The military has relentlessly kicked the ass of anyone stupid enough to get in their way. Even when they have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. It is the politicians who always pull defeat from the jaws of victory. The same politicians who have failed in every facet of running a government. The current group of incompetents should be embarrassed by their job performance and retire from the political scene before they do any more damage. Every military victory the US has had in the past 20 years has been wasted by the same politicians who make the decisions that get us into wars in the first place.
The minute someone turns on their radar it can be targeted and destroyed from a safe distance. The F-22 is capable of destroying a jet or radar system at a distance far outside of the threat envelope for both land based and air space threats. The best way to kill a stealth jet or bomber is to see it with your eyes. Stealth doesn't mean invisibility. A F-117 was shot down in the Baltics because he was flying so low it could be seen and targeted by people on the ground.
And the public can challenge the "constitutionally dubious laws and regulations" if charged with a crime. However venting outrage online or on the street over a law is not going to just make the government say OK were sorry and we will trash the law you are complaining about.
There have been search-and-surveillance activities such as the case brought against Dr Arian, a former University of South Florida professor. His defense successfully challenged the Patriot Act and got the evidence collected using the Patriot Act excluded from the proceedings. To change bad laws or policies you need to challenge the validity of such laws or policies in open court. It might be a long haul but the judicial branch of the government has the last word on whether you were denied your rights. They are also empowered to invalidate Legislation created by the government. Any law such as the Patriot Act can only be really scrutinized for it's legality when it is actually used against someone. The government already thinks the Patriot Act is iffy. They use Gitmo to avoid following any laws in the US. The US government may be cumbersome and outright idiotic at times but it is not a static organization. It is constantly being scrutinized and changed. It is by no means perfect but it could be worse. Governing 350 million people and trying to make sure everyone's interests are satisfied is damn near impossible but can be entertaining at times. No matter what changes the government makes there will always be people complaining about something. People talk about US decline and I wonder when did the US ever get to pinnacle of righteousness and prosperity to they are supposed to declining from? Just take a look at US history and point out where the US had no flaws were not committing idiotic and sometimes dangerous and brutal acts in the domestic and international spheres.
Good thing the "Defender of Democratic Values " is scaling back and hopefully eliminating all attempts at something so patently impossible. The US government needs to stop all pretense of assisting any other countries internal matters. It's not worth neither treasure or blood. An amoral foreign policy would be the best policy given the current state of the planet.
Well apparently BS is all that is needed to make other countries look second rate hacks. It's puzzling how Americans can be so stupid, fat, provincial, and linguistically challenged but still lead the world in GDP, manufacturing output, agricultural exports, world famous Universities and Colleges, and of course military power. What does that say about the second placers? Maybe they spend to much time evaluating US shortcomings and need to concentrate on their own well being.
How would you start a business, even a small one, with out using money? Do you max out your credit cards and hope your business is successful enough to payoff your credit cards? Money can be supplied upfront by the person starting the company or by soliciting investors to supply the funds. Investing does not automatically have to involve public stocks or engaging Wall Street investment brokerage houses. And every business is different. Want to start of new chip foundry? Just pony up approximately $50 million just to get started. Want to start a business that requires more than 2 workers to get started and you will need the money to pay them.
According to some people there should be no one controlling anything. Anyone employing strategies like confidential trade secrets, patents , and copyrights to control their work are deemed enemies of the alternative state.
When Iran stops having their weekly "Death to America" rallies so their oh so honest and upfront government can demonize the people of an entire nation for all their problems, real and imagined, I might give a shit about aggressive acts aimed at that them. Iran is one of the most meddlesome countries in the world. Their acknowledged support for terrorist groups across the ME and 3rd party proxies in other places across the world invites aggression against them. Iran has a somewhat complicated government structure. The mullahs rule by fiat, the elected officials are nothing more than window dressing with no power on any important issues and their military which guarantees the mullahs rule as long as the powerful military leaders get what they what. The Revolutionary Guard is a cross between a multi-national corporation, intelligence agency, and well trained military forces. While the US and other western powers may sell military weapons to other countries the Iranians sell weapons to all those countries who do not buy weapons from the US. No matter what wrong the US or anyone else has supposedly inflicted on Iran it has ultimately always been the Iranians themselves who took the bribes and made promises of cooperation for favors and implemented the desired actions of foreign 3rd parties against the Iranian citizenry. Iran also stands as a shining example of how the morons masquerading as liberals and progressives can stage a revolution and then lose everything to the hardcore Islamist parties. The Brotherhood in Egypt must have been taking good notes at the time. While the forward thinking college students in 1979 were celebrating invading sovereign US territory and detaining US citizens at gunpoint the Islamists were actually organizing and killing anyone who got in their way and in the end that included the hostage takers as well. Now they can't actually admit the failure of their revolution so they need to pretend they really didn't get taken for suckers and everything worked out just as they planned it. A rigid theocracy enforced by killing anyone who complains.
Name one government not run by people who place gaining money and power at the top of their to do list and believe any actions to gain that power and money are only wrong when you happen to get caught. The pecking order among countries is determined by the amount of force they can bring to bear on others. When that power is equal to all parties of a conflict you can then try negotiations but that is not mutually exclusive to using hard force.
