NIGHTWATCH & Et Al: Syria Round-Up

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence
January - July Wind Direction  -  Click on Image to Enlarge
January – July Wind Direction – Click on Image to Enlarge

NIGHTWATCH

Israel-Syria-Hezbollah: US news media citing unidentified US officials reported that the Israeli Air Force executed a ground attack at a weapons warehouse in Syria. Israeli officials declined to comment but Lebanese press reported low flying Israeli combat aircraft flew over Nabatiye Governate in south Lebanon on Friday morning.

Comment: The description of the attack resembles the Israeli air operation in January which prevented Syria from providing advanced weapons to Hezbollah. The timing, days after Hezbollah announced it was fighting in support of the Syrian government, suggests the action was related to that announcement.

What was missing from the Hezbollah announcement this week is what price Hezbollah required from Syria for its overt support. Supplies of modern weapons or delivery systems from Syria might have been an incentive for an open statement of support.

What is certain is that Israel would act promptly to try to prevent any strengthening of Hezbollah by Syria, but has shown no interest in siding with the belligerents in Syria.

Others

Israel Launches Airstrike Into Syria, U.S. Officials Say

United States believes Israel conducted airstrike in Syria, CNN reports

Israel bombs missile shipment in Syria – reports

Berto Jongman: YouTube (1:52) Jeremy Scahill on Significance of Wikileaks as Source on US Dirty Wars and Department of State Being Over-Ruled

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence, YouTube
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Published on Apr 24, 2013

Watch the full interview with Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now! at http://owl.li/knEmh. Jeremy Scahill, author of the new book, Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield, has spent years covering secret U.S. warfare through drone strikes, targeted killings, and enlisting foreign militias in countries from Somalia to Pakistan. Speaking to Democracy Now!, Scahill says U.S. diplomatic cables released WikiLeaks were instrumental in researching the book. “In terms of understanding how the covert apparatus works, WikiLeaks was indispensable,” he says. “We're going to look back decades from now and realize that because of the release of those documents, there was a huge shift in how we understand some of the more hidden aspects of U.S. policy.”

Watch the 50-minute Part 1 of our interview with Jeremy Scahill at http://owl.li/klnWN.

Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,100+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Check out our vast news archive and stream live 8-9am ET at http://www.democracynow.org.

Gordon Duff: Documented Words of Zbigniew Brzezinski on US Funding of Muslim Extremism in Afghanistan to LURE the Soviets In…..[Fast Forward to Chechnya]

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Officers Call
Gordon Duff
Gordon Duff

The CIA’s “Founding” of Al Qaeda Documented

The Muslim Terrorist Apparatus was Created by US Intelligence as a Geopolitical Weapon

Le Nouvel Observateur’s Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski

Originally published 15-21 January 1998

Translated by Jean Martineau

(Editor’s Note:  The following article and interview have been suppressed by Google, now a “black-ops” contractor.  The background on US backing for the Chechen rebels totally debunks attempts to assign blame for the Boston Marathon bombings to any group other than American security agencies and their domestic and foreign contractors who were very obvious at the scene, before and after the attack we believe they staged.  Without adequate background on how we got where we are, real information can easily be “shaken off” as conspiracy.

If you want real conspiracy, read on and see who the very real conspirators are.  G Duff for VT)

Below is our translation of an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski. It is important for three reasons. First, it flatly contradicts the official US justification for giving billions of dollars to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, namely that the US and Saudi Arabia were defending so-called freedom fighters against Soviet aggression.

Continue reading “Gordon Duff: Documented Words of Zbigniew Brzezinski on US Funding of Muslim Extremism in Afghanistan to LURE the Soviets In…..[Fast Forward to Chechnya]”

DefDog: North Korea — No War, Leaders in Luxury, Country in Famine

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Family, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society
DefDog
DefDog

A good read, ring of authenticity.

Never mind nuclear war, says North Korean defector Joo-il Kim, the reality of famine is bad enough

Joo-il Kim believes the rhetoric is just a distraction

Rob Hastings

Independent, 14 April 2013

EXTRACT

While he agrees that the current stand-off is more serious than previous events, he remains confident there will not be conflict. “This current regime does not want a war,” he tells me through a translator. “The people don’t have anything, so they don’t have anything to lose if they went to war – but the regime, they have wealth.” Living in luxury, he says, the leaders will not want to risk what they have.

