Posted on 04/08/2008 7:04:26 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
The Arab-Israeli region of the Middle East is filled with rumors of war. That is about as unusual as the rising of the sun, so normally it would not be worth mentioning. But like the proverbial broken clock that is right twice a day, such rumors occasionally will be true. In this case, we don’t know that they are true, and certainly it’s not the rumors that are driving us. But other things — minor and readily explicable individually — have drawn our attention to the possibility that something is happening.
SNIP
Rumors now are swirling that the Israelis are about to reveal publicly they bombed a nuclear reactor provided to Syria by North Korea. But this news isn’t all that big. Also rumored is that the Israelis will claim Iranian complicity in building the reactor. One Israeli TV station reported April 8 that Israel really had discovered Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which it said had been smuggled to Syria.
Why the Bush administration wouldn’t have trumpeted news of the Syrian reactor worldwide in September 2007 is beyond us, but there obviously were some reasons — assuming the TV report is true, which we have no way of establishing. In fact, we have no idea why the Israelis are choosing this moment to rehash the bombing of this site.... More
(Excerpt) Read more at stratfor.com ...
The bombing of Syria symbolizes our confusion. Why would Syria want a nuclear reactor and why put it on the border of Turkey, a country the Syrians aren’t particularly friendly with? If the Syrians had a nuclear reactor, why would the Israelis be coy about it? Why would the Americans? Having said nothing for months apart from careful leaks, why are the Israelis going to speak publicly now? And if what they are going to say is simply that the North Koreans provided the equipment, what’s the big deal? That was leaked months ago.
The events of September 2007 make no sense and have never made any sense. The events we have seen since February make no sense either. That is noteworthy, and we bring it to your attention. We are not saying that the events are meaningless. We are saying that we do not know their meaning. But we can’t help but regard them as ominous.
I have stopped asking such questions.
The Bush administration has consistant in their silence while being pounded by the left.
I still trust though that it is for good reason.
And that will lead to a nasty letter from the UN, accompanied by pleas from the State Dept not to do anything.
I don’t see any difficulty explaining why Israel would have waited 7 months to say much about the bombing of the Syrian reactor site (if indeed they are about to say something). In the initials days after the bombing they would have been waiting to closely assess they Syrian reaction, international issues, etc. They actually had no reason to make a big deal of it at the time unless they wanted to increase the likelihood of a war with Syria (which they would win, of course, but there is no reason to think that Israel’s current leaders were looking for a war with Syria). IF there had been much comment from Israel at the time, it would have increased pressure on Assad’s regime to respond militarily or else “lose face”..... as it is everyone knows Syria had its butt kicked, but without the most explicit public humiliation that Assad could no longer ignore.
If Israel does come out with info now, whether for their own reasons or due to US needs/pressures, they have judged that the bombing is enough in the past that Assad will not immediately ratchet up to a shooting war over it. Again, no one doubts that Israel can kick Syria’s butt any moment of the year, but they do not want to go to the trouble and expense of actually doing so unless there is an absolutely compelling and urgent reason.
-Traveler
Meaningless article.
Best part: Wilson negotiated a deal for the Israelis to supply weapons to the muj via Pakistan!! The catch was, there could be no stars of David on the shipping crates.
Despite rulings by the lawyers at the CIA which said that we could not ship sniper rifles to the muj, Gust Avrakotos shipped them anyway, under the designation, "special viewing devices."
The Paks and Saudies COULD NOT be seen by their people as working with the Jews, even to liberate Afghanistan from the Reds; the U.S. was told behind the scenes that any direct US aid found coming from Pakistan would result in the Russkies taking out Pakistan, possibly through India and her nukes!!
Starting to get the picture?
There are any number of plausible scenarios for why the WMDs in Iraq a) were not intercepted when they were first moved, and b) acknowledged after they arrived in (probably) Syria. For one thing, the US would have had to invade Syria---and the public simply wasn't ready for that. Perhaps---just perhaps, I don't know---Bush knew that if they got to Syria, the Israelis would at a convenient moment take care of our problem.
One line stood out in Charlie Wilson's War: Gust noted that the very best spy programs are the ones the reporters think haven't worked. And the spies will never publicly claim credit. Gust only did so about Afghanistan some 15 years later. This is critical to keep in mind: what ever the press thinks it is "telling us" about the situation, it is almost certainly wrong.
“The Bush administration has consistant in their silence while being pounded by the left.”
I’ve never understood W’s resistance to fighting back. It is truly one of his biggest weaknesses and probably a very large contributor to the democrats overall successes the last several years.
Seems like a lot of words that say nothing, which the article admits.
John Bolton on Fox News discussing Israeli airstrike---
Link to video.
“Why the Bush administration wouldn’t have trumpeted news of the Syrian reactor worldwide in September 2007 is beyond us, but there obviously were some reasons — assuming the TV report is true, which we have no way of establishing. In fact, we have no idea why the Israelis are choosing this moment to rehash the bombing of this site.... More”
There is a very good reason why the US didn’t announce to the world that it found Saddams WMD. Let’s say we did. NOw let’s say Al Queada put out a press release saying they knew this and took a few tons of stuff and are going to use it against US interests. What would the RATS say? That George Bush put the US in danger.
It was a no win for the administration and they believed that it would be easier to beat Kerry with the “No WMD” argument rather then the “Bush put us all in danger” argument.
100’s of 18 wheel trucks do not mysteriously vanish in to the night. To think otherwise would be naive. My bet is even the Syrians wanted the crap gone.
Imagine what would happen to the Democrat party if Obama or Hillary is elected and all of a sudden one of Saddams WMD’s makes its way to the US. They blamed Bush for invading on a false premise and now it was true.
The Democrat party would be dead.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see. WMD’s...interesting.
Iraq ia going down.
Yup. At some point a rope-a-dope becomes a dopey mope.
You know, Ronaldus Magnus (the great Ronald) used to say you can get a lot of good done when you don’t care who gets the credit.
bump for later
The Syrians have massive amounts of their own "WMD" - huge chemical weapons program for decades.
If there was any putative Iraqi WMD in Syria may be hard to tell what is Syrian or Iraqi, and likely would be fairly irrelevant compared to what Syria already has.
Dumb me. I meant Iran.
That’s okay. I figured from your tagline you are sharp, and just made a slip of the uh keyboard!
?
‘Why would Syria want a nuclear reactor and why put it on the border of Turkey, a country the Syrians aren’t particularly friendly with?’
Deir al Zahr is smack-dab in the middle of Syria, nowhere near the Turkish border. There is that site we were looking at on the Turkish Border.
What gives?
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