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We came so close to World War Three that day (More Info)
The Spectator ^ | October 3, 2007 | James Forsyth and Douglas Davis

Posted on 10/04/2007 9:39:34 AM PDT by Parmenio

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To: AU72
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1905018/posts

Nutjob promises final response

201 posted on 10/04/2007 12:30:58 PM PDT by txhurl (Yes there were WMDs)
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To: Convert from ECUSA; AdmSmith; Berosus; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; KlueLass; ...
Thanks C from E.
Israeli intelligence tracked a North Korean vessel carrying a cargo of nuclear material labelled 'cement' as it travelled halfway across the world. On 3 September the ship docked at the Syrian port of Tartous and the Israelis continued following the cargo as it was transported to the small town of Dayr as Zawr, near the Turkish border in north-eastern Syria... It had already been the subject of intense surveillance by an Israeli Ofek spy satellite, and within hours a band of elite Israeli commandos had secretly crossed into Syria and headed for the town. Soil samples and other material they collected there were returned to Israel. Sure enough, they indicated that the cargo was nuclear... With prior approval from Washington, Israeli F151 jets were scrambled and, minutes later, the installation and its newly arrived contents were destroyed... The Syrians have good reason to up the ante now. The Alawite regime of Bashar Assad is facing a slew of tough questions in the coming months -- most particularly over its alleged role in the murder of the former Lebanese leader, Rafiq Hariri, and its active support for the insurgency in Iraq. Either of these issues could threaten the survival of the regime. How tempting, then, to create a counter-threat that might cause Washington and others to pull their horns in -- and perhaps even permit a limited Syrian return to Lebanon?
I have my doubts about this supposed nuclear threat, and until everyone has forgotten this and I can change my mind without anyone's noticing, I'll continue to believe that this was an exercise to show up the Russians' hottest antiaircraft stuff, and to wipe out a multinational terrorist installation.
202 posted on 10/04/2007 12:32:04 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Wednesday, September 27, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: r9etb

Nope, it’s definitely satellite. Pretty easy to tell - because the car was a white Suburban, which looks like a white rectangle from orbit (the pic is known to come from a USGS satellite).

It also does not show the pool that was put in a few years ago.


203 posted on 10/04/2007 12:32:23 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: geopyg

Alternately, someone managed to slip a tracker or homing beacon on the thing (or it may have had one already and someone figured out how to track it) and they wanted to see where it was going to go.

Otherwise, yeah, disposing of the boat over some of the oceanic trenches would be the best thing to do.


204 posted on 10/04/2007 12:35:24 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Belasarius

We’re really at semantics here, but active EA is comprised of jamming, deception, active cancellation, and EMP use. Of course there’s kinetic attack via HARM as well

If a system is cancelled, I would not consider it to be jammed. Jammed is providing too much or too many signals in order to overload the system or operator. A cancellation is electronic white out. It sounds like you’ve seen cancellation in operation.

And you are most right that its a continuously changing game.


205 posted on 10/04/2007 12:37:48 PM PDT by SampleMan (Islamic tolerance is practiced by killing you last.)
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To: AU72
Yes, so I’ve heard. I’m hoping this foray into northern Syria without tripping the AD the Russians sold them will give them pause. Honestly, that Aminidijad (sp?) is such a creep. Why doesn’t he manage what he’s got on his own plate?! He can’t even keep the trains running on time, and he’s out to usher in the age of the 12th Imam.
206 posted on 10/04/2007 12:40:03 PM PDT by Constitutions Grandchild
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To: AU72

Another date to watch.

Thing is, he’s given several such terminal-sounding dates, only to have nothing happen.


207 posted on 10/04/2007 12:42:59 PM PDT by ctdonath2 (The color blue tastes like the square root of 0?)
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To: Constitutions Grandchild
Honestly, that Aminidijad (sp?) is such a creep.

I heard Michael Ledeen say a couple of weeks ago that the ruling mullahs have been moving their money out of Iran. Maybe they're hedging their bets prior to unleashing Armageddon.

