US and Israel Test Missile As Syria War Tensions Rise 227
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Joshua Mitnick reports that Israel and the U.S. carried out a missile test over the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday morning that was detected by Russian surveillance systems. Israel's defense ministry eventually said a Sparrow rocket had been fired to simulate a ballistic missile attack on the Jewish state to test the Arrow interceptor system. The Arrow – which wasn't fired Tuesday – has been developed to defend against long range rockets primarily from Iran, a main patron of the Syrian regime. Arieh Herzog, a former Israeli missile defense director, says that the Sparrow missile is developed to simulate 'the worst threats' in the region so Israel can hone the capabilities of the Arrow III missile interceptor. Herzog speculated that the launch Tuesday was done at a considerably long range. Another Israeli expert said the incident could be seen as muscle flexing by the U.S. and Israel. 'You could say perhaps its show of strength to Syria and its Iranian ally — that Israel has a range of options at its disposal. And to place pressure on Assad and Iran that Israel takes [retaliation threats] seriously,' says Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer on Iranian politics at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. Pentagon press secretary George Little said the U.S. 'provided technical assistance and support to the Israeli Missile Defense Organization flight test of a Sparrow target missile over the Mediterranean Sea.' 'The United States and Israel cooperate on a number of long-term ballistic missile defense development projects to address common challenges in the region,' added Little. 'This test had nothing to do with United States consideration of military action to respond to Syria's chemical weapons attack.'"
Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just swinging my fist 1mm from your face, I'm not touching you, you can't stop me, there's no law against swinging your arms, stop touching my hands with your face, ha ha ha!
Except that in this case instead of getting kicked by an irate sibling some stuff might be blown up.
International Dickwaving. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't we stay the fuck out of syria. Neither side likes us. We can't 'win' anything.
We're going to piss away a bunch more lives and money we don't have, for what?
Re:Entirely Sensible (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Childish (Score:4, Insightful)
Regional strategic ally. Most of the middle east hates the US - there are some fundemental social tensions involved, as well as political and historic reasons for hostility. But it's still a region of great global importance (ie, oil), so it can't just be forgotten. Israel is an ally in a place where an ally is a very useful thing.
Re:NPR is banging the drums for war... (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll note that this term was never used against people who disagreed with wars in Afghanistan or Iraq...
Yeah, they were called traitors by the same right wing propaganda outlets you get your talking points from. Can you be anymore obvious?
Re:International Dickwaving. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't we stay the fuck out of syria. Neither side likes us. We can't 'win' anything.
We're going to piss away a bunch more lives and money we don't have, for what?
Because Israel was always under threat from Iran/Syria and... surprise... the house of Saudi doesn't like them either (Sunni vs Shia). So, they need somebody with enough clout to handle the hot potato, even against UN council, and the US of A seem vain [globalresearch.ca] (or, is it moronic already?) enough to think they can do it, perhaps even doing it alone.
This will be a good business period for Saudis (selling more oil) and Russia (keeping Syria armed enough), awful for Turkey, Lebanon and possibly Jordan (dealing with refugee exodus).
Re:Entirely Sensible (Score:2, Insightful)
They're also not even aggressive. They've been bombed and threatened and all kinds of bullshit by the US for so long, and they've done barely anything in retaliation.
I mean, the fucking CIA used chemical weapons on them in the Iraq-Iran war, then the US blamed Iran. A US ship illegally entered Iranian waters and shot down an Iranian civilian airliner. The US government is obsessed with attacking them, and their pet nuclear-armed middle eastern rogue nuclear state even more so. Iran isn't saintly - it's not even a good country - but compared to the aggressors here, it's practically Hello Kitty.
Re:Childish (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah that's the typical American attitude. Reminds me of their cops in full SWAT uniform with 5 of his buddies repeatedly slamming someone's face into the ground while yelling "STOP RESISTING!". And THEN they charge you for assaulting an officer, for bleeding on him.
You know the US has milked 9/11 so much it makes me sick. Sept 12 2001, America had the world's sympathy. Those days are long long gone. In fact many are now thinking it's time America got put in its place. Either stop the constant aggression, or you will be stopped.
Re:Leaked evidence chemical attack was false flag. (Score:5, Insightful)
The cynicism amongst some people is so strong that they'll blindly believe any shred of evidence regardless of how fake it looks. It's a good and healthy thing to question, but to buy into every stupid conspiracy theory that comes along is idiotic. They're only capable of being cynical in one direction which means the right interests will be able to easily exploit their naivete.
