Vladimir Putin continues his determinined effort to bring back the Cold War. This time he sent Tupolev-95 Bear bombers to buzz the USS Nimitz at low levels.
Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that there was no violation of flight regulations during the incident. A ministry official said the flights are standard operating procedure for air force training.
One of them twice flew about 2,000 feet over the deck of the USS Nimitz Saturday while another flew about 50 miles away, officials said. Two others were at least 100 miles away, the military reported.
U.S. defense officials said four F/A-18A fighter jets from the Nimitz were in the air.The Russians and the U.S. carrier did not exchange verbal communications.
Not good.
The NIE says Iran really isn’t interested in a nuclear bomb, and has a bridge to sell in Brooklyn.
This stupidity is followed by Iran threatening US ships in the Persian gulf, and George Bush doing “absoultely nothing”.
Russia then sends nuclear material to Iran, and George Bush does “absoultely nothing”.
Now Russia acts menancingly to US aircraft carriers, and Gweorge Bush does “absoultely nothing”.
The only thing George Bush wants to do is give amnesty to illegal aliens.
What a schmuck.
There actually wasn’t any flight violations. International flight rules require 500ft from any person, ship, building etc. So, since the carrier was not conducting an exercise and hadn’t put out a flight warning, it was perfectly legal and 2000 ft is not exactly buzzing.
Maybe the Russians are helping us keep on our toes a bit, since the Chinese have been doing a good job of sneaking subs past us.
I see this as much ado about nothing. Putin wants to restore some of the former glory of the Soviet Union by strutting the military in America’s face, but is is mostly for show. The Russian military is much weaker than is was 20 years ago – still using the same equipment and technology that the Soviets developed back then. That doesn’t mean that he can’t do things to harm us – he still has the need to tweak the nose of the US by backing Iran, etc. But his biggest weapon is the oil and gas weapon that he is using on Europe, not some old Soviet bombers flying around.
Nothing new. In 1969/70 when I was on my Med. Cruise aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, CVA-42 (thats an aircraft carrier folks), the Russians did the same thing with the same response from us. We even had heliocoptors from the Russian “aircraft carrier” Moskva fly across the flight deck, and much lower too. So, stand down about President Bush doing nothing.
Do you think back in the 60′s the United States overreacted when Russia put nukes in Cuba? Because we’re doing the equivalent of what Russia did to us by putting our nukes in Poland. Putin is peeved and is trying to show his displeasure. Why Bush is further alienating what should be an ally is beyond me. I just hope the next President can rebuild all the international bridges that we’re burning.
And Ted, if you’re worried about Russia selling nuclear material, you might want to look a little closer at the US’s nuclear secrets since 2000 – how they were acquired, who has been selling them, and who bought them.