What did the Israelis blow up?

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Can someone remind me, are we in charge of Israel or are we it's puppets? It gets complicated sometimes. That relationship is going to be under scrutiny now that Israel has bombed something in Syria. Alisson Kaplan Sommer has a good look at some of the possibilities and much of the speculation. The nice thing from my view is that whatever got blown up, it changes the dynamic in the region and that helps us. We have not had the offensive momentum in Iraq or the rest of the region since the Thunder Run to Baghdad. Reminding the main destabilizers that two can certainly tango is a needed step. Plus I love the "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink" of it.

Ms Sommer points out something that differentiates the Israeli press from our own, they have skin in the game:

Whether or not reporters know the precise details of what happened in Syria on September 7, when Israeli planes attacked a mysterious target near the Syrian-Turkish border - the extremely tight censorship rules forbid them to report any of it - and Israeli officials are publicly, and uncharacteristically - silent.

So the Israeli press clenches their teeth and carefully does what they are permitted to do – repeat the reports that are emerging from overseas media and add their commentary as best they can. Meanwhile the public has had no way of knowing for certain whether the raid was “merely” an attempt to stem the flow of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah – or something of historic significance, a meaningful blow against an Axis of Evil.

I can only dream of a day when our press actually believed they had a responsibility to the country, not simply their agenda.

But back to the blowing up of unknown things, the public Israeli position is they were blowing up weapons i.e. rockets on their way to Hezbollah and then lobbed at Israeli day care centers. That is a plenty good reason to bomb someone and I would hope they would do that and hmmmm maybe we could try that, oh maybe in Iran. But it doesn't make sense for that operation to be operated as secretly as this was. So the options are:

Test run jamming Syrian air defense radars

This works if you are considering a sortie into either Syria or Iran as both run variants of the same type of radars and the Israelis would have good enough intel to pick a part of Syria where the radar was the same as an area in Iran they may be interested in. Now this was likely a component of whatever actual mission the Israelis conducted. You are going in for some reason and knowledge is power, so an assumption they tested jamming and radar evasion techniques as well as testing the defenses is a solid one.

Destruction of suspected nuclear material or equipment

There are plenty of rabbit holes to check out in this scenario. There are reports the Israelis tracked a North Korean vessel that may have had some of the nuke toys Kim Jong-Il was done with. Then mix in a bit of intel coming from the newly Islamist party-ruled Turkey and add a near complete lack of outraged Middle Easterners denouncing a horrendous act of terrorism by the evil Jooooos. Makes ya' kinda wonder if the rest of the neighbors would be happier without the 12th Imam Bomb in Iran.

I think there are too many indicators pointing to a reduction of a possible nuke threat in Syria, regardless if it was for them or Iran. Too much Israeli secrecy, wrong part of Syria and not wide spread enough for a hit on weapons headed to Hezbollah being three. If it came from Kim, a little curiouser, but this all seems sorta convenient eh? I know Rove is gone from the White House, but they still have Cheney and his dark arts plus I heard Rove left W a bunch of post-it notes. It's even more mysterious 'cuz the Israelis deny it and we are doing a head scratch saying "Huh really, nuke stuff eh? Wow" At this point it's the French cowboys you need to watch out for, well if you are a bad guy.

We already get blamed for being friends with Israel no matter what. It's kinda nice to catch some of the benefits of having at least one ally in the region. Oh and Ehud Barak kicks ass.

---

Mission: To protect and promote the reputation and dignity of America's Warriors.
Join us!

Comments

What did the Israelis blow up?

Can someone remind me, are we in charge of Israel or are we it's puppets? It gets complicated sometimes. That relationship is going to be under scrutiny now that Israel has bombed something in Syria. Alisson Kaplan Sommer has a good look at some of the possibilities and much of the speculation. The nice thing from my view is that whatever got blown up, it changes the dynamic in the region and that helps us. We have not had the offensive momentum in Iraq or the rest of the region since the Thunder Run to Baghdad. Reminding the main destabilizers that two can certainly tango is a needed step. Plus I love the "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink" of it.

Ms Sommer points out something that differentiates the Israeli press from our own, they have skin in the game:

Whether or not reporters know the precise details of what happened in Syria on September 7, when Israeli planes attacked a mysterious target near the Syrian-Turkish border - the extremely tight censorship rules forbid them to report any of it - and Israeli officials are publicly, and uncharacteristically - silent.

So the Israeli press clenches their teeth and carefully does what they are permitted to do – repeat the reports that are emerging from overseas media and add their commentary as best they can. Meanwhile the public has had no way of knowing for certain whether the raid was “merely” an attempt to stem the flow of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah – or something of historic significance, a meaningful blow against an Axis of Evil.

I can only dream of a day when our press actually believed they had a responsibility to the country, not simply their agenda.

But back to the blowing up of unknown things, the public Israeli position is they were blowing up weapons i.e. rockets on their way to Hezbollah and then lobbed at Israeli day care centers. That is a plenty good reason to bomb someone and I would hope they would do that and hmmmm maybe we could try that, oh maybe in Iran. But it doesn't make sense for that operation to be operated as secretly as this was. So the options are:

Test run jamming Syrian air defense radars

This works if you are considering a sortie into either Syria or Iran as both run variants of the same type of radars and the Israelis would have good enough intel to pick a part of Syria where the radar was the same as an area in Iran they may be interested in. Now this was likely a component of whatever actual mission the Israelis conducted. You are going in for some reason and knowledge is power, so an assumption they tested jamming and radar evasion techniques as well as testing the defenses is a solid one.

Destruction of suspected nuclear material or equipment

There are plenty of rabbit holes to check out in this scenario. There are reports the Israelis tracked a North Korean vessel that may have had some of the nuke toys Kim Jong-Il was done with. Then mix in a bit of intel coming from the newly Islamist party-ruled Turkey and add a near complete lack of outraged Middle Easterners denouncing a horrendous act of terrorism by the evil Jooooos. Makes ya' kinda wonder if the rest of the neighbors would be happier without the 12th Imam Bomb in Iran.

I think there are too many indicators pointing to a reduction of a possible nuke threat in Syria, regardless if it was for them or Iran. Too much Israeli secrecy, wrong part of Syria and not wide spread enough for a hit on weapons headed to Hezbollah being three. If it came from Kim, a little curiouser, but this all seems sorta convenient eh? I know Rove is gone from the White House, but they still have Cheney and his dark arts plus I heard Rove left W a bunch of post-it notes. It's even more mysterious 'cuz the Israelis deny it and we are doing a head scratch saying "Huh really, nuke stuff eh? Wow" At this point it's the French cowboys you need to watch out for, well if you are a bad guy.

We already get blamed for being friends with Israel no matter what. It's kinda nice to catch some of the benefits of having at least one ally in the region. Oh and Ehud Barak kicks ass.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfadb53ef00e54edf102d8833

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference What did the Israelis blow up?: