Codename of the Week: Vigilant Shield
From William Arkin's Early Warning Blog / Commentary at the Washington Post - Russia Supports North Korea in Nuclear War.
Quote:
When nuclear war breaks out in December between the United States, Russia and North Korea, American taxpayers should be furious.
The war is just another U.S. military exercise.
But this one is particularly childish, a massive waste of money and an insult to the country.
With North Korea and Iran teetering on the edge, amidst a war in Iraq that seems to have no end and no solution, with Afghanistan slipping away and with an ongoing global "war" against terrorism, the American military is preparing for its largest combined drill of the year in December and all it can come up with is -- all it can get excited about -- is nuclear war.
It would be bad enough if some U.S. nuclear command were running such an exercise as part of an American threat to Pyongyang at a time when nuclear testing is threatened.
But instead what we have is the routine annual "homeland defense" exercise of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which sponsors "Vigilant Shield 07."
One might think that NORTHCOM would be focused like a laser on preparing for another Sept. 11 or another Katrina, working through the details of just dealing with the obvious. Alas, some bomb going off somewhere, some natural disaster, doesn't justify missile defenses or other big ticket items like submarines, nor satellites and "early warning," nor the new tricks of cyber-warfare...
