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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday morning made an offering to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine during its autumn festival, according to local media. The offering is amid strained relations between Japan and its neighboring countries, namely China and South Korea, due to territorial disputes and Japan's attitude toward war-related history. The shrine, which honors Japanese war dead, including 14 class- A war criminals during the World War II, is considered as the symbol of Japan's past militarism. Repeated visits to the controversial shrine by Japanese cabinet ministers and lawmakers have been a major obstacle for Japan to mend ties...

Just yesterday I heard the story of retired Army Captain William Swenson and his late in coming award of the Medal of Honor, earned in a tense combat mission, in Afghanistan in 2009, judged by many, to be one of the most, if not the most intense ever in that region. Because the outline of the story were gripping, I hunted down a handful of write-ups on the Battle of Ganjgal, and in the process, not only uncovered details that have only sparsely been alluded to, but a rare clip of raw video of one segment of the event as...

(CNSNews.com) - Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman in the Office of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, is refusing to say whether the Department of Defense would attempt to stop a civilian Catholic priest, who had been a contract chaplain for the military, from administering the last rites to a serviceman on a U.S. military base. “I feel no particular compulsion to answer outlandish, hypothetical questions in a yes/no fashion nor does the Department, generally, answer hypotheticals at all,” Breasseale said in an email. “Further, it is a matter of long standing Department policy to not address matters that are...

It’s time to repeal the National Firearms Act of 1934. The Second Amendment requires it and the American people demand it be done now! The elite in society don’t want you to know that since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence...

Last week the man in charge of America’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) defense system was fired by Barack Obama. Of course you have heard almost nothing about this from Obama’s kept media. They have no curiosity about why General Michael Carey, a man with a sterling record of service to our nation; and as a 35 year Air Force officer would be fired with no reasons offered by this anti-military Administration. In the middle of his golf tour and a few threatening statements to Ted Cruz, Barack Obama found time to flop General Carey from his position as commander of...

Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae has hinted at the possibility of adapting a cold-war West Germany's policy by buying the freedom of political prisoners and abduction victims in North Korea. West Germany paid hard currency to East Germany to win the release of political prisoners there under a scheme known as "Freikauf." Ryoo told the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Tuesday previous administrations here "discussed a Freikauf policy of the kind implemented in pre-unification Germany, and we'll also review the possibility of introducing it." Ryoo was replying to Democratic Party lawmaker Shim Jae-kwon, who asked, "Do you have...

Speculation is mounting whether the government has agreed a deal with Washington to take part in the U.S.-led missile defense program in exchange for another delay in the handover of full control of South Korean troops. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin fanned speculation Monday by telling a National Assembly audit that the military is hoping to buy SM-3 interceptor missiles that could destroy North Korean ballistic missiles. The SM-3 missiles constitute the core of the U.S.-led missile defense shield. All the signs are that the government is growing less reluctant to join the missile defense program, which China is extremely wary...

A presidential aide yesterday reiterated that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚�) and their surrounding waters are an inherent part of the territory of the Republic of China and that territorial disputes should be solved peacefully. “Taiwan has been very clear: The Diaoyutais are an inherent part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of China,” Presidential Office Secretary-General Timothy Yang (楊進添) said at the opening of the Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Security Dialogue forum in Taipei. Taiwan has consistently stated that the Diaoyutais issue should be addressed based on the principles of “safeguarding sovereignty, shelving disputes, pursuing peace and reciprocity, and promoting joint...

A tactical map of Taiwan shown in a China Central Television (CCTV) report on an ongoing People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military drill has raised concerns on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, a local news report said. Unidentified Chinese sources were quoted by the Chinese-language United Daily News as saying that CCTV military news reports tend to be carefully selected and should be taken seriously. CCTV reported over the weekend that the PLA started a large-scale exercise codenamed “Mission Action 2013B” at 7:30pm on Friday. More than 20,000 soldiers from the Chinese army, navy and air force took part in...

The media just can't help themselves it seems. The coverage over the Million Vet March in Washington , D.C. is insulting and demeaning to our military veterans. At the march, many veterans removed the barricades blocking access to the World War II Memorial and then dumped the barricades outside the White House. Conservatives such as Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz spoke to the crowd about the current government shutdown (a false moniker as only 17% of the government is actually shut down). Yet, the mainstream media continues to carry water for Obama and do everything possible to denigrate and cast...

MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called for increased protection for Russian weapons manufacturers’ intellectual property rights on the global arms market. “The world arms market is rife with examples of illegal copying of others’ designs, and we have encountered these problems on past occasions,” Putin said at a meeting of the Russian Commission for Military-Technological Cooperation with Foreign States. “Our task is to ensure a high level of protection for our science-intensive goods and intellectual property, and defend the rights of Russian producers, companies and inventions’ creators,” Putin said. The president also urged...

YANGON, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- A small bomb explosion in Myanmar's Yangon, injured one foeigner at midnight, Local witnesses said on Tuesday. The blast occurred in the ninth floor of the Traders Hotel at about 11:30 midnight (local time) on Monday, witnesses added. Currently, many media reporters have arrived this hotel, but police have not provided further information. A small bomb explosion in Thakayta, Myanmar's Yangon, injured two children Sunday evening. Another minor one occurred with a roadside bus stop kiosk in Yangon's Insein township without casualties on last Saturday midnight.

Japan has approved the sale of engine parts for use by the British Royal Navy, saying it would not violate arms exports by Tokyo, press reports said Monday. The gas turbine parts manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries will be produced for Rolls-Royce which will then supply them to the Royal Navy, the business daily Nikkei and Kyodo News said. The government said the parts were not deemed weapons as they are used in civilian aircraft and emergency generators as well as naval ships, the reports said. No official was immediately available for comment at Kawasaki Heavy on Monday, a public...

SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hatred against Japan's military ambitions and no repentance over its past atrocities deepened among South Koreans after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the conservative nationalist, received a green light from the United States for the right to collective self-defense and denied its colonial wrongdoings. According to a survey on 1,000 South Koreans aged over 19, more than 85 percent of respondents said that they oppose Japan's right of engaging in collective self-defense. Over 70 percent even said that Japan is not South Korea's ally. The poll was unveiled Monday by Rep. Kim Jae-yun of the...

My first novel, Enemies Foreign And Domestic, is available free in the Amazon Kindle store today through Thursday. Then on the next two Mondays I'm going to do it with the other two novels in the Enemies trilogy. If you haven't read my novels about defending freedom while America is being "fundamentally transformed" into a socialist police state, I hope you will take this opportunity to do so. But even more importantly, I hope you will share these links beyond the "conservative choir." We already understand why the 2nd Amendment is so critical to our freedom, but millions of reachable...

The Pentagon has been holding phony “arrival” ceremonies for fallen soldiers at a base in Hawaii for over seven years, according to recent statements made by the United States Department of Defense to NBC News. For nearly a decade, military personnel transported flag-draped coffins containing the bodies of troops killed in action from seemingly just-arrived cargo planes during ceremonies near hangar 35 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. In reality, however, the remains of those soldiers may have spent upwards of months in military custody before being paraded out during partially-fabricated ceremonial presentations carried out by the government’s Joint Prisoner of...

Moscow legislators backtracked on claims that they are considering the return of a monument honoring the founder of the Soviet secret police to the center of the city. The city parliament made no plans concerning the return of the statue of Felix "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky, legislature speaker Vladimir Platonov said on Ekho Moskvy radio Saturday. City lawmakers have no right to pitch such initiatives anyway and can only rule on their funding, said Platonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party. Fellow city lawmaker Andrei Metelsky said earlier Saturday that the Dzerzhinsky statue was a historical landmark and could...

A map of Taiwan appeared in a video feed of Guangzhou Military Area Headquarters during China Network Television's broadcast of a drill by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) codenamed “Mission Action 2013B” yesterday. An unnamed source familiar with China's military affairs stated that China has always been attentive to Taiwan's naval affairs and that the Nanjing Military Area Command (MAC) and the Guangzhou Military Area Command are in charge of observing China's southeast seas. The drill was carried out by PLA units stationed in Guangzhou; therefore, it should not be surprising to see a map of Taiwan in Guangzhou...

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英�) statement that cross-strait relations are “not international relations” during his Double Ten National Day speech has further weakened Taiwan’s sovereignty and was meant as a hint for the US and Japan not to interfere in cross-strait issues, a local academic said. “If by including such words in the National Day address Ma intends to make the cross-strait issue an internal matter and not open to international interference, it would cause serious repercussions in the days to come,” said Wong Ming-hsien (�明賢), director of Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies. Pointing to the...

Niccolo Machiavelli had been a revolutionist. He challenged traditional thought and order. He emancipated politics and ruling power from religion and moral philosophy. He delved into the mechanism behind power and human nature. What he discovered and bared was hypocrisy and deceitfulness in power and darkness and two-facedness in human nature. His empirical findings were turned into a literary masterpiece, “The Prince,” written in 1513. The Roman Catholic Church banned the book and labeled him a teacher of evil. Machiavelli willingly chose to play the bad guy with the book, making “Machiavellian” synonymous with deceit, tyranny and manipulation for personal...

North Korea used political prisoners to test deadly chemical weapons and provided them to several countries in the Middle East, according to a U.S. report. The 38 North, a division of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, updated a report titled “North Korea’s Chemical Warfare Capabilities” on its Web site based on the author’s interviews with North Korean defectors and officials worldwide for the past 25 years. A defector, who identified himself by the pseudonym Kwon Kyok, said he worked as a security official at Detention Camp 22, where he saw healthy prisoners put inside...

The Japanese government is producing video clips in 11 languages to publicize its colonial claim to Korea's Dokdo islets and other territories in dispute with neighboring countries. They are to be put on the Internet. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun on Sunday said the Japanese government is about to open a website publicizing its territorial claims to Dokdo and the Senkaku (or Diaoyu) islands. The daily said the clips are to be ready in March next year and will be put on the website in rotation.

Military authorities here worry about intelligence reports that North Korea is developing a new ground-to-ship ballistic missile with a range of 300 km which would be impossible to intercept with current weapons. "The North is developing a new ground-to-ship ballistic missile with a range of 200-300 km, an improved version of the KN-02 ground-to-ground ballistic missile," whose range is 140 km, a military source said Friday. "We're trying to verify the report." The North already has surface-to-ship cruise missiles like the KN-01 with a range of 160 km and the Silkworm missile with a range of 100 km. But ballistic...

Reports are that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is engaged in a massive, covert military buildup. An article in the Associated Press in February confirmed an open purchase order by DHS for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. According to an op-ed in Forbes, that’s enough to sustain an Iraq-sized war for over 20 years. DHS has also acquired heavily armored tanks, which have been seen roaming the streets. Evidently somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest. The question is, why? Recently revealed statements by former UK prime minister Gordon Brown at the height of the banking crisis...

The Yomiuri Shimbun The following are excerpts from an interview with Yoichi Funabashi, chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) and former editor-in-chief of The Asahi Shimbun: In our book “Worst-case Scenario for Japan,” published by RJIF this spring, we wrote that “the loss of the Senkaku Islands would lead to the loss of Okinawa.” We reached this conclusion after thinking through what could happen if Japan lost them. The row over the Senkaku Islands can be said to represent a diplomatic clash between Japan and China. Beijing is currently aiming to achieve three goals: make Japan’s effective control...

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson.

The Obama administration’s abject mean spiritedness and cruelty against our World War II veterans attempting to enter their own free open air memorial this week is beyond any words in Webster’s Dictionary! Nothing can describe the affront done to the initial Honor Flight group of 91 vets from Mississippi and their assistants when they met the new word in the urban dictionary, the word now known as “barry-cades!” “Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his fellow man.” John 15:13 is the guiding principle these brave men now in their 80s and...

Presentation of Beau (formerly Quaid) to Sgt. Brandon Tennery by Rebuilding Warriors. Quaid came to Rebuilding Warriors courtesy of German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County. Here is his profile: http://www.gsroc.org/2013/detail.gsr?id=2756

Disgraceful Secretary of Defense Hagel was following orders from the “Spite” House to make a shutdown just as painful as possible to the American public and to Military families especially. Unlawful furloughs and cutting off military benefits has been the Administration’s plan since day one. Hagel, instead of being a patriot, sided with the progressive extremists and shuttered as much of the military as he could in an act of political calculation. It was Obama and Hegel’s decision to halt death benefits for the families of troops killed in action. This is disgraceful and was done for purely political reasons....

Tensions between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other potential 2016 presidential contenders over the government shutdown were visible just beneath the surface at Friday's Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Cruz fired up the conservative crowd with a demand that they double down in their fight against ObamaCare, ripping establishment Republicans as well as Democrats for opposing him in his quest. But even in the aftermath of Cruz's fiery speech, others shied away from any discussion of the high-profile confrontation. The shutdown went unmentioned by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), both early champions of the defunding battle....

According to news reports, they expected 100,000, accommodated for 35,000 but less than half of that showed up. Another march without marchers, a.k.a. the story of the immigration movement these days. When is this movement going to realize that they need new leaders, or people who understand how to speak to a nation in the middle of a huge recession? You can't demand "legalization" for 10 milion people when there are millions of US citizens and legal residents who can't find work. Have any of these immigration leaders walked down the streets of Hispanic districts in the US? Are they...

OSAKA – The Defense Ministry carried out a ballistic missile interceptor drill Wednesday night at Expo Park in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, the third such exercise in a public space and the first in western Japan. The drill, which was open to the press, involved the Air Self-Defense Force’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system, which is designed to shoot down missiles that elude interceptors launched at sea from Maritime Self-Defense Force Aegis destroyers. Similar exercises were conducted in two Tokyo parks. About 50 Self-Defense Forces personnel and 20 vehicles from the ASDF’s Hakusan post in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, were mobilized for the...

Full operational control of South Korean troops should not be handed over to Seoul in haste and out of political considerations, a U.S. academic says. Michael O'Hanlon, a fellow at the conservative Brookings Institution, made the recommendation in an article titled "Don't Rush the U.S.-Korea Command Change" on Tuesday. "In Korea, our preeminent concerns need to be unity of command and effectiveness of our combined deterrent against a still very potent North Korean threat," he said. "Ensuring fair burden-sharing is not the principal prism through which this issue should be viewed." The original decision was a political one, because then-President...

Washington's decision to support Tokyo's military expansion plans is putting President Park Geun-hye into a bind since she has been trying to persuade Japan to take responsibility for its World War II atrocities. Park has often spoken of an "Asian paradox," where there is a yawning disconnect between growing economic interdependence on the one hand and chilly diplomatic ties and poor security cooperation between South Korea, China and Japan. Park believes Japan holds the key to resolving the paradox. When she met U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week, she pointed out that constant Japanese attempts to whitewash the island...

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Thursday expressed support for Iran's participation in peace talks on the Syria issue. She told a regular press briefing, "Proper resolution of the Syria issue will be impossible without the participation and support of regional countries, especially countries with leverage over concerned parties in Syria." On Monday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States might agree with Iran's participation in a potential Geneva II talks over Syria if Tehran backs the "Geneva I Communique" which called for a transitional government in Syria. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said on Tuesday...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave tacit backing to the Philippines' stance in a tense maritime dispute with China on Thursday, saying that all countries had a right to seek arbitration to resolve competing territorial claims. The Philippines, a U.S. ally, has angered China by launching an arbitration case with the United Nations to challenge the legal validity of Beijing's sweeping claims over the resource-rich South China Sea. The United States has refrained from taking sides in the dispute, one of Asia's biggest security headaches, but has expressed a national interest in freedom of navigation...

The Russian-Japanese relations are going through tough times. There is no war, but there is no peace treaty either. The current state of affairs has to do with the fact that the Russian state border in the Kuriles was not recognized by Japan and a number of other countries. Over 65 years this border has not been legally protected. These islands can be called a conflict and destabilizing point in the Asia -Pacific region. The Russian and Japanese leaders discussed issues of bilateral relations on October 7th. According to the press-secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, the parties paid...

The MSM and the conservative media are treating the scandal very differently. To read about the story in the MSM, the Pentagon had no choice about withholding payment of the death benefit from the grieving families and denying them a plane ride to Dover AFB to meet the bodies of the soldiers killed in battle. It seems that some unknown entity we'll call "Mr. Government Closer" found a rule that said that death benefits can't be paid, but that the Pentagon can keep the military golf course open so that President Obama can play. Of course nobody told Obama anything,...

History is full of wars beginning by mistake. Please read the linked history. My intention with this post is not to rehash who was right or wrong, but to make the point that this Sunday's super rally at the DC veterans' memorials is full of the echoes of history. http://www.theirishstory.com/2012/01/29/today-in-irish-history-january-30-1972-bloody-sunday-in-derry/ In January 1972, a march was called by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in for Sunday January 30th in Derry. Its purpose was to protest against internment without trial, which had been introduced in August of the previous year. The city was already in a state of low-intensity conflict. Since...

North Korea has numerous underground missile silos around Mount Paektu, according to South Korean government sources. Several South Korean government sources confirmed yesterday that the North has numerous underground missile launch facilities around 2,000 meters (2,190 yards) south of Mount Paektu. The silos, they said, were constructed in the mid-2000s and were determined to have been completed recently. “Since there are many places where the silos have been constructed, it is unclear whether all of them are launch-capable facilities or whether some are emergency facilities in case of attack,” said a government official. “Based on the size and location of...

It has been 20 years of negotiations with North Korea and all we have is a worse situation. Those who follow events with North Korea and those responsible for resolving issues with North Korea are fatigued and frustrated. Those moments when you thought you accomplished something, like the Agreed Framework in 1994 and the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement, were fleeting. With that fatigue and frustration comes a sense that resolving issues with North Korea has been too frustrating and has taken too much of our time. This sentiment is understandable and technically correct. In reality, however, it's wrong. It's...

US officials claim that the government's massive data collection has protected the country from terrorist attacks. After The Guardian's first revelations about the National Security Agency's digital surveillance programs, Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Representative Mike Rogers, head of the House Intelligence Committee, jumped to the NSA's defense by pointing to two terrorist plots supposedly foiled by the organization's digital surveillance programs. Lawyers and policemen involved in these cases disputed these claims, but this did not keep NSA chief Keith Alexander from taking it up a notch by raising the number of foiled attacks to...

(Reuters) - The United States and Vietnam on Thursday signed a pact that would allow the transfer of nuclear technology to the Southeast Asian nation and open the way for U.S. investment in the burgeoning industry, in another sign that Washington is seeking stronger economic and strategic ties in the region. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S.-Vietnam Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement would allow U.S. firms to tap Vietnam's future nuclear power market, although the State Department said the deal will not allow Vietnam to enrich or reprocess U.S.-origin nuclear materials. "This agreement will create numerous opportunities for...

TAIPEI - Taiwan has conducted a natural gas and oil survey in the disputed Spratly Islands, a legislator said Wednesday, the latest in a string of moves that risk stoking tensions over the South China Sea archipelago. A team of technicians from the state-run CPC Corporation, Taiwan sailed to Taiping, the island in the chain that is controlled by Taipei, on Monday, legislator Lin Yu-fang's office said in a statement. "They completed the survey on Tuesday afternoon and were on their way back to Taiwan escorted by a naval fleet" composed of a dock landing ship and a frigate, the...

(Reuters) - China will be able to fend off U.S. forces and successfully invade Taiwan by 2020, the island's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday, the first time Taipei has given such a precise timetable for the threat it says it faces. China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since Nationalist forces, defeated by the Communists, fled to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has never ruled out the use of force to bring it under its control. While relations have improved dramatically since the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou...

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has replaced officials holding almost half of the nation's key posts in an attempt to strengthen his control over the country, a South Korean report showed on Tuesday. Kim has changed the officials filling 97 out of 218 military, party and government posts since he took over the communist dynasty in December 2011, the South's Unification Ministry said in a report. He has often used a "demotion and reinstatement" process in reshuffling military posts in an attempt to tighten control over the military, the ministry said. "This means Kim has completed the dynastic succession...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei – Southeast Asian leaders opened an annual summit with Asia-Pacific counterparts on Wednesday, a gathering where China was expected to take advantage of the absence of the U.S. president to showcase its rising global clout and promote trade yet still talk tough on regional territorial disputes. Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were to first meet among themselves in Brunei before the leaders of eight other countries — including China, Japan, South Korea and India — joined them for two days of closed-door talks, pageantry and photo-ops in this tiny oil-rich kingdom. President Barack...

Obama’s game is simple, to make the shutdown as painful as possible to average Americans and blame the GOP for it. Every day he is lecturing us about how the GOP can open up the government by passing the budget that he demands. The house GOP/conservatives have countered by sending the Obama Senate separate spending bills that would stop Obama antics to hurt ordinary Americans. Naturally Obama rejects those. The GOP is also countering by calling Obama out on these specific actions, like his kicking WWII vets out of the WWII National Memorial and American citizens out of the DC...

Well, I didn’t think I could get any more pissed today, but I’m there. First, I hear that Obama has blocked the death gratuity for families of fallen Rangers. But, I was heartened to hear a private foundation stepped up to the plate to help: After families of fallen U.S. military personnel were denied benefits due to the government shutdown, the Fisher House Foundation has stepped forward to help cover travel and funeral costs to help families receive the remains of their loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. The Fisher House has been providing housing and...

It’s been 8 days since the WWII veterans were locked out of the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. A plethora of restrictions, blockages and shut downs have blanketed the nation since then. They are for the expressed purpose of, as one Park Ranger put it, “Make life as difficult for people as we can.” What kind of administration orders that? What is their end game? Regardless, the result is a lot of pain and suffering for people directly involved in the shutdowns and restrictions. Is this behavior abusive? It certainly appears to be promulgated to produce the maximum...