Christians have no right to wear cross at work, says Government

Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case.

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent

In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.

It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.

A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so.

The Government’s position received an angry response last night from prominent figures including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

He accused ministers and the courts of “dictating” to Christians and said it was another example of Christianity becoming sidelined in official life.

The Government’s refusal to say that Christians have a right to display the symbol of their faith at work emerged after its plans to legalise same-sex marriages were attacked by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.

A poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph shows that the country is split on the issue.

Overall, 45 per cent of voters support moves to allow gay marriage, with 36 per cent against, while 19 per cent say they do not know.

However, the Prime Minister is out of step with his own party.
Exactly half of Conservative voters oppose same-sex marriage in principle and only 35 per cent back it.

There is no public appetite to change the law urgently, with more than three quarters of people polled saying it was wrong to fast-track the plan before 2015 and only 14 per cent saying it was right.

The Strasbourg case hinges on whether human rights laws protect the right to wear a cross or crucifix at work under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

The Christian women bringing the case, Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, claim that they were discriminated against when their employers barred them from wearing the symbols.

They want the European Court to rule that this breached their human right to manifest their religion.

The Government’s official response states that wearing the cross is not a “requirement of the faith” and therefore does not fall under the remit of Article 9.

Lawyers for the two women claim that the Government is setting the bar too high and that “manifesting” religion includes doing things that are not a “requirement of the faith”, and that they are therefore protected by human rights.

They say that Christians are given less protection than members of other religions who have been granted special status for garments or symbols such as the Sikh turban and kara bracelet, or the Muslim hijab.

Last year it emerged that Mrs Eweida, a British Airways worker, and Mrs Chaplin, a nurse, had taken their fight to the European Court in Strasbourg after both faced disciplinary action for wearing a cross at work.

Mrs Eweida’s case dates from 2006 when she was suspended for refusing to take off the cross which her employers claimed breached BA’s uniform code.

The 61 year-old, from Twickenham, is a Coptic Christian who argued that BA allowed members of other faiths to wear religious garments and symbols.

BA later changed its uniform policy but Mrs Eweida lost her challenge against an earlier employment tribunal decision at the Court of Appeal and in May 2010 was refused permission to go to the Supreme Court.

Mrs Chaplin, 56, from Exeter, was barred from working on wards by Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust after she refused to hide the cross she wore on a necklace chain, ending 31 years of nursing.

The Government claims the two women’s application to the Strasbourg court is “manifestly ill-founded”.

Its response states: “The Government submit that… the applicants’ wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was not a manifestation of their religion or belief within the meaning of Article 9, and…the restriction on the applicants' wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was not an ‘interference’ with their rights protected by Article 9.”

The response, prepared by the Foreign Office, adds: “In neither case is there any suggestion that the wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was a generally recognised form of practising the Christian faith, still less one that is regarded (including by the applicants themselves) as a requirement of the faith.”

The Government has also set out its intention to oppose cases brought by two other Christians, including a former registrar who objected to conducting civil partnership ceremonies for homosexual couples.

Lillian Ladele, who worked as a registrar for Islington council in north London for 17 years, said she was forced to resign in 2007 after being disciplined, and claimed she had been harassed over her beliefs.

Gary McFarlane, a relationship counsellor, was sacked by Relate for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.

Christian groups described the Government’s stance as “extraordinary”.
Lord Carey said: “The reasoning is based on a wholly inappropriate judgment of matters of theology and worship about which they can claim no expertise.

“The irony is that when governments and courts dictate to Christians that the cross is a matter of insignificance, it becomes an even more important symbol and expression of our faith.”

The Strasbourg cases brought by Mrs Chaplin and Mr McFarlane are supported by the Christian Legal Centre which has instructed Paul Diamond, a leading human rights barrister.

Judges in Strasbourg will next decide whether all four cases will progress to full hearings.

If they proceed, the cases will test how religious rights are balanced against equality laws designed to prohibit discrimination.

Andrea Williams, the director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “It is extraordinary that a Conservative government should argue that the wearing of a cross is not a generally recognised practice of the Christian faith.

