Archive for the ‘war’ Category

…when you get news like this:

This is the first time a conference for all of Israel’s Heads of Missions has been held. The idea is to facilitate direct dialogue with the country’s leaders, mutual updates on major diplomatic issues, and a discussion of action plans to deal with the challenges awaiting the State of Israel in the international arena in the coming year, including the Iranian threat.

Robert Stacy is pretty sure it’s on:

That which is unprecedented is never routine and seldom insignificant. If the current unrest in Iran doesn’t overthrow the Ahmadinejad regime . . . Well, put it this way: If you’re the night watchman at an Iranian nuclear facility, make sure you don’t miss a payment on your insurance premiums.

I can’t find a peep about it on Israellycool, I would have thought this would be of interest there.

Meanwhile Meryl Yourish thinks differently:

My take: It is to unify the message that Israel wants out there. Benjamin Netanyahu is the most PR-savvy Prime Minister Israel has had since Golda Meir.

Watch for the ambassadors to come back with a unified message on Israeli issues.

As for an attack on Iran: Seriously? Do you really think that Israel would recall all of her ambassadors on the eve of an attack on Iran and tell them it was going to happen? Because, gee, that’s the first thing I’d do if I were going to launch a surprise attack—tell a whole lot more people about it so they can leak it to the press.

I think it’s a win win no matter what. What we as bloggers think doesn’t matter, it’s what Iran the US and Europe will think. It could be more of a feint. Either way this is designed to provoke a reaction.

Various nations will almost certainly read things into this and make moves based upon it, these moves may aid Israel’s intelligence.

If Iran sees this as a prelude to an attack how will they respond? Will they redeploy security that is now being used to stop the growing protests? Will they attempt to move scientists and materials vital to their program? If so will they be exposed to attack or perhaps will they become detected due to movement?

Even if Israel was not planning an immediate strike a general time frame can be disseminated from such a meeting. No matter the strike is dated, this meeting will allow a coordinated message to be sent out by the various ambassadors when the time comes, if there is any kind of time frame for an attack key info can be disseminated in person, no diplomatic pouch, no electronic message to intercept etc.

No matter what, I have no doubt that Israel will act. The Jewish state is not going to allow another Shoah in the hopes that the rest of the world will like them better. Since there is no chance that America is going to act and since Europe has no power TO act even if it wants to it falls to Israel.

Logically the outcome is not in doubt, Israel has the best security force, the most efficient military for it’s size, superior intelligence and only American troops have better technology, and more direct experience in combat.

Historically the outcome is even less in doubt as the history of the Jewish state is the history of continued success.

From a Biblical viewpoint of course the outcome has no doubt provided Moses terms from the closing chapters of Deuteronomy have been met.

The real wildcard are the protests. Iran’s as a nation’s best bet to prevent an attack by Israel is the success of the protest movement. Ideally this is the best result for the entire world and would be in the best long term interests for Israel. In fact If I’m Israel I’m putting more effort into aiding the success of these protests than planning for air strikes. Such a success would break the back of Iranian puppets in Syria, Lebanon and in Hamas.

Could that be the “strike” that Israel is planning?

I only have two thoughts on the subject:

1. It is now firmly established that no such attack can take place in the sight of passengers because they will not allow themselves to be killed with impunity.

2. We have reached a point where I actually had to read this story to the end to know it was satire.

Q: How do we know that Al Qaeda is losing the war in Iraq bitterly?

What type of thing; suddenly changing their beliefs to suit their current needs:

Zawahiri’s Wife Releases Statement, Tells Women They Can Be Suicide Bombers

How about that, Islamic Misogyny no longer extends to blowing oneself up.

It reminds me of the story of Pat Cleburne one of the greatest generals the confederacy and his Jan 1864 pragmatic letter concerning freeing and enlisting Blacks en masse into the confederate armies that said in part:

The President of the United States announces that ‘he has already in training an army of 100,000 negroes as good as any troops,’ and every fresh raid he makes and new slice of territory he wrests from us will add to this force. Every soldier in our army already knows and feels our numerical inferiority to the enemy….Our single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty and not now in the ranks. The enemy has three sources of supply: First, his own motley population; secondly, our slaves; and thirdly, Europeans whose hearts are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of slavery, and who meet no hinderance from their Governments in such enterprise, because these Governments are equally antagonistic to the institution. In touching the third cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weakness, we may rouse prejudice and passion, but the time has come when it would be madness not to look at our danger from every point of view, and to probe it to the bottom. Apart from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against slavery has given the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continued embarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness….Like past years, 1864 will diminish our ranks by the casualties of war, and what source of repair is there left us?….

The Constitution of the Southern States has reserved to their respective governments the power to free slaves for meritorious services to the State. It is politic besides. For many years, ever since the agitation of the subject of slavery commenced, the negro has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid imagination has surrounded that condition with so many gratifications that it has become the paradise of his hopes. To attain it he will tempt dangers and difficulties not exceeded by the bravest soldier in the field….The slaves are dangerous now, but armed, trained, and collected in an army they would be a thousand fold more dangerous; therefore when we make soldiers of them we must make free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist their sympathies also….

Cleburne’s letter’s language seems outrageous to us today for it’s defense of slavery as an institution; it was even more outrageous to those he served with. So much so it was suppressed and although one of the best field generals produced by the south, Cleburne never received further promotion. Imagine instead that Cleburne was in Hood’s place at the start of Sherman’s offensive vs Joe Johnson or in his place after Johnson’s relief.

The South eventually authorized Black troops a month before Lee’s surrender. Lincoln commented that if the slaves were conscripted into the Confederate armies they could not also grow foodstuffs for them. It signified the south reaching the limit of their last reserves. If Al Qaeda is recruiting women for bombings that suggests the same.

If this isn’t a good sign for us then I don’t know what is.

Update: Rush is leading with this today.

Q: What is the one thing that president has done that might cause him to be worthy of the prize he is now receiving.

If this president manages to pull out a win in Afghanistan and defeats the Taliban then he will actually have taken a decisive action that makes his prize something he deserves.

And I don’t think he is going to pull out in 2011, I think he may get a primary challenge because of it (that he will beat back) but I think in the end he is going to fight to win.

Lets hope he manages to earn it.