Russia Sending Warship Through Panama Canal In Symbolic Move

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) — Russia said Wednesday it is sending a warship through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II, a short journey loaded with symbolic weight: the destroyer will dock at a former U.S. naval base, showcasing Russia's growing influence in the region.

Russia appears to be relishing the idea of stopping at what was long a symbol of U.S. global power; the Russian Navy announced it would visit "the Rodman naval base" — a name that the host nation, Panama has not used since taking over the base from the United States in 1999.

The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko is scheduled to enter the Panama Canal on Friday morning and arrive late in the day at what Panama calls the Balboa Naval Base.

"It is a sort of tit-for-tat for Russia's perception of U.S. meddling in Georgia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe," and has little military purpose, said Adam Isacson, an analyst for the Washington-based Center for International Policy.

Russia, like the United States, already has ports with access to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

"Sending a destroyer through the Panama canal obviously has a lot of symbolic significance (and) this is primarily symbolism," said analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/bal-russia1203,0,4285038.story

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[jody]

2. From a military perspective in a major conventional war, the Panama Canal is an anachronism and an

easy target for early destruction via smart weapons including man-portable ones.

[happyslug]

3. From an economic point of view is is very important

Reminds me of the storied of the soldiers of both sides in WWII, fighting over houses. No damage to the house, for both sides wanted it as a place to sleep and stay warm, but extensive shooting to take and keep the house. Like the canal today, these homes had no real military value, but important to the troops who looked for a warm place to sleep.

My point is the Canal has limited military usability, but the person who controls the canal has a huge economic advantage. Thus, while a smart bomb can easily knock it out, the canal true value is the civilian ships that go through the canal. That value both sides in most future conflicts will value more then any military usability.

[jody]

4. Please explain how Russian naval ships passing through an international canal pose an economic

threat?

If Panama wanted to deny passage to a nation's commercial vessels, it could do that without Russian naval support subject to existing treaties and international law.

IMO greater economic threats are pirates from Somali and other third world countries and drug cartels freely transiting U.S. borders.

[ohio2007]

5. They go through the Suez..and they gotta pay the fee like everyone else

Somehow I think the great white Russian fleet is not headed to Somalia afterall.


that is with oil tumbling under $50 bbl, the bigger half of the great show of force fleet won't be wasting time and $$ treading water with its nuclear reactors.

http://russiatoday.com/news/news/34207

[happyslug]

7. I was commenting on your statement that the CANAL was of no military advantage

It is the CANAL that has a huge economic value, and keeping it in use can be looked with favor by ALL SIDES in a Conflict. Now the US is not dependent on the Canal as it was during WWII (Today's super carriers can NOT go through it) but the Canal is valuable in producing TAXES in the US i.e. we ship a lot of goods through that Canal as do a lot of Latin Countries, in fact it is of more value to the various Latin Countries of the area then it is to the US. That is the point I was trying to make, its military usability is limited do to its size and the fact it is a lock based Canal (Locks can be destroyed) but its economic value higher then it ever has been.

[jody]

9. I did not say "the CANAL was of no military advantage". I said it was "an anachronism and an easy

target for early destruction".

That is my opinion of course but destroying just one of the three sets of locks would block the canal.

I believe that is an easy task with today's assortment of weapons on the international black market.

You said "From an economic point of view is is very important" and I agree but my point was about the canal's vulnerability.

I hope we never have find out if my opinion is correct.

[AllentownJake]

6. Welcome to the White House President Obama

George W. Bush has left you with a shit load more crazy than when Bill Clinton passed the Presidency to him.

[Jambalaya]

8. Li Ka Shing and Hutchison Whampao

I have seen very little on the blogs about LiKa Shing and his role in the Panama Canal,but truly he's the Dragon in the Living Room-going back to when Bill Clinton was President,and officially signed the canal back to Panama.The return of Panama actually was inaugurated under Jimmy Carter,but signed over Dec.1999 by Clinton at the end of his Presidency. LiKa Shing is interwoven into the Superport in Lazaro Cardenas ,Mexico also. His afilliation with the Chinese military and defense is well documented and his holdings are almost unimaginable in their breadth and scope.Yet his influence overshadows even his immense and unimaginable wealth. Russia and China..mmmh...The most extensive cache articles on this subject is at Newsmax,oddly enough,and World Net Daily. Not my usual fare,but the info is extensive and extremely informative. Well worth a trip. Just type in LiKa Shing and Panama Canal.

[Jambalaya]

10. The Red Dragon

'Hong Kong tycoon's secret trade deals
Billionaire running Panama Canal a Chinese government 'minister'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 18, 2000
1:00 am Eastern


By Charles Smith
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

[Judi Lynn]

12. Why would you, as a Democrat, want to post anything from World Net Daily here?

WorldNetDaily's Sour (And Immature) Grapes
WND writers take the sore-loser approach to Barack Obama's victory by claiming that those who voted for him are immature. But isn't such petulant whining a sign of a lack of maturity as well?