“In recent months the courts have refused to recognise the wearing of a cross, belief in marriage between a man and a woman and Sundays as a day of worship as ‘core’ expressions of the Christian faith.

"What next? Will our courts overrule the Ten Commandments?”

Growing anger among Christians will be highlighted today by Delia Smith, the television chef and practising Roman Catholic, who will issue a Lent appeal on behalf the Church’s charity, Cafod, accusing “militant neo-atheists and devout secularists” of “busting a gut to drive us off the radar and try to convince us that we hardly exist”.

ICM Research interviewed an online sample of 2,001 adults between March 7 and March 9. Interviews were conducted across the country and results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

US military unveils non-lethal heat ray weapon

By Mathieu Rabechault | AFP

A sensation of unbearable, sudden heat seems to come out of nowhere -- this wave, a strong electromagnetic beam, is the latest non-lethal weapon unveiled by the US military this week.

"You're not gonna see it, you're not gonna hear it, you're not gonna smell it: you're gonna feel it," explained US Marine Colonel Tracy Taffola, director the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, Marine Corps Base Quantico, at a demonstration for members of the media.

The effect is so repellant, the immediate instinct is to flee -- and quickly, as experienced by AFP at the presentation.

Taffola is quick also to point out the "Active Denial System" beam, while powerful and long-range, some 1000 meters (0.6 miles), is the military's "safest non-lethal capability" that has been developed over 15 years but never used in the field.

It was deployed briefly in Afghanistan in 2010, but never employed in an operation.

The technology has attracted safety concerns possibly because the beam is often confused with the microwaves commonly used by consumers to rapidly heat food.

"There are a lot of misperceptions out there," lamented Taffola, saying the Pentagon was keen to make clear what the weapon is, and what it is not.

The frequency of the blast makes all the difference for actual injury as opposed to extreme discomfort, stressed Stephanie Miller, who measured the system's radio frequency bioeffects at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The system ray is 95 gigahertz, a frequency "absorbed very superficially," said Miller.

The beam only goes 1/64th of an inch (0.4 millimeter), which "gives a lot more safety."

"We have done over 11,000 exposures on people. In that time we've only had two injuries that required medical attention and in both cases injuries were fully recovered without complications," she said.

In contrast, microwave frequency is around one gigahertz, which moves faster and penetrates deeper -- which is how it can cook meat in an oven, said top researcher Diana Loree.

With the transmitter, a wave 100 times the power of a regular microwave oven cannot pop a bag of popcorn "because the radio frequency is not penetrating enough to heat enough to internally heat the material," she stressed.

To be used in mob dispersal, checkpoint security, perimeter security, area denial, infrastructure protection, the US military envisions a wide array of uses.

And in a bid to avert accidents, Taffola said the operator's trigger, in a truck far from the action, has an automatic shut-off after 3 seconds for safety.

"This provides the safest means and also provides the greatest range," he said.

The Pentagon has not yet decided to order any of the ADS system, but Taffola said they would be ready if asked.

The Spymaster: Meir Dagan on Iran's threat

(CBS News) Meir Dagan has been described as "hard-charging" and "stops at nothing." For more than eight years, Dagan made full use of those qualities as chief of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, where he focused on keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. When that job ended, Dagan did something unheard of for an ex-Mossad chief: he spoke out publicly, voicing opposition to Israel launching preemptive airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities anytime soon. Dagan believes the Iranian regime is a rational one and even its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who has called for Israel to be annihilated - acts in a somewhat rational way when it comes to Iran's nuclear ambitions. Lesley Stahl reports.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following script is from "The Spymaster Speaks" which aired on March 11, 2012. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Shachar Bar-On, producer.

When President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this past week, the subject was how, when and if to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Netanyahu saying Israel can't afford to wait much longer; Mr. Obama arguing there's still time to let sanctions and diplomacy do the job. And he said some top intelligence officials in Israel side with him.

