Something really strange is up regarding FORCE’s emphasizing that their crowd control tactics would look to be appropriate on camera. How do I know that?

BECAUSE IN ILLINOIS IT IS A FELONY TO RECORD POLICE OFFICERS IN THE LINE OF DUTY!!!

And in recent court cases the authorities have enforced this law vigorously. No one is going to record the cops, or they are going to have an elaborate way to conceal what they are doing and send the feed to an out of state outlet if they do.

David, I agree that the Chinese are eating our lunch, not to mention breakfast and dinner. But the Chinese are sick of Westerners telling them what to do, and telling them to manage the RMB the way we want them to, is not going to fly.

Rather, we must take unilateral steps to restrict Chinese imports, industry by industry, just like China does — they are experts at gaming the WTO.

On the other hand, Corporate America likes to manufacture in China so they can keep profits up short term — at least until China decides it has learned (or stolen) as much US technology as it wants to, and can afford to freeze US corporations out. At that point America may try to fight back but we will be at a terrible disadvantage.

Btw, the US/ China trade looks the way it does now, in large part because corporations — the source of donations that both parties compete for — help write the WTO rules in the first place. You can’t expect them to want to change anything, and therefore you can’t expect Obama to change anything either. Obama’s “tough” talk on China is PR. The Chinese know it and so do Obama’s donors.

CTuttle, you really know your stuff. Nice comment. Re: Silkworms, the US Navy would be ecstatic if they were the worst threat the faced today in the Persian Gulf, since Russia’s Yakonts cruise missile travels at mach 3, around 3 times faster than Silkworms. And since the Yakonts were designed for export, the Navy had better be prepared for them.

Yes the Navy has Aegis, a system of radar and coordinated antimissile defense. But as Gen. Van Riper showed in the war games exercise that other commenters have referred to, it would seem that a concerted missile attack could overwhelm the defenses.

Van Riper also used suicide missions of PT boats to overwhelm the Blue Team defenses. Assuming some PT boats got within 5 miles of their targets, they could fire super cavitating torpedoes, which maintain a gas bubble ahead of the torpedo’s nose to cut drag. They can travel at speeds of up to 200 knots. Hard for a for a big boat like a carrier to evade one. http://orbitalvector.com/Aquatic/Supercav%20Torpedo/SUPERCAVITATING%20TORPEDO.htm

I don’t know what mines may or may not lie on the seabed below the Straits but I do agree with the substance of ekornbeck’s comment.

It would seem to me that Iran can close the Strait at its pleasure. It has mines and surface to ship missiles that can sink tankers in the Strait’s shipping lanes so as to block them, and could take out at least some US Navy ships too. Iran can do plenty of damage with “assymetric” warfare techniques; it doesn’t need to contest the US Navy for control of the high seas.

Furthermore, just a credible declaration of intent to close the Straits would be almost certainly have a pronounced effect on tanker traffic through the Straits. Tanker insurance carriers would suspend coverage under force majeure or impose war insurance rates. To take things a step further, the Iranians could sink one or two tankers, daring us to attack their radars and to find their mobile missile launchers. Good luck to us in that scenario.

Keeping the 5th Fleet in Bahrain is worse than dumb, we are leaving them in a position to be easily trapped and effectively held hostage.

I can only applaud Jane, Dan, Bill, Scarecrow and the rest who stood up for their convictions in this way. I hope they will make their point and emerge free, safe, and sound. Yet I wish they’d done it for something else: the budget bill, the public option, Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby, or even, God help us, Federal dollars for renewable energy.

First: oil is going to be progressively harder for America to get as we keep drawing down domestic reserves. There are two places in this hemisphere that have big oil reserves, Venezuela (which Bush and Cheney alienated from us big time for no real reason) and Canada. While I support alternative and solar (and have posted on that in this blog) we need oil until other sources get on stream. So why protest oil that actually comes to the US by pipeline instead of the Mideast??? The mind boggles.

Second: If there was one thing NAFTA got right, is was the Canadians’ agreement to sell us oil. They know how badly we need that oil and so does anyone else who has studied the oil market (I’ve written on it in places like the NYT and the Baltimore Sun). So imagine how this protest plays in Canada: “America doesn’t want our ‘dirty’ oil? Fine. We’ll renegotiate NAFTA and sell to China!”

Is that what we really want?

I understand why some hate the Tar Sands. Processing it IS dirty, sucks up huge amounts of precious freshwater. And the local Native tribes (Canadians call them, First Nations) have claims regarding the desecration of their lands. Noted. I just don’t see how picking this fight really helps America.

Why couldn’t the big demonstration be to get funding for domestically manufactured solar panels and wind turbines??? Now THAT would do something to fix the energy problem.

Before you flame me for this, just remember, I’ve written articles from way back denouncing the depredations of Big Oil and I have felt like one of you since the Valerie Plame days even if I don’t post much.