It was definitely built and deployed by a national intelligence organization. But the actual PLC changes were the easy part. An individual or non-governmental agency with basic control systems experience could have made changes to scramble to bypass the fault threshold without sending an alert to the HMI resulting in centrifuges operating abnormally. However, only a governmental agency could have deployed this virus. The stolen security certificates, utilization of at least 2 0-day Windows vulnerabilities, and the physical access to the Iranian facility which no civilian group could gain access. Inside intelligence was required during development and pre-deployment to determine what the Iranians were actually using and how they had their systems configured. Obtaining this information was the work of a foreign agent or an Iranian working at the facility that was compromised, most likely paid a lot of money. Combine the payload with the installation and distribution functionality and you have an operation that no single individual or loosely related hacker collective could pull off. The thing that bothers me is the US and Isreal are being accused of creating this virus without any supporting evidence. If the US or Isreal did do it I say more power to them. The Stuxnet virus is preferable to a cruise missile to destroy the centrifuges. If the "experts" want to accuse someone it would just be nice if they had evidence to back up their claims. It is actually insulting that other countries are being summarily dismissed because they lack the technical prowess to do something like this.
I have access to the resources needed to create and test such a virus and I am not a government agent nor working for one right at the moment. That doesn't mean I know how to develop such a program but I do have access to the tools and hardware needed in this particular case.The PLC/SCADA/HMI operations were not the sophisticated part of Stuxnet it was the delivery, installation, and spoofing the program employed to remain hidden and multiply under certain conditions once it was released into the ecosystem. Of course it was some government operation but automatically blaming the US or Israel without any conclusive evidence could just be another part of the deception used by the real culprits. The rest of the world, from countries to terrorist groups, always receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to holding them accountable for their actions but the US is never afforded the same level of scepticism even when the evidence is missing or weak. The installation required physical access to a PC running and monitoring the processes within Iran's primary centrifuge operations center and I doubt they let anyone walk in off the street just to look around. Iran uses mainly Russian and Central European IT consulting firms when they go outside their own talent pool. Could one of these people have been a US or Israeli spy or did Russia or any of it's confederates do it and assume the blame would automatically put on the US or Israel? The virus installation also used 2 stolen security certificates physically stolen from 2 seperate companies in Japan that also happened to share the same office complex. With all the "experts" studying this virus there has been no definitive or conclusive evidence against anyone. Geo-politics mixed with conspiracy theories have replaced hard evidence and common sense in today's 140 character dissertations on the "truth".
As of right now the US has the only known stealth planes performing real honest to god combat missions. Combined with US operational experience gained over 10+ years of constant flight ops, any country, high or low tech, can be hit if you leave nuclear weapons out of the game plan. The top of the line Mig fighter is just a big target when a F-22 is in the vicinity. The top of the line Mig has a hard enough time with a F-15 they can see coming. There are 2 basic reasons for the US air domination and that is stealth and pilot combat experience. How much real experience does a Russian or Chinese pilot have today? Keeping nuclear weapons out of the scenario which country has the capability to deploy it's fire power any where in the world? If China wanted to invade Taiwan they would have needed the old million man swim to put enough forces on the Island. Combined with the advanced Aegis systems purchased from the US even China would have some major difficulties. And you might want to look into the Constellation drone warfare program. It is basically 100's of small drones operating in a real time data communication network. If one drone is destroyed or cut out of the network the drones change formation to cover the area exposed. And if the US can stealth a jet or bomber how hard is it to do the same thing with a drone? Unless someone is just keeping really quite about their ability to counter stealth it is game over when it comes to US air domination. I do think someone will eventually devise a way to detect a stealth plane and someone else will look at countering that detection method. I think a good place to start might be trying to detect changes in the turbulence a jet creates in it's wake.
Do the Chinese have a vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing (VTHL) space plane? The US Air Force has been flying one for 2 years on classified missions. Why destroy a potential enemy satellite when you can just capture and re-purpose them. Or just change the orbit enough to render the satellite useless. The current X37-B vehicle is unmanned but a manned version is in development. Plus China and even the US only demonstrated the capability to destroy low orbiting satellites. Military satellites operate in higher orbits and also have some stealth and rudimentary maneuvering capabilities. If the US and China were to get in a direct shooting war it won't matter who has the capability to shoot down satellites since ICBMs just need to be pointed in the general direction of the enemy. Pinpoint accuracy is not really needed with nuclear tipped ordinance. There is no reason for the US and China to fight right now. Maybe in the future when resources become tight things might be different. China has it's interests and the US has it's own and they support each others economies in different but beneficial ways. The US uses China as a job shop for cheap consumer goods and China uses the US as a big grocery store. US food exports to China have increased by a factor of 5 in just the past 7 years. The US can replace anything China manufactures from smaller east Asian countries or just manufacture the goods locally if necessary. China needs the food it imports from the US and they cannot get the same amount of food from other sources. Unlike Russia, China did not try to export it's political ideology around the world. And besides China has not been "communist" for quite a while. The Chinese government has it's hands full just trying to keep it's enormous population in check. The US and China were allies in WW2 when the Chinese nationalists were in power. While Mao and the communists hid in the highlands of China avoiding the Japanese the Nationalists were fighting Japan. When Mao bent over for Stalin to get aide in fighting the Nationalists and pushing them off the main land they suddenly became US adversaries. The US presence in the region today is dictated by it's mutual defense treaties with others in the area and that is the major point of contention. However, I don't see the US abandoning it's allies like England and France did prior to WW2.
