This past week has seen a flurry of martial statements in the West that it is time to attack Iran. The United States has made them. Israel has made them. Even superdove Peres, the mostly ceremonial President of Israel, has made headlines in mainstream Israeli news saying he believes Israel and the world is ‘approaching military option on Iran nuclear threat’.

Why should anyone be surprised that there now are reports from Israeli sources with Mossad connections that Lebanese Hezbollah’s charismatic leader Hassan Nasrallah has been making parallel statements about a surprise attack on Israel.

The Nasrallah remarks cited did not occur just today; they have been culled from a two-week tour of his fighting units. That makes the reporting of them at this moment in time just a little suspect; they very neatly serve the war frenzy fever being promoted by the Israeli government.

Nevertheless, they are significant.

The purpose of his tour was reportedly to update ‘operational plans for firing 10,000 rockets at Tel Aviv and Israel’s air force and reserve mobilization bases in a surprise attack’. In Nasrallah’s opinion, “The Zionist enemy cannot stand up to a salvo on that scale. He can’t locate our secret launching bases or put a stop to a missile offensive that is sure to determine the war’s outcome.”

Afterward, four special forces brigades are to sweep south from the Lebanese border into Israel, with another brigade held in reserve.

What about the Lebanese Regular Army? What about Syria? What about Iran?

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Any time from now until next Friday is looking pretty good, but Tuesday is crunch day in the Middle East.

That is when Gilad Shalit release day is scheduled. Israeli media has pictures of Gilad, pictures of the Shalit family, pictures of Israeli flags… sometimes pictures of all three together… plastered at the top of everything. Hope, joy and tears. Israeli expectations have been juiced to the max in expectation of the end of five years of waiting for the return of their captured young sergeant.

His father is wiser. He keeps saying, ‘let’s wait and see if it really happens, then celebrate.’

But emotions are running wild, running rampant throughout Israel, and if the prisoner exchange with the Palestinians, at a ratio of 1,000 to 1, does not go through… one can only imagine the guttural roar that will rise from the shattered crowd.

Hamas keeps adding last minute conditions. More women are required to be released. Palestinian terrorists released to Egypt may stay there indefinitely without being deported. It is definitely not a done deal yet.

There are uncountable numbers of reasons for almost everyone in the entire Middle East to not want the exchange to go through. If successful, it will alter the balance of power in the Middle East. One man. But the diplomacy of entire nations hinge on the machinery of his exchange for a thousand Palestinians, including hardcore terrorists. There are many who have something to gain… but even they have the uncertainty of an altered mosaic in the political pattern, and uncertainty always brings danger along with opportunity.

Israeli sources with Mossad connections keep reporting that Iran and Syria are really angry about Hamas’ headquarters being transferred from Syria to Egypt as part of the deal. They may be too close to the action to wonder if that transfer is really a tightening of the relationship between Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood. Either way, it’s just one reason why some may want to sink the exchange before… or while… it’s happening.

To detail all the reasons would take more time than there is. So I’ll cut to the chase.

The U.S. will initiate a military exercise of the most profound importance on Monday in the Middle East.

(and please remember that Monday local time in the Middle East is Sunday night in the U.S.)

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First… this is a perfect example of why everyone in the U.S. should have THEIR OWN emergency supplies.
The next disaster is always just around the corner. But we never know which corner.

FEMA looks like they are preparing best they can for the event, but please realize the government, at best, can do only so much.

Okay…

You know to store water and food. Water is more important than food. Rule of thumb is to store three times as much as you think you should. You won’t be sorry.

You can look though this site for some poignant recommendations about everything else.

In this post I’m going to be thinking out loud about some things that aren’t on most lists. But could be really, really handy.

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In 2010, 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world.

That is more than double the 17 million during 2009. Both figures are courtesy The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centrer in Oslo, Norway.

In 2011 through May, there have been 1,429 tornadoes in the US, killing 523 people

In all of 2010 there were 1,282 for the entire year, killing 45 people.

Do you see a trend?

Whatever is causing it, the weather is more severe now. There will be more of everything that causes disasters and emergencies.

Now more than ever, being prepared beforehand is essential.

The Red Cross was still on the scene a month after the recent round of tornados in the US. They have volunteers from states across the US, as far away as Hawaii. And this is a ‘usual’ emergency in an area that was easy to get supplies to.

If something really big, say something nationwide, occurs… you will likely be on your own for an extended period.

And if just something minor happens in your location, like power going out, or being snowed in for a week, you will be so happy to have everything on hand. As I mentioned in a previous post, something like that happened here, and we just went about our normal lives, because we had all the supplies we needed on hand.

