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Brisketexan

By Brisketexan
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BlueGreySky
BlueGreySky

My friend from Nazareth (works as a tour guide and I hang out with her and her family every time I'm there)... digital silence.  Can't get her by phone.  Hasn't posted anything on FB or Insta since Th

TexArcher
TexArcher

I'm continually amazed at the ability of Americans to pick a side in this ongoing fiasco. I know people who are very pro-Israel and others who are very pro-Palestine. All I see is two bad gu

alincoln
alincoln

You must not read your own posts 

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aggie08

aggie08 21482

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8 hours ago, KYHorn said:

NEW

The Washington Post is out with new reporting on how the Mossad got those pagers into the hands of Hezbollah. 

Hezbollah operatives were enticed by the bulky, rugged pagers that were pitched to them because they felt they could survive battlefield conditions. 

They were waterproof and had an oversized battery that could operate for MONTHS without charging. 

The pagers also allowed encrypted messages to be sent but there was a catch. 

In order for the encrypted message to be read, the user had to press two buttons at the same time. 

That’s how the Mossad insured that most Hezbollah members had the pagers in their hands when they exploded. 

The pagers contained such a tiny amount of the explosive PETN that even if Hezbollah broke open the pagers, they wouldn’t be able to detect its presence. 

So where did the idea come from? 

The Mossad already got walkie talkies in the hands of Hezbollah back in 2015. The walkie talkies contained an extra large battery and also gave the ability of Mossad to eavesdrop on ALL Hezbollah communications, which it did for nine years. 

Gift Link: bit.ly/3NgJDNu 

Edit to add: the 2015 ones also contained explosives and those are what Israelis set off the the day after the first round.

These basic bitches got fucked because they're suckers for anything labeled "tactical." including pagers.

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Bevo

Bevo 13560

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Washington Worries the Israelis Will Bomb Iran’s Nuclear Sites. But Can They?

For 22 years, Israeli forces have planned for this moment. But it seems unlikely that they will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in the next round of retaliation, or that they would be successful without American help.

Oct. 8, 2024, 10:46 a.m. ET7m ago
 

A military jet flying across the sky. An Israeli F-15 flying over southern Israel in March. The country is capable of striking targets deep inside Iran, but would prefer to have the support of the United States.Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock

By David E. SangerEric Schmitt and Ronen Bergman

David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. All three have reported on the Iranian nuclear program for more than two decades.

Oct. 7, 2024

Two years ago, dozens of Israeli fighter jets roared over the Mediterranean Sea, simulating a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a drill the Israeli defense forces openly advertised as an exercise in “long-range flight, aerial refueling and striking distant targets.”

The point of the exercise was not simply to intimidate the Iranians. It was also designed to send a message to the Biden administration: The Israeli air force was training to conduct the operation alone, even though chances of success would be far higher if the United States — with its arsenal of 30,000-pound “bunker busters” — joined in the attack.

In interviews, former and current senior Israeli officials acknowledged doubts about whether the country has the capability to do significant damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nonetheless, for the past few days, Pentagon officials have been wondering quietly whether the Israelis are preparing to go it alone, after concluding that they may never again have a moment like this one.

President Biden has warned them against striking nuclear or energy sites, saying any response should be “proportionate” to the Iranian attack on Israel last week, essentially acknowledging that some counterstrike is appropriate. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has been clear with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, that the United States wanted Israel to avoid retaliatory steps that would result in new escalation by the Iranians. Mr. Gallant is scheduled to meet with Mr. Austin in Washington on Wednesday.

It is likely that Israel’s first retaliation against Iran for Tuesday’s missile strikes will focus on military bases, and perhaps some intelligence or leadership sites, officials say. At least initially, Israel seems unlikely to go after the country’s nuclear crown jewels. After considerable debate, those targets seem to have been reserved for later, if the Iranians escalate with counterstrikes of their own.

Nonetheless, there is a rising call inside Israel, echoed by some in the United States, to seize the moment — to set back, for years or more, an Iranian capability that American intelligence officials and outside experts increasingly say is at the threshold of producing a bomb. While much of the public discussion has focused on the fact that Iran could almost certainly ramp up enrichment to produce bomb-grade uranium in a matter of weeks, the more relevant fact is that it would take Iranian engineers months or maybe more than a year to fashion that fuel into a deliverable weapon.

“Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East,” Naftali Bennett, a hard-line nationalist and former prime minister who once described himself as to the right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recently wrote on social media. “We must act *now* to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime.”

He added: “We have the justification. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed, Iran stands exposed.”

American officials, starting with Mr. Biden, have mounted a campaign to take such strikes off the table, saying they would likely be ineffective and could plunge the region into a full-scale war.

The question of how to strike Iran has become a campaign issue. Former President Donald J. Trump argued that Israel should “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.” It is an approach even he shied away from as president. On Sunday, Representative Michael R. Turner, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, criticized Mr. Biden on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” saying that “it’s completely irresponsible for the president to say that it is off the table, when he’s previously said it’s on the table.”

The sudden debate over a strike has raised new questions. If Israel attacked, how much could it really set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities? Or, would the result be simply to drive Iran’s nuclear program deeper underground, leading Iran to bar the few nuclear inspectors who still have regular, if limited, access to its major facilities? And what if an Israeli strike prompts Iran’s leaders to finally decide to race for a bomb — the line that Iran’s mullahs and generals have, for nearly a quarter of a century, stopped short of crossing?

At Natanz, an Old Target and a New One

For 22 years, the locus of Israel’s attention — and Washington’s — in Iran has been the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant, buried about three stories into the desert.

Israel has developed plans to destroy or cripple the giant centrifuge hall, where thousands of the tall, silver machines spin at supersonic speeds until the uranium approaches bomb-grade material. While Tehran officially denies that it is seeking to possess a bomb, in recent months some Iranian officials and commentators have intensely debated whether a fatwa issued in 2003 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, barring the possession of nuclear weapons, should be reversed.

Meanwhile, Iran has stepped up production of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, just shy of bomb grade. It now has enough of that fuel for three or four bombs, experts believe, and getting it to bomb grade, at 90 percent, would take just days.

While Natanz would be a fairly easy target, hitting it would be an act of war. So for the past 15 years, the United States has urged diplomacy, sabotage and sanctions, not bombs, to foul up the program. And it has actively blocked Israel from getting the weapons it would need to destroy another centrifuge facility, called Fordow, built deep in a mountain.

President George W. Bush turned aside Israel’s demands to give its air force the United States’ biggest bunker-busting bombs, and the B-2 bombers that are needed to deliver them. Those weapons would be essential to any effort to take out Fordow and other deep, heavily reinforced facilities.

Mr. Bush’s decision touched off an argument inside the White House. Vice President Dick Cheney embraced the idea of a strike, but Mr. Bush held fast, arguing that the United States could not risk another war in the Middle East. Ehud Barak, who served as Israel’s highest-ranked uniformed officer and also as prime minister, said in an interview with The Times in 2019 that Mr. Bush’s warning “did not really make any difference for us.” As of the end of 2008, he said, Israel did not have a feasible plan for attacking Iran.

It soon developed several. The argument over the bunker busters helped give birth to a huge covert operation known as “Olympic Games,” a highly classified Israeli-American program to destroy the centrifuges using a cyberweapon. More than 1,000 centrifuges were destroyed by what became known as the Stuxnet virus, setting the program back by a year or more.

But Olympic Games was no silver bullet: The Iranians rebuilt, adding thousands more centrifuges. They moved more of their effort deep underground. And the fact that the malicious computer code escaped the plant, and was revealed to the world, prompted other countries to focus on developing their own infrastructure attacks, including electric grids and water systems.

The Israelis also assassinated scientists and struck aboveground enrichment facilities, attacked centrifuge-manufacturing centers with drones and invested huge resources in preparation for a possible attack on the facilities.

The Israeli efforts faltered after the Obama administration reached a nuclear deal with Iran that led the country to ship much of its nuclear fuel out of the country. And later, when Mr. Trump pulled out of the deal, he and Mr. Netanyahu were convinced the Iranians would give up their projects in response to Washington’s threats. The Israel Defense Forces focused instead on Hezbollah, and the underground tunnels where it stored Iranian-produced missiles.

When Mr. Bennett became prime minister in 2021, Israeli officials say, he was shocked by Israel’s lack of preparedness to attack the Iranian program, ordering new exercises to simulate flying the long distances to Iran and pouring new resources into the preparations. Even today, Israel’s capability is limited. The country relies on an aging fleet of Boeing 707 aerial refueling planes, and it will be years before newer models, capable of carrying fuel for far longer ranges, are delivered by the United States.

Israel’s own bunker busters have been effective against the kinds of tunnels where Hezbollah stores missiles, and they enabled Israeli forces to kill Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, last month. The Israelis believe they can take out the air defenses around many of the nuclear sites; they hit one, to send a message, in a missile exchange with Iran in April. But Israel simply cannot get into highly reinforced nuclear facilities dug into mountains.

“The nuclear target is a very difficult target,” said Gen. Frank McKenzie, who was in charge of the Iran war plans when he ran United States Central Command. “There are a lot of other alternatives to that target,” he said, adding that many of them — including energy infrastructure — would be easier to execute.

Iran’s Next Moves

Whether Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities or not, there are new reasons for concern about Iran’s nuclear future.

The first is one that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has raised repeatedly in recent weeks: He has asserted, based on intelligence the United States declines to talk about, that Russia is sharing technology with Iran on nuclear issues. Officials describe the help as “technical assistance” and say there is no evidence that it is providing Iran with the hardware it needs to make a warhead.

But until the war broke out in Ukraine, Russia had cooperated with the United States and Europe in restraining the Iranian nuclear program, even joining the 2015 negotiations on the side of Western nations. Now, if the American reports are right, Russia’s need for Iranian drones and other weaponry means it could speed Iran’s progress toward building a nuclear device.

The second concern is that the damage done to Hezbollah in the past few weeks, including the decapitation of its leadership, could make Iran feel vulnerable. It can no longer count on the terror group’s ability to strike into Israel. Moving to obtain a nuclear weapon might become its only real way to deter Israel.

And the third concern is that the Iranian program will only get harder to hit. Several years ago, under the watchful eyes of American and Israeli satellites, Iran began digging a vast tunnel network just south of Natanz, for what the United States believes is a new enrichment center, Iran’s largest. It is not yet up and running. In the past — when Israel destroyed not-yet-complete nuclear reactors in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 — that is exactly the moment it chose to mount pre-emptive attacks.

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than 

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Bevo

Bevo 13560

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1 hour ago, CHIEF said:

Can you imagine actually paying for 72 women to nag and browbeat you for the rest of eternity?

 

CHIEF

 

Yeah, I'm not so sure that is heaven unless they all live in hell and only visit upon request. And what the hell is this obsession with virginity? I hate to break it to the mufassirs but after their first night in heaven, they aren't virgins anymore.

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956 Worldwide

956 Worldwide 34697

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U.S. to deploy THAAD to Israel:

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3934493/statement-by-pentagon-press-secretary-maj-gen-pat-ryder-on-the-deployment-of-a/

Quote

At the direction of the President, Secretary Austin authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel to help bolster Israel's air defenses following Iran's unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1. The THAAD Battery will augment Israel's integrated air defense system. This action underscores the United States' ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran. It is part of the broader adjustments the U.S. military has made in recent months, to support the defense of Israel and protect Americans from attacks by Iran and Iranian-aligned militias. 

This is not the first time the United States has deployed a THAAD battery to the region. The President directed the military to deploy a THAAD battery to the Middle East last year following the October 7th attacks to defend American troops and interests in the region. The United States previously deployed a THAAD battery to Israel in 2019 for training and an integrated air defense exercise.

This is likely part of an exchange for Israel to temper its choice of targets if/when it retaliates against Iran and the presence of U.S. troops provides a powerful deterrent effect against future Iranian action.  Netanyahu also gets to tout its deployment as a win domestically. I see this as part of a descalatory effort.

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Laxtonto

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I'm not going to post the pictures (they are in the Twitter thread if you are looking for them) but ill go 80% that it is him. The snaggle tooth, nose, and eyebrow ridge is what keys in for me.

If he is dead, there isn't very many Hamas leaders left. I am curious if this allows for some form of peace deal or will this continue to drag on.

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bolverk

bolverk 29652

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1 hour ago, Laxtonto said:

I'm not going to post the pictures (they are in the Twitter thread if you are looking for them) but ill go 80% that it is him. The snaggle tooth, nose, and eyebrow ridge is what keys in for me.

If he is dead, there isn't very many Hamas leaders left. I am curious if this allows for some form of peace deal or will this continue to drag on.

 

Let's fucking hope so. @Armybrat, someone can correct me, but I don't think any Hezbollah leaders are in Qatar. Those guys are all holed up in Lebanon and Syria/Iran (maybe).

Israel is assessing whether a slain militant is the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was assessing whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed in the Gaza Strip.

The military released no further details about the assessment, but four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel in order to assess whether its DNA matches that of Mr. Sinwar.

The militant was killed on Wednesday during a firefight in southern Gaza with Israeli soldiers, according to three of the officials. The remains of the body will be compared to DNA collected from Mr. Sinwar during his decades-long incarceration inside Israeli jails, two officials said.

U.S. officials said that Israel had told the Americans that its soldiers may have killed Mr. Sinwar. All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter. Hamas made no immediate comment.

The death of Mr. Sinwar, an architect of the Hamas-led attack last October that set off the war in Gaza, would raise hopes of an end to the conflict. Both Mr. Sinwar and the Israeli government had refused to compromise during the monthslong negotiations for a truce. His death could either prompt Hamas to agree to some of Israel’s demands — or provide Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, with a symbolic victory that would give him the political cover he needs to soften his own negotiating stance.