In 1991 Iraq had the 4th largest standing army in the world. They had the best air defense systems you could buy from Russia, China, and France. Both Russia and China were a little chagrined about how easy their top of the line systems were converted to scrap. Iraq got beat the first time because of good old fashion stupidity from Saddam and his military leadership. They allowed the coalition forces to mass on their borders for 2 months without any harassment. They then applied WW1 era war strategy using trench warfare. The buried their troops and tanks in the middle of the fucking desert which just made them easy targets. Did they envision a modern military racing across the desert Rommel style? The Arab military establishment make all of their non-Arab opponents look like the God's of war.
Getting rid of all nuclear weapons would lead to another world war in a very short time. Nuclear weapons have kept the strongest militarises on the planet from waging full scale WW2 style warfare. The absence of nuclear weapons will also mean every country will rush to arm themselves with every non-nuclear weapons. Take away nuclear weapons and sure as shit some one will begin to think a non-nuclear war between super powers could be won with acceptable loses. The only way to get rid of nuclear weapons is to eliminate all military hardware more lethal than an assault rifle. The world is stuck with nuclear weapons and I have no doubt that someone will use one in the future. The real threat today is that a country like NK could sell their nuclear technology to anyone with enough cash. They only have to do that once and the MAD fail safe is rendered mute. The NK only has 2 ways to generate money and that is by selling weapons to anyone with the money and providing money laundering services to any one who needs it.
By paper I assume you mean US currency and last time I checked everyone is perfectly happy with that. Do you suggest they would take X amount of wheat for X amount of oil? We don't run a barter system when it comes to international trade. The best known exception to this is Venezuela supplying Cuba with oil in return for the services of Cuban teachers, Cuban Security services, and Cuban doctors. Although I have seen Iran being forced into bartering deals to get some benefit from their oil.
A country leaders make the choice on what they will export. They can decline any offer they may receive. But since there is a lot of money involved in exporting things like oil I have never heard of a country refusing to export any oil found within their country. It is not the buyers responsibility to manage another countries export revenue or resource allocations. The "poor countries" all have a very wealthy elite who hoard all the money they can instead of using the money to better it's citizens lives. Any attempt by the purchaser to do so is deemed interference in another countries business and we can't have that now can we? Or is outside interference OK as long as it helps the "people" who are getting shorted?
Last time I looked the "poor countries" have been receiving good money for their exportable resources. Oil is global commodity so the price is basically regulated by the major oil producing countries. It is not the export buyers responsibility to ensure the people of a country are seeing any of the money paid. The middle-eastern petro cabal have been paid enormous sums of money and they have a tendency to make sure all that money stays at the top of the food chain. If the money does not get distributed equitably to benefit the general population that is not the buyers problem.
I can totally understand a country like Pakistan getting upset when a drone operation is executed. This thread was about the presidents power to initiate operations without going through the legal niceties that are required in actions performed in the US. The Pakistan government is not taking the responsibility to acknowledge groups executing operations from within the country. The government is also totally aware that the US is running drone operations in their country. The Pakistani goverment cannot come right out and say it knows and supports the program because they are afraid of the extremist groups in the country.
The CIA has conducted operations all over the world becuase that is their job. People are fond of claiming that the US has caused the change of a foreign goverment leadership but what SPECIFIC actions really support that claim. Threats of military invasion if they don't do what the US tells them? There are multiple political groups within most countries If the US wants favorable relations with a new government they can influence the changeover but the actual change in governments is conducted by the countries own people. If a politician accepts a bribe from the US to do certain things it is those who take the bribe that are ultimately responsible. No one has to accept bribes or promise of future favors but people do.
When discussing military retaliation against the US you cannot use the nebulous "what if" scenarios. The bottom line is that the US runs operations only in those countries that cannot stop them. The drones are not running ops in Russia, China, or in any country that could realistically respond because these countries do have the ability to retaliate in some fashion.
In the real world I would rather use drones instead of a B-52 carpet bombing with infantry followup.
Western legal principles or the mysterious International "laws" everyone is always talking about don't mean dick without any enforcement capabilities.
"If another nation did this to us we would consider it an act of war and retaliate."
To be specific no nation is even going to make an attempt because everyone knows the US has the means to slap down anyone who tries. Besides I doubt you will find the US harboring or protecting the Kansas Al-qaeda branch so there is no reason for any other country to launch a drone attack in the US. "existing legal frameworks to deal with that - things like sanctions and war"
Legal frameworks get interpreted by the winners of the conflict. "International" law has no enforcement component and without the means to enforce a law why bother with it in the first place? The US is not the world police and I think you can already see the US scaling back it's involvement with foreign problems that do not have a direct impact on the US. With US energy production rising why should the US give a shit about any country in the middle east? Let China take over the protection detail since they get the lions share of their oil from the middle eastern and north African producers.
