Many would dismiss this as foolish for who in America believes this today! And to them I say it maters not what you believe it maters only what your enemies believe; and they do believe that they are obligated by the faith to either convert you are kill you! So the choice is yours!
Category Military
Whodunnit?
I agree with this analysis in principle and from my military experience I would agree that it’s very unlikely that some drunk wandered in and pushed a button. US involvement is very likely and it as a two-for since it gets back at Putin and gives them an excuse to shut down Ben Grunion to help HAMAS and punish Israel.
IDF demolishes Hamas!
IDF Commanders: Time for decisive war move after IDF victories in Shejaiya, E. Rafah and Khan Younes
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 23, 2014, 12:16 PM (IDT)
Israel tank wins a battle in Gaza
Senior IDF commanders said Wednesday July 23 that the time had come for a decisive war move. Breaking up the Hamas’ subterranean tunnels would take weeks, they said, but the critical encounter for completing their military mission and bringing the war to a close was still to be fought after three key IDF victories: The battle for Shejaiya grabbed the headlines, but the confrontations in eastern Rafah and eastern Khan Younes in the south were just as important.
The commanders are now urging a large-scale assault on the bunker complex housing Hamas’ top military command and infrastructure. They say it is up to national leaders, i.e., the security cabinet, to determine the military’s next move and the disposition of the forces present on the battlefields of the Gaza Strip.
The tank units could undertake the opening moves for the next, critical stage of the Israeli operation at no more than hours’ notice.
Political circles in Israel agree that after Hamas rejected all the ceasefire proposals floated, the next stage is the war’s expansion for its closing shots. There is no word yet on how they are to be conducted.
The Western diplomats and Palestinian Authority officials who met Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in Qatar Sunday were amazed to hear him assert that Hamas was winning the war against the IDF and confident of being able to keep going for a long time, debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources report.
On Monday, July 21, Meshaal told one Western official: “In Gaza we see that the IDF is slow and clumsy. Our forces are mobile and flexible, including our rockets which we can move quickly from one place to another.”
Asked about Hamas’ defeat in Shajaiya, where a Gaza City suburb, home to 100,000 Palestinians, was razed to the ground, he declined to comment.
After Israel learned of Meshaal’s comments, the IDF was instructed Monday night to demolish the empty home of Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas military wing. Israeli war planners believe Deif is the brain behind Hamas’ war, along with Izz-e- din al Qassam Brigades commander Marwan Issa.
While their forces were in retreat in the Gaza Strip, Hamas diplomacy won a strong point against Israel by a rocket that hit close enough to Ben-Gurion Airport to persuade US and certain European airlines to suspend their flights.
The rocket landed at Yehud, which is not far from the runways of Ben-Gurion airport and Airport City which houses a business and shopping center and Israel Aircraft Industries.
By Tuesday night, 85 international flights were cancelled by all American and a few European airlines. The Israeli El Al and Arkia moved fast to expand their service to and from Israel to fill the gap.
Early Wednesday morning, US Secretary of State John Kerry declined a request by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to intervene with the Federal Aviation Administration-FAA to rescind its ban on US carriers’ flights to Israel.
Kerry said he could not interfere in this and that anyway the FAA reviews its decisions every 24 hours. The European carriers are unlikely to resume their flights to Ben-Gurion so long as the Americans observe the ban.
debkafile‘s military sources note that Hamas’ success in disrupting civilian air traffic to and from Israel exposed a hidden side of its war on Israel. Most of the nearly 2,000 rockets fired over the last 16 days did not miss Israel’s urban centers by chance, although many were deflected by Iron Dome interceptors. Hamas was focusing on strategic targets, such Israeli Air Force bases and facilities in the south and center. When IDF communiqués report that rockets land in open areas, this does not necessarily rule out their explosion in or near military bases.
FORMER BORDER AGENT: GOV’T USING IMMIGRANT CHILDREN FOR ‘ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE’ OPERATION
Since I am a former officer in Special Operations “Green Beret” I have some understanding of asymmetrical warfare in theory and practice. In my humble opinion this is exactly what is going on — and that is the view of many of us that have served in the special operations community (USSOCOM). and since we are now retired we can speak out.
Does anyone except Iran support Hamas?
Friends of Hamas
Hamas has proved itself to be unusually isolated in its current war on Israel. The powers-that-be in Egypt, for example, have not lifted a finger to come to the assistance of Hamas. This all by itself proves the superiority of the Sissi regime to that of Morsi, but if one has a clue about the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which both Morsi and Hamas emerged, this not exactly a shock. Yet Saudi Arabia has left Hamas to its own devices, as has the UAE. Stepping forward to lend a hand to Hamas are Qatar and Turkey.
