Russia Mobilizes Against Turkey, Hizballah Reinforces Assad

[GabonX]

Hizballah has begun depleting line of rockets and fighting units it has facing Israel from the Litani River of South Lebanon and moving them to the Syrian front line at Homs to strengthen Assad’s forces, debkafile's military sources reveal. Hizballah’s forward line against Israel is still in place among the southernmost Shiite villages, but a part of their artillery back-up is gone and, for the first time, Hizballah’s ground-to-ground rockets are moving in an eastward direction into Syria. This is a striking reversal of the usual direction taken by Hizballah hardware which, for years, headed from east to west to reach Lebanon from Iran and Syria.
This step attests to the scope, fury and determination of the Syrian army’s current land and air offensive against the rebels.
It also means that Hizballah has no fear of Israeli retaliation for the infiltration of an Iranian stealth drone from Lebanon into its air space on Saturday, Oct. 6 - even after HIzballah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised more unmanned interlopers would intrude on Israel’s skies.
Tuesday, Oct. 16, America’s UN Ambassador Susan Rice told a Security Council meeting on the Middle East that Nasrallah’s fighters were now part of “Assad’s killing machine.” Hizballah’s leaders, she said, continue to plot with Iran new measures “for propping up a murderous and desperate dictator.”

The Assad regime has found succor in another, more powerful quarter: Moscow has announced the deployment starting Wednesday, Oct. 17, of advanced S-400 interceptor missile batteries in Russia's southern military region opposite Turkey.
Russian military spokesman Col. Igor Gorbul described those missiles as “targeting Turkey” against its involvement in NATO’s missile shield program. He emphasized that the S-400s are capable of destroying all types of airplanes, as well as ultra-stratospheric and ballistic missiles.

debkafile's military sources say that, beside the issue of the NATO missile defense system to which Russia is firmly opposed, Moscow is relaying a double warning to Ankara on two additional scores:

One, that any more interceptions of Syria-bound aircraft coming from Russia after the incident of Oct. 10 would bring forth a Russian military response; and two, that Moscow will not tolerate aerial intrusion in the Syrian conflict by Turkey or any other NATO member. This warning was directed specifically against the imposition of a no-fly zone over Syria which Turkey is in the process of enforcing.
Col. Gorbul said the Russian army would finish relocating the S-400 interceptors in their new positions by the end of the year.
http://debka.com/article/22446/Russian- ... into-Syria

[BigBallinStalin]

US has 150 "advisers" in Jordan who are "planning" on "securing" Syria's Weapons of Mass Destruction!!! when if the Syrian Strongman falls. They're also there to help their Jordanian counterparts in managing the refugees. (While providing them weapons and training to those who are willing to fight? It's a great cover for such active measures).
[link see roughly three paragraphs down]

Hey, no worries, we might find out in 30 years! Maybe we'll accidently created another Bin Laden 2.0! Then we could have a terrorist attack which would justify more spending on the military! Yay for jobs jobs jobs and votes votes votes!

(just joking on that last part. It's unintentional to such a degree, but the institution is definitely self-rewarding in that sense for politicians, so why take huge measures to curb US interventionism?)

[BigBallinStalin]

If you (general you) were smacked in the face by some unseen force every time you said, "US intervention is necessary and awesome and we should invade country X," then you would be less likely to say it.

The politicians and planners in favor of US intervention lack that incentive to curb their imaginations on designing a better world. There is no constant slaps to the face--in other words, the costs of their decisions are not internalized. It doesn't matter if they ruin countries and bomb people because it can actually look good in the polls, or sometimes public opinion doesn't even matter because the general public doesn't feel the bombs and loss of friends and family.

/musing.

[GabonX]

The problem is that lack of intervention has proven to be just as damaging. The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars, and ignoring that casts aside the lessons of the first half of the 20th Century. With the factor of modern technology the world is too small to allow a major power to ignore world events. Isolation is not a luxury that nations will again enjoy and policies that pursue it are in reality policies of postponement.

[saxitoxin]

The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars

Smuggling arms to one side in a military conflict is the exact opposite of isolation. The U.S. chose, of its own will, to enter WWI at the point it started running guns to the British despite facing no threat or attack from Germany, Austria or the Caliphate. Isolation/Neutrality would have kept the U.S. out of WWI.