"if we respected the sovereignty of other nations as we expect from them they'd be willing to work with us to police this sort of thing"
If a country likes it's sovereignty so much they should at least attempt to tackle the problem or someone else will. I don't think the US can get any more enemies but who cares. Countries have interests not friends.
If the US government was tolerating or ignoring someone on US soil who England believes is a terrorist they could attempt to go after them if they had the capability. The US wouldn't need drone attacks in foreign countries if the countries involved did not openly harbor and sometimes even support known terrorist groups. Terrorist groups are not shy about their activities and are constantly and proudly announcing their actions everytime the murder anyone. Pakistan is the poster child of countries who appease and ignore terrorists in their country as long as they can point the terrorists activities towards India, Afghanistan, or US interests. Do you imagine Pakistan would allow the FBI access to their country and respect their jurisdiction claims? US law enforcement agencies do not have blanket jurisdiction in foreign countries so sending in someone to arrest the perpetrators to bring to trial is not going to happen. And the fact that one person, in the form of the US president, is the right person to make the decision on who gets spiked. The President can hear all the evidence and reasons from the FBI, NSA, CIA, or military intelligence and make the decision. He has acknowledged he will take total responsibility for his decisions. Having one person willing to actually stand up and unequivocally take responsibility for a decision is almost unprecedented in today's world.
"To me, deliberately crashing anything man-made into an extra-terrestrial object runs the risk of contaminating samples for future experiments"
Does that mean it's OK to destroy a satellite in orbit and creating a debris field scattered across a wide chunk of LEO? That's exactly what China did when they shot down one of their own satellites during a test. China can conduct all the space missions it wants but they still have about 30 years of catchup before you can start comparing their achievements with NASA's. Also realize that China purchased the vast majority of their space technology from the Russian going out of business sale. China has always known that buying or "appropriating" technology from others is cheaper than paying for the R&D needed for pushing science ahead.
The problem today is people go searching for the "facts" until they locate the some information that justifies their point of view. Any contradicting "facts" that might interfere with their sacred beliefs is immediately discounted as lies and propaganda.
Contrary to popular belief a lot of the critical computing infrastructure is not connected to the Internet. For example if you want to infiltrate one of the major oil and gas pipelines control systems will require some physical access to the system and physically infiltrating even a slightly guarded computing facility is not for the faint hearted. Even the Stuxnet virus required physical access to a USB port on the physical network and infiltrating a nations nuclear research facilities can be a bit tricky. The biggest risk to military and critical civilian infrastructure computer systems is electromagnetic shielding protection and reliable backups. The US military has been busy testing a missile capable of over flying a city or facility and releasing a EMP like effect to take down any system not sufficiently shielded. There has always been the threat of detonating a nuclear device high in the atmosphere to generate the same effect but the drawback is someone noticing an ICBM launch and retaliating with no intention of detonating the warhead in the atmosphere.
In this case the responsible person is the one who committed suicide. It is the prosecutor's job to prosecute any crimes submitted to them. The prosecutors don't make the laws or define the penalties. People are using the theoretical penalty maximums to advance their arguments but if this guy was judged guilty he would not have been punished with the maximum penalties. Chances are he would have probably been fined and put on probation. The laws he was charged with breaking do not require the court to hand out jail time upon conviction.
Any defendant is free to request a jury trial. Nobody is obligated to accept a plea bargain. In a trial everything can be addressed from the gathering of evidence, prosecutorial over reach, and the guilt or innocence of the person charged. The courts have an adversarial relationship with the law enforcement agencies. The court has the power to dismiss or modify any charges presented and they do it all the time. The prosecutors determine what charges to press based upon the results of an investigation conducted by the appropriate law enforcement agencies. If the charges are not supported the court can dismiss the charges outright or impanel a grand jury to decide if the charges warrant further prosecution. The US justice system is not perfect but name one system that is.
Exactly what type of "horrible shit" are you talking about? Has there been massive sickness and death due to people consuming GMO products? Patents are sometimes a necessity in areas that require a huge upfront investment in new product R&D. Pharmaceutical patents ensure the creator of the product can recoup it's expenses but these patents possess time limits that do allow generics to eventually be produced and GMO related patents could incorporate similar limits. The ability to create heartier strains of the major staple crops will allow the world to feed itself as the population continues to increase. It's a shame that the one thing that causes the majority of problems facing the world today is population control. Continued and uncontrolled population growth will destroy the planet with a 100% surety. We can not simply rely on some new technological breakthrough in the future that will nullify the results of our actions today. If things continue as they are the competition for access to resources such as oil, natural gas, water, and arable land will lead to a war that will most definitely reduce the population. One way or another population control will be enacted. It can be done peacefully using sensible rules and regulations or violently using weapons capable of destroying the entire planet.
"multinational corporations are not brain-washing us and controlling our life like the usa " No you are being manipulated by a 6th century cult demanding your ever lasting and unquestioning obedience. The protesters and citizens of Egypt got the same screwing as the Iranian protesters did after their 1979 revolution. Evidently the people in the Mideast are experts at street protests but don't have a clue about how to organize and implement any of the changes they were standing out in the street demanding. And all things being equal I will take Exxon, IBM, Apple, or any other multi national company over any group who uses religion to project their power.
