Hilarious...! Chinese reverse engineering...

hey... you gotta admire the chinese... they can sure figure things out... u.s. stealth technology was adapted from technology developed by the germans in the last years of wwii (another interesting story, i'm sure) and first put into regular use in the early 70s, although rumors are that it was in use even prior to that... but it only took the chinese slightly over 10 years to take what the u.s. had and make it part of their own defense arsenal... the biggest slap in the face was introducing it as secretary gates was making his big visit to china a couple of weeks ago and just prior to hu jintao's visit to d.c. this past week... no fools, those chinese...

Chinese officials recently unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority — and some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself.

Balkan military officials and other experts have told The Associated Press that in all probability the Chinese gleaned some of their technological know-how from an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.

Nighthawks were the world's first stealth fighters, planes that were very hard for radar to detect. But on March 27, 1999, during NATO's aerial bombing of Serbia in the Kosovo war, a Serbian anti-aircraft missile shot one of the Nighthawks down. The pilot ejected and was rescued.

It was the first time one of the much-touted "invisible" fighters had ever been hit. The Pentagon believed a combination of clever tactics and sheer luck had allowed a Soviet-built SA-3 missile to bring down the jet.

The wreckage was strewn over a wide area of flat farmlands, and civilians collected the parts — some the size of small cars — as souvenirs.

"At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers," says Adm. Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war.

yep, the chinese are definitely slick operators...

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The real story of Kosovo

Kosovo in relation to Serbia

from ihc...

Following the NATO invasion of Kosovo in June of 1999, the US and its allies stood by as the Albanian mafia and gangs of criminals and paramilitaries spread out across the province and systematically cleansed Kosovo of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Romas and other ethnic minorities. They burned down houses, businesses and churches and implemented a shocking campaign to forcibly expel non-Albanians from the province. Meanwhile, the US worked closely with the Kosovo Liberation Army and backed the rise of war criminals to the highest levels of power in Kosovo. Today, Kosovo has become a hub for human trafficking, organized crime and narcosmuggling. In short, it is a mafia state. Is this the "democracy" Hillary Clinton speaks of "promoting" in "the heart" of Europe?

It didn't take long for the US to begin construction of a massive US military base, Camp Bondsteel, which conveniently is located in an area of tremendous geopolitical interest to Washington. (Among its most bizarre facilities, Bondsteel now offers classes at the Laura Bush education center, as well as massages from Thai women and all the multinational junk food you could (n)ever wish for). In November 2005, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described Bondsteel as a "smaller version of Guantanamo." Oh, and Bondsteel was constructed by former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

i always wondered why serbs, macedonians, and the people of the former yugoslavia hated clinton with such a passion... an american visiting belgrade for the first time, as happened with me in 2005, before even being dropped at the hotel, is driven past the still shattered nato bombing sites which are quietly pointed out without comment... go read this article in full and weep for the seemingly never-ending horrors inflicted on the world by my country...

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Looting in Belgrade

having walked up and down belgrade's main shopping street a fair number of times, this you tube clip cuts a bit close to home...

A video of two young women looting with gay abandon during rioting in the Serbian capital Belgrade was becoming a Balkan smash hit on the video-sharing Web site YouTube Friday.

[...]

A persistent amateur cameraman followed the women as they loaded up with chocolates at a corner shop, came out giggling, then went after designer bags, shoes and clothes at Belgrade's swankiest stores in its vandalized main shopping street.

"Get lost, stop filming," one of them shouted, so laden down with booty that clothes and bags dripped to the ground amid the broken glass below emptied storefronts.

"But you are the heroines of this protest for me," the cameraman replied sarcastically above the din of burglar alarms.

Looters seized their chance as rioters attacked Western embassies during a mass rally to protest at U.S. and European support for Kosovo's independence.

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Serbia, Kosovo and the sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade

Kosovo in relation to Serbia

what's puzzling to me, having seen numbers of u.s. embassies in other countries, is how such fortresses could possibly be breached... the embassies i've seen are armed camps with concertina wire, omnipresent security forces (both u.s. and private contractors), concrete barriers and bullet and impact-proof glass aplenty, and formidable layers of access points from street to interior offices... as with most news stories these days, something seems askew...

Angry Serbs broke into the U.S. Embassy and set fire to an office Thursday night as rioters rampaged through Belgrade's streets, putting an exclamation point of violence to a day of mass protest against Western support for an independent Kosovo.

At least 150,000 people rallied in Belgrade, waving Serbian flags and signs proclaiming "Stop USA terror," to denounce the bid by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority to create their own state out of what Serbs consider the ancient heartland of their culture.

The United States strongly criticized the violence and the Serb response. White House spokesman Dana Perino said the embassy "was attacked by thugs" and Serb police didn't do enough to stop it. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. warned Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic that it would hold them personally responsible for further damage.

Protesters burned American flags and the mob that attacked the embassy tore down the U.S. flag there. Crowds also ransacked a McDonald's, looted stores and fought with police in front of other diplomatic compounds in a display of the resentment seething in Serbia over the secession of what has been its southernmost province.

A charred body was found in the U.S. Embassy after the fire was put out, but all staff were accounted for, embassy spokeswoman Rian Harris said. Belgrade's Pink TV said the body appeared to be that of a rioter.

also, like virtually every other news story these days, this one is a textbook example of context-free journalism... nowhere is it mentioned that serbia, as the core of the former yugoslavia, has watched as its economic base, geography, culture, and pride have been whittled down to almost nothing, the most recent examples being kosovo and, in 2006, montenegro... can you imagine the uproar in the u.s. if the northern parts of new hampshire and maine were ceded to quebec or if new mexico and the part of colorado south of the arkansas river were ceded to mexico...? in fact, just such a scenario has already happened in the u.s. with the lakota nation, but, given the official u.s. policy to treat anything to do with native americans as either a joke or to ignore it altogether, few americans are even aware that it took place last december...



(see my previous posts on serbia and kosovo here...)

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Juan Cole: three world-changing events

i don't know about world-changing, but they're pretty significant...

Three things happened on Thursday that changed the world.

The victorious Pakistan People's Party, now the largest in the Pakistani lower house of parliament, has reached a deal for a coalition with two other parties. One is the Muslim League-N, loyal to former PM Nawaz Sharif, which has a quarter of seats in the federal legislature. The other is the Awami National Party, a Pushtun (Pathan) secular nationalist party.

Meanwhile the White House and the State Department appear to be confusing the Pakistani public by taking opposite stances on what needs to be done.

Second, angry Serbs attacked the US embassy in Belgrade.

Note that Neoconservative pundits kept telling us that there was something deeply wrong with Muslims for protesting when they were kicked or expelled, saying that look, the Serbs have been harmed by US policies but they don't go around attacking US embassies. I guess they'll have to find a new argument.

Third, Clinton " only managed only a draw in the debate with Obama She needed to fluster him into saying something that he should not. She failed. He looked strong, confident and presidential. It seems unlikely now that she can overcome his lead in pledged delegates.

i'll have more on serbia in the following post...

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