Before It’s News – by Mort Amsel
Russian Navy spokesmen said Friday that the fleet building up in the Mediterranean can answer any development after the Smetlivy guided missile destroyer set sail for the Mediterranean. DEBKAfile: Since Wednesday, Moscow has reported six warships have been sent out to reinforce the Russian fleet on hand opposite Syria.
Western naval sources reported Friday that a Chinese landing craft, the Jinggangshan (photo below), with a 1,000-strong marine battalion had reached the Red Sea en route for the Mediterranean off Syria. With a displacement of 19,000 tons, the amphibious warship is 210 meters long and 28 meters wide and can carry helicopters, armored fighting vehicles, boats and landing craft as well as nearly 1,000 soldiers, Jiangxi Daily said.
Why the 1,000 Marines? Definitely a show of force I would think. Fascinating stuff, I don’t think China has ever done something like this before, especially outside its own territorial waters. It definitely shows that China is an emerging world power.
Meanwhile, Turkey has sent more troops to its border with Syria.
Obama is fast approaching a crossroads, whether in American arrogance and stupidity to continue the escalation or to seek to mollify two superpowers showing unusual belligerence and aggressive defensive posturing.
Even old tie eating Saachivilli is crapping blue bricks being told of the huge build up of troops and armour on the Russian side of Ossetia.
We don’t know how many boots Putin has sent to Syria, there were articles of three Marine commando’s being sent there via Tartus, then the unconfirmed stories of special forces being sent in to hunt down western agents, Tartus is considered Russian sovereign territory and Putin has all the beachhead he will ever need.
And do we not remember the shock of the US Navy when a Russian built Chinese hunter killer sub surfaced bang in the middle of a carrier screen undetected? Like Russia, China has a shedload of very efficient submarines as do Iran as well but they don’t even have to get close, they can fire Yakhont carrier killer missiles from as far as 300km’s away and this is a missile that cannot be evaded, jammed, shot down due to its hypersonic speed, the kinetic power alone is enough with a conventional warhead to obliterate a large ship into dust, America’s navy are sitting there like ducks at a shoot.
Obama has got to see that he cannot win this one because we know what his response will be if US navy ships are obliterated, he will go nuclear, probably hitting Syria as a warning and Russia will hit Israel or Saudi Arabia in retaliation, this is the line in the sand Putin has drawn for us and these madmen will take us into hell with them because of what? They don’t want to lose face? They want to act big and tough?