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The military has relentlessly kicked the ass of anyone stupid enough to get in their way. Even when they have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. It is the politicians who always pull defeat from the jaws of victory. The same politicians who have failed in every facet of running a government. The current group of incompetents should be embarrassed by their job performance and retire from the political scene before they do any more damage. Every military victory the US has had in the past 20 years has been wasted by the same politicians who make the decisions that get us into wars in the first place.
The minute someone turns on their radar it can be targeted and destroyed from a safe distance. The F-22 is capable of destroying a jet or radar system at a distance far outside of the threat envelope for both land based and air space threats. The best way to kill a stealth jet or bomber is to see it with your eyes. Stealth doesn't mean invisibility. A F-117 was shot down in the Baltics because he was flying so low it could be seen and targeted by people on the ground.
And the public can challenge the "constitutionally dubious laws and regulations" if charged with a crime. However venting outrage online or on the street over a law is not going to just make the government say OK were sorry and we will trash the law you are complaining about.
There have been search-and-surveillance activities such as the case brought against Dr Arian, a former University of South Florida professor. His defense successfully challenged the Patriot Act and got the evidence collected using the Patriot Act excluded from the proceedings. To change bad laws or policies you need to challenge the validity of such laws or policies in open court. It might be a long haul but the judicial branch of the government has the last word on whether you were denied your rights. They are also empowered to invalidate Legislation created by the government. Any law such as the Patriot Act can only be really scrutinized for it's legality when it is actually used against someone. The government already thinks the Patriot Act is iffy. They use Gitmo to avoid following any laws in the US. The US government may be cumbersome and outright idiotic at times but it is not a static organization. It is constantly being scrutinized and changed. It is by no means perfect but it could be worse. Governing 350 million people and trying to make sure everyone's interests are satisfied is damn near impossible but can be entertaining at times. No matter what changes the government makes there will always be people complaining about something. People talk about US decline and I wonder when did the US ever get to pinnacle of righteousness and prosperity to they are supposed to declining from? Just take a look at US history and point out where the US had no flaws were not committing idiotic and sometimes dangerous and brutal acts in the domestic and international spheres.
Good thing the "Defender of Democratic Values " is scaling back and hopefully eliminating all attempts at something so patently impossible. The US government needs to stop all pretense of assisting any other countries internal matters. It's not worth neither treasure or blood. An amoral foreign policy would be the best policy given the current state of the planet.
Well apparently BS is all that is needed to make other countries look second rate hacks. It's puzzling how Americans can be so stupid, fat, provincial, and linguistically challenged but still lead the world in GDP, manufacturing output, agricultural exports, world famous Universities and Colleges, and of course military power. What does that say about the second placers? Maybe they spend to much time evaluating US shortcomings and need to concentrate on their own well being.
How would you start a business, even a small one, with out using money? Do you max out your credit cards and hope your business is successful enough to payoff your credit cards? Money can be supplied upfront by the person starting the company or by soliciting investors to supply the funds. Investing does not automatically have to involve public stocks or engaging Wall Street investment brokerage houses. And every business is different. Want to start of new chip foundry? Just pony up approximately $50 million just to get started. Want to start a business that requires more than 2 workers to get started and you will need the money to pay them.
According to some people there should be no one controlling anything. Anyone employing strategies like confidential trade secrets, patents , and copyrights to control their work are deemed enemies of the alternative state.
When Iran stops having their weekly "Death to America" rallies so their oh so honest and upfront government can demonize the people of an entire nation for all their problems, real and imagined, I might give a shit about aggressive acts aimed at that them. Iran is one of the most meddlesome countries in the world. Their acknowledged support for terrorist groups across the ME and 3rd party proxies in other places across the world invites aggression against them. Iran has a somewhat complicated government structure. The mullahs rule by fiat, the elected officials are nothing more than window dressing with no power on any important issues and their military which guarantees the mullahs rule as long as the powerful military leaders get what they what. The Revolutionary Guard is a cross between a multi-national corporation, intelligence agency, and well trained military forces. While the US and other western powers may sell military weapons to other countries the Iranians sell weapons to all those countries who do not buy weapons from the US. No matter what wrong the US or anyone else has supposedly inflicted on Iran it has ultimately always been the Iranians themselves who took the bribes and made promises of cooperation for favors and implemented the desired actions of foreign 3rd parties against the Iranian citizenry. Iran also stands as a shining example of how the morons masquerading as liberals and progressives can stage a revolution and then lose everything to the hardcore Islamist parties. The Brotherhood in Egypt must have been taking good notes at the time. While the forward thinking college students in 1979 were celebrating invading sovereign US territory and detaining US citizens at gunpoint the Islamists were actually organizing and killing anyone who got in their way and in the end that included the hostage takers as well. Now they can't actually admit the failure of their revolution so they need to pretend they really didn't get taken for suckers and everything worked out just as they planned it. A rigid theocracy enforced by killing anyone who complains.
Name one government not run by people who place gaining money and power at the top of their to do list and believe any actions to gain that power and money are only wrong when you happen to get caught. The pecking order among countries is determined by the amount of force they can bring to bear on others. When that power is equal to all parties of a conflict you can then try negotiations but that is not mutually exclusive to using hard force.
