State Department: On Submarine Missiles

Background

Some 39,000 lawyers work in federal cabinet agencies in various capacities. The State Department depends heavily on its attorneys.  Lawyers are often noted for their few virtues, including fairness and impartiality.  Some things lawyers generally are often associated with, however, have been penchants for citing complexity and tolerance for political doubletalk.
U.S. foreign policy has been neither predictable nor transparent, at least to those of us who have not paid dearly to influence it.

Now, Clear as Mud?

- INDIA -

India's ambitions for a sea-based nuclear deterrent were acknowledged in 1998.    
March 7, 2016 -  India conducts ballistic missile launch in the Bay of Bengal

March 22, 2016 - India successfully test-fired the K-4 submarine-launched ballistic missile earlier this month.  The missile was launched from a submerged replica of a submarine, from water 9 meters (around 30 feet) deep. 

March 25, 2016 - US criticises India over nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile K-4   Days after India conducted the submarine launch of the nuclear-capable ballistic missile (SLBM) K-4, the United States expressed concern citing risks to nuclear security and regional stability.  

- IRAN -

July 15, 2015 - Things We Must Keep In Mind About Iran Nuclear Deal
 1) It Would Curb Iran's Nuclear Programs, 2) But It Still Allows Iran To Continue Enrichment
3)  House Speaker John Boehner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among them — believe that this is a bad deal because it doesn't entirely dismantle Iran's nuclear program.  In a speech to the nation, President Obama said that while that is true, this deal extends Iran's "breakout time" — or the time it would take the country to make enough highly enriched material for a nuclear bomb. The White House estimates that at the moment, Iran's breakout time is two to three months.  
4)  Iran has a longstanding history of cheating on international agreements 
Iran has a long and proud history of cheating on its international nuclear agreements. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who once monitored Iran’s nuclear program, observed in 2013: “If there is no undeclared installation today .  .  . it will be the first time in 20 years that Iran doesn’t have one.” Indeed, Iran’s main enrichment facility at Natanz was a covert facility that was only discovered in 2002, by the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian opposition group. A year later, the European Union struck a deal with Iran to prevent it from spinning its centrifuges and beginning to enrich uranium. Yet for much of the deal, Iran was busy mastering its uranium supply chain. “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran,” wrote Iran’s nuclear negotiator and now president Hassan Rouhani, “we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion] facility at Isfahan.

- NORTH KOREA -

January 6, 2016 - North Korea announces it conducted a fourth nuclear weapons test, claiming to have detonated a hydrogen bomb for the first time. February 7, 2016 - North Korea launches a long-range ballistic missile carrying what it has said is an earth observation satellite in defiance of United Nations sanctions barring it from using ballistic missile technology.February 7, 2016 - North Korea is believed to have more than 1,000 missiles of varying capabilities, including long-range missiles which could one day strike the US.  

March 26, 2016 - North Korea released a new propaganda video Saturday showing a nuclear strike on Washington and then threatened South Korea with a “merciless military strike” for slandering leader Kim Jong-Un.

Submarines are always silent and strange

Not All We Need to Know - Part 2

Updates below are from Part I  [bold and color emphasis below are mine]:

Update  3 - February 24, 2014

Official: Heart attack and respiratory failure

Seychelles police said samples were being sent to nearby Mauritius for analysis to establish if the men had consumed "a substance" that could have caused a heart attack or respiratory failure.     BBC News

Update  #2 (FINAL)  February 22, 2014

Official: Drugs, needles found with dead officers on Maersk  - Sat (CNN)

"Traces of narcotics and hypodermic needles found with the bodies of two American security officers on the container ship Maersk Alabama suggested the deaths resulted from drug overdoses, a Seychelles government official has told CNN.   ... A Seychelles police statement said that despite media accounts of traces of drugs, authorities have not released any reports suggesting the deaths were the result of an overdose. The statement, however, did not deny that drugs were found or suggest an alternative cause of death."

"Based on our experience with the contractor, this is an isolated incident," Maersk said. But it said new drug tests would start immediately and the company's shore-leave policy was under review. 