Actually, you'll hear from one of them tonight: Meir Dagan, former chief of the Mossad, Israel's equivalent of the CIA. It's unheard of for someone who held such a high-classified position to speak out publicly, but he told us he felt compelled to talk, because he is so opposed to a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran anytime soon.

Dagan headed the Mossad for nearly a decade until last year. His primary, if not his only mission was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. And he says there is time to wait, perhaps as long as three years.

Lesley Stahl: You have said publicly that bombing Iran now is the stupidest idea you've ever heard. That's a direct quote.

Dagan: An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way how to do it.

Stahl: The dispute seems to come down, though, to whether you are at the end of everything that you can try or whether you have a lot of time left to try other things, which seems to be your position.

Dagan: I never said it's a lot of time but I think that-

Stahl: Well, more time.

Dagan: More time.

For nearly a decade buying more time was his job. The Iranians say Dagan dispatched assassins, faulty equipment and computer viruses to sabotage their nuclear program. All the while, he was poring over the most secret dossiers about the Iranian regime, gaining insights and a surprising appreciation.

Dagan: The regime in Iran is a very rational regime.

Stahl: Do you think Ahmadinejad is rational?

Dagan: The answer is yes. Not exactly our rationale, but I think that he is rational.

Stahl: Do you think they're rational enough that they are capable of backing down from this?

Dagan: No doubt that the Iranian regime is maybe not exactly rational based on what I call Western-thinking, but no doubt they are considering all the implications of their actions.

Stahl: Other people think they're not going to really stop until they have this capability.

Dagan: They will have to pay dearly and all the consequences for it. And I think the Iranians, in this point in time, are going very careful in the project. They are not running in it.

1 2 3 4 5 Next Page »

Arpaio investigation: Obama might be Kenyan

Among the records missing for Barack Obama that would be available for an ordinary president are passport records, school records such as those from Punahou, Occidental, Columbia and Harvard, Harvard Law Review writings, scholarly articles for the University of Chicago, state bar association records from Illinois, Illinois state senate records, the marriage and divorce documents for his mother, his adoption records and others.

Now it has been revealed that the Cold Case Posse assembled by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz., cannot confirm yet that Obama was not born in Kenya and brought to the United States as a days-old infant for his birth to be registered in Hawaii.
The reason? Missing records.

Speculation has held that Obama actually was born in Kenya, and as the son of an American woman and Kenyan father, probably would not have been considered under any circumstances to be a “natural born citizen” of America, as the Constitution demands for presidents.

It’s been revealed that the Kenyan government actually investigated that possibility earlier, without conclusive results.

Now Arpaio’s team, which was assembled to work on a volunteer basis after hundreds of constituents expressed fear that Obama was having his name put on the 2012 election ballot in Arizona using a fraudulent document, has reported that it checked to determine whether a young mother arrived in the United States from Kenya in the days after Obama’s reported Aug. 4, 1961, birth date.

The investigation report said that the records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service cards, which were filled out by passengers of that era arriving on international flights originating outside of the United States, cannot be found.

The investigation sought the records from part of the month of August 1961, and took a researcher to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where other records of that time and from that time frame are stored.

NOTE: In case you missed the news conference of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,” you can view it here.

It is the records from the week of Obama’s birth that cannot be tracked, investigators confirm.

The Arpaio report said the hunt for airline passenger flight manifests for 1961 for foreign flights landing in Honolulu was an attempt to see if Obama’s mother returned at that time.

“The idea was that if Barack Obama had been born in Kenya, or any other location outside the United States, there should be a passenger record of the airline flight on which she, a new mother, returned to Hawaii with her newly born infant son,” the report said.

But “to date, investigators have not been able to locate the relevant airline passenger flight manifests for 1961.”

What was found were records of cards the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service required all passengers – including both U.S. citizens and foreign citizens – to fill out and file with passport control when arriving in Honolulu from a foreign city of origin.

The report said, “Microfilm records of INS cards for passengers arriving in New York on foreign files in 1961 have been found in the National Archives only recently; consequently these records have not yet been examined. Microfilm records of INS cards for passengers arriving in Honolulu on foreign files originating around the Pacific rim in 1961 have been examined at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.”