It was definitely built and deployed by a national intelligence organization. But the actual PLC changes were the easy part. An individual or non-governmental agency with basic control systems experience could have made changes to scramble to bypass the fault threshold without sending an alert to the HMI resulting in centrifuges operating abnormally. However, only a governmental agency could have deployed this virus. The stolen security certificates, utilization of at least 2 0-day Windows vulnerabilities, and the physical access to the Iranian facility which no civilian group could gain access. Inside intelligence was required during development and pre-deployment to determine what the Iranians were actually using and how they had their systems configured. Obtaining this information was the work of a foreign agent or an Iranian working at the facility that was compromised, most likely paid a lot of money. Combine the payload with the installation and distribution functionality and you have an operation that no single individual or loosely related hacker collective could pull off. The thing that bothers me is the US and Isreal are being accused of creating this virus without any supporting evidence. If the US or Isreal did do it I say more power to them. The Stuxnet virus is preferable to a cruise missile to destroy the centrifuges. If the "experts" want to accuse someone it would just be nice if they had evidence to back up their claims. It is actually insulting that other countries are being summarily dismissed because they lack the technical prowess to do something like this.
I have access to the resources needed to create and test such a virus and I am not a government agent nor working for one right at the moment. That doesn't mean I know how to develop such a program but I do have access to the tools and hardware needed in this particular case.The PLC/SCADA/HMI operations were not the sophisticated part of Stuxnet it was the delivery, installation, and spoofing the program employed to remain hidden and multiply under certain conditions once it was released into the ecosystem. Of course it was some government operation but automatically blaming the US or Israel without any conclusive evidence could just be another part of the deception used by the real culprits. The rest of the world, from countries to terrorist groups, always receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to holding them accountable for their actions but the US is never afforded the same level of scepticism even when the evidence is missing or weak. The installation required physical access to a PC running and monitoring the processes within Iran's primary centrifuge operations center and I doubt they let anyone walk in off the street just to look around. Iran uses mainly Russian and Central European IT consulting firms when they go outside their own talent pool. Could one of these people have been a US or Israeli spy or did Russia or any of it's confederates do it and assume the blame would automatically put on the US or Israel? The virus installation also used 2 stolen security certificates physically stolen from 2 seperate companies in Japan that also happened to share the same office complex. With all the "experts" studying this virus there has been no definitive or conclusive evidence against anyone. Geo-politics mixed with conspiracy theories have replaced hard evidence and common sense in today's 140 character dissertations on the "truth".
As of right now the US has the only known stealth planes performing real honest to god combat missions. Combined with US operational experience gained over 10+ years of constant flight ops, any country, high or low tech, can be hit if you leave nuclear weapons out of the game plan. The top of the line Mig fighter is just a big target when a F-22 is in the vicinity. The top of the line Mig has a hard enough time with a F-15 they can see coming. There are 2 basic reasons for the US air domination and that is stealth and pilot combat experience. How much real experience does a Russian or Chinese pilot have today? Keeping nuclear weapons out of the scenario which country has the capability to deploy it's fire power any where in the world? If China wanted to invade Taiwan they would have needed the old million man swim to put enough forces on the Island. Combined with the advanced Aegis systems purchased from the US even China would have some major difficulties. And you might want to look into the Constellation drone warfare program. It is basically 100's of small drones operating in a real time data communication network. If one drone is destroyed or cut out of the network the drones change formation to cover the area exposed. And if the US can stealth a jet or bomber how hard is it to do the same thing with a drone? Unless someone is just keeping really quite about their ability to counter stealth it is game over when it comes to US air domination. I do think someone will eventually devise a way to detect a stealth plane and someone else will look at countering that detection method. I think a good place to start might be trying to detect changes in the turbulence a jet creates in it's wake.
Do the Chinese have a vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing (VTHL) space plane? The US Air Force has been flying one for 2 years on classified missions. Why destroy a potential enemy satellite when you can just capture and re-purpose them. Or just change the orbit enough to render the satellite useless. The current X37-B vehicle is unmanned but a manned version is in development. Plus China and even the US only demonstrated the capability to destroy low orbiting satellites. Military satellites operate in higher orbits and also have some stealth and rudimentary maneuvering capabilities. If the US and China were to get in a direct shooting war it won't matter who has the capability to shoot down satellites since ICBMs just need to be pointed in the general direction of the enemy. Pinpoint accuracy is not really needed with nuclear tipped ordinance. There is no reason for the US and China to fight right now. Maybe in the future when resources become tight things might be different. China has it's interests and the US has it's own and they support each others economies in different but beneficial ways. The US uses China as a job shop for cheap consumer goods and China uses the US as a big grocery store. US food exports to China have increased by a factor of 5 in just the past 7 years. The US can replace anything China manufactures from smaller east Asian countries or just manufacture the goods locally if necessary. China needs the food it imports from the US and they cannot get the same amount of food from other sources. Unlike Russia, China did not try to export it's political ideology around the world. And besides China has not been "communist" for quite a while. The Chinese government has it's hands full just trying to keep it's enormous population in check. The US and China were allies in WW2 when the Chinese nationalists were in power. While Mao and the communists hid in the highlands of China avoiding the Japanese the Nationalists were fighting Japan. When Mao bent over for Stalin to get aide in fighting the Nationalists and pushing them off the main land they suddenly became US adversaries. The US presence in the region today is dictated by it's mutual defense treaties with others in the area and that is the major point of contention. However, I don't see the US abandoning it's allies like England and France did prior to WW2.