The isolation of Hamas is a striking development, but most striking are the emergence of Hamas’s good friends: Barack Obama and John Kerry.
Going back to his Cairo speech in the early days of the Obama administration, Obama has stood out as an old fan of the Muslim Brotherhood. See here (Marc Ambinder), here (FOX News), and here (American Thinker).
The Muslim Brotherhood is of course a progenitor of Islamic radicalism (see, e.g., Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower) Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. In this sense (among others) it should come as no surprise that Obama is a sap for Hamas.
We have found Obama reliably to take the side of the enemies of the United States while stabbing our friends in the back. This is a phenomenon that took shape in the first days of the Obama administration.
Now Obama and Kerry are working to shut down Israel before its forces attain their goals in the current hostilities. Obama’s public consternation over civilian casualties is a pure reflection of Hamas tactics and propaganda. Putting to one side the difficulty of identifying true civilian casualties, Obama blames Israel for whatever civilian casualties result form Hamas’s placement of men, tunnels and materiel among civilians in homes, hospitals and mosques. Hamas also does its considerable best to keep the civilians in harm’s way.
Obama mentions none of this, and we now know (as a result of Kerry’s open mic incident on FOX News Sunday earlier this week) that John Kerry blames Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza as well. He attributes them to the Israelis’ lack of precision in their current operation.
The Israelis may get credit in heaven for their extraordinary efforts to avoid civilian casualties — the warning leaflets, the knocks on the roof, the cell phone calls and messages, and so one — but they get none from the Obama administration.
Kerry is now in the area seeking to engineer a ceasefire. His presence is obviously unwanted by Israel. On this point we can take the word of former Israel Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. Kerry is undermining Israel and encouraging Hamas.
Yesterday the FAA prohibited commercial flights to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv, thus handing Hamas a great victory and upping the stakes for Israel. The AP notes, Kerry himself flew into Ben Gurion today after the FAA action. Some European airlines are following suit. El Al continues to fly into Ben Gurion. Last night, as Jeff Dunetz observes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to Kerry to rescind the ban.
Noah Pollak points to the peculiar timing of the FAA action:
Long-range rocket fire from Gaza has been dramatically curtailed in recent days by the IDF’s ground operation, and was heaviest at the beginning of the war – some two weeks ago. Despite Hamas and Islamic Jihad barrages of M75 and M302 rockets fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on July 8th, 9th, and 10th, no travel warning was issued.
Jeff also notes that Michael Bloomberg is flying into Ben Gurion in a show of support for Israel. Bloomberg has posted this statement:
This evening I will be flying on El Al to Tel Aviv to show solidarity with the Israeli people and to demonstrate that it is safe to fly in and out of Israel. Ben Gurion is the best protected airport in the world and El Al flights have been regularly flying in and out of it safely. The flight restrictions are a mistake that hands Hamas an undeserved victory and should be lifted immediately. I strongly urge the FAA to reverse course and permit US airlines to fly to Israel.
Bloomberg understands that the United States has handed Hamas a great victory in the current war. The Daily Mail includes Bloomberg’s tweets to this effect in its story on developments yesterday.
John Podhoretz weighs the consequences of Hamas’s success in his New York Post column this morning. Observing the Obama administration’s efforts to engineer a ceasefire while Israel has yet to attain its objectives in the conflict, Caroline Glick notes with considerable understatement:
[T]he fact that the US has chosen at this juncture in the operation – with Israel enjoying unprecedented support from the most important Sunni states in the region – to side with Hamas and its state sponsors in their demand for an immediate cease-fire speaks volumes about the transformation of US foreign policy under Obama’s leadership.
The efforts of Obama and Kerry on behalf of Hamas — their efforts to stop Israel short of its goals in the current conflict — come as no surprise, but they shouldn’t pass without comment either.
The IDF and Hamas duke it out in Gasa! Obama supports Hamas but that might not mean anything!
Israeli forces are fighting hard to win their first battle against Hamas, a savage and tenacious enemy
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 22, 2014, 12:34 PM (IDT)
An Israeli tank driving forward in Gaza
The battle for Shejaiya, the Hamas stronghold on Gaza City’s outskirts, was still unresolved Tuesday, July 22, indicating that the Islamists were not giving up. Indeed, fresh Hamas reinforcements appeared to have taken up new positions in the battle zone during the night. They may have arrived through Hamas’ many-branched tunnel system.
Every few hours, the IDF spokesman releases two sets of figures: Israeli casualty statistics and the number of IDF strikes against Hamas. He has little to say about Israel’s military movements. Neither Israeli nor foreign correspondents have been permitted to accompany IDF troops fighting in the Gaza Strip – a policy the IDF has pursued since the second Lebanon war of 2006. Military leaders are therefore free to manage the data, human and electronic, coming out of the war, including images from the various fronts, without independent coverage. The public sees the same IDF surveillance footage day after day.
This policy reduces the hazards faced by Israeli forces and keeps their scale and identities secret from the enemy – and that is good for Israel’s war effort.
On the other hand, it creates a widening gap between the “official version” and the real state of affairs on the battlefield. Since most people have access to relatives on the front – not to mention prolific rumor mills powered by the social media – the credibility of national war leaders suffers.
Official communiqués are studded with impressive figures. Tuesday morning, the IDF was reported to have struck 3,200 Hamas targets since the start of the operation. In the last four days, the soldiers located 23 secret tunnels and 36 shafts leading into Hamas’ subterranean complex, and killed 186 Hamas operatives in combat. Israel lost 27 officers and men in the same period.
Those figures are telling in that they illustrate the hardships confronting the IDF from a ferocious enemy which refuses to crack under air or ground assault.
Because the Golani Brigades’ losses in Shejaiya were so heavy, IDF chiefs had no choice but to disclose information about the combatants on this front. But no one, aside from the combatants and their officers, knows what is going on in the other arenas to which the five special IDF task forces have been assigned. There is no news for instance from the southern sector of Rafah and Khan Younes. or the northern towns of Shati and Zeitun. No one knows how many Hamas tunnels are left to be destroyed – and where – before the IDF claims to have completed this critical part of its counter-terror mission
By any military standard, the IDF has the edge over Hamas. But the battle still needs to be won.
This situation has stiffened Hamas’ resistance to any of the ceasefire proposals taking shape in various parts of the region in the last couple of days. Its leaders feel strong enough to carry on fighting and holding out for better terms than those on offer at present.
Hostilities are therefore likely to drag out for an indeterminate period.
For Israel, the diplomatic clock is ticking too fast. As the warfare stretches out without a decisive battle on at least one Gaza front, the rising casualty toll threatens to undermine Israel’s ability to stand up to the pressures of international truce diplomacy.
ISIS Burns a 1,800 Year-old Judeo-Christian Church in Mosul Iraq Dating Back to Earliest Christians
This is what a lot of the Muslims do — so its no surprise!
Obama desperate to save Hamas from defeat!
Kerry and Ban in truce bid to save Hamas from defeat. Israel holds reply. Cairo won’t amend truce proposal
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Special Report July 21, 2014, 11:59 PM (IDT)
US and UN Secretaries get together on Gaza truce
Three rival groups are in a tug-o’-war over a ceasefire initiative for the Gaza conflict: The US and UN are pulling one way; Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the other; and Qatar, Turkey, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, are trying to manipulate the others.
Monday night, July 21, US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo to press their case with Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi: Kerry’s directive was outlined by President Barack Obama a few hours earlier, “to focus on bringing about a ceasefire than ends the fighting and can stop the death of innocent civilians.”
Ban came from Doha, Qatar, as part of a whistle stop tour of Kuwait City, Jerusalem, Cairo, Ramallah and Amman. Upon landing in Cairo, he told reporters: “The violence must stop, it must stop now. I urge all parties to stop violence unconditionally and return to dialogue.”
Reported to be pushing for a long-term ceasefire, the UN Secretary went on to comment that it was impossible to go back to the situation that caused the conflict. He ruled out the “status quo ante” for the Gaza Strip as untenable.
This was an indirect vote of support for Hamas’s terms for a ceasefire, such as ending the blockade on the Gaza Strip and reopening all the crossings.
The UN Secretary had nary a word to say about the Palestinian Islamists’ long record of terrorism, culminating last month in the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers, the shooting of 1,850 rockets at the Israeli population in less than a month and the network of secret tunnels dug especially to burrow under the Israeli border for attacks and kidnappings.
After hearing the two comments, Hamas’ political leader Meshaal Hamas called off the statement he had planned to issue Monday night from his base in Qatar. He saw he had no need to push any further to win the support of the UN and US officials. They were already on his side and he could count on them both to twist Israel’s arm for an early ceasefire to rescue Hamas from defeat before its terrorist machine was completely ravaged by Israeli troops.
Hamas officials also rejected suggestions floated for a long-term humanitarian ceasefire.
Following reports that Cairo had agreed to give in to Hamas demands, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shokri said firmly that Cairo is not willing to amend its former truce initiative.
The Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had won Saudi endorsement for this proposal in two conversations they held in the last few days. It is based essentially on a ceasefire which, if it holds, would be followed by separate Egyptian talks with Israel and Hamas on future arrangements.
This proposal was accepted by Israel and snubbed by Hamas, which continued to shoot rockets instead. Israel reacted four days ago, by sending ground troops into the Gaza Strip to finally dismantle Hamas’ long-running terror machine.
That Hamas stands by its negative response to the Egyptian ceasefire initiative was underscored by Gaza Prime Minster Ismail Haniya in a pre-recorded statement Monday from his hideout: “Hamas will fight with blood before giving up its terms,” he said. “Their [Israel’s] air strikes did not break us, and neither will their ground attacks.”
Hama leaders have grasped that the truce initiatives promoted by Kerry and Ban will essentially allow them to carry on as before with certain benefits thrown in. As of writing this report, the Netanyahu government has not reacted to the web of ceasefire diplomacy being woven. His silence can be interpreted in three ways:
1. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been running Israel’s campaign against Hamas in close rapport with Saudi King Abdullah and President El-Sisi, is saving his biggest gun – flat rejection of their truce proposals – for use in direct encounters with Kerry and Ban when they arrive in Jerusalem Tuesday, July 22.
2. The IDF needs more time to complete its missions, which are to destroy Hamas’ network of terror tunnels and disarm, or at least degrade, its rocket and military infrastructure.
3. Netanyahu is keeping his cards close to his chest for a reckoning with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, touted as go-between in the ceasefire bid, over his threat Monday to bring charges of war crimes against Israel before the international court in The Hague and UN institutions, as well as accusations of apartheid.
The prime minister may well stipulate that Kerry and Ban rein in the Palestinian leader before Israel gives its attention to any requests for joining a ceasefire.
Border Crisis Worsens; Mexican Cartels Firing On Border Patrol Agents
This is getting worse and worse!
Re-Posted from tomfernandez28 July 22, 2014 12:00 am
Joseph R. Carducci, July 21, 2014 Real Border Security
For those of you who don’t think the situation along our southern border is any big deal, think again. We now have confirmed reports that Border Patrol Agents along the Texas side of the Rio Grande river were fired upon. The belief is that these shots came from a member or members of the Mexican drug cartels.
Folks, this is simply the next stage in the planned disintegration of our borders by the wonderful community organizer in chief Obama. Listen to a description of these events as related by Representative Louie Gohmert (Rep, TX) to Fox News:
“US Border Patrol agents on the American side of the Rio Grande were forced to take cover Friday night when high-caliber weaponry was fired at them from the Mexican side of the river, sources told FoxNews.com. The weapons were fired at the US side of the riverbank in the area of the Rincon Peninsula across the Rio Grande from Reynosa, Mexico, at about 8:30pm, sources said. Bullets ricocheted into an area where Border Patrol Agents were positioned, Rep, Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told FoxNews.com.
‘We don’t have any armor that can stop a .50-caliber round, so our Border Patrol Agents had to take cover when the rounds were ricocheting around them,’ said Gohmert, who has been in the area for the last week to get a first-hand look at the border situation. Sources said they believe the gunfire came from members of Mexican drug cartels, which include former military members trained in shooting that type of weaponry.”
Simply the next phase in the war against our border. The influx of illegal immigrants continues to overwhelm our agents and facilities, which is leading the cartels to operate with more and more impunity. They know we are actually having to pull agents off active duty in order to play babysitter at the detention and processing centers. This lessens the amount of effort and attention we can continue directing at the even more dangerous Mexicans, including actual drug runners.
You have probably seen my earlier reports on how many cartel drug smugglers are literally walking over the low mountains along our Mexican border, carrying backpacks weighing 50+ pounds, filled with illegal drugs. This trend continues…and now it looks as if the cartels are beginning to step up their game even further.
Personally, this looks to me like they are trying to test our positions. This is designed to find out how strongly we are defending the borders along several key points (it could also be done to serve as a distraction for other cartel members to cross the border). If Obama allows this to continue and our Congress also takes no action to at least try and put a stop to the current situation, it will soon degenerate to the point where it will take armed troops to re-establish control, much like a military invasion, for that is really what this is.
What do YOU think? Should we be tolerating Mexican cartels firing at our agents? How can this situation be fixed? If we had a president who was actually a leader, what would he do? Is Governor Rick Perry right for taking action on his own?
Israel plans to take over Gaza, good for them!