After he escaped a closed and impoverished society, one imagines his greatest surprises in the outside world would have been at technology. Instead, it was the uneaten fruit he found in Chinese forests while running away that amazed him most. “There were apples just dangling in the trees, falling on the ground. In North Korea, even the smallest apple will be eaten because the people are starving. But China had abundant food,” he says.

Starvation and hunger is a topic he returns to several times, and with good reason. The death of his four-year-old niece from malnutrition, after he had already seen many others dying in an economy wrecked by the regime’s agricultural policies, convinced him to defect. The world might be concerned by the threat of nuclear war, but Mr Kim believes the dictatorship is using this to distract the international community and its own people from the problems they face.

Read full article.

Gold Transformer: US Secretly Deploys B-1 Strategic Bombers, E-6 “Doomsday” Planes Near North Korea

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Gold Transformer
Gold Transformer

US Secretly Deploys B-1 Strategic Bombers, E-6 “Doomsday” Planes Near North Korea

First the US fanfared the placement of two F-22 Raptors in the Osan airbase of South Korea. Then it demonstratively launched a B-2 stealth bomber on a training mission over a South Korean gunnery range. Then it deployed an anti-ballistic missile defense system to Guam and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the waters near Korea. And now, courtesy of the Aviationist, we learn that the Pentagon has escalated once more in an ongoing cat and mouse game with North Korea, of who blinks first, and dispatched several B-1 (“Bone”) Lancer strategic long-range bombers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. What is different this time, however, is that unlike the previous very public and widely trumpeted reciprocal escalation steps, this particular deployment has been kept secret from the public (at least the broader public), “a fact that could be the sign that the U.S. is not only making symbolic moves (as the above mentioned ones), but it is preparing for the worst scenario: an attack on North Korea.”

. . . . . .

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Finally, and most disturbing, is that another aircraft also in the process of deployment is none other than the E-6 Mercury “Doomsday” plane, which are among the pinnacle in US Airforce nuclear war preparedness, tasked with “providing command and control of U.S. nuclear forces should ground-based control become inoperable” and whose core functions include conveying instructions from the National Command Authority to fleet ballistic missile submarines and also to further command post capabilities and control of land-based missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.

You can read more about the military air activity recently monitored by Steve Douglass in an extremely interesting article he posted on his blog that not only summarize the contents of the messages he sent to The Aviationist, but provides some more details about the alleged overseas deployment of E-6 Mercury “doomsday” planes from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.

Perhaps to Kim Jong-un the military escalation to nuclear war is only one big joke, but to the US it is increasingly appearing very serious. And perhaps this is precisely what the Pentagon wanted all along?

NIGHTWATCH: US Exercise Ends, NK FIres Missile Into Ocean, Everyone Sits Back

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, Government, Military, Officers Call

The missile. News services have published no additional reports about the missile detected on the east coast. As a rule, when the North Koreans allow a missile to be detected, other than in a parade, they launch it. Readers should expect a launch.

Apparently South Korean National Defense Minister Kim expects a launch as a demonstration and for training. Another reason to launch is to test US missile defense capabilities, reaction times and crisis management discipline.

A missile that splashed into the ocean without starting a general war is a way for the North Koreans to back down.

Comment: Many mainstream media commentaries have disparaged the North Koreans. An excellent article in The Economist reinforces the judgment that North Korean leaders do not intend to start a general war.

NightWatch judges it is a mistake to judge Kim Jong Un by the behavior of his risk-averse father. Jong Un has taken action that not even his grandfather dared take in ending the Armistice.

He also has reversed his father's work by ordering a resumption of construction on nuclear power plants. He surpassed his father in institutionalizing the nuclear industry, including nuclear weapons. One open-source imagery readout reported work started last month on construction of a new cooling tower at Yongbyon.

Flip comments that the leadership is irrational are belied by the care with which North Korea has managed its side of the confrontation, beyond the rhetoric.

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