I bet the guys who posted those supposed emails read the summary and in their gleeful rush to share this crap neglected to dig any deeper. But I guarantee you that a year from now people will continue repeating this story and all blog links will lead right back to this particular site. When it comes to this sort of thing blogs tend to be a circle jerk where everyone uses everyone else's blog as proof for their claims.
Re:Entirely Sensible (Score:1, Insightful)
Any reason you didn't link to the first attack? You're not trying to mislead people, are you?
Re:International Dickwaving. (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, Syria was until quite recently one of our supporters in the region. We've had generally decent to good relations with the Assad regime. It cooled a bit since he started killing his people, but we tend to take a dim view of those who would kill their people because they started talkng democracy.
Re:International Dickwaving. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, Syria was until quite recently one of our supporters in the region. We've had generally decent to good relations with the Assad regime. It cooled a bit since he started killing his people, but we tend to take a dim view of those who would kill their people because they started talkng democracy.
A fair point to make. Even more oddly is how Syria was even a military allay during the Gulf War.... where Syria fielded a full division of soldiers and took orders directly from an American general (Schwarzkopf) in that war.
The funny thing about Syria is how there are numerous photos and videos of Assad having dinner with both John Kerry and Barack Obama, not to mention an official state visit by Assad to the White House.... and Obama going to Syria himself. Yeah, it was a close relationship. You wonder what Assad did to piss off the Obama administration?
No I don't think the gas attack, at least by itself, was the act. Heck, the Obama administration has been funding "rebels" in Syria for awhile now... well before that supposed gas attack.
Re:Entirely Sensible (Score:5, Insightful)
The one running Iran is crazy
If you're talking about Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, he's not crazy at all: He acts crazy to try to keep the US from attacking his country. And pursuing a nuclear weapon also isn't a dumb move, because the US has made it clear that it leaves countries with nukes and crazy-seeming leaders (e.g. North Korea) alone while attacking countries without nukes (e.g. Iraq).
If you're talking about the current guy running Iran, Hassan Rouhani, he ran on a campaign of negotiating with foreign powers and more centrist policies, and is decidedly not crazy.
Re:Leaked evidence chemical attack was false flag. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Same logic could apply to Syria's leadership. What strategic military importance was there to using chemical weapons on a remote village full of civilians Vs the enormous risk of UN invasion by using them. I suspect the most likely suspects behind the attack are third parties that stand to gain by an invasion (i.e. not US, not current Syrian regime either)."
1 Actually it doesn't here. The UN will not invade because China and Russia will not agree to it. They will veto any massive UN action.
2 The US will not invade because the US is war weary and the President doesn't have the support.
3 The US did nothing when Iraq used them.
So the worse is that the US will fire some cruise missiles to make a show of it. The Syria under their brave leaders took the "worst" that the Imperialist US dogs and their lackeys could dish out and stood firm. In other words we slap the on the wrist and they stick out their tongue at the world. In other words President Obama mucked this up because frankly he just is not a good president. I am not saying that he is evil or anything like that. He seems like a good guy but he should have done a few terms in Congress to get educated about the world outside of being an "activist organizer".
Re:Wait, what? (Score:2, Insightful)
We do not owe Bush an apology. The whole premise for getting us involved in a war was a lie! Fake intelligence supporting a fake threat. Yellow cake was proven to be a fabrication contrived by Italian intelligence agencies. "Mobile Chemical Weapons Plants" were proven to be a lie. The only chemical weapons Iraq had was what we sold them in the 80s, and trained them to use against Iran and the Kurdish people (which they did and the US supported them).
Bush gained house support for Gulf 2 because of a long string of lies convincing people that Iraq was a threat to the US homeland.
Since we have proof that the Iraq war was based on a lie, we have many more people today questioning the same theme being run against Syria. Kerry and Obama claiming it does not matter who used the weapons is idiocy. Not that you said "it does not matter", more showing the direction the party has been moving to convince you that we should bomb Syria.
Bush got UN and Congressional support before every military action, and now we are being told Obama doesn't need to.
You have an untrue statement there. Bush may have gotten Congress approval (for some actions, but not all), but the UN never approved the Gulf war. As to the 48 countries, I don't think you have to try very hard to see who and why they were with the US. Same players, same game, different area of the globe.
For clarity, I'm not claiming Obama is "good" or taking a correct course of action. I am telling you that Bush can not be painted as a good guy.
Re:Leaked evidence chemical attack was false flag. (Score:4, Insightful)
THIS