Drumbeats of War - The Mirrors Shatter - News Flash Addendum
Three posts within 24 hours. A first, for me.
But things are happening quickly, and it’s getting serious.
Yet US mainstream news headlines try to focus our attention on Obama’s overhaul of ‘No Child Left Behind’.
Here’s the real news… somewhat tenuous and sometimes unsubstantiated. But as the fog of war extends toward the present, that is to be expected.
Israel’s Defense Minister Barak asked the US for certain advanced arms systems that he said were vital to Israel. He requested they be sent post haste to US bases in Israel’s southern desert (we have several) and kept in storage there if the official release was going to take very long, because he expected hostilities between Israel and her neighbors to begin soon. That was three months ago. He is still waiting for an answer. All this suddenly came to light today, courtesy of Israeli intelligence sources.
This is apparently what was behind Barak’s nearly physical and certainly verbal abuse of Netanyahu after VP Biden’s visit turned toxic.
Today, the same day as the request for sophisticated arms was revealed, the same intelligence sources, quoting their Washington sources, say the Obama Administration is contemplating totally refusing Israel those arms. Amazingly, this claim is echoed in official Iranian news sources. I don’t know if it is true, but it sounds believable, given the events of the past 48 hours.
If so, Biden’s disastrous visit to Israel was not a tempest in a teapot. It was the outward sign of extremely serious issues behind the scenes.
All sources, both mainstream and shadow, agree that the US is continuing to lean hard on Israel, maximum hard. Ostensibly this is to force Israel into peace with the Palestinians, and also to keep them from a military strike on Iran.
But the Israelis are already under the extreme pressure. They see a ring of existential threats around their nation so ominous that less than two weeks ago they apparently scheduled a major troop mobilization for war training exercises (called Firestones-12) on Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria. According to sources I cannot verify, the exercises were canceled at the last minute because of repeated requests from the White House. According to those same sources, the Obama Administration feared this major military move would start the incipient war everyone is waiting for.
One wonders what kind of response the Israel would give the White House now in the same sort of situation.
But whether these reports are pure facts or part fiction, there remains Three Questions.
Is the Obama Administration tearing down their never-strong relationship with Israel under a covert agreement with the Israeli Government so that the IDF can attack Iranian nuclear sites while the US swears we did not give them the green light?
Or is turning a small slight into a major policy shift the Obama Administration’s clever plan to create peace and harmony in the Middle East by showing the Arabs we really don’t like Israel so much any more?
Or are the lunatics in charge of the asylum?
I don’t like any of the choices.
God help us if the answer is… all three.
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News Flash Addendum
Walid Jumblatt publicly forgives deceased Hafez Assad for assassinating Jumblatt’s father in 1977
Okay, why is that worth a news flash?
Jumblatt is the uncontested head of the Druze faction in Lebanon. I have followed his story for years, because he is a portent for Lebanon’s real direction.
Assad, connected with Syria, killed Jumblatt’s father. Of that there is no doubt. Jumblatt swore vengeance, and for decades steered Lebanon as far away from Syrian-oriented Hizballah, and as far toward the United States, as he possibly could.
In the last year or so, he seemed to decided that it might be better for Lebanon to depend on Hizballah instead of the US, despite his blood feud with Syria. Today that cycle is complete.
The announcement meant he is at peace with Syria, and has thrown in his lot with Hisballah’s and it’s leader Hassan Nasrallah… who is very serious about destroying Israel’s government.
It does NOT bode well for Israel, nor for the US, nor for chances of peace, nor for anything but war in the Middle East.
Buy food. Get water. Store them.
