On November 1 American arms manufacturer Raytheon Company announced that it had secured contracts worth $100 million for a joint interceptor missile program of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the Israel Missile Defense Organization.
The Pentagon's European Command has over 100 troops stationed in Israel's Negev Desert manning an advanced missile radar site there.
Korean Peninsula
The South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported on November 1 that "The US and South Korea have completed joint action plans for responding to a regime collapse and other internal emergency situations in North Korea...." [46]
Citing an unidentified South Korean official, the report contains these details:
"South Korea and the US had long worked on Concept Plan 5029, to prepare for a regime collapse and other internal emergencies in North Korea.
à ??Since its inauguration last year, the [South Korean President] Lee Myung-bak government has pushed to convert the concept plan into an operational plan and it was recently completed.
"If the South Korea-US combined forces intervene in North Korea's internal instabilities, the South Korean military will assume the leading role in consideration of neighboring countries, while the US military will be responsible for the removal of the North's nuclear facilities and weapons." [47]
On the final day of last month Washington expressed its satisfaction at South Korea redeploying troops to Afghanistan shortly after Pentagon chief Robert Gates' visit to Seoul and the South Korean defense ministry on October 22.
"Washington supports and welcomes South Korea's plans to deploy troops to Afghanistan...the U.S. Department of State said." [48]
Kosovo
This month began with former U.S. president Bill Clinton arriving in the capital of Kosovo for the unveiling of a gaudy 11-foot gold-sprayed bronze statue of himself on November 1. [49]
He was being hailed by the breakaway entity's nominal prime minister, former Kosovo Liberation Army chieftain Hashim Thaci, for his role in launching the 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia in March of 1999. That sustained bombing campaign, Operation Allied Force, inaugurated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as an active war-making machine and issued in the ten-year war cycle that continues to this day with no indication of it ever abating.
A Russian commentary of the following day put the ceremony in perspective:
"Over the course of the 10-week conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions; even the German Luftwaffe had its first taste of combat over the skies of Yugoslavia since having its wings clipped in World War II.
"The ensuing 78-day aerial bombardment campaign, which grew continuously more aggressive and reckless, spared little infrastructure: factories, bridges, roads and power stations were all bombed with deadly accuracy. As a result, thousands of innocent civilians suffered great deprivation on both sides of the battle.
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