US Asks Vietnam To Stop Russian Bomber Refueling Flights From Cam Ranh Air Base

HughPickens.com writes Reuters reports that the United States has asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use its former US base at Cam Ranh Bay to refuel nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region. General Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, says the Russian bombers have conducted "provocative" flights, including around the U.S. Pacific Ocean territory of Guam, home to a major American air base. Brooks said the planes that circled Guam were refueled by Russian tankers flying from the strategic bay, which was transformed by the Americans during the Vietnam War into a massive air and naval base. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed that the airport at Cam Ranh was first used for staging Il-78 tankers for aerial refueling of Tu-95MS bombers in January 2014. Asked about the Russian flights in the region, the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Washington respected Hanoi's right to enter agreements with other countries but added that "we have urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region."

Cam Ranh is considered the finest deepwater shelter in Southeast Asia. North Vietnamese forces captured Cam Ranh Bay and all of its remaining facilities in 1975. Vietnam's dependence on Russia as the main source of military platforms, equipment, and armaments, has now put Hanoi in a difficult spot. Russia has pressed for special access to Cam Ranh Bay ever since it began delivering enhanced Kilo-class submarines to Vietnam. "Hanoi is invariably cautious and risk adverse in its relations with the major powers," says Carl Thayer. "The current issue of Russian tankers staging out of Cam Ranh pits Russia and China on one side and the United States on the other. There is no easy solution for Vietnam."

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We are the global village bully

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted by Veterans Today on February 11, 2015

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/11/why-the-united-states-always-loses-its-wars/

America loses all its wars because it seems we’ve always been on the wrong side of history. Morally nor legally should any nation have the right to invade and occupy another sovereign nation, much less believe it can achieve victory in long, protracted wars.

Yet in violation of all ethical precepts and all international laws, the sole global superpower citing its impunity through exceptionalism hypocritically insists it can maintain its moral high ground in its relentless pursuit of regime changes anywhere it so chooses on earth. We are the global village bully that’s hated by much of the world.

And it’s pure self-aggrandizing bullshit to perpetrate the myth that America is hated because of our "freedom," another rhetorical brainwashing lie. We now live in a fascist totalitarian police state run by a globalized crime syndicate of the central banking cabal. As of last April per a Princeton-Northwestern study the US has officially been designated an oligarchy.

Last year after a group of ethnic Russians living in Crimea voted to become part of Russia, the Russian military claimed control over its own naval base there that the US-NATO had been lusting to steal after the unlawful overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected sovereign government.

Ever since it’s been nonstop lies and propaganda propagated to demonize Putin as the aggressor when in fact all along it’s the American Empire that’s been recklessly pushing what could end up World War III against nuclear powered Russia. With US-NATO missiles installed on Russia’s doorstep in virtually every former Soviet eastern bloc nation, hemming Russia in, who’s really the aggressor here?

The WMD lie that was the repeated mantra used as prewar drum beating propaganda to launch a war against humanity in Iraq a dozen years earlier is now being replayed as déjà vu all over again to amnesic, dumbed down Americans. Despite defeats in both Iraq and Afghanistan still being dragged out as America’s longest running wars in its history, the US-NATO war machine is once again prepping for yet more war raging now in Eastern Ukraine.

The US government’s rush to war hit a minor snag the other day when various European nations like France and Germany announced their opposition and refusal to send arms to the Ukraine government, wanting to give peace talks with Russia a chance. Today’s headlines state that Obama has been forced to pause in his arms rush, not unlike the world turning against his rush a year and a half ago for air strikes in Syria after the false flag chemical weapons attack that was actually launched by US backed rebels.

So it may not be full speed ahead for US Empire to ship its heavy weaponry to the eastern warfront after all. It is being reported that mercenaries speaking American English, Polish, French and Flemish are fighting for the Kiev government in Eastern Ukraine against ethnic Russians who are fighting for their independence, their home and their very survival. And with their backs up against the wall, recently the eastern Ukrainians have beaten back the Ukrainian government forces. Again, the US has a knack for being on the wrong side of history.

No true victor can emerge from any war on either side. The incessant US aggressor boasting superior firepower as the most deadly, expensive military force on the planet (spending more than the next ten nations combined), America has little to show for itself as it has not won a single war in seventy years!

Neo-colonialism cloaked in imperialism, balkanization, economic exploitation, debtors’ theft, indentured servitude and enslavement can never be justified as the spoils of war. It’s a losing proposition in every imaginable way, not only f