The microfilms that were found for the time period include “NARA Record Group A3573, Reel 184, INA records from July 28, 1961 through Aug. 7, 1961″ and “NARA Record Group A3573, Reel 185, INA records from Aug. 8, 1961 through Aug. 12, 1961.”

However, “Remarkably, all INS records for the week of Obama’s birth, Aug. 1 – Aug. 7, 1961, were missing from the end of Reel 184 and were not discovered anywhere on Reel 185, or any other microfilm reel in the record group,” the report said.

“The National Archives confirmed in a letter written on National Archives stationary that the INS records for foreign flights arriving in Hawaii during the week of Obama’s birth were missing, not only on the microfilm reels examined, but also in the primary database itself,” the report said.

That leaves open the door that Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was, as others have reported, visiting her husband’s family in Kenya shortly before the birth. Airlines at that time likely would not have allowed a woman expecting to give birth any day to board an extended international flight, thus creating the circumstances for Obama’s birth in Kenya.

WND reported earlier that internal Kenyan government documents reveal Obama’s step-grandmother was interviewed by agents of the National Security Intelligence Service about reports she said Obama was born in the East African nation.

As WND reported that while there’s no proof to date placing Obama’s mother in Kenya for the birth, a disputed taped telephone conversation in which step-grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama purportedly claimed he was born in the coastal city of Mombasa became an Internet sensation after its submission in a lawsuit challenging the president’s eligibility.

Philip J. Berg, a former Pennsylvania deputy attorney general, included a transcript of the taped Oct. 16, 2008, telephone interview and sworn affidavits in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court after lower courts dismissed as frivolous his Aug. 21, 2008, complaint alleging Obama was born in Mombasa.

Critics challenge statements on the telephone call, which was conducted through an interpreter. But two members of the Obamas’ Luo tribe who are fluent in the local Luo dialect, Swahili and English, have told WND that after carefully listening to the tape they believe she declared Barack Obama Jr. was born in Kenya and that she was present at the birth.

Kenya’s NSIS later investigated those statements, according to official government letters. WND also confirmed two letters purportedly written by Kenya’s immigration secretary during the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign stated that officials in Nairobi could not find evidence Obama was born in Kenya. But the official said the government had “information” that relevant birth records may have been removed or were missing.

An “interim report” by the NSIS issued in September 2008 “concludes that a birth certificate in the name of Barack Hussein Obama may have been issued” in Kenya “but to confirm this would require a further thorough joint investigation” by the NSIS and Kenya’s Central Intelligence Department, or CID.

The report said that none of several investigations by various officers has been conclusive and that some leads require further investigation “because it appears some powerful forces as it were are hell bent in defeating this investigation.”

The government reported some hospital records appeared to be missing.

Further, a 2009 internal NSIS report (page 1 and page 2) said conflicting stories suggest the “the Obama family is trying to hide something but are not doing a very good job of it.”

The report said, “We have also investigated Mama Sarah to find out if she is speaking the truth but she had come out as vague and incongruent. In one interview with Mama Sarah Obama our officers recorded that Mama Sarah says she cannot remember if she attended the birth of Barack Obama or visited his parents at the Coast Provincial General Hospital around the official birthday of Barack Obama. But she confessed to have had part of her family there at around the same time. Some of her brothers were already working in Mombasa. In a second interview done much later, she says that she is sure Barack Obama was born in Mombasa because she was visiting her family there when he was born, and they were called to the CPGH (Coast Provincial General Hospital) where she met Barack Obama’s mother for the first time.”

The report said she later was hostile and gave conflicting testimony about the issue.

The NSIS also reported that there were multiple alterations and insertions in the hospital records, suggesting that someone was trying “keep off track any investigations into this case.”

There also was official correspondence involving Emmanuel Kisombe, the permanent secretary in the Ministry for Immigration and Registration of Persons, who in July 2008 told the U.S. ambassador about the possibility that Obama was born in their country.