By Terry Krepel
Posted 12/1/2008

After the 2000 presidential election, conservative activists painted Al Gore as a sore loser (man) for questioning results in Florida and not automatically ceding defeat to George W. Bush.
Fast-forward to 2008: WorldNetDaily, having seen its hated candidate, Barack Obama, win decisively, goes the sore-loser route by portraying those who voted for Obama as immature.

The tone was set by Craige McMillan in a Nov. 6 column: "The sense of betrayal I feel at this time from my fellow citizens is beyond comprehension, let alone description. I had assumed not more than 35 percent of our fellow citizens would vote for an eloquent socialist gasbag with an empty resume, a carefully sanitized past and a massive wealth redistribution plan."

~snip~
If it's only liberals who engage in "personal attacks, name-calling, accusing, yelling, discrediting, or changing the subject" when confronted with a contrary, opinion, then WND editor Joseph Farah must be a liberal too, as ConWebWatch found out: In response to an article published at the Huffington Post detailing WND's history, Farah responded by calling ConWebWatch editor Terry Krepel a "talent-challenged slug" who is "possessed of an almost demonic, spiteful, hateful jealousy" and engaging in "lying trash talk" (while identifying no factual errors in the article) and disparagingly referred to the Huffington Post as the "Huffington Puffington Post." Similarly, in a Nov. 25 column, Farah attacked a blogger for a weekly newspaper in Wisconsin who had criticized WND as a "simpleton" who "pontificates on things he doesn't understand in between blogging about high school football games" while denigrating his paper as "insignificant," a "pathetic journalistic institution" and "that rag."

More:
http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2008/wndimmature.html

[Jambalaya]

16. Analytic Neutrality

Thanks for your interest.Don't shoot the messenger. Avoid the fallacy of group think.You don't learn anything new and useful if you never venture into the adversary's turf.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Too bad your drive to be flippant isn't matched by a determination to be truthful.

World Net Daily is crap. There's nothing useful about it for non-lunatic, non-a-hole readers. Swift Boat maggot, JEROME CORSI is their shining journalistic star. From Wikipedia:

~snip~
WND was founded in 1997 by Joseph Farah. In 1991, after resigning as editor of the Sacramento Union, Farah co-founded the Western Journalism Center, known for its promotion of conservative causes, with James H. Smith, former publisher of the Sacramento Union.<2> In 1994 and 1995, foundations controlled by conservative financier and former owner of the Union Richard Mellon Scaife gave $330,000 to the Center.<3> By May 1997, Farah set his eyes on the internet and set up WorldNetDaily as a project of the Center. In 1999, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., with offices in Cave Junction, Oregon, was incorporated in Delaware as a for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Western Journalism Center with the backing of $4.5 million from investors.<4> As a result, Farah and the Western Journalism Center possess the bulk of the WND stock, but the remainder is owned by about 75 private investors. In August 2001, Business Week cited Farah who claimed WND had begun to turn a profit.<5> Currently the webpage has a staff of approximately 25 people.<6>

Description
WorldNetDaily is a for-profit website that provides primarily evangelical-conservative-oriented news and editorials, publishes letters to the editor, maintains forums and conducts a daily poll. Besides providing articles authored by its own staff, the site links to news from other publications. Notable staff includes Aaron Klein - Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Lester Kinsolving - White House Correspondent and Staff Writer Jerome Corsi.

The website's Commentary page features editorials from the site's founder, Joseph Farah and other social conservative authors such as Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, David Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Chuck Norris. It also features weekly columns by libertarians Walter Williams, Vox Day, and Ilana Mercer, as well as liberal Bill Press and pro-life moderate Nat Hentoff.<7> The site also offers products for sale, advertising these products alongside related news stories. Typically these are products sold by its related book service, WND Book Service; publishing house, WND Books; or its retail operation, ShopNetDaily. The site also contains advertisements for WND's printed magazine, Whistleblower, and other companies. WND also operates the G2 Bulletin, a subscription-only website described as an "intelligence resource" for "insights into geo-political and geo-strategic developments."

WorldNetDaily says it is the "the largest independent, full-service newssite in the world."<8> WND currently claims eight million visitors a month to its website.<9> As of November 8, 2006, it is listed by Alexa as the most popular website in the "Conservatism > News and Media" category.<10> WorldNetDaily articles are often linked by other websites, including the popular Drudge Report.

