Post-battle calculus:
Posted on 10/23/2007 5:08:02 AM PDT by AU72
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Interesting. That's wildly different from the story being published, which is that the Syrians missed the incursion completely. If your facts are correct, then you are correct - no 'stealth' argument.
However... doesn't that response seem a bit anemic for defending said high-value target?
http://muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=13279
The drop tanks were found the morning after the night raid. That’s pretty remote, rugged, sparsely-populated territory (where the tanks were located).
And just 2 were found.
So based on Syrian sources claiming 4 missiles launched...but not even a hit claimed (unusual for Islamic news)...and only 2 drop tanks tracked to their landings in Turkey, I’d have to say that *most* of Syria’s air defenses were completely off-line...and that at best only some peripheral defenses were *somewhat* functional.
They saw 4 F-15’s on at least one system. They tracked at least 2 drop tanks to Turkey.
And you can bet that at least once the bombs hit inside Syria that the air defense teams were doing *whatever* they could to get anything launched at anything that they could manage to see.
Syria was OWNED!
North Korea’s protests and Russia’s radar technicians on the ground would also indicate a great deal of panic has moved uphill from Syria.
We saw similar geopolitical behavior from 1945 to 1948...when the U.S. had nukes but no one else did.
Well, the U.S. and Israel have that equivilent edge in radars/computers right now. It’s not omnipotent, but it’s quite an edge.
And it fully explains the otherwise bizarre move by Russia to start sending nuclear bombers to the edge of NATO coasts; with their air defense systems shown to be useless, Russia can only go on the offensive to maintain a credible “defense.”
North Korea’s protests and Russia’s radar technicians on the ground would also indicate a great deal of panic has moved uphill from Syria.
We saw similar geopolitical behavior from 1945 to 1948...when the U.S. had nukes but no one else did.
“Well, the U.S. and Israel have that equivilent edge in radars/computers right now. It’s not omnipotent, but it’s quite an edge.
And it fully explains the otherwise bizarre move by Russia to start sending nuclear bombers to the edge of NATO coasts; with their air defense systems shown to be useless, Russia can only go on the offensive to maintain a credible “defense.””
Those are great points. Here is the grand scheme from our enemies as I see it. Iranians/Syrians want a Islamic superstate. Russia wants the US out of the global stage or at least us stopping the expansion eastward of Nato. China wants energy and lots of it and is competing with the West but more the USA in general. Those whom control the oil, can control the world economy and hence the world. What is standing in the way of their ambitions? Israel and the USA. Knock out Israel Iran/Syria get’s it’s superstate and China get’s its energy needs met. Knock out America and the Russian’s get to control all of Europe. Thoughts?
Best 100-words-or-less synopsis I’ve seen.
It’s more complicated. China needs the U.S. as its largest customer and Russia needs the world (read: U.S. and European) economies to grow in order to sell more Russian oil externally.
Syria has Shi’ia, but Syria is Arab. Iran is Shi’ia, but Iran is Persian. Arabs and Persians have fought each other since long before Islam (Shi’ia and Sunni predominantly) was founded.
Thus, an Islamic “superstate” is a pipe-dream at this point in time. Even if Israel ceased to exist, enlarging Iran’s Shi’ia power would alienate the Sunni Arabs of Saudi Arabia as well as the Arab sentiments of Syria and Iraq and Egypt.
That being said, the U.S. and Israel are convenient bogeymen whenever any of the above players desires to rile up certain segments of its own society.
The energy picture and the manufacturing picture give China and Russia unusual leverage right now (which will decline as home automation and alternative energy comes online), and they both want the U.S. to give up on things like Taiwan and NATO expansion.
Complicating the above is that the U.S. has subversive elements that are whispering the wrong things into policy-making ears (e.g. Kosovo independence, Turkish genocide) while stimying legitimate U.S. interests (e.g. missile defense, funding troops in Iraq).
Which is to say, there is one heck of a global power struggle going on right now...though it has very little overt bloodshed of consequence (e.g. about 1 U.S. soldier killed per day in Iraq this month).
Yuk..wonder what’s really up here?
Gulf oil is cheap oil, in that it’s close to oceanic transport. Compared to Russia and China, the US has the inside track in Saudi Arabia (#1 in proven Gulf energy reserves), Iraq, and Kuwait. With global energy demands trending towards outpacing supplies, it’s only natural for Russia and China to consolidate relations with the sole major Gulf oil supplier who doesn’t have good relations with the US, namely Iran.
That doesn’t mean Russia or China have a free hand in aligning with Iran, because Iran is still a hard line Islamic, unpredictable, unstable, state sponsor of terrorism. In my opinion, Bushehr is so far behind its fueling schedule, in my opinion, because the US has made it plain that the day fissile material begins shipping to Iran is the day we level Bushehr, because once the complex is fueled, an attack will create a Chernobyl sized fallout plume that could drift in any direction depending on the wind at that time.
Point being, though Russian and Chinese self interest indicate deepening ties with Iran, there are demonstrable limits beyond which Russia and China dare not step, yet.
I’ve doubted since day one that the facility in Syria was emitter free. The cement ship was an obvious clue, and any lesser provocation does not meet Israel’s historical standards for pre-emptive strikes. The question remains, what form and fashion of fissionables were shipped to Syria?