He suggested an investigation. He wrote, “We have instructions from the Head of Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet carrying out directions of the Cabinet sub-committee on Security and Foreign Relations to investigate and report on efficacy of reports that Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic Party aspirant in the United States could be Kenyan-born.”

He cited “numerous intelligence reports that [Obama] might have been born in Mombasa at the Lady Grigg Maternity Wing of the Coast Provincial Hospital.”

Harvard-educated Dr. Jerome Corsi, who has written several books about Obama, wrote a year ago about the theories involving a Kenyan birth for Obama.

He cited the documentation that the Immigration and Naturalization Service suspected the marriage between Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Barack Obama Sr. to be a sham.

And there is the fact that within weeks of the birth, Dunham moved to Seattle to take night classes at the University of Washington.

Because of the absence of information, the reasons for some of those events remain unclear. But he noted in a column, “That Ann Dunham did not return to Honolulu until after Obama Sr. left in September 1962 to begin his graduate studies at Harvard suggests the possibility an estrangement between the conception of the baby and the birth had eliminated or eroded whatever bond might have existed between the two.

“Perhaps Ann hoped that she could persuade senior members of the Obama family in Kenya that she was a well-chosen daughter-in-law and her son was a desirable grandson,” he continued. “With her leftist ideological vision and the many comments she made to friends after arriving in Seattle with her infant son, Ann Dunham may well have harbored the hope of becoming the Eva Peron of Kenya.

“If Ann Dunham had been successful in persuading Obama Sr. and his family in Africa to accept her, she might have ended up in the desirable position of being the U.S.-born wife of a U.S.-educated Kenyan husband, who faced bright political prospects after he returned to Kenya with an advanced graduate degree obtained from a prestigious U.S. university,” his analysis said. “With the last six months of her pregnancy missing in her documentable chronology, it’s possible she was not in Hawaii during that time. Air travel from Honolulu was becoming increasingly more accessible to the average person by 1961.”

He said, “That Ann Dunham was rejected both by the Obama family in Kenya and by Obama Sr. in Honolulu also provides an explanation for her precipitous decision to leave Honolulu as quickly after the baby’s birth as possible. Hope followed by rejection would then define the emotions that explain Dunham’s behavior during her 1961 pregnancy.”

He said, “Moreover, if the baby was born in Kenya, the actual date of birth might have been earlier than Aug. 4, 1961. Very possibly, the grandparents decided to register the baby’s birth with the Hawaii Department of Health when they knew their daughter was returning to Honolulu from Africa.

“That Ann Dunham as an 18-year-old took an infant baby to Seattle by herself to rent an apartment and begin night courses would make more sense if the baby had been born in Kenya earlier than Aug. 4, 1961, the date of birth consistently advanced in the official Obama nativity story.”

The Cold Case Posse dismissed so-called evidence of two newspaper announcements in Honolulu citing Obama’s birth, explaining that those same announcements also listed foreign infants as Hawaii-born, as well as listing 3-year-olds as newborns.

Under Chapter 57 of the 1955 Revised Law of the Territory of Hawaii, a family in 1961 could report a birth as Hawaiian with merely the word of a family member or witness.

That there was reason for members of his family to claim a Hawaiian birth was documented by the state of Hawaii. In a 1955 paper by Robert Bennett, the chief of the Bureau of Health Statistics of the Hawaii Department of Health, he explained the vital records system he was then implementing for the Hawaiian Islands, which soon would be a state.

In an article entitled “Vital Records in Hawaii,” published in the Hawaii Medical Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, November-December 1955, Bennett and his co-author, George Tokuyama, chief of the Registration and Records Section, wrote:

“The requirement of a birth certificate throughout the country to show citizenship, during World War II, gave a great impetus to the completeness of registration. This and other factors have made a birth certificate the principal document an American citizen uses to prove legal facts about himself. Almost every parent knows that a baby must be registered soon after birth, not only to meet requirements of the law, but to protect the child later in life.”

There also have been conflicting reports from Obama family members about which Hawaii hospital was his birth location, and neither has been able to provide any documentation confirming it.

