Podcast : Adam Shatz talks to Joshua Landis on Syria War.: Trump reverting to the Obama doctrine

For the latest instalment of our podcast, @adamshatz spoke to @joshua_landis about the Syrian War, listen/read here: https://t.co/UahinsDP6B

— London Review (LRB) (@LRB) April 21, 2017

Thomas Sowell: Simple-minded immigration: Indiscriminate policies endanger our health, wealth and security.

Thomas Sowell: Simple-minded immigration: Indiscriminate policies endanger our health, wealth and security. (TS).

Why would a country with the world’s largest Jewish population, outside of Israel, admit large numbers of immigrants from countries where hatred of Jews has been taught to their people from earliest childhood?

This question is ultimately not about Muslims and Jews.


It is about discussing immigrants in the abstract, rather than in terms of the specific concrete realities of particular immigrants in particular circumstances at a particular time and place — that time being now.

A hundred years ago, when immigration from other parts of the world was a major issue, there was a government study which provided voluminous statistics on how immigrants from various countries performed in American society — economically, educationally and in terms of social pathology.

Today, it would not be considered right — that is, not politically correct — even to ask such questions about immigrants, especially if immigrants were broken down by country of origin.

Insipid statements about how, “we are all descendants of immigrants” blithely ignore the fact millions of Americans are descendants of legal immigrants who were not allowed into the country until they met medical and other criteria.

Today people flood across the border and are dispersed to various communities around the country by the federal government, without even a notice to local authorities as to what history of diseases, or crimes, these immigrants bring — much less what risks of terrorism.

Such high-handedness is neither incidental nor accidental.

It is part of a much wider pattern, extending beyond immigration, and extending beyond the United States to many countries, where narrow elites imagine themselves so superior to the rest of us that it is both their right and their duty to impose their notions on us.

Many of these elites seem to see themselves as citizens of the world, and to regard national borders as unfortunate relics of the benighted past. Read the full story here.

Global redistribution of oil market coming.

Global redistribution of oil market coming. (Taz). By Vagif Sharifov.

OPEC’s dumping oil prices, Saudi Arabia’s desire to constantly expand its market share, and expectations of coming of Iranian oil after removal of sanctions on Tehran, have forced the US to urgently take the historic decision to start exporting its own oil.

Experts have already reacted negatively to this news, saying that oil prices will fall significantly, at least, due to a psychological factor. However, the US itself doesn’t think so – the Department of Energy believes that by 2025 the price of Brent oil will reach $90.23 per barrel or only $0.18 per barrel less than if the export ban had been kept.

Greatest difficulties will be faced by the business in the domestic US market, where a limited supply of WTI will increase its value at oil refineries, leading to higher prices for gasoline, and dragging consumer price inflation in the economy. On the other hand, it will be easy for China, as it will be selling its consumer goods in the US for higher prices, while their prime costs being kept due to lack of a significant impact from WTI on the Brent oil price.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia - the main market player physically pressing the prices - is trying by all means to “pour” oil even to places where others have previously worked.

This, in turn, causes a conflict of interests with Russia, which, because of different prime costs, can’t afford such level of dumping in Europe, as Saudi Arabia does.

Apparently, this “overdumping” game will soon be joined by the US. By the way, the estimates presented by the US Department of Energy look at least strange against the backdrop of the fact that Iran expects the lifting of sanctions in Q1, 2016 in order to begin oil exports.

There is no doubt that Iran would offer its oil cheaper than the market price, pursuing the following objectives:

- to gain market share in the world as fast as possible;

- to fill its budget with money coming from oil exports as quickly as possible to use them for restoration of domestic market infrastructure, including the construction of new oil and gas pipelines.

The whole situation will lead to an unplanned meeting of OPEC in the first six months of 2016, where the countries will blame each other of deliberate glutting the market. But the decision will not be taken to cut the production because there will be the US oil on the market.

Any reduction in any direction will immediately lead to a decrease in a market share, despite the break-even point of the state budgets of Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE is rather less compared to the current oil price. Libya will be in the worst situation. Its state budget may be deficit-free only at the price of $207 per barrel.

The global redistribution of the oil market between Saudi Arabia and the US is obvious. OPEC ceased to be a locomotive. It became a purely commercial company making a profit regardless of anything. Many specialists believe that there is no need for the cartel any more.

Alberta’s Finance Minister once said that we need such a position when we would not listen to OPEC to decide how many schools we should build. If OPEC wanted, it could increase the prices, forgetting about the market share. It is always possible to restore as it was in 1973, when the cartel cut its production so that the price has risen from $3 to $12 per barrel.

'We don't need permission' Iran won't wait to increase its oil output.