208 posted on 10/04/2007 12:44:43 PM PDT by AU72
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To: SampleMan

There’s also a possibility of it being meaconing. Fooling the radar into believing that it’s some place else.


209 posted on 10/04/2007 12:47:00 PM PDT by ConservatismNow (Iran is just a fantastic natural resource crying out for new, more responsible owners.)
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To: NoobRep
Since this came out I have felt the cutting-edge in-house Russian upgrades to the air defense systems would not have been (as) vulnerable to the ECM.
210 posted on 10/04/2007 12:56:11 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: blam

“Trust, but verify”.


211 posted on 10/04/2007 12:56:51 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: ConservatismNow

Sure, but that leads to multiple contacts, which is evident to the operator.


212 posted on 10/04/2007 12:57:03 PM PDT by SampleMan (Islamic tolerance is practiced by killing you last.)
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To: bert
Turns out, the most common form of plutonium seems to be plutonium oxids, not the pure metal.

Plutonium can form plutonium hydride in the presence of air and water, and that will catch fire all by itself. But normally you won't ever see pure plutonium, as they stabilize it with other metals when making bombs. Still, the point is that plutonium is not indestructible. It's just a metal, a very strange one, but still just a metal.

213 posted on 10/04/2007 12:58:27 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: Parmenio
"That was confirmed to The Spectator by a very senior British ministerial source: ‘If people had known how close we came to world war three that day there’d have been mass panic. Never mind the floods or foot-and-mouth — Gordon really would have been dealing with the bloody Book of Revelation and Armageddon.’"

Welllll *people* may not have known, but, those closest to the world's oil market knew since $80+ p/bbrl was a sure indicator *something* was amiss in the absence of any disaster around the globe.

So world aside, those who watch & reason knew.
Make no mistake.

...about that. ;^)

214 posted on 10/04/2007 1:01:59 PM PDT by Landru (Made it to the dark side of the moon.)
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To: AU72
Oh, really! I’ve heard it somewhere as well. What nasty little creatures these so-called men of god are. It literally makes my skin crawl. Not a red-blooded patriot among them either — it always was about them — not the people they’ve maimed, destroyed, killed. Ugh!
215 posted on 10/04/2007 1:02:21 PM PDT by Constitutions Grandchild
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To: Constitutions Grandchild

Here is a link to a Discovery Channel show, “Future Weapons” about EMP. There is a video of the show’s experiment with EMP on the right side of the page.

http://dsc.discovery.com/search/results.html?query=electromagnetic%20pulse


216 posted on 10/04/2007 1:02:31 PM PDT by 300magnum (God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. D.Webster)
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To: plenipotentiary

Mitch Rapp??


217 posted on 10/04/2007 1:04:33 PM PDT by wordsofearnest (Thompson-Hunter not Hunter Thompson.)
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To: r9etb
Only if the Israelis have discovered some new kind of gravity....

I was more or less quoting the Jerusalem Post article, which stated that Ofek 7 orbits over Iran, Iraq and Syria every 90 minutes. I took that to mean that the orbit was set to track the earth's rotation rate, rather than staying in a fixed plane and having the earth rotate beneath it once every 24 hours. Does that make sense? I can certainly see where the Israelis would do it that way if it were possible.

218 posted on 10/04/2007 1:05:54 PM PDT by 19th LA Inf
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To: 19th LA Inf
I took that to mean that the orbit was set to track the earth's rotation rate, rather than staying in a fixed plane and having the earth rotate beneath it once every 24 hours.

No -- that would put the satellite in geosynchronous orbit, well outside range for effective hi-res imagery.

Trust my description of their actual coverage of 6-7 passes per day: I ran the numbers.

219 posted on 10/04/2007 1:09:57 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: doodad

>>>>I wish I could remember where I read (and who knows if true), that the soldiers on the ground “took” something of interest.

IIRC, someone wrote that we would be shocked when/if revealed.


220 posted on 10/04/2007 1:11:23 PM PDT by halfright (Show me a suicide Mullah)
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