Worlds largest combat aircrafts arrive in South America from Russia for training exercises.

While American media is busy wasting breath on lipstick, pitbulls, pigs and OJ Simpson...

Today in South America, two of Russia's supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 bombers landed for "training exercises" in Venezuela after the Bush administration and Mad Dog McCain have continued to repeat their brainless war threatening banter towards Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin.

The Tupolev TU 160, also known as Blackjack, was designed to strike strategic targets with nuclear and conventional weapons deep in continental theatres of operation.

Since we live in the United States of Amnesia, lets review some history, shall we?


* Early 1962 -- Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, worried by the deployment of U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey, asked his defence minister if it was time now "to put a hedgehog in Uncle Sam's pants" by sending Soviet nuclear missiles to Cuba.

* The operation, codenamed Anadyr, began shortly afterwards. Soviet ships transport 50,000 soldiers, as well as artillery, tanks and more than 40 medium-range nuclear-capable missiles to Cuba, 11,000 km (6,900 miles) from the Soviet Union.

* October 14, 1962 -- The Cuban missile crisis reached its climax after U.S. U-2 spy planes took the first clear pictures of missiles in Cuba. For a week, Moscow denied the deployment.

* October 22, 1962 -- U.S. President John Kennedy imposed a sea blockade of Cuba and put U.S. armed forces on heightened alert, ready to order a strike on Cuba. The Soviet Union pledged to retaliate with "the most powerful strike".

* October 26, 1962 -- tension started to subside after Moscow announced it is ready to remove its missiles from Cuba in return for U.S. guarantees it will never attack the island. A secret agreement with Moscow removed U.S. missiles from Turkey.

* April 1970 -- after testing Washington's nerves with showy appearances of nuclear submarines in the Gulf of Mexico and landings of Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bombers in Cuba, Moscow decided to boost its presence in the Caribbean in response to increased U.S. moves in the Baltic, Black, Japanese and Bering Seas.

* According to Soviet and Russian military archives, after 1970 the Soviet Navy made at least 29 voyages to Cuba, lasting an average of 40 days. One or two Soviet submarines accompanied these flotillas in half of all the missions.

* Tu-95 strategic bombers and its Tu-142 anti-submarine version landed at local airfields and Moscow's Lourdes signals intelligence facility in Cuba was among the most significant eyeing the United States.

* After 1991 -- the overnight collapse of the Soviet Union and a severe economic crisis ended showy Soviet overseas missions and resulted in the closure of Lourdes, along with bases in some other Soviet allies.

* August 2007 -- President Vladimir Putin ordered Tu-95 and Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers to resume flights around the globe. The gesture was designed to show a more assertive role Russia intends to play in world politics.

* Almost simultaneously, Russia's navy starts long-distance sorties overseas.

* Oct 26, 2007 -- Putin, on a visit to Portugal, drew a parallel between U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in Europe and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

* August 2008 -- the U.S. and Poland clinched a deal to deploy elements of Washington's missile shield in Moscow's Cold War ally. The agreement is overshadowed by Russia's brief armed conflict with close U.S. ally and NATO aspirant Georgia.

* Sept 8, 2008 -- Russia said it will send "Peter the Great", one of the world's largest nuclear-powered warships, to Venezuela for a joint naval exercise in the Caribbean, its first major maneuvers on the U.S. doorstep since the Cold War.