In 1991 Iraq had the 4th largest standing army in the world. They had the best air defense systems you could buy from Russia, China, and France. Both Russia and China were a little chagrined about how easy their top of the line systems were converted to scrap. Iraq got beat the first time because of good old fashion stupidity from Saddam and his military leadership. They allowed the coalition forces to mass on their borders for 2 months without any harassment. They then applied WW1 era war strategy using trench warfare. The buried their troops and tanks in the middle of the fucking desert which just made them easy targets. Did they envision a modern military racing across the desert Rommel style? The Arab military establishment make all of their non-Arab opponents look like the God's of war.
Getting rid of all nuclear weapons would lead to another world war in a very short time. Nuclear weapons have kept the strongest militarises on the planet from waging full scale WW2 style warfare. The absence of nuclear weapons will also mean every country will rush to arm themselves with every non-nuclear weapons. Take away nuclear weapons and sure as shit some one will begin to think a non-nuclear war between super powers could be won with acceptable loses. The only way to get rid of nuclear weapons is to eliminate all military hardware more lethal than an assault rifle. The world is stuck with nuclear weapons and I have no doubt that someone will use one in the future. The real threat today is that a country like NK could sell their nuclear technology to anyone with enough cash. They only have to do that once and the MAD fail safe is rendered mute. The NK only has 2 ways to generate money and that is by selling weapons to anyone with the money and providing money laundering services to any one who needs it.
By paper I assume you mean US currency and last time I checked everyone is perfectly happy with that. Do you suggest they would take X amount of wheat for X amount of oil? We don't run a barter system when it comes to international trade. The best known exception to this is Venezuela supplying Cuba with oil in return for the services of Cuban teachers, Cuban Security services, and Cuban doctors. Although I have seen Iran being forced into bartering deals to get some benefit from their oil.
A country leaders make the choice on what they will export. They can decline any offer they may receive. But since there is a lot of money involved in exporting things like oil I have never heard of a country refusing to export any oil found within their country. It is not the buyers responsibility to manage another countries export revenue or resource allocations. The "poor countries" all have a very wealthy elite who hoard all the money they can instead of using the money to better it's citizens lives. Any attempt by the purchaser to do so is deemed interference in another countries business and we can't have that now can we? Or is outside interference OK as long as it helps the "people" who are getting shorted?
"plundering resources from poor countries"
Last time I looked the "poor countries" have been receiving good money for their exportable resources. Oil is global commodity so the price is basically regulated by the major oil producing countries. It is not the export buyers responsibility to ensure the people of a country are seeing any of the money paid. The middle-eastern petro cabal have been paid enormous sums of money and they have a tendency to make sure all that money stays at the top of the food chain. If the money does not get distributed equitably to benefit the general population that is not the buyers problem.
I can totally understand a country like Pakistan getting upset when a drone operation is executed. This thread was about the presidents power to initiate operations without going through the legal niceties that are required in actions performed in the US. The Pakistan government is not taking the responsibility to acknowledge groups executing operations from within the country. The government is also totally aware that the US is running drone operations in their country. The Pakistani goverment cannot come right out and say it knows and supports the program because they are afraid of the extremist groups in the country.
The CIA has conducted operations all over the world becuase that is their job. People are fond of claiming that the US has caused the change of a foreign goverment leadership but what SPECIFIC actions really support that claim. Threats of military invasion if they don't do what the US tells them? There are multiple political groups within most countries If the US wants favorable relations with a new government they can influence the changeover but the actual change in governments is conducted by the countries own people. If a politician accepts a bribe from the US to do certain things it is those who take the bribe that are ultimately responsible. No one has to accept bribes or promise of future favors but people do.
When discussing military retaliation against the US you cannot use the nebulous "what if" scenarios. The bottom line is that the US runs operations only in those countries that cannot stop them. The drones are not running ops in Russia, China, or in any country that could realistically respond because these countries do have the ability to retaliate in some fashion.
In the real world I would rather use drones instead of a B-52 carpet bombing with infantry followup.
Western legal principles or the mysterious International "laws" everyone is always talking about don't mean dick without any enforcement capabilities.
"If another nation did this to us we would consider it an act of war and retaliate."
To be specific no nation is even going to make an attempt because everyone knows the US has the means to slap down anyone who tries. Besides I doubt you will find the US harboring or protecting the Kansas Al-qaeda branch so there is no reason for any other country to launch a drone attack in the US.
"existing legal frameworks to deal with that - things like sanctions and war"
Legal frameworks get interpreted by the winners of the conflict. "International" law has no enforcement component and without the means to enforce a law why bother with it in the first place? The US is not the world police and I think you can already see the US scaling back it's involvement with foreign problems that do not have a direct impact on the US. With US energy production rising why should the US give a shit about any country in the middle east? Let China take over the protection detail since they get the lions share of their oil from the middle eastern and north African producers.