The military statement on Thursday said that three militants were killed in the exchange and that there were no signs of hostages nearby. It added that soldiers continued to operate in the area.

Israeli officials said they believed the body may be Mr. Sinwar’s because of the physical similarities, and because intelligence had suggested he was hiding in southern Gaza.

But they also urged caution because no DNA test had yet been carried out and because they were surprised that such a senior Hamas leader would have been caught in a gunfight above ground. Mr. Sinwar, who is in his early 60s, was thought to have been killed on previous occasions, only for the initial conjecture to be proven wrong.

Israel and the United States both invested huge resources in the hunt for Mr. Sinwar. American spy agencies formed a targeting cell after last October’s attacks in Israel to study him and try to intercept his communications.

In late January, Israeli and American officials thought they were on the verge of catching him when Israeli commandos raided an elaborate tunnel complex in southern Gaza where they thought he was hiding, according to American and Israeli officials. But Mr. Sinwar had moved from the bunker beneath the city of Khan Younis just days earlier, leaving behind documents and stacks of Israeli shekels totaling about $1 million, the officials said.

In August, Israeli troops who discovered the bodies of six hostages in a warren of tunnels beneath Rafah, in southern Gaza, found signs of Mr. Sinwar’s past presence in the area, according to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister.

Mr. Sinwar’s decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7 has proved one of the most fateful moves in recent Middle East history. Roughly 1,200 people were killed in Israel some 250 others abducted in the assault, which set off a devastating Israeli counterattack in Gaza in which more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and much of the blockaded territory left in ruins.

It also led to a broader war between Israel and Hamas’s regional allies, including Iran, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel is currently mounting extensive ground and air attacks.

Mr. Sinwar has been in hiding throughout the war, eschewing electronic devices and relying on a network of couriers to stay in touch with his organization, according to Israeli and U.S. officials. At times, his communications with Hamas have been intermittent, prompting repeated speculation about his fate.

But he remained by far Hamas’s most important figure, with the group’s representatives at cease-fire negotiations in Qatar this year telling diplomats that they needed Mr. Sinwar’s input before taking major decisions. In recent months U.S. officials came to believe Mr. Sinwar did not want to reach a deal and was determined to see Israel enmeshed in a broader regional war.

Mr. Sinwar emerged from two decades of prison in Israel to rise to the helm of Hamas in Gaza in 2017. In August, he was also named political leader of the entire movement, both inside and outside Gaza, after Israel assassinated his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh, consolidating Mr. Sinwar’s influence over the organization.

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105057

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19 minutes ago, GabrielsHorn said:

Arab world seems to be confirming it. If it truly is the case, time to end the hostilities, get the hostages, and rebuild a democratic Gaza. 

Oh...I wish it was that simple.  Someone else will step up and fill his role.  An outcome of "nothing will change" is much more likely than "this is the window for true and lasting peace."  I'm hoping that it's something in between....there's an opportunity for progress towards a peaceful resolution.

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Tonesky

Tonesky 932

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh...I wish it was that simple.  Someone else will step up and fill his role.  An outcome of "nothing will change" is much more likely than "this is the window for true and lasting peace."  I'm hoping that it's something in between....there's an opportunity for progress towards a peaceful resolution.

That requires a bold progressive statesman, who actually wants real peace, which will never describe Netanyahu. 

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MagicSoccerSpray

MagicSoccerSpray 1732

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

I'm not going to post the pictures (they are in the Twitter thread if you are looking for them) but ill go 80% that it is him. The snaggle tooth, nose, and eyebrow ridge is what keys in for me.

If he is dead, there isn't very many Hamas leaders left. I am curious if this allows for some form of peace deal or will this continue to drag on.

sinway-confirmed-1.jpg?quality=75&strip=

 

T&Ps to Anastasis and Fantana

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Rex Kramer

Rex Kramer 1331

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Tonesky said:

That requires a bold progressive statesman, who actually wants real peace, which will never describe Netanyahu. 

When I think of the need for bold progressive statesmen, I’m not at all looking at Palestinians and shaking my head at their utter lack thereof.  I’m just disgusted with Israel.  It’s contrarian as fuck, but it plays well on Surly.

11 minutes ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

sinway-confirmed-1.jpg?quality=75&strip=

 

T&Ps to Anastasis and Fantana

They’ll be quiet. They only come out when Israel does something wrong. When IDF does something good, they’re noticeably silent. 

Edited by Rex Kramer
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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105057

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2 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:

Holy shit. Israel is playing a real life game of whack-a-mole with Hezbollah leaders. Every time a new one pops up, BAM!

He's not Hezbollah, he's Hamas.  Two different "moles."  But...both done got whacked, which is good.

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