There also have been discrepancies reported in the image of Obama’s birth certificate that the White House purported was “proof positive” of a Hawaiian birth, including an out-of-sequence number.

Further, research has revealed that on his INS paperwork filled out the same month Barack Obama Jr. was born, Barack Obama, Sr. incorrectly lists his wife’s name as “Ann S. Dunham” instead of “Stanley Ann Dunham,” and he neglected to mention that he had any children.

Obama Sr. also listed his address at 1482 Alencastre St. in Honolulu, a bachelor apartment he never shared with his wife or child.

And passport documents released for Barack Obama Jr.’s mother by the State Department on July 29, 2010, did not include any birth certificate documentation for him, despite one hand-written memo to the file claiming he was born in Honolulu.

China, U.S. Chase Air-to-Air Cyberweapon

By David A. Fulghum davef@aviationweek.com

The U.S. Air Force is developing network weapons to attack aircraft.
Electronic warfare specialists know the technology is already a double-edged sword, however. The Chinese, a senior service official says, are already working hard on, and in some cases fielding, similar systems to attack high-value aircraft used for early warning, electronic surveillance, command and control, and intelligence.

The Air Force is pursuing “cyber-methods to defeat aircraft,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the service’s chief of staff, told attendees at the 2012 Credit Suisse and McAleese Associates Defense Programs conference in Washington March 8. But Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, the deputy chief of staff for operations, says the same threat to U.S. aircraft already is “out there.”

Ashton Carter, deputy secretary of defense, is pushing both offensive and defensive network-attack skills and technology. “I’m not remotely satisfied” with the Pentagon’s cyber-capabilities, Carter says.

“The Russians and the Chinese have designed specific electronic warfare platforms to go after all our high-value assets,” Carlisle says. “Electronic attack can be the method of penetrating a system to implant viruses. You’ve got to find a way into the workings of that [target] system, and generally that’s through some sort of emitted signal.”

The Chinese have electronic attack means — both ground-based and aircraft-mounted — specifically designed to attack E-3 AWACS, E-8 Joint Stars and P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, he says.

Schwartz revealed no other details, but several years ago the service tested the “Suter” system, which used a data stream filled with algorithms to invade an integrated air defense (IAD) system through its antennas. The data-stream, generated by an EC-130 Compass Call electronic-attack aircraft, was able to capture the enemy network’s radar pictures, take over the network as system administrator and tap into dispersed missile launchers through their wireless communication links. Changes to or effects on the output of the enemy IAD system were monitored by an RC-135 Rivet Joint signals-intelligence aircraft.

A fielded version of the system was used by Compass Call aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan to tap into wireless telephone systems used to control improvised explosive devices. However, the EC-130 is a large, slow aircraft that does not fly at high altitudes, making it vulnerable to anti-aircraft guns and missile fire. So the task has become engineering a network invasion device small enough to fit into a stealthy aircraft — manned or unmanned, strike or reconnaissance — that can penetrate to a useful tactical range to attack enemy electronics and networks.

New U.S. aircraft like the F-22, F-35, EA-18G and F/A-18E/F now carry new, long-range, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars that are being considered as part of an electronic-attack/network-invasion capability. However, different versions of the AESA arrays are being tailored to better fit the cyber/electronic attack mission. Some will go on unmanned designs like Boeing’s Champ cruise missile, Raytheon’s MALD-J jamming missile and a line of Mk.-82 bomb shapes to carry out the electronic attack role. Other designs will be tailored for the Suter-like, network-invasion task.

Ironically, the AESA arrays that make the new radars and electronic attack systems so formidable in range and power output also are major targets themselves for electronic attack. “From a cyber [attack] standpoint, AESA has introduced new vulnerabilities,” a veteran electronic attack specialist says. “They have a continual wide field of view that can be exploited.”

Such new weaponry would be a boon to the Air Force if it were thrown into a campaign against Syria. “Syria has a much more demanding air defense environment” than Libya, for example, Schwartz says. “We’re watching Syria closely” as well as other places where governments are showing “erratic behavior,” he says.