going as planned as the ex-Trotskyists PNAC are implementing with wreckless abandon.

*That it's top down - tyranny driven socialism ensuring that the money flows in only one direction, that is up into the hands of the rich elitists. It's methods can be employed by either neo-liberals or neo-conservatives. The ends are just the same, that the uber-rich retain their wealth and power.

[rman]

40. China is "1984" come real

http://ninecommentaries.com/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5580471211248083035&q=Nine+commentaries+on+the+Communist+Party

It has nothing to do with equal distribution of wealth.

[cool user name]

43. Exactly. n/t

[PA Democrat]

42. Bingo. The Bush administration has thumbed its nose at international efforts

to limit the militarization of space, and China is sending a clear message that if the US wants to pursue weaponizing space, that they will join the race.

Of course the filthy pigs in the military industrial complex are thrilled by the prospects of the profits to be made.

[alittlelark]

14. I should post this in LBN....

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

18. Your headline is much better than the linked story's headline.

:hi: MKJ

[54anickel]

16. Might be somewhat related to this -

Might be a message that the US needs to return to the table and play nice?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2695880

Ex-US Defense Chief Suggests Military Action Against NK

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry proposed Thursday that the United States should consider military action against North Korea if China and South Korea refuse to prod Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Although the move is dangerous, there is no alternative left if China and South Korea, the two key economic lifelines to North Korea, do not join any U.S.-led ``diplomatic coercive" action against Pyongyang, he told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

snip>

North Korea agreed in principle during the six-party talks in September 2005 to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for diplomatic, financial and security guarantees.

But it walked out in protest at U.S. financial sanctions imposed on a Macao bank accused of illicit dealings on behalf of Pyongyang and carried out its first nuclear test explosion on October 9 last year.

The talks resumed in December last year but ended in deadlock as Pyongyang insisted the financial sanctions be lifted before it would discuss nuclear disarmament.

[pinto]

22. I saw this claim cited in the press earlier. For me (I'm 54) it raised

some familiar "stuff" from the Soviet Union stand off days.

We seemed to live on the edge of madness for years. Air raid shelters, duck and cover, an aging "civil defense" framework, and Friday siren tests were a part of my youth. It was a persistent and subtly pervasive situation.

And yet, there were voices that said "parity" was a viable option - the mutual destruction balance, as it were. And some today would say that parity paid off. Framing it in a show of force within a realization that it could not be used. So, the fact that we didn't blow each other to smithereens is cited as a success, among some. A weird situation all around.

In a way, I think the Cuban missile crisis brought it to a head, at least in a general national sense. We looked at Armageddon and stepped back. And the threat faded over time.

To be fair, we didn't blow each other to smithereens, for whatever reason, but I'd hate to see us do this song and dance again with China.

[alittlelark]

25. This time they want the 'song and dance' to shove $$$ down their...

....down their 'whatever'. They see our purposeful devaluation of the $ (to benefit the PTB) They see the insurgence in the country... they SEE.


They've been watching for thousands of years.

[IDemo]

23. There is another aspect of this to consider

They may have only meant to pick on their own satellite, but in doing so have basically created a ~20,000 mph orbiting shotgun blast of space debris that could endanger other satellites or even the space station.

[alittlelark]

27. They INTENTIONALLY picked their own satellite.

Their test was outrageously successful. The test was meant to tell SOMEONE SOMETHING.

[IDemo]

28. I am aware they targeted their own satellite. Did you read my post?

[alittlelark]

29. In re-reading it I understand what you were saying

It can be read in 2-4 ways.


I understand the space debris issue.....


That is 1/10th of 1% of the real issue here.

[IDemo]

30. Just trying to add that tracking space debris is keeping people very busy nowadays

and for good reason. It takes only a very tiny speck to wreak havoc, and the Chinese just added thousands of specks tiny or otherwise. I wouldn't consider that a negligible issue myself, but yes, they have placed a card on the table in one-upping the US this way.

[alittlelark]

31. They added 1/1000th of 1% of what is already out there.

Their REAL message has nothing to do with "debris".

[IDemo]

34. According to an estimate from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Blast leaves more junk littering Earth's orbit

The Australian News
* January 20, 2007

CHINA'S successful test of an anti-satellite weapon has added millions of pieces of space junk to the clutter of debris already circling Earth. If the aging Chinese weather satellite was destroyed at an orbit of roughly 850km, as experts believe, the debris poses a significant threat to commercial and scientific satellites.

"If they'd damaged the satellite but left it whole, there'd be less to fuss about," said Kerrie Dougherty, curator of space technologies at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum.

The Feng Yun 1C (FY-1C) satellite was in a popular orbit and debris can damage spacecraft.

According to NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office, space junk circles the planet at 8km per second in low Earth orbits, below 2000km.

But the average impact speed of debris when it strikes another object is roughly 10km per second, so even a small piece of debris will hit with great force.

Before the Chinese test, the ODPO was tracking 9949 pieces of debris larger than 10cm.

These include 3049 operational and retired satellites, about 1500 spent booster rockets and roughly 4000 fragments from accidental or planned explosions.

The US Union of Concerned Scientists estimated the FY-1C broke into 800 fragments of 10cm or more, and millions of smaller pieces.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But you are correct. I agree with you. The Chinese seem to be saying "we are own all your space" with this exercise. What response follows the expected Bush rhetoric should be interesting.

[Solon]

32. The United States did the same thing in the 1970s I believe, and the space debris...

only finally burned up in the atmosphere I think this year, there may be some left. We usually keep track of that stuff.

[WinkyDink]

39. Tone is crucial, I think, to grasp the accurate meaning of "may have only" here.

[Rex]

33. Rub it in our face.

They spend a pitance compared to what we spend on our military, yet they got nukes and probably will want to stick a few space stations up there one day. All funded by our government.

[lonestarnot]

41. China is the big deal. China, China, China. Gives me the shivers.

[roamer65]

46. It is China's right to do it.

BUsh torpedoed a treaty on space weapons, so he's to blame for it. Next Chinese target should be a live satellite. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.:evilgrin: