Israel: America's new pawn in the "war on terror"
--What is the United States doing to put an end to the self-feeding cycle of terrorism between Israel and Palestine? Why, selling Israel five-hundred so-called "bunker-buster" bombs. One wonders how Israel plans to utilize ground- and concrete-penetrating against pedestrian suicide bombers.
Hmm. It wouldn't have anything to do with the recent news that Iran is reactivating its nuclear weapons program, would it? Israel practically invented the pre-emptive strike. Back in the early '80s, they tried to blow up one of Iraq's fledging nuclear facilities. And in an ominous foreshadowing of their new weapons purchase, this article from last month describes how Israel has set its sights on Iran now that Iraq is out of the way.
Hmm. It wouldn't have anything to do with the recent news that Iran is reactivating its nuclear weapons program, would it? Israel practically invented the pre-emptive strike. Back in the early '80s, they tried to blow up one of Iraq's fledging nuclear facilities. And in an ominous foreshadowing of their new weapons purchase, this article from last month describes how Israel has set its sights on Iran now that Iraq is out of the way.
posted by Olivander | 1:38 PM
3 Comments:
Team Rocket strikes again!
Actually, in 1981, the Israelis didn't just try to blow up an Iraqi facility...they did it. In the kind of move only the Israelis seem to be able to pull off, they flew through hostile territory, attacked the reactor and flew home (doing things like having the pilots speak Arabic to air traffic controls to fool them into thinking they were commercial traffic instead of bombers).
While I think our current President doesn't know what he's doing and has just made this world more dangerous, I'm happy that the Israelis did what they did in '81. Imagine what Saddam Hussein could have done if he'd had nuclear weapons. Instead of conventionally armed scud missiles being aimed at Israel or our troops during the gulf war, we might have seen a nuclear exchange.
My concern is that 2004, unlike 1981, is a very, very bad time to start stirring up shit in the Middle East. Back then, Iraq threw up its arms and went, "Fuck! You got us. Hey, USA, Israel just blew up our nuclear program. Can we have some bioweapons? Thanks." Today, if Israel decides to pre-emptively take out Iran's nuclear program, Iran, Syria, and possibly Pakistan and Egypt are going to retaliate--hard. The violence against our troops in Iraq is going to explode (no pun intended), because the US is seen as the primary backer of Israel (and we did sell them the weapons to do it, after all).
I've also got a problem with countries like the US and Israel saying "We get to have nukes, but you don't." (Personally, I don't think anyone should have nuclear weapons--especially .us and .il who feel that they are somehow morally immune.) However, that is more an issue of personal philosophy.
I'm having second thoughts about the title and tone of my original post. Initially, it seemed to me that the US was using our friend Israel as a pawn to do our dirty work for us. However, as more time gets put between me and the story I see it more as business as usual, with a few differences: this sort of deal used to be carried out under the table, not out in the open; the timing is bad; I don't trust Sharon to exercise the prudent judgment that some of his predecessors had.
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