From July 2000 to early 2002, WorldNetDaily offered a service called TalkNetDaily, which provided an Internet audio stream of a daily talk show by then-WND columnist Geoff Metcalf.<11>

WND has been criticized as unreliable<12><13> and "far-right."<14> Notably, WND columnist Jerome Corsi was criticized for his publications, and Farah has defended him.<15>

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldNetDaily

~~~~~~~~~~

World Net Daily strikes again!
Not long ago, groundless paranoid conspiracy allegations were floated against John McCain. What irritated me was not the idea that some crackpot would be making the allegations, but that such claims are being treated as "news" -- and are then believed by bloggers who ought to know better. In the case of the McCain allegations (he was said to have turned traitor and to have been living high in Hanoi with two prostitutes while pretending to be a prisoner), the smear was easily debunked by Ed Morrissey. (And by one of McCain's fellow POWs.)

Obviously, no responsible person should take these kinds of smears seriously, and normally I wouldn't. After all, I don't spend much time debunking 9/11 Truther business, as it's beneath me.

But when they are repeated by news outlets that should know better, when bloggers who should know better take them seriously, at that point a certain line is crossed.

Just as I couldn't ignore the outrageous smear against John McCain, I find myself unable to ignore the latest outrageous and unsubstantiated accusation against Barack Obama.

Once again, the biggest culprit turns out to be WorldNetDaily. (Via Shaun Mullen at the Moderate Voice who treats the link with the skepticism it deserves.)

Apparently, WND is proud to break this "story" -- and their readers are congratulating them:

Today the conservative website prides itself on being the only news organization to report - and by report, I mean use the headline 'Sleaze charge: I took drugs, had homo sex with Obama' - that some guy in Illinois posted a YouTube video alleging that he had sex and used drugs with Sen. Barack Obama in November 1999.

Then World Net Daily goes so far as to post a poll on the site that says, 'What do you think of WND being the only news agency publishing Obama drug-sex story?'

The people have spoken, and apparently 38.83% of WND readers (very different from Washington Blade readers, mind you) say, "This is something we simply call 'news,' and obviously WND is doing its fierce, independent job as the news leader."

Way to go, WND. The validity of a home-recorded YouTube video titled "Obama's Limo Sex & Drug Party" surely can't be disputed.

More:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/02/post_658.html

[TheLastMohican]

11. Russia is pressuring Obama early on

to stay away from any support of failed orange and rose coups in Ukraine and Georgia.
The Georgian pal's political career is finished and it is a question of time when he will be replaced.
The Yushenko guy is also on the ropes enjoy measly 3% popular support, can you get any lower than that? He will be also replaced in 2010.

Russia is sending a clear message - all your "color revolutions" on our borders lead to nothing useful but instability and raise tensions.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Interesting.

[sarcasmo]

14. Am I the only one who sees this as a direct threat?

How far is Cuba from the Panama Canal? Remember the Cuban missile crisis?

[Jambalaya]

15. You're Not Robinson Crusoe

Sarcasmo.No,you're NOT alone. THAT'S why I posted the World Net Daily info upthread. I knew I'd get flack,but there is excellent info in those archives going back almost a decade. And LiKa Shimng has become even MORE powerful. My grandma used to say,"If the Good Lord means you to know it,he can dispatch the devil himself to deliver the message." Now,I'm not the Devil,and while I stated I wasn't a fan of WND,denying that they have done yeoman's work and research NO ONE ELSE WOULD touch regarding the security implications on this matter would be denying valuable info. Rejecting out of hand along "party" lines was a Republican trait,or so I thought.

[No Elephants]

21. You cannot believe anything WND says, though.

[Judi Lynn]

22. "Rejecting out of hand along "party" lines" has nothing whatsoever to do with repulsion for a P.O.S.

masquerading as any part of a journalistic effort.

Nothing about WorldNetDaily has merit.

Anyone with a functioning brain can recognize what they are a mile away, wouldn't have time or interest in looking at it, no more than reading the National Enquirer, or any other tabloid.

[Jambalaya]

26. Brain Function

Ms. Lynn,my brain functions well,although perhaps not as well as it once did.But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. As a newbie here, I read the rules of engagement before registering and I seem to recall something about insults not being tolerated. If you choose to reject the info,so be it ,but your rudeness reflects poorly upon you,not WND,nor myself.

[RethugAssKicker]

17. No. Its just a message that says..."If you can come in my

backyard.....I can come in yours".....We are the agressors.

[ohio2007]

18. in a word...... yes

well, you and the knee jerk media.
;)

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94S1UMG1&show_article=1

Russia can't afford to increase a show of force presence in the western hemisphere when a contender for worlds top dog is on their border


http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/04/asia/AS-China-Piracy.php

China must sense a real threat to their african oil pipeline shipping lanes. And with the price bottoming out, paying security at the fields will increase as stability bought by high oil prices decrease

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. There has been only one rogue nation for many years. And it isn't China.

Also, I don't think China would want for manpower of its own to secure its fields.

[ronnie624]

27. Probably not.

No doubt there are many millions of U.S. Americans who have been bamboozled by a lifetime of exposure to propaganda designed to manufacture consent for U.S. imperialism, and foster the belief that Latin America is our "backyard".

There's no need for pissing your panties, however. Passing through the Panama canal is perfectly legal, and Russia has no history of attacking the United States.

[Winterblues]

19. With the Northwest Passage now open during the summer The Canal is not as important anymore.

:shrug: Russia is becoming a super power once again , I just hope we can remain friendly with them.

[SpiralHawk]

23. Yet another Republicon FAIL

ptoooey

[roody]

25. Can Russia really relish something?