'We don't need permission' Iran won't wait to increase its oil output. (Taz).

Iran does not need permission to increase its oil production after the sanctions against are lifted, the Islamic Republic’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said.

He made the remarks while commenting on its recent letter to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), in which he asked the cartel to reduce production by at least 1.3 million barrels per day (mbpd), the oil ministry’s SHANA news agency reported Dec. 2.

Ahead of the upcoming OPEC meeting which is scheduled for Dec. 4, Zanganeh wrote a letter to OPEC chief Abdallah Salem el-Badri, saying that the cartel members should be committed to the ceiling level, which had been set at 30 mb/d.

Zanganeh said that he did not write the letter to the OPEC for approval. He added that the letter was written to remind OPEC about the commitments regarding the ceiling level as well as explaining Iran’s position.

The Iranian minister further said it is not the first letter that was sent to the organization members. He underlined that Iran was forced to exit the oil market illegally under the sanctions, emphasizing that Tehran doesn’t need any permission to return.

Tehran hopes to increase its oil production by 500,000 barrels per day immediately after the international sanctions’ removal.

Iran’s current oil production is estimated to be around 2.8 million barrels per day of which about one million barrels are exported.

One of the biggest mysteries in the oil market surrounds just how much oil Iran is hoarding at sea.

Iran claims it's not stockpiling oil in tankers in the Persian Gulf, but no one believes it. Up until recently, energy experts thought Iran's vessels held 30 million to 40 million barrels of oil.

But maritime surveillance firm Windward has harnessed sophisticated technology to determine Iran is actually hoarding 50 million barrels of oil. That's up nearly 150% from April 2014 when Windward started tracking this closely-watched metric.

It's important to remember the oil hiding at sea is ready to be shipped to a buyer -- likely in Asia -- at a moment's notice. It's already been pumped out of the ground, cleaned up and processed.

"Iran has been trying to downplay what they have in floating storage because they don't want those figures to spook the market," said Tamar Essner, an energy analyst at Nasdaq Advisory Services.

Platts said Iran is storing as many as 53 million barrels of oil and condensate at sea, up from a previous estimate of 40 million to 42 million.

"There's no real clarity in international oil data. It's got the precision of cutting your hair with a chain saw," said Kloza. Hmmm......We are heading to very interesting times. Fasten your seat belts.

Iranian Oil Minister urges OPEC to cut output.

Iranian Oil Minister urges OPEC to cut output. (Taz).

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has asked the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reduce production by at least 1.3 million barrels per day (mbpd).

Ahead of the upcoming OPEC meeting, Zanganeh has written a letter to OPEC chief Abdallah Salem el-Badri, announcing that the cartel members should be committed to the ceiling level, which had been set at 30 mb/d, Mehdi Asali, an Iranian oil ministry official said, Mehr news agency reported Dec. 1.


It is time for certain OPEC members to cut their output, ahead of lifting sanctions against Iran, said Zanganeh's letter.

Asali, who is Iranian oil ministry’s secretary for OPEC affairs and relations with energy organizations, said that the Iranian minister has informed the organization that Iran will revive its pre-sanction output and the OPEC members should open space for the Islamic Republic’s output.

Iran’s crude output and export was decreased by 4.2 mbpd and 2.6 mbpd as a result of the sanctions, the official said, adding Tehran will return to former output level as soon as sanctions are removed.

The OPEC members' total crude oil output has dropped by some 256,500 barrels per day to 31.382 mbpd in October compared to September, the organization said in its latest monthly report.

Iran increased crude oil production (excluding condensates) by 4,700 barrels per day in October, compared with the previous month. The country's oil output reached 2.874 mb/d per day.

Iran’s oil output was about 3.7 mb/d in 2011, Hmmmm........Drop it or else.......? Read the full story here.

Iran intends to produce more oil but asks OPEC to stay within quota.

Iran intends to produce more oil but asks OPEC to stay within quota. (Taz).

Tehran has asked the 12-nation OPEC cartel of oil producers to cut its total oil production to stay within the daily quota, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said Saturday, Press TV reported.

"The OPEC is extracting [more oil] than the allowed quota. I asked them to cut oil output to meet the quota. But it does not mean that we will not be producing more oil because it is our right to come back to the market," Zangeneh has been quoted as saying by Sputnik news agency.

The current OPEC quota stands at 30 million barrels of crude a day. Iran said earlier today it planned to boost oil production by 1 million barrels a day within the next 5-6 months.

"I do not expect a new agreement [on the quota] to be made on December 4," he added.

OPEC member countries are due to meet on 4 December to assess the bloc’s production policy and the global oil market, months after their June decision not to cut oil production despite a slump in global oil prices.

Iran’s oil minister stressed that Iranians "do not need a permission to restore our oil production levels" as seen prior to the 2012 sanctions.

Zangeneh said in early September: “Immediately after lifting sanctions, it’s our right to return to the level of production we historically had,” adding, “We have no other choice.”

He noted that the country will raise its output by 500,000 barrels per day soon after sanctions are lifted and by one million barrels per day within the following five months. Hmmmm......Sounds like interesting times are ahead of us.

Related: Global Oil Job Cuts Top 250,000

OPEC Oil price-2016: "There is no one who really knows the world oil prices projection" U.S. expert.

OPEC Oil price-2016: "There is no one who really knows the world oil prices projection" U.S. expert. (Taz).

Lifting the sanctions against Iran could increase the supply of Iranian oil to the world energy market for half a million barrels per day next year. This amount of Iranian oil supply will hold the world’s oil prices at the current low level. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes that Iran will increase its oil production (including condensate) by 20 percent to 3.7 million barrels per day in 2016.

Tehran now is actively promoting its new type of oil contracts, claiming Iranian energy market’s foreign investment openness.

US oil experts hardly believe Iran is able to strongly influence the world oil market in the nearest future that is to increase production up to 4.2 million barrels per day. There are two reasons for that disbelief: no effective economical methods for enhanced oil recovery and weak oil infrastructure in Iran. Tehran needs a lot of investment to solve these two major issues.

"There is no one who really knows the world oil prices projection. Iran may be able to increase oil production by one million barrels per day only after few years," said a US expert who asked to remain anonymous.

It is obvious no one can predict oil prices with absolute certainty but taking into account Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia oil production increase, a lot of experts assume the oil price is going to be $58-60/barrel next year.

None of the experts, oil ministers expect a sharp oil price recovery or harsh "back to the good old" $100/barrel within the nearest future. Current oil market situation leads experts to wonder about the necessity to maintain OPEC. Is there a need? OPEC hardly carries out its functions and barely protects the market from the oil prices rapid decline.

An American economist who has decades of oil consultancy experience believes that OPEC's time is long gone, and there is no need for it today.

There are many OPEC member countries that carry out totally independent policy from OPEC since the cartel has been created. Since they have an independent policy from OPEC it adds a lot of economic misunderstandings to the oil market forecast.


"OPEC declares one projected oil production figure but the physically produced oil amount is another number all-together. These things are never plain sailing with OPEC," the expert stated.

In fact, the strong independent policy of some OPEC members has led them to state budget deficits. Next year the IMF experts’ expectation of Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’ state budget’ will face deficit, taking into account the 2016 year oil price forecast at $60/barrel. Libya will face the worst budget deficit. IMF experts think Libya’s breakeven oil price is $207/barrel. That is above and beyond the most optimistic wishful thinking. Oil at this price is a mirage in the sand.

The oil dependence reduction is the question of the hour , more than ever. Last September’s situation when the oil price has started to decline rapidly once more, reflected that neither OPEC nor anyone else can stabilize the prices as they wish. It is a true fact that the average Brent price since the beginning of 2015 is $54/barrel vs $98/barrel in 2014.Read the full story here.

"The Flying White Elephant" - Yet Another Costly & long to fix F-35 Glitch: Ejection Seat Could Kill Pilots.

"The Flying White Elephant" - Yet Another Costly & long to fix F-35 Glitch: Ejection Seat Could Kill Pilots. (Yahoo).

The Defense Department’s multi-billion dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter effort has hit a new snag, and it’s one that could take anywhere from a year to 18 months to fix, according to the program’s chief.

Earlier this month Defense News reported the Pentagon had learned the fifth-generation airplane’s ejection seat could cause fatal whiplash for pilots weighing under 136, despite the fact that the seat was designed to handle any pilot weighing between 103 and 245 pounds.

The discovery prompted the Pentagon to restrict any pilot that weighs less than 136 pounds from flying the aircraft until a solution was found.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the head of the F-35 program office, told House lawmakers on Wednesday that officials are using “known fixes” to remedy the problem, though they’ll take some time to implement.

With a price tag of around $400 billion, the F-35 is the costliest weapon in U.S. history; the idea that the severely delayed procurement effort suffered another technical glitch on a support system many believed was safe set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill, even among the fighter’s supporters. Hmmmm.......I hate to say it but it seems that Justine Trudeau will have done at least one good things as PM, altough not really intentional. Read the full story here.

Related! 

Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years.

U.S. Spent Almost $ 100 Billion On 'friends' To Fight Terrorists.