My thought is to prepare for armageddon, and be happy if something minor happens instead.

Maybe take a look around the pages of this site, especially about preparedness in terms of water, food, and first aid supplies.

Potassium iodide: should you stock some?

That is a big question in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster. The true extent of the release of radioactive materials from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s six reactors is hidden behind an inscrutable corporate wall, with the willing help of the Japanese government and all the governments of the world who want more and more and more nuclear power plants.

Radioactive iodine-131 from has been found, well, just about everywhere. (more…)

Nothing much doing in the Middle East that is out of the ordinary.

An aid ship for Gaza was not allowed to dock in Egypt for overland transport of the supplies. Pretty much a non-event, it does show that the blockade of Gaza is still in full swing.

Israel today held another big military exercise on the border with Lebanon. It made hardly a ripple in Lebanese press. They are becoming quite used to it. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on viewpoint, I suppose.

Israeli sources are publicly trumpeting the clandestine monkeywrenches that the Mossad has been throwing into the Iranian nuclear program. They keep saying over and over that the program is now 3 years from being able to make a Bomb. I’m sorry, but that seems a little optimistic.

Even in the news releases, the crucial qualifying phrase ‘by themselves’ is softly included. (more…)

The government of Israel has been put to shame over their woefully inadequate response to the Carmel fires.

A report has been issued already by the State Comptroller laying bare the neglect of all the MInistries to adequately plan, train and supply for a significant national emergency. It is scathing.

It lists important emergency issues that the national government had talked about doing… like creating a National Fire Service… but failed to act on. They were too focused on other things, things that seemed more important at the time but turn out to be not as important as being able to cope with a large scale emergency situation.

Israeli sources say things are so bad that if war broke out, with hundreds of missiles raining down, the government would have to decide which small portion of the population would get emergency services, and what large portion would be abandoned to their own personal resources.

That’s bad.

If you look at the emergency services in your community, you will find that it is not much different.

Where we live, a large emergency will cause instant gridlock of our highways and subsequent malfunction of all emergency services. Not that it much matters. The number of critical care facilities are woefully inadequate for even a low level emergency.

And the doctors… I’ve talked with many of them… need their electronic tools like MRI’s to function. When power goes down, they do not have the basic skills to deal with trauma. I repeat. The doctors do not know how to treat even relatively simple injuries without their technology… which will disappear as soon as the emergency generator runs out of gasoline.

Not that there are very many doctors that can do trauma medicine anyway. Few like being in the ER. It is difficult, stressful, and there is not a whole lot of money in it.

In a disaster situation, I would much rather run into someone trained in wilderness medicine.

Now the question is, are you prepared for an emergency or disaster? How much could you take care of yourself, your loved ones, and people who need help that is not coming?

A word to the wise is sufficient.

Hurricane Earl is roaring up the East Coast, and millions of people are wondering if it will hit their area hard. Forecasts for hurricanes are helpful, but far from guaranteed to be accurate. The next 24-36 hours should tell the story. Hopefully it will have a happy ending, if you are one of those threatened.

Emergency Supplies

Even now there may be time to make a little difference. I suggest you do what you can. In the areas most likely to be hit, stores have already been overshopped, and crowds have made getting things difficult. Hopefully there are some items left on the shelves. Question is… is it worth going to the store? If it is dangerous, no it isn’t. If you can get in and get some things and get out without a confrontation or being hijacked, sounds like it may be still worth a try. Use wisdom.

When disaster strikes, stay away from stores. You’ll only find trouble there at that point in time.

Let’s assume you can get to a store and they have some stock left. If it were me, I’d get things in this order:
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In the July 12 post Drumbeats of War - Iran War Conference, I wrote:

But things change so quickly in the Middle East. There may be some surprises. No… there will be some surprises. I suppose we’ll find out together, when they happen.

Truer words were never spoken.

This unique and crucial conference is now firmly scheduled for this Friday, July 30.

The list of powerful oil kings scheduled to attend to discuss war with Israel has changed tremendously.

The agenda of the conference seems to have shifted even more seismically.

Whether the changes are for good or for ill, I’ll let you decide.
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If you’ve read Food Expiration Dates, you know that I do not agree with the people who say do not pay attention to expiration dates for food. I pay attention very closely. I think even the Best By dates can be too long. Having stored an emergency supply of food for many years, and rotating the stock, I think I have a pretty good rubber-meets-the-road viewpoint. Some food lasts nearly forever. Some is not good to eat by the expiration date. Maybe read that post.

I’m the opposite on prescription drugs.

I believe what the FDA, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Harvard Medical School say about them. They all say (more…)