Lt. Cmdr. Jamie Frederick, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman, said the service was investigating the deaths, as required by American law. But he said the deaths "do not appear to be criminal in nature, related to vessel operations, the material condition of the ship or their duties as security personnel." 

Update  #1  February 21, 2014

Drugs found in room with two dead security officers

Mark Kennedy and Jeffrey Reynolds were found dead in a cabin aboard the Maersk Alabama container ship, police said. The cause of death has yet to be revealed, but officials said the mysterious deaths were not caused by their work. Police believe the men may have overdosed on drugs. source

FEB. 20, 2014


NAIROBI, Kenya —  Dead Guards on Freighter Are Identified as Former Navy SEAL Members
While the causes of death were still under investigation, a spokesman for the ship’s owners said a police report indicated that drugs were in the cabin where the two bodies were found.  New York times 
FEB. 20, 2014

Submarines are always silent and strange.

Not All We Need to Know - Part I

Example of insignificant(?) NEWS  #1

20 FEB 2014 - Pollution levels in parts of Iceland peaked yesterday at 40 times the upper safe limit ...  the first time since the last volcanic eruptions in 2010-2011. Particulate matter in air should not exceed 50 micrograms per square meter. In Reykjavík it was 420 micrograms per square meter with spikes of up to 2,000 micrograms. People with respiratory diseases have been urged to avoid areas of heavy traffic.

Kristín Lóa Ólafsdóttir, specialist at the Reykjavík Health Authority, told  Iceland Review online she believes some of the excess dust is due to sand and salt used on the roads during winter but also dust in the environment including sand from the eastern part of the country due to strong wind in recent days. As it hasn’t rained in the capital for quite a few days now the ground is also very dry.

Is dust and winds in the dry U.S. West, or road sand in the U.S. East of little significance?  Apparently it has been insignificant to the mainstream media, which has also been ignoring the possibility of radiation plumes from Fukishima.

In December of 2012, after the 11 March 2011 Fukishima Nuclear disaster, the EPA lowered the level for safe exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by 20% from 15 µg/m3 to 12 µg/m3.  

The U.S. public has been reassured, so far, possibly? 

Example of insignificant(?) NEWS  #2

Container ship MV Maersk Alabama has been a target for numerous pirate incidents off Somalia. The April 2009 incident (first of two that year) became the basis for a 2013 film, Captain Phillips, which involved a successful rescue of the ship's master by SEALs.

19 FEB 2014 - Deaths of two security contractors
Two former Navy SEALs working as security contractors aboard the Maersk Alabama for the private security firm Trident Group were found dead aboard the container ship, a day after it docked at Port Victoria, Seychelles.  Seychelles police identified the two, found dead Tuesday, as Jeffrey Reynolds,  described by neighbors as a devoted father, and Mark Kennedy, both 44.

Gossip... 

• Both were found dead in a cabin onboard the ship on February 18 at around 4:30 p.m. local time. The causes of their deaths have not been made public.  source

Official...

• State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed the men were U.S. citizens. The Coast Guard is involved in the investigation because the Maersk Alabama is a U.S.-flagged ship, Harf said.
• The police gave no cause of death and said a post mortem had been scheduled. 

• The U.S. Coast Guard stated from its headquarters in Washington that it is investigating the deaths.  
• Kevin N. Speers, a senior director for Maersk Line, said in a statement that the security contractors boarded the vessel on January 29, and that their deaths were "not related to vessel operations or their duties as security personnel... I'm absolutely clueless as to what happened." 
• Reynolds and Kennedy worked for Trident Group, a Virginia-based maritime security services firm. The company's president, Tom Rothrauff, said the men were former Navy SEALs.
  Requests to Trident for information about the two men were not answered Wednesday.

Both were found dead in a cabin onboard the ship on February 18 at around 4:30 p.m. local time. The causes of their deaths have not been made public.

Read more at: http://www.heavy.com/news/2014/02/maersk-alabama-navy-seals-jeffrey-reynolds-mark-kennedy/

The U.S. public would simply like to know if terrorism of any sort was involved in the deaths of the former SEALS.  One thing is for certain, the two were not victims of Norovirus.  Stay tuned for updates.

Submarines are always silent and strange.