The nearly century-old debate about whether the passenger liner Lusitania was transporting British war munitions when torpedoed by a German U-boat is over. Physical evidence of just such a cargo has been recovered from the wreck, which rests 12 miles off the Irish coast in 300 feet of murky, turbulent water.

Lusitania was sunk off County Cork on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and helped push the United States into World War I. Ever since the ship went down, there have been suspicions that Lusitania was carrying live munitions. Under the rules of war, that would have made the liner a legitimate target, as the Germans maintained at the time.

The British government has always been evasive about the presence of munitions on Lusitania. Two cargo manifests were submitted; the second, filed after the ship sailed, indicated there were light munitions on board. Some believe the ship was carrying much more, however, and that the British Navy attempted to destroy the wreck in the 1950s to conceal its military cargo.

Now a team led by County Waterford-based diver Eoin McGarry, on behalf of Lusitania's American owner, Gregg Bemis, has recovered live ammunition from the wreck.

"The charge that the Lusitania was carrying war materiel is valid," says Bemis. "She was a legitimate target for the German submarine."

http://www.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html

[GabonX]

The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars

Smuggling arms to one side in a military conflict is the exact opposite of isolation. The U.S. chose, of its own will, to enter WWI at the point it started running guns to the British. Isolation/Neutrality would have kept the U.S. out of WWI.

The nearly century-old debate about whether the passenger liner Lusitania was transporting British war munitions when torpedoed by a German U-boat is over. Physical evidence of just such a cargo has been recovered from the wreck, which rests 12 miles off the Irish coast in 300 feet of murky, turbulent water.

Lusitania was sunk off County Cork on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and helped push the United States into World War I. Ever since the ship went down, there have been suspicions that Lusitania was carrying live munitions. Under the rules of war, that would have made the liner a legitimate target, as the Germans maintained at the time.

The British government has always been evasive about the presence of munitions on Lusitania. Two cargo manifests were submitted; the second, filed after the ship sailed, indicated there were light munitions on board. Some believe the ship was carrying much more, however, and that the British Navy attempted to destroy the wreck in the 1950s to conceal its military cargo.

Now a team led by County Waterford-based diver Eoin McGarry, on behalf of Lusitania's American owner, Gregg Bemis, has recovered live ammunition from the wreck.

"The charge that the Lusitania was carrying war materiel is valid," says Bemis. "She was a legitimate target for the German submarine."

http://www.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html

That's actually pretty interesting but that example doesn't change the point, that is to say with modern technology isolationism is no longer feasible. The word is too small for the US to have hoped that it's financial capital be isolated from even a C rate group of mountain cave dwellers on the other side of the world. Take the US perspective out of the equation, and we can find examples for (almost?) any nation.

[nietzsche]

The problem is that lack of intervention has proven to be just as damaging. The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars, and ignoring that casts aside the lessons of the first half of the 20th Century. With the factor of modern technology the world is too small to allow a major power to ignore world events. Isolation is not a luxury that nations will again enjoy and policies that pursue it are in reality policies of postponement.

[saxitoxin]

The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars

Smuggling arms to one side in a military conflict is the exact opposite of isolation. The U.S. chose, of its own will, to enter WWI at the point it started running guns to the British. Isolation/Neutrality would have kept the U.S. out of WWI.

The nearly century-old debate about whether the passenger liner Lusitania was transporting British war munitions when torpedoed by a German U-boat is over. Physical evidence of just such a cargo has been recovered from the wreck, which rests 12 miles off the Irish coast in 300 feet of murky, turbulent water.

Lusitania was sunk off County Cork on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and helped push the United States into World War I. Ever since the ship went down, there have been suspicions that Lusitania was carrying live munitions. Under the rules of war, that would have made the liner a legitimate target, as the Germans maintained at the time.

The British government has always been evasive about the presence of munitions on Lusitania. Two cargo manifests were submitted; the second, filed after the ship sailed, indicated there were light munitions on board. Some believe the ship was carrying much more, however, and that the British Navy attempted to destroy the wreck in the 1950s to conceal its military cargo.