An operational missile warhead could not have originated in North Korea. North Korea cannot and has not ignited successfully a heavy, cumbersome, voluminous test device yet, much less achieved the confidence necessary to create a lightweight, reliable device capable of being strapped to range challenged Syrian or Iranian missiles.
These two variables define the range of possibility regarding the contents of the North Korean “cement” shipment. At the low end of the mathematically possible scale would be the least fissionable material that still qualifies as “fissionable”, namely raw uranium ore. The upper end of the same spectrum includes all processed fissionables short of weapons grade material, refined and machined to the point of being bomb ready, plug-in components.
My personal belief is that raw ore, or even yellowcake might not be enough to trigger the Israeli raid, and would certainly fall short of “stunning”.
The range of possibilities then, runs from partially refined uranium, through bulky and heavy partially or fully assembled test devices (very different from working warheads), through spent heavy water reactor fuel rods heading to Syria for re-processing to extract bomb grade Plutonium 239.
A stockpile of spent core rods containing Plutonium, or a partially or fully assembled test device lies at the low end of what I think Israel would refer to as “stunning”. Since these two possibilities also represent the most provocative end of the possible spectrum, I have been reasonably satisfied that one of the two is the most likely scenario since 24 to 48 hours after news of the raid leaked out, and nothing that has happened since has changed this opinion. In the gray area lies the possibility of significant qualtities of test radio nuclides, unsuitable for self sustaining critical reactions.
In my opinion, Bush wants to protect his “nuclear breakthrough” with North Korea for political and military reasons, and this explains why he chooses to remain silent on the subject of the raid.
A “viable” agreement with North Korea increases Bush’s political capital, which could be leveraged into additional support for attacks against Iran, and a cooperative agreement with North Korea lessens the chance of North Korean participation in retaliatory strikes in the event of an attack on Iran.
Any US Legislators with a vested interest against increased Bush political influence, or interest against an attack on Iran, will necessarily wish to see the details of North Korean proliferation exposed, but perhaps not enough to risk imprisonment over traceable leaks to the media. This is 100% consistent with what we’ve see to date. There’s a decidedly “holy sh*t” quality to those reports that do pierce the fog of classification.
Finally, if you take the UK’s and Israeli statements about the raid taking us to the brink of WWIII at face value, the logical assumptions are:
1. That we noted Russian or Chinese heightened nuclear alert status immediately following the raid,
OR
2. There was enough rumbling picked up by national technical means in Iran, Syria, North Korea, perhaps Turkey, etc, to just barely cross the line between a “regional conventional conflict” and a “global conventional conflict”,
OR
3. There were enough rumblings picked up out of Syria, or Iran, or North Korea to suggest a retaliation that would demand a nuclear escalation from Israel the US or both,
OR
4. Some combination of any or all of the above.
Please note that all the above require accepting unsubstantiated quotes referring to WWIII, the truth of which are in no way a given, not yet, anyway. Even assuming the veracity of those claims, the possibility of adversarial posturing, “playing” at increased alert levels for political gain, cannot be ignored.
In the long term, I don’t see this story dying quietly. For weeks now, all “news” stories have been selective re-hashes of previous disclosures and speculation. Even so, there is clearly a market for these type stories, and reporters are obviously hard at work digging.
In every country involved, and many not involved, sensor readers noted whatever they noted on 9/6 and shortly afterward, passed the take up the chain of intelligence command, which in turn briefed top leadership, who in many cases then initiated limited distribution of the intelligence to lower tiers of elected or appointed leadership.
That’s a large body of people all charged with keeping the secrets, numbering in the hundreds, globally, at minimum, and odds are they won’t remain silent for much longer. Somebody, somewhere, is likely to spill the beans. That all involved have remained silent concerning core details, for this long already, underscores for me the serious nature of the classified information involved.
Historically, disclosure of any of the possibilities noted above, in and of itself, did not affect the balance of global power or even the military stance of the participants. Russia went on alert when Israel cornered the Egyptian army in the Sinai, but the later disclosure of that fact changed little.
However, public awareness of Russian intent to defend their client state with nuclear weapons, would change the pre-battle calculus substantially.
However, Russia has substantial supplies of oil of their own, and China is not really in a position to threaten offensive action, even nuclear escalation.
Therefore, in my opinion, the references to WWIII more likely imply intelligence information regarding a Syrian, Iranian, or North Korean NBC retaliation, without ruling out more significant strategic intentions.
I have to disagree.
The neutron flux density, expressed as a function of the capture ratio and nuclide spacing, taken together with rationality constants approaching the limits of zero, obviate the self immolation branches of equative errata, yielding the clear tendency towards enemy dispersal at subatomic levels.
;-)
Is that mathematician-speak for “we’re gonna drop an A-bomb”? LOL
Persians frequently refer to the arabization of Iran....that arabization includes the ruling mullahs. IOW - The regime is pro-Arab. Persians only make up 1/2 the population of Iran.
bump
BFL.....
The March-to-the-End-Times continues.....
That's true, but those are weak claims to make ("Hey everybody, we got 4 misses!") and they are backed by evidence (2 Israeli drop tanks *were* recovered).
So it would be less believable if the claims were grandiose and without evidence.
She is Cuban born. Not elligible
Great insights Southhack.
Thanks. I had missed that. As a second choice, she'd make a better Secretary of State than Rice.
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