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Missile Test Terrorism Over Los Angeles
As Cold War tensions ratchet, the empire puts on an ICBM light show over its own most densely populated region
by Dan Sanchez
“Wait, what the f*** is that?”
Julien Solomita finally managed to spit that out after two minutes of dumbfounded silence as he recorded an unidentified flying object from a rooftop parking lot in Van Nuys, California on Saturday night.
He had been gathering footage for his video blog when he noticed a strange light in the sky. The light flared several times before developing a tail that expanded into a purple cone. The object then radiated nebulous purple rings and burst into a bright white bullet at the front of a huge white cloud, through which a vivid blue streak trailed across the night sky. Afterward, Solomita said:
“For a brief moment, when the cloud got bigger, I was wondering, ‘Should we run?’ It looked so close.”
His video has been viewed over 6 million times on YouTube. And the phenomenon was seen as far north as San Francisco and as far inland as Utah. Photographer Abe Blair got pictures of it above the San Francisco skyline, with the Golden Gate Bridge and Sutro Tower in view. And Justin Majeczky managed to capture it with time-lapse photography from a similar vantage.
Social media exploded with reports of UFO, comet, or missile sightings.
As the US military confirmed, it was indeed a missile, and a nuclear-capable one too. What everyone saw was a test-fire of a Trident II intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a submarine off the coast. The bursts and flare-ups were probably the engine separations of the three-stage rocket.
The Pentagon claimed it was part of “scheduled, ongoing tests.” However, the launch was unannounced, except for being mysteriously foreshadowed the night before when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared that all Los Angeles International airport (LAX) traffic must avoid flying over the nearby waters of the Pacific.
A second test-launch off the west coast was conducted Monday afternoon.
Following the launches, John M. Daniels, spokesman for what amounts to the Navy’s Armageddon Office, stressed that:
“It’s important that we test these missiles for our national security…”
How exactly would it enhance “national security” to test ICBMs in clear view of America’s second-biggest city? A hint was provided when The Los Angeles Times reported that:
“The Navy is considering posting additional photos — and possibly video — of the missile launches after the current exercises are completed, Daniels said, but it has yet to decide.”
This was more a demonstration than a test. That is the only plausible explanation for giving such a public light show.
A demonstration for the benefit of whom? Well it was over the Pacific, across which the US has been playing warship “chicken” with nuclear China in the South China Sea as part of its “Asian Pivot.”
Then of course there is Russia. The new Cold War with that nuclear power has ratcheted up after Russian entry into the Syrian war. As Justin Raimondo recently wrote:
“…the US and its NATO allies are prepositioning heavy weaponry on their eastern frontier and doubling the size of [the US/NATO] ‘Response Force’ in Europe.”
And as Jason Ditz reported, the Pentagon is trying to use tensions with Russia to justify a long-running, “massively expensive plan to revamp the entire US nuclear weapons arsenal.”
Indeed, Daniels admitted to The Washington Post that:
“As a result of doing these operations, it does show any adversary that would wish to do us harm the capabilities that we have…”
Loren Thompson, a military analyst and nuclear strategy expert, thought that the saber-rattling was mishandled:
“You could have demonstrated same point to the Russians or the Chinese without getting people really concerned in L.A. I suspect the Navy underestimated the social media reaction they were going to get.”
Thompson should cure his naïveté by reading some Randolph Bourne. The chief reason that governments wage wars, hot or cold, against foreign enemies is to use the “national emergency” to better dominate domestic enemies: its own subjects.
The unnerving spectacle made its biggest impression on the Americans who saw it first-hand. And they were probably its chief intended audience. “Getting people really concerned in L.A.” is exactly what the regime wanted.
Why else would the government clear the skies to paint them with nuclear war games precisely when and where it would have the biggest audience with the best visibility: near a basin full of people in the most densely populated region in the country, at a time (around 6:00 pm) when it is nice and dark, yet millions would be out and about, returning from work, or heading out to dinner?
This was “Shock and Awe” for domestic consumption: an exercise in missile test terrorism. A spooked herd is an easily steered and stampeded herd. And what better way to spook the American herd than by giving it nuclear nightmares?
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Also published at Antiwar.com, Medium.com, and DanSanchez.me.
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Leanne Baker November 10, 2015 , 5:26 pm Vote5
We saw the Trident missile from our hot tub 60 miles or so north of San Francisco — and this after seeing an Apache attack helicopter overhead while our friends and we were harvesting our olives earlier in the day. (I know there’s a metaphor in there somewhere!) But to me, the most disconcerting of all was watching a bit of football on Sunday and seeing that we now have Veterans Week, and that all those silly NFL coaches were wearing camouflage uniforms — ugh.
