It’s the end of the world as we know it (And I feel hungry)
Just in case the news reports weren’t enough to convince you that something big is at hand, we now have icthyological theological backing.
Um… that doesn’t make much sense. Neither does the original story: From the NY Times
In other news, B-1 bombers associated with the 24th MEU in Jordan have begun heavy bombing of radar installations in western Iraq. Story & photos here.
Interesting politics.
Well, since I’m not using that politics filter right now, I’ll just hide things behind a cut instead…
Strange days…
Well, I take back what I said about having no clear post-war plan: the Washington Post is reporting that there is a plan to establish American rule over the area, and it seems pretty clear that we’re going to need a fairly strong American rule if we’re to prevent the Kurds from asserting any autonomy and thus causing problems for Turkey.
Why do I suddenly get the feeling that a lot of Americans are about to get a nasty lesson in just how nasty middle eastern politics can get? I hope we’re ready to be as brutal as Saddam Hussein or Hafez el-Assad – because otherwise we may find ourselves in a very long, drawn-out series of internal conflicts, ending in the need to retreat in disgrace. Not to put too fine a point on it.
And speaking of nasty shocks: There’s a rather amusing article in the NY Times about the people who volunteered to be human shields in Iraq. My favorite part is the guy evincing some suspicion that Saddam’s offer to position them in power plants and so on may not be entirely in their best interests.
I’m not sure whether to be horrified or twistedly amused by this. I’m really wondering at what point it will occur to these people that Saddam’s standard operating procedure for human shields is to use them to increase casualties during bombings, so that it plays better on CNN. Yet another Quick Intro to Middle East Politics…. *sigh*
(And just for extra shits & giggles – apparently we’re invading the Philipines, sending combat troops to fight against Abu Sayyaf. Oh, good, this is an excellent time to be opening a few more fronts. I was worried we might not have enough.)
Follow-up to yesterday…
Well, it looks like the attack threatened yesterday happened – but mercifully didn’t go off as planned. Details here. The big one wasn’t the car bomb at the hotel, but notice a couple of other things:
- Two Stinger missiles (shoulder-mounted heat-seekers) were fired at a B757 as it was taking off from Mombasa airport. This would have been the first successful destruction of a passenger aircraft, not from aboard the craft but from the ground.
- There are also rumors (debka, so take with some grain of salt) that aircraft strafed the hotel building in Kenya which was bombed.
- There were four major, synchronized attacks: The aircraft strike, the Kenya bombing, the attack at the polling place in Israel, and a nearby major car bomb. (Which failed to detonate) Multiple widely separated, synchronized attacks are a classic al Qaeda calling card. (cf. Sept. 11, or the embassy bombings a few years ago)
So yes, sometimes it pays to be paranoid. One interesting point of analysis from debka: “The Mombasa attacks like the Bali bombing targeted exotic tourist spots frequented by Western vacationers – focusing on Australians in the first and Israelis in the second. “
News information
Update: Since people wanted to link to the previous post, which was friends-only, I decided to move the more unofficial stuff to a separate post and secure that. Basically, this is stuff gleaned from a lot of reading through foreign press and so on; there seems to be some decent reason not to yet publicly discuss all of it, so I’m talking about it here and not in the general-public post.
Random post for those of you interested in politics, a summary of key things from non-US media and various “unofficial sources:”
There has been a major al Qaeda regrouping, probably including all senior people (bin Laden and al-Zawahiri included), in the deserts in the southwest of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Those two governments have nominal sovereignty over those regions, but realistically those areas are the domain of certain Bedouin tribes who have familial alliances to the organization.
US forces based out of Djibouti (apparently some hybrid of CIA and Army special forces; details are, of course, very hush-hush) are hunting for people and occcasionally acting. The carful of al Qaeda operatives that got hit by a Predator drone a few weeks ago was part of their work; bet money that they’re actively hunting for some of the big fish, and are hoping to pull of a coup by gibbing one or two of them in some dramatic and public fashion.
The unofficial funding game is a bit more interesting. There’s a succession fight going on in Saudi Arabia between the families of Prince Sultan (the current defense minster) and Crown Prince Abdullah. Prince Naif, the interior minister and a relative of Sultan’s, has apparently been funneling a great deal of cash into al Qaeda, and is probably providing the unnoficial cover for their setup in the desert. Also, Prince Bandar bin Sultan (Prince Sultan’s son) just bought a 25% stake in the al-Jazeera media network – this is part of more of this rather complicated plot. More Machiavellian scheming on this front detailed here.
So there’s a very complicated Saudi involvement in this, a major refortification of al Qaeda, and secret operations going on on both sides.
Random news items
Update: Since people are linking to this post, I’m moving the friends-only part (the part that really shouldn’t be discussed in public yet) to a separate post. The “this just in” part is probably of sufficient public interest that it should be transmitted broadly; there’s a potential for trouble today, but several factors (including those described in the locked post) may mean that there are surprises in store for both sides today. For those of you not on the locked list, this is the end of a post on various political developments of the past few weeks.
Relax!
Hi everyone,
In response to the huge number of concerned letters and so on I’ve gotten lately about my trip: First of all, thank you to all of you, it does make me very happy to know that there are people concerned about me. Second, stop worrying! The place I’m going to is really not that dangerous. The total violent death rate in Israel, including ordinary murders and terror, was 2.9 per 100,000; the rate in SF in 2000 was 4.3. So even allowing for both sides skewing their numbers to make things look better, it’s still a lot less dangerous than simply going up to the City for a week.
No, the real threat to life and limb in Israel is the traffic. Israelis drive like Italians who have been fed large quantities of amphetamines.
And yes, I will stay off the buses. Just because the murder rate is low doesn’t make one careless.
News again…
Well, it looks like my earlier post may have been right after all. Now the NY Times is reporting that we have, indeed, been carrying out bombing raids in Iraq lately. Although they don’t refer specifically to the figure of 100 aircraft, it seems like the rumors in the mideast may be fairly close to the truth.
(For those of you who didn’t hear about it – there’s been a rumor going around the mideast lately, which made the front page of Israel’s largest newspaper as well as military intelligence rumor-mills like debka, that on 6 Sep there was a joint US/UK strike on Iraq involving about 100 aircraft, which took out antiaircraft radar and guns, missile sites and airfields in the western part of Iraq. This was interpreted as opening a path for a special-forces-driven invasion with air support coming in from Turkey; the AA being cleared out lets our bombers through, and taking out missile sites in the west reduces the odds of Iraq being able to hit Israeli targets with Scuds. The airfields are because those were his aircraft most capable of carrying nonconventional weapons.)
Other rel news – Iraq allows weapons inspectors, Saudis to allow US to use bases for war.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 