Five IDF task forces begin driving into Gaza City. Israel draws up over-plan for control of the Gaza Strip
Re-post from DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 21, 2014, 10:09 AM (IDT)
The IDF’s Shejaiya operation in the Gaza Strip continues apace, carried forward by five task forces now heading for the center of Gaza City amid casualties on both sides. Sunday, July 20, Israel’s crack Golani Brigades lost 18 fighters, without slowing down, compared with 170 Palestinian fatalities.
debkafile’s military sources report that each task force, the size of half a division, is an integrated amalgam of air, armored, artillery and engineering forces, capable of operating almost autonomously in field combat. The buildup of the last 24 hours has expanded Israel’s fighting strength in the Gaza Strip to a total of 75,000 men, the largest ever fielded in this territory. Because of its scale, Israeli leaders are referring to Defensive Edge as a war rather than an operation.
The battle for Shejaiya waged Sunday burst into public prominence because of the heavy losses suffered by the Golani Brigades, but it is not the largest engagement underway at present. The other ongoing IDF battles, their progress, the units involved and their locations, are kept secret. We can only point to their general locations as being around Beit Hanoun in the north; Zeitun, south of Gaza City and the Shati refugee camp to the north.
More arenas are scheduled to be added to the list of battle zones Monday.
Rather than causing despondency, the high IDF casualty toll Sunday – the highest in a single engagement since the 2006 Lebanon War – has invigorated the fighting forces in the field, making them more determined than ever to get the better of Hamas with all possible speed.
Whereas their orders on Sunday were to advance warily and slowly, meanwhile testing the strength of Hamas resistance and observing their tactics, the tempo went into high gear at dawn Monday, when the troops were told to speed their advance from the outer fringes of Gaza City into its center.
Their performance in Shejaiya and other engagements Sunday deeply impressed Israel’s war leaders and made them confident enough to step up the rate of advance.
This upbeat mood was evident in the comments made Sunday night by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and, from the field, by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz. While condoling deeply with the bereaved families of the 18 soldiers who died in combat, they were full of praise for the troops’ performance “in defense of our home” which outdid all expectations.
The following decisions were reached in consequence:
1. Gen. Gantz would stay in the field and lead the forces from there, rather than from staff headquarters in Tel Aviv.
2. The prime minister and defense minister would manage the war, without constant recourse to security cabinet sessions to obtain its approval of every stage of the plan of operation, the final goal of which debkafile has learned, is Israel’s military takeover of the Gaza Strip.
3. As the military operation unfolded, the three war leaders were convinced more than ever that demolishing Hamas’ terror tunnel complex was not optional, any more than wiping out the rocket menace hanging latterly over five million Israelis and, for nearly a decade over the million people living directly in the shadow of the Gaza border. Publicity guidelines were to be built around this conclusion.
International statesmen are flitting busily around regional capitals, including Jerusalem, in search of an opening to broker a ceasefire in Gaza hostilities. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been holding meetings and US Secretary John Kerry will try and reach the Middle East in the coming days, according to a White House directive – unless he again cancels at the last minute.
According to debkafile’s sources, the requisite political and military conditions for a ceasefire are not yet in place because of a number of circumstances, not least of which is Hamas’ refusal to contemplate a halt.
Israel, for its part, is fighting for the first time in its history with solid Arab backing from the Egyptian-Saudi-United Arab Emirates bloc. So determined are its members to obliterate the Muslim Brotherhood that they have virtually blacklisted Qatar for supporting the Brothers and for patronizing the Palestinian Hamas, regarded as the MB’s paramilitary arm.
This rift has put a spoke in the diplomatic effort to set in motion effective mediation for a Gaza ceasefire predicated on co-opting Qatar.
A bid to make Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas the bridge between the Egyptian-Saudi-UAE grouping and Qatar has likewise foundered. And there isn’t much Secretary Kerry can do if and when he comes over to try his hand.
US President Barack Obama’s suggestion, when he called Netanyahu Sunday, to build a new Gaza ceasefire around the 2012 formula concocted by the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey – and accepted by Israel and Hamas – for ending Operation Pillar of Defense, shows him to be cut off from the fundamentally altered diplomatic and military realities of the current Gaza conflict.
He declines to recognize the emergence of a powerful new Arab bloc. It will be necessary to twist the arms of each of its members, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE, to gain their consent for a bid to cut the Israeli offensive short to rescue Hamas from defeat. And even then, they will stall.
And although anti-Israel demonstrations are being staged in some parts of the world, the most violent in Paris, hardly any world governments have openly condemned the Israeli operation – as yet.
Centinel2012 