‘USAF Struck Syrian Nuclear Site’
The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.
The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.
The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.
At the beginning of October, Israel’s military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.
On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria last month.
In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Olmert said: “In my conversation with the Turkish prime minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we respect.”
The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who had seen the relevant intelligence reports.
According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of construction in any neighboring state.
On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear facility and added that “such facilities do not exist in Syria.”
A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a nuclear facility was hit by the raid.
However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports, apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.
© 2007 The Jerusalem Post
== The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.
What the hell? Does this mean the US used a nuclear bomb on Syria or that it was a conventional bomb though the plane carried nukes?
Is a “tactical nuclear weapon” a bunker buster?
And why did the US attack Syria? To aid and abet Israel? I didn’t even know Syria was on the US attack-radar.
So begins Armageddon.
I don’t know whether fault lies with the Jerusalem Post or with AlJazeera, but no way in hell was the Syrian site hit with a nuclear weapon, or any nuclear weapon loaded onto any of the planes that attacked the site. And I highly doubt that the raid was conducted by the USAF. This is the first time I have heard even any suggestion of that.
There is reason to believe the site was intended for a nuclear reactor of the type used for plutonium production. Visit www.isis-online.org for the best information out there. But there is also reason to doubt this conclusion; it certainly has not been proven. Syria has denied this was a reactor, but has plowed over the site so it can’t be inspected via satellite and has not invited any ground inspections. Make of that what you wish.
And it is also certain that there was no nuclear material at the site; it probably would not have been bombed if there were. A best guess is that the project had been stalled or abandoned.
US, Israel, what’s the diff?
Where did this report come from?
Paragraph 3 states that the US dropped a nuclear? bomb on Syria and the 7th paragraph states that Israel dropped a bomb.
I believe this is a hoax
“…no intention…to violate or undermine turkish sovereignty, which we respect.”
and what of syrian (or lebanese etc) sovereignty?
Sorry, I don’t know what to believe anymore. Who’s telling the truth? Who’s lying through their teeth? The spin doctors have succeeded in getting my head spinning.
False story, obfuscation so that the truth will not come out yet. If there is not ground inspection allowed the story will be made up. I doubt this story, besides want a nuke? Check out the market, that is going to go nuclear, and these distractions are not serving anyone’s purpose except the US. If they keep kicking dirt around they hope to cloud your eyes, this isn’t helping.
A few comments:
1. The US _has_ had Syria in it’s sights for a while.
2. Modern bomb technology allows nuclear bombs of very low yield - they can be “dialed” to a yeild comparable to a large conventional bomb (but with radioactive materials still released of course) So, ground-penetrating N-weapons on a remote unpopulated site could have been used without being easily noticed.
3. Ther have been reports that commercial satellite images show the Syrians hastily burying the bomb site with earth - ostensibly to hide the facility from spying, but maybe to contain radioactive materials released by the bomb?
4. A US “demonstration” mission - the real intended target being a demonstration for Iran’s leaders perhaps?
5. But on the other hand, if an n-bomb was used, Syria would have known, and considering it’s propaganda value, why would they remain silent about it? Then again, Assad Jr. unlike his father, is a bit of a quirky, ineffective leader.
delete this
why can’t we all just get along?
medusa,
That was a fine comment, why did you delete it?
Dimona is turning out nuclear bombs - the scourge of humanity. If it could be done without harmful radiation releases, and minimal loss of life, it should be destroyed.
But, my speculaton aside, the story is is suspect. It never apeared in Al-Jazeera’s English website as far as I know. And the Jerusalem Post is regarded as bit of a fringe, right-wing rag…
Sounds to me like it was “leaked” in a way to cause hysteria/hoax, to gain the impression that Isreal and the US would not hesitate to strike iraq-touching countries- specifically Iran… but what do I know.
Except that “leaking” “rumors” provide “justifacation” in the “media” for political and economic reprecussions, all driven through fear, seem to be the style of the time for any oppressor.
i always wondered about syria’s silence. this article sounds like justification that the united states can use these weapons with ’safety’ on iran.
Thanks, for the boost, brother PJD. “Time to bomb Dimona”? fear of rendition or no-fly lists. we live in interesting times. But I do believe what’s sauce for the goose, yadda-yadda. you know something? Thanks to the combined antics, the global death-tango of Tweedly-DumUS and and Tweedly-D-Israel, I no longer believe any political/military action is ever taken to promote or defend human rights or justice. Combined with the insight gained from an examination of various trades around the world (diamonds, gold, oil, ancient knick-knacks, agribiz, water), I now believe,to my everlasting sorrow, that the world is really run by vicious gangs of armed thugs. They may call themselves cartels, commissions, boards, associations, committees, organizations, whatever, but they are worse than, say, the Mafia ever was. At least the Mafia never pretended to be anything other than an alternate economic hierarchy based on clan lines. The honesty of the shark. Everything else is bovine scat. Despair may be the only rational option.
> ground-penetrating N-weapons on a remote unpopulated site could have been used without being easily noticed.
No fkin way. There would be fallout spread all over Turkey and the Mideast. Traces would be detectable almost anywhere on the globe. Forget it, this was not a nuclear attack.
Besides, the building was all above ground, so there would be no need for a nuke or any type of ground-penetrating munition. It was hit with conventional heavy bombs in the 1 Ton range.