Now a team led by County Waterford-based diver Eoin McGarry, on behalf of Lusitania's American owner, Gregg Bemis, has recovered live ammunition from the wreck.

"The charge that the Lusitania was carrying war materiel is valid," says Bemis. "She was a legitimate target for the German submarine."

http://www.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html

That's actually pretty interesting but that example doesn't change the point, that is to say with modern technology isolationism is no longer feasible. The word is too small for the US to have hoped that it's financial capital be isolated from even a C rate group of mountain cave dwellers on the other side of the world. Take the US perspective out of the equation, and we can find examples for (almost?) any nation.

Oh, okay then! Bombs away!

[BigBallinStalin]

The problem is that lack of intervention has proven to be just as damaging. The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars, and ignoring that casts aside the lessons of the first half of the 20th Century. With the factor of modern technology the world is too small to allow a major power to ignore world events. Isolation is not a luxury that nations will again enjoy and policies that pursue it are in reality policies of postponement.

Actually, there's no evidence that damns lack of intervention because you can't show the counter-factual. All we can say is, "wow, this intervention caused all this damage," and then we make comparisons of those consequences to speculated consequences.

You can make the same argument for intervention. 'Gee, if we got involved in the Chinese war against India, then there would have been less casualties." Or you can ramp up the benefits: "The Chinese would've been subdued, and they wouldn't mess with us."

How about this one? "Gee, if the US invaded China after invading Japan, then the US could've wiped out the Communist Chinese, the Nationalist Party would be restored to power, and there would have been peace and democracy in a peaceful, freedom-loving China."


See? It's easy.

I'd address the rest of your post if you'd address the issue of blowback and spreading anti-American sentiment.

[BigBallinStalin]

The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars

Smuggling arms to one side in a military conflict is the exact opposite of isolation. The U.S. chose, of its own will, to enter WWI at the point it started running guns to the British. Isolation/Neutrality would have kept the U.S. out of WWI.

The nearly century-old debate about whether the passenger liner Lusitania was transporting British war munitions when torpedoed by a German U-boat is over. Physical evidence of just such a cargo has been recovered from the wreck, which rests 12 miles off the Irish coast in 300 feet of murky, turbulent water.

Lusitania was sunk off County Cork on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and helped push the United States into World War I. Ever since the ship went down, there have been suspicions that Lusitania was carrying live munitions. Under the rules of war, that would have made the liner a legitimate target, as the Germans maintained at the time.

The British government has always been evasive about the presence of munitions on Lusitania. Two cargo manifests were submitted; the second, filed after the ship sailed, indicated there were light munitions on board. Some believe the ship was carrying much more, however, and that the British Navy attempted to destroy the wreck in the 1950s to conceal its military cargo.

Now a team led by County Waterford-based diver Eoin McGarry, on behalf of Lusitania's American owner, Gregg Bemis, has recovered live ammunition from the wreck.

"The charge that the Lusitania was carrying war materiel is valid," says Bemis. "She was a legitimate target for the German submarine."

http://www.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html

That's actually pretty interesting but that example doesn't change the point, that is to say with modern technology isolationism is no longer feasible. The word is too small for the US to have hoped that it's financial capital be isolated from even a C rate group of mountain cave dwellers on the other side of the world. Take the US perspective out of the equation, and we can find examples for (almost?) any nation.

Actually, it totally undermines your criticism against isolationism. "We can't remain isolationist for it drags us into wars." No, that interpretation of cause-and-effect is wrong, and it's still wrong for today.

The reason why the US is grinding its own people to death by fighting "mountain cave dwellers" is because of previous US intervention. You have to follow the chain of events which have set the US into this trajectory that rushes headlong into more threats. You're being too short-sighted.

[GabonX]

The problem is that lack of intervention has proven to be just as damaging. The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars, and ignoring that casts aside the lessons of the first half of the 20th Century. With the factor of modern technology the world is too small to allow a major power to ignore world events. Isolation is not a luxury that nations will again enjoy and policies that pursue it are in reality policies of postponement.

Actually, there's no evidence that damns lack of intervention because you can't show the counter-factual. All we can say is, "wow, this intervention caused all this damage," and then we make comparisons of those consequences to speculated consequences.

Actually the case isn't nearly as hard to make as you seem to think. As I've said before, those who do not understand this have missed the biggest lesson of the 20th century... Let me explain:

In 1936 Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by re-militarizing the Rhineland. Had the nations Hitler later declared war on (Britain, France, the US, etc.) intervened at this point they would have had a qualitative edge in weaponry as the industrial sector of the German war machine was not yet at peak production. While it's possible that for some unknown reason Germany may have been able to inflict more damage to the allies with a less developed military, it's much more likely that intervention at this point of qualitative military advantage for the allied powers would have saved the lives of countless civilians and service people.

The point is simple. If conflict seems likely because enemies of a man or state proclaim their hatred and lust for violence against that man or state, action should be taken at a point of strategic advantage. This may come before an enemy acts in which case the action taken is preemptive. If it is deemed that a greater advantage may come at some point in the future it may be wiser to pursue a policy of postponement. To pursue postponement while such an enemy is gaining relative strength is foolish and will likely cost resources, lives, or both to correct, if such a mistake is correctable.

This is why intervention is both wise and necessary in many circumstances. Both preemption and postponement may require some form of intervention...

I'd address the rest of your post if you'd address the issue of blowback and spreading anti-American sentiment.

I'm not sure why you think I'm interested in having you address my posts, but since it's easy to repeat what has been said before I'll re-explain the flaw in your thinking...

What you consider to be blow back and anti-American sentiment is in reality the adaptation of Islam's violent and supremacist nature to fit the circumstances of our time. Their proclaimed motivations are less credible than Bush's stated goal of preventing Saddam Hussein from obtaining weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war, but as an example of how a person's words can differ from the real cause of their actions, I hope that illustrates the point to some of you.

[chang50]

The problem is that lack of intervention has proven to be just as damaging. The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars, and ignoring that casts aside the lessons of the first half of the 20th Century. With the factor of modern technology the world is too small to allow a major power to ignore world events. Isolation is not a luxury that nations will again enjoy and policies that pursue it are in reality policies of postponement.

Actually, there's no evidence that damns lack of intervention because you can't show the counter-factual. All we can say is, "wow, this intervention caused all this damage," and then we make comparisons of those consequences to speculated consequences.

Actually the case isn't nearly as hard to make as you seem to think. As I've said before, those who do not understand this have missed the biggest lesson of the 20th century... Let me explain:

In 1936 Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by re-militarizing the Rhineland. Had the nations Hitler later declared war on (Britain, France, the US, etc.) intervened at this point they would have had a qualitative edge in weaponry as the industrial sector of the German war machine was not yet at peak production. While it's possible that for some unknown reason Germany may have been able to inflict more damage to the allies with a less developed military, it's much more likely that intervention at this point of qualitative military advantage for the allied powers would have saved the lives of countless civilians and service people.

The point is simple. If conflict seems likely because enemies of a man or state proclaim their hatred and lust for violence against that man or state, action should be taken at a point of strategic advantage. This may come before an enemy acts in which case the action taken is preemptive. If it is deemed that a greater advantage may come at some point in the future it may be wiser to pursue a policy of postponement. To pursue postponement while such an enemy is gaining relative strength is foolish and will likely cost resources, lives, or both to correct, if such a mistake is correctable.

This is why intervention is both wise and necessary in many circumstances. Both preemption and postponement may require some form of intervention...

I'd address the rest of your post if you'd address the issue of blowback and spreading anti-American sentiment.

I'm not sure why you think I'm interested in having you address my posts, but since it's easy to repeat what has been said before I'll re-explain the flaw in your thinking...

What you consider to be blow back and anti-American sentiment is in reality the adaptation of Islam's violent and supremacist nature to fit the circumstances of our time. Their proclaimed motivations are less credible than Bush's stated goal of preventing Saddam Hussein from obtaining weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war, but as an example of how a person's words can differ from the real cause of their actions, I hope that illustrates the point to some of you.

Let me explain, Hitler did not declare war on Britain or France in 1939,on the contrary they declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland,whose neutrality they had optimistically guaranteed.He did later declare war on the USA more than 2 years later.

[saxitoxin]

The problem is that lack of intervention has proven to be just as damaging. The path of isolation led to the US being drawn into two world wars, and ignoring that casts aside the lessons of the first half of the 20th Century. With the factor of modern technology the world is too small to allow a major power to ignore world events. Isolation is not a luxury that nations will again enjoy and policies that pursue it are in reality policies of postponement.

Actually, there's no evidence that damns lack of intervention because you can't show the counter-factual. All we can say is, "wow, this intervention caused all this damage," and then we make comparisons of those consequences to speculated consequences.

Actually the case isn't nearly as hard to make as you seem to think. As I've said before, those who do not understand this have missed the biggest lesson of the 20th century... Let me explain:

In 1936 Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by re-militarizing the Rhineland. Had the nations Hitler later declared war on (Britain, France, the US, etc.) intervened at this point they would have had a qualitative edge in weaponry as the industrial sector of the German war machine was not yet at peak production. While it's possible that for some unknown reason Germany may have been able to inflict more damage to the allies with a less developed military, it's much more likely that intervention at this point of qualitative military advantage for the allied powers would have saved the lives of countless civilians and service people.

The point is simple. If conflict seems likely because enemies of a man or state proclaim their hatred and lust for violence against that man or state, action should be taken at a point of strategic advantage. This may come before an enemy acts in which case the action taken is preemptive. If it is deemed that a greater advantage may come at some point in the future it may be wiser to pursue a policy of postponement. To pursue postponement while such an enemy is gaining relative strength is foolish and will likely cost resources, lives, or both to correct, if such a mistake is correctable.

This is why intervention is both wise and necessary in many circumstances. Both preemption and postponement may require some form of intervention...

I'd address the rest of your post if you'd address the issue of blowback and spreading anti-American sentiment.

I'm not sure why you think I'm interested in having you address my posts, but since it's easy to repeat what has been said before I'll re-explain the flaw in your thinking...

What you consider to be blow back and anti-American sentiment is in reality the adaptation of Islam's violent and supremacist nature to fit the circumstances of our time. Their proclaimed motivations are less credible than Bush's stated goal of preventing Saddam Hussein from obtaining weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war, but as an example of how a person's words can differ from the real cause of their actions, I hope that illustrates the point to some of you.

1. To suggest Syria will eventually be in a position to attack the United States, and that potential future position requires military intervention is ridiculous. Syria is a barely-above 3rd world country of 22 million people that's 5,000 miles away from the U.S., a highly industrialized nation of 300 million. It has a secular government, like Libya did before the U.S. deposed it and replaced it with a radical Islamist regime.

2. Hezbollah is not a radical Islamist group. Hezbollah has a limited interest in Lebanon and Occupied Palestine, it does not have an Islamic globalist ideology. George W. Bush delisted Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 2002 (before re-listing it under AIPAC pressure a few years later). It has dozens of seats in the Lebanese parliament. It has repeatedly denounced al-Qaeda. It enjoys almost unanimous support from Lebanese Christians. Hassan Nasrallah and hundreds of Mahdi Scouts even attended the homily of Benedict XVI in Beirut last month.

But what you're really suggesting is that U.S. and Zionist security are inextricably linked. Five years after Israel ceases to exist, how will life in Kansas City be different?

Banners Read: "Hezbollah Welcomes the Holy Father"


Hezbollah Fighters (Al-Muqawama) Escort Anti-Israeli Rabbis at Protest

[saxitoxin]

If President Ahmadinejad visited an Imam wearing an exotic costume and sunglasses in a lit room who said "When we say may our enemies be struck down during Ramadan, it shall be directed at Israel. Allah shall strike them down and kill them!" would that be dangerous religious fundamentalism?

Fortunately that didn't happen.

This is what happened:

During his weekly sermon, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party said his followers should pray for the annihilation of the enemies of the Jewish people during Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), with an emphasis on Iran and Hezbollah.

“When we say ‘may our enemies be struck down’ on Rosh Hashana, it shall be directed at Iran. God shall strike them down and kill them,” said Yosef.

Before his comment, senior defense officials, including National Security Council head Ya'akov Amidror and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, had visited the rabbi to persuade him to support a possible Israeli attack on Iran.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... 7cG8.gmail

Israeli political leadership join their crazed supreme guru in toasting to the death of 74 million Iranians.

[GreecePwns]

There's only one explanation for all of this.

You hate Jews.