U.S. Spent Nearly $100B On 'Foreigners' To Fight Terrorists. HT: Vocativ.

Despite the enormous tab, ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are still running amok in the Middle East and Africa.

To combat Islamic militants the White House says threaten national interests, the U.S. has spent nearly $100 billion to arm and train foreign militaries across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, an analysis by Vocativ shows.

And nearly all of them are reeling from setbacks that threaten to undermine what’s become a core component of American foreign policy in these regions.

U.S. programs funding foreign fighters began flourishing in the years after 9/11 and were later bolstered by President Obama, who prefers doing this instead of deploying American troops into troubled areas.

'This cartel isn't big enough for the Both of Us' - Iran's Former OPEC Gov Says New Ceilings Needed.

Iran's Former OPEC Governor Says New Ceilings Needed for Opec cartel Members. (Fars).

Iran's former OPEC Governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi said his country is needed to work on plans to lower the export quotas of the oil cartel members in a bid to find enough space in the market to hike its crude supplies.

Khatibi expressed dissatisfaction in the country's current production capacity that stands at 4 million barrels per day (bpd) and asked the oil ministry officials to boost the figure.

"Saudi Arabia stands atop global crude exports by supplying 10.5mln bpd while Iraq stands the second with 4.3mln oil bpd," he told a press conference on Saturday.

"And Iran can go up the ladder to stand the second from its current third via making proper investments," he added.

He said Iran should boost output but it should first work on plans to lower the production quotas of OPEC members.

In August, the Director of the international affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said that Iran had no plans to raise its oil exports until the western embargoes on the Islamic Republic's energy sector are lifted.

Currently, Iran sells around 1.1mln bpd of crude oil to its traditional customers, the oil ministry website reported at the time.

Mohsen Qamsari's remarks came as a reaction to some media reports which said Iran is planning to raise its crude oil sales before the western sanctions on the country are lifted.

Earlier in August, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company Roknoddin Javadi said the same about Iran's output level. 

He said: “Any increase in Iran's oil production depends on the removal of sanctions and [the country’s] oil output will not undergo any change as long as sanctions are in place.,”

Recently, some media reports have suggested that Iran aims to boost its crude output by 500,000 bpd within the coming week.  Hmmm.....I said it before and say it again: 
1.'Iran will use it's huge stockpile as leverage to gain back their OPEC Share, if OPEC doesn't give in to their demands the will dump all their stocks on the market crashing the OIL market prices.' Nobody wants $20/Barrel prices. 
 2.Worst case scenario Iran blocks the strait of Hormuz even if it s for a few weeks the price of oil will sky rocket.By the way there will be no carriers in the Gulf as well....compliments of the Obama 'admin'.

U.S. Analyst: 'Thunder without lightning: high cost and limited benefit development program of F-35'.

U.S. Analyst: 'Thunder without lightning: high cost and limited benefit development program of F-35'. (Sputnik).

In light of that, analyst Bill French wrote a report titled “Thunder without lightning: high cost and limited benefit development program of F-35,” reviewing the new aircraft.

The document states that according to the technical parameters the F-35 is “losing to the fourth-generation fighter MiG-29 and Su-27, developed by the Russian Air Force and used around the world.”

The Soviet MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter aircraft are superior in technical performance than the new US fighter aircraft F-35. The conclusion was reached by the American analyst Bill French, working for a non-profit organization National Security Network.

“The F-35 is significantly inferior to the Russian Su-27 and MiG-29 in regard to wing loading (exception — F35C), acceleration and thrust-weight ratio (the ratio of thrust to weight of the aircraft),” said the analyst.

Besides, all of the F-35s have significantly lower maximum speed as compared to the Soviet Union aircrafts.

Mr. French also deliberated that in a simulation of air combat, the results draw even “grimmer picture.”

According to him, in 2009 the analysts of US Air Force Intelligence and the Lockheed Martin Company, which developed the new American fighter, noted that despite the superiority of the F-35 in regard to stealth technology and avionics, if compared to the Su-27 and MiG —29 the loss ratio is to be expected 3: 1. That is, for each destroyed Su-27 or MiG-29 there would be three F-35 destroyed.

Also, in a real educational dogfight, a veteran in a US Air Force F-16 easily won over the F-35. Hmmmm.....The only good news is that 'Sometimes NATO Ally' Turkey will buy 100 of these white elephants. Read the full story here.

Iran Claims It can Boost Oil Output Just Days After Sanctions End.

Iran Claims It can Boost Oil Output Just Days After Sanctions End. HT: UOI.

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said today in an interview with state TV that Iran can boost oil production “in one week” after international sanctions are lifted.

