Free Republic

This is from the Ministry of Defense (or da Fence?)

Fence is proving effective

10/12/2003

Security Fence has proven its effectiveness once again. Even though the Security Fence is incomplete it has proven itself in the past few days with the failure of Palestinian terrorists to cross into Israel and carry out two separate terror attacks.

In the first case, two terrorists, members of the Islamic Jihad, came from Zbubeh but were unable to cross into Israel directly and had to make a detour of 45 km to try and infiltrate in the Beit Shean area where there is no fence, in order to carry out a suicide bombing at the ORT high school in Yokne'am. This long march provided the IDF and the Security forces who were chasing them, time to trace them hiding in a mosque in Bardaleh and capture them thus preventing the terror attack.

The other suicide bombing was planned to take place in Rosh Ha'ayin. Two of the three members belonging to the Fatah Tanzim infrastructure in Nablus left Nablus in one car and the third member, a 40 year old mother of seven children left in a separate vehicle carrying the explosive belt with her.

Their meeting point was Kfar Kasim, a spot chosen because there is no security fence in that area yet. The explosive belt was transferred and the woman returned back to Nablus undetected.

The large presence of Israeli security forces in the area of Rosh Ha'ayin prevented the two terrorists from reaching their destination and they tried to get back but, later on they were caught heading towards Habla. The woman was arrested in Nablus.

In both cases, terror attacks were prevented due to the combination of specific intelligence and deterrence provided by the Security Fence and the security forces.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Peace/fence.html

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I'll pray.

I'll pray.

I'll pray too.

JOHN KERRY "Ifwe had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner"

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we would all have a merry Christmas.

I'll pray too.

"“We have been too nice. We have been too polite”.

These people are truly insane. Totally psychotic. But this is yet another good sign from them. If they are going to ratchet up their foaming at the mouth ranting they are going to push themselves so far too the left and out of the mainstream it would take the Hubble telescope to find them on the politcal scene. Go Dems Go! Show us all how mad as hell you are and that you're not going to take it anymore. hahahahahahahah

Praying!

"That may explain why they killed Abu Nedal."

It may indeed!

IAF sends Syria message from Bush

Jerusalem Post ^ | 10/10/03 | Janine Zacharia

Posted on 10/10/2003 2:38:30 PM PDT by truthandlife

The US hopes its support this week for the Israel Air Force's strike on a Palestinian terrorist training camp near Damascus will convert Syrian leaders who have been reluctant until now to stop the flow of Islamic militants into Iraq.

For years, Washington has recognized the problem posed by Syria's sheltering of Palestinian terrorist groups. Syria has been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department for two decades. And US diplomats, up to Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit to Damascus in May, have repeatedly urged the Syrian regime to close down the terrorist offices and operations.

Despite repeated rebuffs, Washington has largely preferred diplomacy and resisted concrete actions. Now, with Syria undermining American interests in Iraq, the US has reversed course and decided to send a tougher message to Damascus that it will no longer tolerate its behavior. The Israeli strike provided the Bush administration a perfect opportunity to do so. Remarkably this week, Washington defended Israel's strike on the camp, torpedoed a Syrian-sponsored UN Security Council resolution condemning the action, and dropped its opposition to the Syria Accountability Act, which would lead to fresh sanctions on Damascus.

"The US has come to the conclusion that having Israel put a little more heat on the Syrians is not necessarily a bad thing, since they are misbehaving," said one American Jewish official.

The question US officials are now posing is whether US backing of the Israeli strike – and presumed green lights in the future – constitutes enough leverage to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to change his behavior.

"The real question is not whether we see the issue of Syria and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as the Israelis do,"said one American observer of US-Syrian relations. "We've read from the same page on this for the past 20 years. What is new is the question of whether what Israel has done could somehow have value for the United States in Iraq. Would that put more pressure on Syria to behave in Iraq?

"We have our own interests at stake. We have American soldiers dying and Syria is not cooperating. This is where American and Israeli interests are converging. The Israelis want to put pressure on Syria, because of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We want to put pressure on Syria because of Iraq."

The US, like Israel, knows there is a risk in this new approach – primarily that Syria could actually prove the actor with the most leverage by unleashing Hizbullah, further destabilizing the US efforts in Iraq, and escalating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For now, it is the UN that has been most vocal about these concerns. On Thursday, UN Middle East special envoy Terje Roed Larsen urged Syria, Israel, and Lebanon to calm down as the recent attacks could lead to a destabilization of the region.

"Attacks and counter-attacks like these are leading us down a steep and precarious path," Larsen told reporters after meeting with Assad in Damascus. "Today I seriously advise the parties not to travel down this road." The envoy said the round of fighting had disturbed "a front that has been stable for many years" and risked "destabilizing consequences for the whole region." Larsen encouraged Syria, Lebanon, and Israel "to work exclusively through diplomatic means and allow the international community to work out a resolution that would defuse the tension."

Syria's official news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling Larsen that "the Israeli government is a war government and could not go on without war." Larsen praised the Syrian government for not retaliating militarily for the air strike.

Damascus had made the "wise decision" to complain about Israel to the UN Security Council, he said. "We oppose the unilateral use of force," Larsen said, referring to both the air strike and the shooting of an Israeli soldier on the Lebanese border on the same day.

U.S. deploys 20,000 troops near Syrian border

WORLD TRIBUNE.COM ^ | Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Posted on 11/19/2003 1:25:22 PM PST by Mossad1967

The United States has deployed 20,000 troops along the Syrian border after Syria failed to stop militants from crossing into Iraq.

As late as October, U.S. officials said hundreds of Islamic insurgents were crossing into Iraqi from Syria. They said Syrian authorities had failed to respond to U.S. appeals to stop the flow of insurgents.

U.S. military officials said the U.S. troop presence was bolstered beginning in September and has resulted in a significant drop in infiltration from Syria. The U.S. troops are based in the Iraqi province of Anbar, Middle East Newsline reported.

Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said the military completed a 200 percent increase in U.S. troops at Anbar. Swannack told a briefing in Baghdad on Tuesday that the increased deployment was also meant to stop infiltration from other Iraqi neighbors, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. But the U.S. presence has not halted the flow of insurgents from Syria. On Monday, the U.S. military said six suspected insurgents were captured near the Syrian border. One of them was later killed when he tried to attack a guard.

Swannack said the U.S. troop presence in Anbar has resulted in reducing the flow of insurgents from Syria. He said Islamic insurgents have launched attacks against the U.S. force near the 500-kilometer Syrian border. But he called the attacks ineffective.

"We are not fighting foreign fighters coming across the border in significant numbers," Swannack said. "We are fighting mostly former regime locals."

"There is a reason for chain of custody protection of classified information"

Yes but you may offend a Chinese National if you demand a receipt to preserve chain of custody. His feelings may be hurt because you're implying you don't trust him. We have to be sensitive of others feelings. Remember what they did with the badges/access during the Clinton years? They lowered security levels for everyone so no one would be offended by having a different level of security.

Yet another nightmare for the Democrats. Just in time for Christmas too!

Go Ralph Go!!

I didn't know Kerry served in Vietnam.

I pinged you at post 13. Thought you might want to read the Aurora article there. Great animation halfway through.

"``Al Gore won the state of Florida in 2000 and we should never forget it.''

Another "victory" for Terry. May he continue racking up the the "wins" for the Dems.

Hmm. Maybe Al Qaeda will topple the House of Saud then we can invade and take over. Killing two birds with one stone.

It is minboggling. Here's the url if you want it. The other article is interesting too.

http://www.nti.org/db/nistraff/2001/20010560.htm