Don Stacy November 13, 2015 , 1:14 pm Vote2
Initial commoner response: I thought I was supposed to love military light shows. Now I’m supposed to fear them too? I’m so confused.
D. A. Price November 13, 2015 , 11:10 pm Vote2
Military activity in civil airspace is the price we pay for a civilized ghetto.
John Haley November 16, 2015 , 2:20 pm Vote0
Dan Sanchez and Leanne Baker, perhaps I shouldn’t lump you together, since I don’t know if Dan would dis Vets as Leanne did, but is it your wish that we have no military at all or simply that it be kept out of your sight?
A few flaws in Dan’s article:
Terrorism? Really? A light in the sky? Ever seen one of those weather ballons? They’re really scary. Since the viewer could have no idea what this was, the fact that it turns out to be a “nuclear-capable” missle should be irrelevant even aside from the fact that it was actually unarmed.
Dan makes much of this happening in view of the “biggest audience” and the “most densly populated region” in the country. Funny, I’d have thought that woulld be NY or Chicago, but then, since you say it was visible in Utah, the actual density of the nearby population could hardly be as significant a factor in your conspiracy theory as you make it out to be.
And since this was visible as far away as Utah, where would you suggest such tests be made, and does it enter you mind that atmospheric conditions might have had something to do with this test being so visible?
If it somehow were recognized at the sighting that this light in the sky was something to do with our military, I would suggest that most American viewers would feel reassurance and perhaps pride from this demonstration of power, certainly not fear or terror. Your reaction – that a demonstration of military presence or strength is terroristic – in inverted. Or perhaps it is just that you are inverted – you don’t like America.
We can’t know that, true, but we can be sure your article is full of obvious illogic and poor thinking. Or at least that’s my reaction.
Martin Brock November 16, 2015 , 2:57 pm Vote1
@cadence88 O.K., but you don’t make a case for the tests.
My wish is to have a much smaller military or no standing military at all.
Where would I suggest such tests be made? Nowhere.
If Bad Guys on the other side of the ICBM race rain nuclear warheads on me, what happens? I die.
If an asteroid slams into the Earth, like the one that apparently drove dinosaurs to extinction, slams into the Earth, what happens to me? I die along with the rest of humanity.
If a global pandemic of a deadly virus spreads across the Earth, through vectors like global air travel that never before existed, and reaches me, what happens? I die.
If global warming alarmists are right and more violent hurricanes plague the Earth and one of them hurls a trailer in my direction, what happens? I die.
If the most extreme global warming alarmists are right and the Earth becomes another Venus in a few centuries, what happens to humanity? We all die.
If John Hagee is right about practically anything, what happens? I end up in hell forever.
So do I favor multi-trillion dollar state programs to save myself and the rest of humanity from all of these horrors? No. I choose the certainty of my own death, in a world without these programs, over the remote possibility that one the programs will increase my life expectancy by a day, much less save humanity or human civilization from extinction. Even if I wanted to bet on one of these terrifying scenarios, I couldn’t tell you which one, so Pascal must sell his lottery tickets elsewhere.
In other words, you’re disputing the wrong assertion of “terror”. This single missile test is not the terrorism. The scary scenarios rationalizing the entire missile development program are terrorizing, and they’re no more realistic than James Hansen’s scariest Global Warming nightmares.
John Haley November 17, 2015 , 1:21 pm
@restonthewind Martin, thanks for giving me another shot at this.
Sorry about the “shot” terminology. Just from the “logic” of what you write, it must seem slightly terroristic.
(An aside – Martin, I spend too much time trying to straighten the world out like this, writing does not come easy or fast, and one of the corners I cut to “keep it moving,” so I can get back to life outside this box, is that when something comes to mind with hard edges on it, like it might seem I’m talking down or getting personal, I don’t go all day trying to rephrase to soften the edges. I hope you’ll understand.)
Has it escaped your notice that we all die? You cite eventual death, as if that’s some great insight, as a reason for doing nothing about our comfort or safety in the meanwhile. That’s plainly not sensible and an argument without merit. There’s just nothing there, it’s nihilistic.
It’s good to keep death in mind, as it helps (tends to) keep us humble and mindful of what we do with our time. But I care about what happens after death and I care – especially, since it’s here and now and I can feel it – about what happens in the meanwhile.
We – you and I, presuming you are Western, live in the 1%. Look at the sweep of history. It has ever been mankind’s lot to live a short, harsh life full of suffering and misery, scratching out a living subject to prevalent disease, constant wars large and small, almost always under one form or another of despotic rule. Anyone with an iota of appreciation for the garden we live in, especially in America, not only knows it is worth tending, but that we have an obligation – to those who have come before us and paid the price, to those we will leave behind, and to ourselves, – to guard and protect this relatively idyllic garden.
You show no appreciation for this. Rather, it would seem your preference is navel-gazing. Narrow focus on the flaws in us.
You don’t want to test nuclear weapons (Martin, the reason is MAINTENANCE. Do you change the oil in your car? Objecting because I offered no justification for testing was Lame.) or have a strong military. You either don’t believe in the presence of evil in this world – which takes wilful blindness (sin) or stupidity – or think we in the West are the evil, or are somehow no different from those who do not share our values of freedom and tolerance and would take our freedoms and force their own brand of despotic prejudicial rule on us, bringing a return to medieval or even – after the struggle – stone age living.
If you were King here in the 1940’s, to take just one example, we’d be ruled by Nazis, which wouldn’t be too pretty, or by the Japanese, which would be brutal. Just ask the Chinese. Now we have the Chinese, who would rule like the Japanese, with oriental savagery (look up Mao’s Cultural Revolution), and far worse, Islamist Jihad to contend with. ISIS, etc. I suppose that when they are in your neighbor’s house eating his food and raping his wife and daughter, and maybe his 8 year old son, you’ll simply adapt, and join them? What difference can it make to a nihilist? Or would you then change your “thinking?”
Somehow I do not think you are the kind of individual who is of any use to your civilization today. Dead weight, or worse.
Martin Brock November 17, 2015 , 3:23 pm Vote3
@cadence88 Fire away! Your words don’t scare me. It’s all of the guns on the belts of all of these policemen who will confiscate my property or cage me or even shoot me if I don’t pay taxes financing this missile development program.
My skin is thick. Carry on.
My cognizance of death is not a great insight, so I’m not sure why alarmists of all sorts believe that claiming to save me from death, even to save all humanity from death, if I’ll only support their efforts to “protect” me from a dizzying variety of imaginary “threats”, is persuasive. These claims are no more persuasive than Pascal’s wager.
I don’t cite death as a reason to do nothing. I cite the inevitability of death, as well as an instinctive fear of it, as a reason to examine very skeptically all of the claims of rent seekers promising to protect me from it. On the contrary, I want to do all sorts of things with my life, other than support all of these rent seekers.
Death doesn’t humble me any more than my limited height humbles me. I occupy a small region of space-time. I get that. I might like to be taller, but I don’t take seriously every claim by someone promising to make me taller, or protect me from becoming shorter, if only I’ll sponsor his multi-billion dollar research program to combat the enemies of tallness.
My economic class is more like the 95%, but no nation outside of this class has ICBMs anyway, so the idea that I must contribute to the development of these missiles to protect myself, or wealthier people generally, from the less developed hoards is nonsense. It’s a fairy tale concocted by the rent seekers developing the missiles and their representatives in the political class.
I don’t want to test nuclear weapons or to develop them at all.
Yes, I change the oil in my car. This fact is tangential to any point we’re discussing. That something requires maintenance is not an argument its favor.
Destructive intentions exist all over the world. If anyone in the Islamic State ever fires an ICBM at me, I can reasonably expect that he obtained it somehow from the very forces you would have me support financially, just as the IS has obtained many of its other, advanced weapons from your comrades.
On other hand, I don’t expect the U.K. or France or even Russia or China to fire ICBMs at me. I rather expect these states happily to economize on their ICBM arsenals, because they already do so. The best argument of their rent seeking, ICBM developers is that our rent seeking, ICBM developers are receiving more rents.
Expecting Naziism to spread across the Earth in some counter-factual history that you imagine is nonsense. The U.S. never waged war directly on the Soviet Union, and it collapsed of its own weight within a single lifetime. Despite the self-serving fantasies of rent seekers in the military-industrial complex, this collapse had little to do with any arms race. Mises predicted it decades before the fact without reference to any arms race, and wealthier nations didn’t help subjects of the Soviet Union by engaging their state in an arms race.
Calling me a nihilist and useless to society is a vacuous ad hominem and doesn’t support your argument for these costs in any way.
Martin Brock November 17, 2015 , 4:56 pm Vote1
For the Grammar Nazis, that should be “hordes”, not “hoards”. My editing time has expired, but I needed to do something about the error before I die, because it causes me discomfort.
But I don’t favor more billions for a Federal, bad grammar eradication program.
Leanne Baker November 17, 2015 , 4:02 pm
@cadence88 When I see military displays above my home, I do not feel reassured. I see billions (trillions?) of dollars forcibly extracted from fellow taxpayers and “created” out of thin air. I am disturbed that fawning over the military has taken on religious overtones in this country. I am disturbed that more of the U.S. veterans of recent wars die from suicide than died on the battlefield. I fear the failed military strategies the U.S. State has foisted on the rest of the world will lead to even more blowback. I look at your fears, and think about all the unintended consequences of using military power to alleviate them.