"if we respected the sovereignty of other nations as we expect from them they'd be willing to work with us to police this sort of thing"
If a country likes it's sovereignty so much they should at least attempt to tackle the problem or someone else will. I don't think the US can get any more enemies but who cares. Countries have interests not friends.
If the US government was tolerating or ignoring someone on US soil who England believes is a terrorist they could attempt to go after them if they had the capability. The US wouldn't need drone attacks in foreign countries if the countries involved did not openly harbor and sometimes even support known terrorist groups. Terrorist groups are not shy about their activities and are constantly and proudly announcing their actions everytime the murder anyone. Pakistan is the poster child of countries who appease and ignore terrorists in their country as long as they can point the terrorists activities towards India, Afghanistan, or US interests. Do you imagine Pakistan would allow the FBI access to their country and respect their jurisdiction claims? US law enforcement agencies do not have blanket jurisdiction in foreign countries so sending in someone to arrest the perpetrators to bring to trial is not going to happen. And the fact that one person, in the form of the US president, is the right person to make the decision on who gets spiked. The President can hear all the evidence and reasons from the FBI, NSA, CIA, or military intelligence and make the decision. He has acknowledged he will take total responsibility for his decisions. Having one person willing to actually stand up and unequivocally take responsibility for a decision is almost unprecedented in today's world.
"To me, deliberately crashing anything man-made into an extra-terrestrial object runs the risk of contaminating samples for future experiments"
Does that mean it's OK to destroy a satellite in orbit and creating a debris field scattered across a wide chunk of LEO? That's exactly what China did when they shot down one of their own satellites during a test. China can conduct all the space missions it wants but they still have about 30 years of catchup before you can start comparing their achievements with NASA's. Also realize that China purchased the vast majority of their space technology from the Russian going out of business sale. China has always known that buying or "appropriating" technology from others is cheaper than paying for the R&D needed for pushing science ahead.
The problem today is people go searching for the "facts" until they locate the some information that justifies their point of view. Any contradicting "facts" that might interfere with their sacred beliefs is immediately discounted as lies and propaganda.
Contrary to popular belief a lot of the critical computing infrastructure is not connected to the Internet. For example if you want to infiltrate one of the major oil and gas pipelines control systems will require some physical access to the system and physically infiltrating even a slightly guarded computing facility is not for the faint hearted. Even the Stuxnet virus required physical access to a USB port on the physical network and infiltrating a nations nuclear research facilities can be a bit tricky. The biggest risk to military and critical civilian infrastructure computer systems is electromagnetic shielding protection and reliable backups. The US military has been busy testing a missile capable of over flying a city or facility and releasing a EMP like effect to take down any system not sufficiently shielded. There has always been the threat of detonating a nuclear device high in the atmosphere to generate the same effect but the drawback is someone noticing an ICBM launch and retaliating with no intention of detonating the warhead in the atmosphere.
In this case the responsible person is the one who committed suicide. It is the prosecutor's job to prosecute any crimes submitted to them. The prosecutors don't make the laws or define the penalties. People are using the theoretical penalty maximums to advance their arguments but if this guy was judged guilty he would not have been punished with the maximum penalties. Chances are he would have probably been fined and put on probation. The laws he was charged with breaking do not require the court to hand out jail time upon conviction.
Any defendant is free to request a jury trial. Nobody is obligated to accept a plea bargain. In a trial everything can be addressed from the gathering of evidence, prosecutorial over reach, and the guilt or innocence of the person charged. The courts have an adversarial relationship with the law enforcement agencies. The court has the power to dismiss or modify any charges presented and they do it all the time. The prosecutors determine what charges to press based upon the results of an investigation conducted by the appropriate law enforcement agencies. If the charges are not supported the court can dismiss the charges outright or impanel a grand jury to decide if the charges warrant further prosecution. The US justice system is not perfect but name one system that is.
Exactly what type of "horrible shit" are you talking about? Has there been massive sickness and death due to people consuming GMO products? Patents are sometimes a necessity in areas that require a huge upfront investment in new product R&D. Pharmaceutical patents ensure the creator of the product can recoup it's expenses but these patents possess time limits that do allow generics to eventually be produced and GMO related patents could incorporate similar limits. The ability to create heartier strains of the major staple crops will allow the world to feed itself as the population continues to increase. It's a shame that the one thing that causes the majority of problems facing the world today is population control. Continued and uncontrolled population growth will destroy the planet with a 100% surety. We can not simply rely on some new technological breakthrough in the future that will nullify the results of our actions today. If things continue as they are the competition for access to resources such as oil, natural gas, water, and arable land will lead to a war that will most definitely reduce the population. One way or another population control will be enacted. It can be done peacefully using sensible rules and regulations or violently using weapons capable of destroying the entire planet.
"multinational corporations are not brain-washing us and controlling our life like the usa "
No you are being manipulated by a 6th century cult demanding your ever lasting and unquestioning obedience. The protesters and citizens of Egypt got the same screwing as the Iranian protesters did after their 1979 revolution. Evidently the people in the Mideast are experts at street protests but don't have a clue about how to organize and implement any of the changes they were standing out in the street demanding. And all things being equal I will take Exxon, IBM, Apple, or any other multi national company over any group who uses religion to project their power.