He said production could increase by 500,000 bpd within a week after sanctions and by 1 million bpd within a month following that. Zanganeh warned that OPEC’s refusal to accommodate Iran in export markets would result in lower crude prices. (IRNA/Bloomberg, 2 August)

“Our lost share of market, which was about 1 million barrel a day, will manifest itself,” Zanganeh said. Even if crude prices fall, Iran’s (oil export) revenues will stay the same because exports are due to double, he added. (Shana/Bloomberg, 2 August)

Iran produced an average of 2.85 million barrels a day in July compared with 3.6 million at the end of 2011 when oil and banking sanctions went into effect. The Iranian oil exports declined to 1.4 million bpd after sanctions compared to 2.6 million bpd in 2011.

“Some of the most effective sanctions with regard to the oil industry were those targeted aspects such as sales, volumes, shipment, insurance and the transfer of the money,” Zanganeh said. “If those issues are resolved, Iran will regain the market share that it has lost which amounts to more than one million barrels a day.” (IRNA/Press TV, 2 August)

Amid surplus crude supply, the global benchmark Brent crude fell about 50 percent last year and dropped 2.1 percent on Friday to $52.21 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Hmmm.......This will be the death of shale oil and oil sands exploitation, in 6 months Iran only has to close the strait of Hormuz to put North America on it's knees. By the way there will be no carriers in the Gulf as well....compliments of the Obama 'admin'.

'White Elephant' F-35 Maintenance Software Comes Under Fire - high frequency of false alarms, not User friendly.

'White Elephant' F-35 Maintenance Software Comes Under Fire - high frequency of false alarms, not User friendly. (IMRA).

By Sandra I. Erwin 4/24/2015 http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1815

The subpar performance of the F-35 logistics information system has been a concern for years. But it has now drawn the attention of key lawmakers who got an earful from Joint Strike Fighter maintenance crews during a recent visit to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

“The committee received numerous complaints and concerns by F-35 maintenance and operational personnel regarding the limitations, poor performance, poor design, and overall unsuitability of the ALIS software in its current form,” said the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on tactical air and land forces in its markup of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act.

ALIS is the autonomic logistics information system that is hooked up to each F-35 to monitor every component of the aircraft and to alert operators of any breakdowns. The complaints heard by members of Congress range from the user-unfriendliness of the software and how slowly it responds to queries, to the high frequency of false alarms.

Military aviation experts said some of these issues are temporary and should be expected in new programs. Glitches like too many false alarms should be solved over time as the technology matures. Other shortcomings of the system appear to be more substantial and might take years to fix.

The F-35 program office and prime contractor Lockheed Martin assert that many of the current deficiencies will be plugged in future software releases. Program Executive Officer Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan traveled to Eglin this week to personally investigate the issues raised by the committee. “A lot of attention is being paid to ALIS,” said F-35 spokesman Joe DellaVedova.

By Bogdan’s own account, the system will have to dig itself out of a deep hole. “ALIS has a long way to go,” he told subcommittee Chairman Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio. “It is a complicated, five million lines of code piece of equipment that we started treating like a piece of support equipment. It's not. It's an integral part of the weapon system.”

A major effort began two years to “change fundamentally the way we develop ALIS,” Bogdan said. “We've applied the same techniques we used in developing software on the airplane to now developing software in ALIS. It's just going to take us some time to realize those results.”

One of ALIS’ most vaunted features — the ability to predict when a component will fail and will need to be replaced — appears to be nowhere close to coming to fruition. According to sources close to the program, ALIS doesn’t have enough of the data that would allow maintainers to forecast part failures based on how components are used and how they perform in flight. It is not clear when the prognostics capability will work.

A significant concern for the Marine Corps — the first service scheduled to deploy the F-35 — is that ALIS is too incomplete for operational use, which means that a lot of the information crews will need to fix and maintain the aircraft will not be available so they will depend on remote tech support from Lockheed Martin technicians in Fort Worth, Texas. Experts said that process could end up being time consuming and increase aircraft downtime.

ALIS was conceived so that when maintainers have to remove an aircraft part and replace it, they would have easy and instant access to instructions and drawings. ALIS also would help them interpret any failure codes that come off the aircraft and determine what procedures to employ.

The Marine Corps will be the first service to deploy the short-takeoff vertical landing version of the F-35 later this year, and it has chosen to declare the airplane operational even with a less-than-optimal ALIS system. Maintenance crews aboard big-deck amphibious ships will be dependent on technical support from Texas if ALIS is unable to provide the information they need.

Software engineers at Lockheed Martin are rushing to deliver ALIS upgrades to the F-35 fleet, said Sharon Parsley, spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training.

