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Red Flag Over the Atlantic China angling...a U.S. airbase in the Azores
National Review Online ^ | November 5, 2012 | Gordon G. Chang

Posted on 11/17/2012 7:55:17 AM PST by daniel1212

On June 27, a plane carrying Wen Jiabao made a “technical” stop on the island of Terceira, in the Azores... the Chinese premier spent four hours touring the remote Portuguese outpost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Wen’s Terceira walkabout, which followed a four-nation visit to South America, largely escaped notice at the time, but alarm bells should have immediately gone off in Washington and in European capitals...

Terceira, however, has one big attraction for Beijing: Air Base No. 4. Better known as Lajes Field, the facility where Premier Wen’s 747 landed in June is jointly operated by the U.S. Air Force and its Portuguese counterpart. If China controlled the base, the Atlantic would no longer be secure. From the 10,865-foot runway on the northeast edge of the island, Chinese planes could patrol the northern and central portions of the Atlantic and thereby cut air and sea traffic between the U.S. and Europe. Beijing would also be able to deny access to the nearby Mediterranean Sea.

And China could target the American homeland...

Lajes is certainly the reason Wen went out of his way to win friends in Terceira. For years his country has been trying to make inroads into the Azores and waiting for opportunities to pounce. There is nothing the Chinese can do if the U.S. stays, but Pentagon budget cutters, according to some observers, are planning to make Lajes a “ghost base.”

At one time, the facility was critically important. During World War II, the airfield was instrumental in hunting U-boats, and in the Cold War the base helped the West track the Soviets. Lajes was a busy transit point in the Gulf War. It was one of the spots where the Space Shuttle could have landed in an emergency.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: azores; china; communism; military; sequestration
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To: cpa4you

We do not need the Chinese in the Atlantic, no freaking way


21 posted on 11/17/2012 11:12:19 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: Ronald_Magnus

Big thing was for everybody to pick up a few cases of Portuguese wine on the way back to Rota.


We used to load 100 to 200 cases on a KC-135.


22 posted on 11/17/2012 11:21:13 AM PST by OwenKellogg
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To: Tallguy

Governments colluding together is not the same thing as free trade. History shows that the more two nations engage in market commerce with each other, the less likely they are to go to war. War is often proceeded by protectionism and embargoes, where free trade brings peace. Forgive me for believing that free market capitalism is the best agent for peace and that war is just another failed big-government program. I thought people on this forum believed in small government. I used to be a hawk too, but people like Adam Smith and Milton Friedman convinced me otherwise.


23 posted on 11/17/2012 11:59:48 AM PST by LifeComesFirst (http://rw-rebirth.blogspot.com/)
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To: Gaffer

Stationed there in 85-88 and went back 95-96.

Excellent golf course, loved the food and the people actually liked Americans.

Easy to get morale leave to Europe or the states. Went to Germany numerous times.

Things must have really changed since you were there in the Vietnam era.


24 posted on 11/17/2012 12:38:33 PM PST by hattend (Firearms and ammunition...the only growing industries under the Obama regime.)
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To: LifeComesFirst

My bad. I was focused more on the word “trade” as opposed to “free trade” — a historically rare form.


25 posted on 11/17/2012 12:41:22 PM PST by Tallguy (Hunkered down in Pennsylvania.)
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To: daniel1212

The Russians are building Air and naval bases in Cuba, Venezuela, and Trinadad/Tobago, as well as Nicaragua.


26 posted on 11/17/2012 5:32:49 PM PST by Thunder90 (All posts soley represent my own opinion.)
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To: Gaffer

Not sure what you`re driving at.. the space-A flight opportunities out of Lajes were great.


27 posted on 11/17/2012 6:29:03 PM PST by ScottinVA (I've never been more disgusted with American voters.)
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To: Thunder90

Thorns in the flesh.

“Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. “ (Hosea 8:3-4)

HOW EXCESSIVE GOVERNMENT KILLED ANCIENT ROME
Bruce Bartlett

In the end, there was no money left to pay the army, build forts or ships, or protect the frontier. The barbarian invasions, which were the final blow to the Roman state in the fifth century, were simply the culmination of three centuries of deterioration in the fiscal capacity of the state to defend itself. Indeed, many Romans welcomed the barbarians as saviors from the onerous tax burden.

In conclusion, the fall of Rome was fundamentally due to [rejection of the Gospel] economic deterioration resulting from excessive taxation, inflation, and over-regulation. Higher and higher taxes failed to raise additional revenues because wealthier taxpayers could evade such taxes while the middle class—and its taxpaying capacity—were exterminated. Although the final demise of the Roman Empire in the West (its Eastern half continued on as the Byzantine Empire) was an event of great historical importance, for most Romans it was a relief. - http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjv14n2-7.html


28 posted on 11/17/2012 7:23:33 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: yldstrk

We don’t have the authority to stop them anymore than they have theauthority to stop us. But, I take your point. Let’s hope Obozo does!?

We really don’t need another one of his foreign policy “successes!”


29 posted on 11/18/2012 4:50:14 AM PST by cpa4you (CPA4YOU)
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To: ScottinVA

I’m not talking Space-A..(although I spent four days in Taipei trying to get a ride to Kadena watching officers with kids going to a swim meet on Okinawa and others with special privileges getting preference).

I was talking about the morale flights. To Germany, to Italy, to Canary Islands, etc. They had a base plane (an old C-54) that would go on ‘training flights’ loaded with “moralees”....needed to be on a waiting list....guess who got to go? Why those lifers that were there on 5-10 year terms with their wives and kids. A poor airman there for 12-15 months never had a chance to move up on the list.

It was a chief reason why I never went lifer, even though serving over 8 years. Enlisted and Officers with dependents were treated much much better than singles (e.g., a single Tech Sergeant got 400lbs whole baggage allowance, ‘families’ got TONS).

I got smart, got out and went to college. I make much much more now and pay in state taxes than I EVER made in a year in the military.


30 posted on 11/18/2012 8:34:32 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: hattend

See Post 30.


31 posted on 11/18/2012 8:37:25 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: Gaffer

Well, it has definitely changed. The morale flights out of Lajes were Space-A on C-135, C-5, C-141 and the weekly Navy medivac C-9 on it’s way to Rota. There was also a charter 727 or L1011 back to Philadelphia on a weekly basis. the base didn’t have it’s own military transport.

If you were in EML (Emergengy or Morale Leave) you were on the Space-A flight ahead of everybody but PCS passengers or family members of deceased military members being carried in the hold. You would bump normal leave passengers, retirees and family members traveling with normal leave military.

Your standing in the EML list was based on how long you had been on the Rock and rank didn’t have it’s privileges.

So, yes, I would say it had changed since Vietnam era. I don’t know how it works now as I haven’t been to Lajes since 1996. Eventually I will get back there. I have promised my wife that we would visit everywhere I was stationed in my career.


32 posted on 11/18/2012 11:03:42 AM PST by hattend (Firearms and ammunition...the only growing industries under the Obama regime.)
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To: hattend

Flying Space-A on MAC - Military Airlift Command, aka “Maybe Airplane Come” was an adventure, indeed.


33 posted on 11/18/2012 1:18:52 PM PST by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam.")
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