“The F-35 military services understand that ALIS will continue to gain capability along with each release of block software on our newest aircraft,” she told National Defense in a statement.

Parsley said the Eglin maintainers who gave ALIS bad reviews were using the earliest versions, known as Block 1B and 2A. The jets that are now flying at two bases in Arizona — Luke Air Force Base and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma — have the latest version of software called 2B.

A new update, ALIS 2.0.0, was delivered to F-35 locations, including Eglin in March, she said. “We expect many of the issues the airmen there are experiencing to improve.” Two other releases currently are in development, ALIS 2.0.1 and 2.0.2. The full ALIS capability is due in 2017, said Parsley, “in line with the conclusion of the F-35 system development and demonstration program phase.”

An underlying question is whether the Marines will be able to get by with the 2.0.1 version of ALIS that still lacks the capability to manage life-limited parts. That feature is expected in ALIS 2.0.2, which is the version that the Air Force needs in order to declare its F-35A operational next year.

The software eventually will have to undergo rigorous tests in combat-like conditions by the Pentagon’s independent test and evaluation office. Operational tests of the Marine Corps’ Block 2B mission software, along with ALIS, were supposed to take place a year ago but were delayed. Testers still do not believe the system is ready, and Pentagon procurement officials agreed.

Turner’s language in the NDAA, meanwhile, could mean yet another probe of ALIS, this one by the Government Accountability Office. The scrutiny will persist, especially in light of the feedback lawmakers got at Eglin. The frustration that members saw in F-35 maintainers is likely to stick with them as such interactions tend to be rare.

During an April 14 subcommittee hearing, Turner said he was “taken aback” by the operators’ critiques of ALIS. “I was also shocked that there's no spell check,” he said. That means users have to manually identify misspelling and correct errors, which causes delays and potentially could put lives at risk. Crews also were unhappy with the reporting system for the availability of parts or status of the inventory.

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former military aviator, said she, too, was alarmed by what she heard. Her impression was that the system is very labor intensive, slow to respond, and too bulky for use on ships. Duckworth said it was “troubling” that aircraft crews aboard ships at sea will have to reach back to Fort Worth for logistical support.

Bogdan agreed that the transportability of ALIS is a major issue. “Today ALIS sits in a squadron and it's a rack of computers that weighs probably 800 to 1,000 pounds,” he told Duckworth. “We recognized a year-and-a-half ago that was not going to work for deploying forces.” Lockheed is designing a deployable version that will be ready for the Marine Corps in July, he said. It is a two-man portable system made up of three or four different racks.

In the future, Bogdan said, ALIS will be made in a deployable configuration. “We will get rid of the old thousand-pound racks that we have at the squadrons now.”

ALIS is now deployed with more than a hundred operational F-35s from the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands. Hmmmm.......All that comes out of the F-35 story is from bad to worse.

Related:  Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years.

Video - Daniel Pipes on "the Obama Doctrine": "Snarl at your friends, smile at your enemies"

HT: Ezra Levant - The Rebel.

The 'White elephant' Fighter, the F-35.

The 'White elephant' Fighter, the F-35. Via: John Q Public:

As Air Force senior officials prepare for posture hearings this week with the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the subject of modernization promises to be front and center. Core to that discussion will almost certainly be the limping, $1.4 trillion F-35 program.

Belying the conventional wisdom, which touts the Joint Strike Fighter as something of a futuristic aerial Swiss army knife, the F-35 is proving to be little more than a dull, bent, and unwieldy butter knife — a jack of no trades, master of only one: burning through taxpayer dollars at a rate that would embarrass Croesus.

The bloat of the program is now placing increasingly excruciating pressure on the entire Air Force budget, this despite the F-35 being years from genuine operational capability. The pressure it is exerting is leading to a parade of rhetorical and actual absurdity of the variety that should, under normal circumstances, alarm Congress and anyone else concerned about the future of American defense.

Take, for example, a recent account filed by the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), which exposes damning conclusions in the latest F-35 report from the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E).

Among the crippling problems highlighted in the DOT and E report:

• Software glitches disrupting enemy identification and weapon employment.
• A redesigned fuel tank that continues to demonstrate unacceptable vulnerability to explosion from lightning or enemy fire.
• Departures from controlled flight during high-speed maneuvering, a six-year-old problem that apparently will not be solved without sacrificing stealth or combat capability.
• Helmet issues fundamentally degrading pilot situational awareness.
• Engine problems so severe they’re limiting sortie rates, impeding the test schedule, and generating risky operational decisions.
• Nightmarish maintainability issues leading to over-reliance on contractor support.

As these and other issues mount, the F-35 Joint Program Office, led by Air Force Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, is apparently employing categorization and accounting schemes that overstate reliability and maintenance rates, masking the true nature of the crisis gripping the program. Hmmmm......And last but not least:  Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years. Only good news is that the Turkish Airforce bought 100 of these 'beauties'

Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years.

Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years. (DailyTech).

Armed w/ only 2-10 missiles, the F-35 will be deemed "combat ready" in 2015, but won't have gun code till 2019, despite 20 million LOC

After burning through hundreds of billions in expenditures (over $300B USD to date) along its much-delayed development arc, the "joint strike fighter" (JSF) -- also known as the F-35 Lightning II -- has earned the dubious distinction of being the most expensive combat aircraft in history.  But according to a new report by The Daily Beast, the spoiled self-proclaimed "superjet" can't even fire its gun.  

I. Duck Hunt: Lack of Gun Leaves  JSF A Pricy Flying Duck

Yes, according to the report, which cites a number of Air Force pilots and senior officials as sources, the JSF -- with an estimated lifetime cost in the trillions -- after a decade of development the pampered project sports a gun that is currently little more than a decoration hanging as dead weight.

Notably, the report cites roughly half a dozen USAF sources as confirming that the JSF has been banned from using its machine gun in combat until it receives a software update.  And that update isn't expected to arrive until 2019.  Until then the JSF isn't quite a sitting (or flying, more aptly) duck, but it's close to it.

The gun is dead rate because after roughly 25 million lines of code it's written (code, incidentally, China might have stolen for free), Lockheed Martin apparently couldn't be bothered to write in code to connect the JSF's trigger to its gun.  Air Force officials say that Lockheed Martin is telling them that it's going to take another four full years -- until 2019 -- to integrate the seemingly simple code into its web.

In the meantime the "operational" jet will be a bit lame, officials warn.  But, it's a moot point many pilots say, as the craft's engine is too slow and clumsy for dogfights anyhow.

Bugs aside, it also appears Lockheed Martin has lost touch of the fighter's combat needs, in terms of prioritizing features.  According to the report, even with its well over 20 million lines of code, there's no code yet to connect the pilot's trigger to the rotary cannon, so the cannon is essentially dead weight.

The report  states that the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B variant (targeted at the U.S. Marines) and the carrier-based F-35C variant (targeted at the U.S. Navy) also have crippled guns.  And like the USAF codebase, it sounds as if the fixes for the variants are rather far away:

So the F-35 has at best, at present ten shots.  If the enemy is able to field more than ten fighters per F-35, the best outcome the F-35 can hope for is a hit-and-run.  That's a major concern, given that lifetime costs per jet are over $600M USD at current estimates.  Of that, about $170M USD is currently in the up-front purchase cost.  By contrast, Russia's Mikoyan MiG-29 has a per-unit cost of around $28M USD, based on recent purchases.

So you can buy six MiG-29s for the up front costs of one JSF.  Or if you prefer something a bit more modern you can get Russian Sukhoi Su-35 jets for around $40M USD (which would buy you roughly four per JSF).

The only problem?  Americans have to pay the bill for a supposed superfighter.  

Enter the JSF, the spoiled superfighter du jour. Hmmm.....The only great thing is that the Turkish air force bought 100 of these :) Read the full nightmare story here.

'Moderate' Iran denies deal on limiting enrichment at Fordow or Arak plants.

'Moderate' Iran denies deal on limiting enrichment at Fordow or Arak plants. (PTV).

A senior Iranian nuclear negotiator has dismissed allegations of Iran’s consent to scale down its uranium enrichment program.

“Any agreement about Arak or Fordow [nuclear facilities] is denied. No agreement has so far been reached about the issues under discussion [with six world powers], including these two sites, and the differences still remain,” ISNA quoted Abbas Araqchi, who is also a deputy to the Iranian foreign minister, as saying.

He was reacting to July 29 remarks by the US lead nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about “tangible progress in key areas, including Fordow, Arak and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) access.”

“It [Iran] promised not to fuel or install remaining components at the research reactor in Arak…. It allowed inspectors to have daily access at the Natanz enrichment facility and the underground plant at Fordow,” said Sherman who is the deputy US secretary of state.

Araqchi said, “The only criterion for the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the country’s needs and throughout negotiations [with the world powers], decisions will be made only based on the country’s needs.”

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany are to resume their negotiations to discuss ways to reach a final agreement over Tehran’s nuclear energy program in September.Hmmm.....The never ending talks......till breakout.

Video - Netanyahu says There will be 'no chance' of striking a final nuclear deal with Iran.

Netanyahu says There will be 'no chance' of striking a final nuclear deal with Iran.(Jpost).

Iran's nuclear march, not negotiations with the Palestinians, dominated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's talks with world leaders in Davos, he told the cabinet Sunday, just hours after returning from the World Economic Forum in that Swiss city.

Netanyahu said that the most important thing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said during his speech to the conference was that Iran has not dismantled, and will not dismantle, a single centrifuge.

"If Iran will stand by that statement, that means that a permanent agreement – which is the goal of the entire diplomatic process with Iran – cannot succeed," Netanyahu said.  "Iran is basically insisting on preserving its ability to get fissile material for a bomb without in any way extending the time-line to a nuclear break-out."

Netanyahu said that this meant that much of what Israel has warned against was indeed already taking place.
The prime minister said that Rouhani also tried in Davos to break the sanctions regime against his country.  While praising US Secretary of State John Kerry for his statement that the US would act to preserve the existing sanctions, Netanyahu said the test will be in the results.

Netanyahu said Rouhani's speech, coupled by an  interview given by his Foreign Minster Mohammad Javad Zarif, in which he declared that Iran has an ideological agenda that puts it in constant tension with the west and the US, caused the people he spoke with to understand that that situation with Iran is "not rosy."

"There is a problem here," Netanyahu said "We know the truth, that there is a regime which under the cover of a charm offensive is trying to arm itself with nuclear weapons, to become a [nuclear] threshold sate that can achieve nuclear weapons very fast, and a state that has not change at all its true ideology."Hmmm......The real 'problem' is a US President obsessed with going down in History as the man who gave Iran the Bomb.

Iranian Oil Tanker Sanctions Suspended After Nuclear Deal.

Iranian Oil Tanker Sanctions Suspended After Nuclear Deal.(IP)

Iran’s National Oil and Tanker companies director has said the US Treasury has removed Iran’s National Oil and Tanker Company from the sanction list.

In an interview to Mehr News about the impacts of easing some sanctions on Iran’s oil sector after Geneva deal, Ali-Akbar Safaei told that all barriers on the way of providing insurance coverage, banking services, and other international shipping services especially for oil transport has been removed.

He also detailed about the exports of Iran’s black gold to six traditional destinations of China, India, Turkey, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. “Currently there is no international barrier in the way of sea transport of Iranian oil to these countries.

According to arrangements made in Geneva join Plan of Action printed by the US government, beginning in January 20, all sanctions on Iran’s oil sector have been removed,” Safaei added.

He also said that the removal of sanctions covered also insurance, transportation, and financial swift transactions. “The suspension however excludes legal entities and natural persons sanctioned before, but Iran’s National Oil and Tanker Companies are exceptions to this rule,” said Safaei.

The National Oil Tanker Company official also detailed on the possible maneuver by the company after sanctions had been removed. “However this is a green light for going forward to the Company, but we speculate rapid return to the international oil market, and oil transportation would be highly profitable not only for importing countries, but also for great multinational oil giant companies,” he added.


“As long as the National Tanker Company has not returned international markets, it will receive supports as bonus to carry Iran’s exported oil,” he said.National Iranian Tanker Co. got permission to ship oil to some Asian countries as sanctions were eased, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported, citing the company’s Managing Director Ali Akbar Safaei.

Tankers belonging to the company may export crude to China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan after sanctions against insuring the country’s vessels were suspended Jan. 20, IRNA said, citing Safaei. Hmmmm...."Israel's staunchest Ally", he might imposes sanctions on Israel next.

Iran Raps US for 'Misinterpretation' of Geneva Deal

Iran Raps US for 'Misinterpretation' of Turkish bazaar deal Geneva Deal.(Fars).

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham lashed out at the White House for misinterpreting the nuclear deal Tehran and the six major world powers struck in Geneva late in November, and warned that such moves will weaken the agreement.

“This (White House) statement is a unilateral interpretation of the recent unofficial agreements reached between experts from Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany),” Afkham underlined on Friday.

On Thursday, the White House released a four-page summary of the deal in which the US claimed that Iran will stop producing fuel for the Arak reactor.

Afkham stressed, “This statement is in no way the criterion for assessment or judgment regarding the implementation of the Geneva agreement.”

On Sunday, Iran and the six world powers finalized an agreement on ways to implement the Geneva nuclear deal, which the two sides struck in the Swiss city of Geneva on November 24, 2013, from January 20.

On November 24, Iran and the world powers sealed a six-month Joint Plan of Action to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program. In exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the Sextet of world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran and continue talks with the country to settle all problems between the two sides.Hmmmm.....'If you like your Nuclear enrichment....you can keep it.'