Sounds like propaganda to me. If a tactical nuke was dropped on Syria, Syria would be welcoming inspections that could trace the source radioactive materials of the bomb back to its source, winning broad sympathy and support for Syria and strong resistance to the source of the bomb (which, after all, is alleged to be dropped in the name of preventing nuclear attacks). Instead, Syria has been undertaking a hasty clean up of the bombed site and not allowing inspections of the area by the U.N. or NGOs concerned with such events.
There is enough wrong with the act of aggression carried out against Syria, apparently by Israel, without making up a bunch of nonsense that will only serve to muddy the water. That said, one wonders whether the true source of this red herring is actually some counter intelligence wing of the U.S. or Israeli government.
Just another example to illustrate that we never REALLY know what is going on….
Medusa:
Despair is often the only rational option, but the logical conclusions of despair are silence and inactivity. That is, despair is generally self-justifying, self-fulfilling, what-have-you. If everyone despairs, the ones who give reason for despair have effectively won. The alternative–and I offer this alternative in an entirely non-religious way–is faith. Not faith in God, Allah, the Market, etc., but faith in the human capacity to defy the logical conclusions arising out of any specific situation in favour ethical principles that (deconstructionists and post-modernists be damned) transcend individual circumstance. We have seen over and over again that political power ultimately does lie with the people, but only for so long as they are aware that they possess it and insist that it is theirs, and have the commitment to maintain it in the face of the rhetoric of violence and oppression and that big ole’ blood-stained invisible fist (sorry:hand).
I’m rambling here. Just wanted to suggest that despair on our part = victory on theirs.
Hmmmm, usually bombing another country is considered an act of war.
Under the war powers act, that should have required some notification of Congress, including our wonderful Democratic leaders. Who of course don’t seem to think the people need to know anything about this just like they thought we didn’t need to know about domestic, warrantless spying when they were briefed on that and just like when they got intel briefings that said that all the stuff about WMD’s in Iraq was nonsense and they decided we didn’t need to know about that either.
Still, the notion that we would so casually commit an act of war against another nation is very disturbing. Exactly what the Founding Fathers tried to prevent by explicitly saying that only Congress could declare war.
I can not find anything about this when I search Al-Jazeera.
Remember that the source of this story, The Jerusalem Post, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
You’d certainly have trace nuclear radiation from any nuke weapons use. I’d be almost certain that at least the Russians have sats up to detect that in the same way we look for nuclear tests and explosions around the world.
It might be something that’s just noticeable in a remote area instead of a Chernobyl-like event depending on how low-yield it was and how deep underground it was. More like an underground test maybe than a Chernobyl or a Hiroshima. But I’d be very surprised if there weren’t people around like the Russians who’d know for sure, and I’d be kinda surprised if they weren’t leaking it if it was true.
Of course, a key point is that whatever it was that was bombed, it was in no way a threat to the USA. Maybe the beginnings of something that might one day be a threat. But nothing at all like such an immediate threat that it just had to be destroyed instantly without following legal niceties like the US Constitution and the War Powers Act.
And of course the IAEA has plainly said it would have been better to notify them and let them send in inspectors to know for sure. That way, maybe the root cause of the problem could have been addressed. Bombing just makes it harder long term to deal with the problem.
If true, one more objective of the Project for a New American Century is now in process.
Mark Abram:
Are you talking as an American or as an Israeli?
If you can’t see the double standard applied to Israel’s nuclear capability versus Syria and Iran’s non-existent capability I don’t know what to tell you…
Interesting … I typed Syria into the English Al Jeezera site, and it doesn’t seem to come up with this story. It does have a story today which is a review of how the Israeli media went along with the Israeli military censorship rules. No surprise there, but that author still refers to the strike as a strike by the Israeli air force.
Of course, I’m limited to the English versions, so I couldn’t say if this is on the Arabic version and hasn’t made it over to the English side yet or not.
Anyone else seen this story on Counterpunch…
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff11012007.html
The author addresses the issue not too long ago when a B-52 was ‘accidentally’ loaded with nuclear warhead cruise missiles that could do exactly this sort of deep bunker hard-target attack.
That doesn’t mean this type of weapon was used. Its just an interesting coincidence. The author of the above link is very sceptical that it was really just an accident, and seems to have some good reasons. If the USAF report on this is just a cover-up, which is always a decent starting assumption with the Pentagon, then it asks some interesting questions as to what was really going on.
This B-52 loaded with nuclear weapons was flying across the US exactly one week before this raid on this Syrian site. So all sorts of interesting question seem to come up about whether the ‘accident’ occurred while they were moving weapons to be used in this attack or if this was some sort of practice run.
Many of the posters here raise good questions. I seem to recall that part of Cheney’s plan to bomb Iran was for Israel to bomb Syria (after all, Syria is on Bush’s “Axis of Evil” list). Cheney was trying to get Syria to retaliate against Israel so that Israel could bomb Syria, which in turn, would provoke Iran, and the U.S. would bomb Iran, but Syria did not bite, which might have thrown off the whole plan. Is this plausible question in addition to the others??
If this is true. I feel sorry for United Stateser’s traveling abroad, no Maple Leaf pinned to your backside is going to help you.
I imagine that the majority of the world would feel much the same as I. If this is true the USA has just made a whole lot of enemies out of former friends.
I want to see the USA leadership in jail waiting trial.
maelstrom-
There is certainly a double-standard in effect regarding Israel’s nukes. But lets also admit that Iran is well on the way to getting the capability to make nuclear weapons, and Syria has definitely done some work in that direction, whether or not this was a reactor project.
Construction at the site was started at least 5 years ago, and there was no operating reactor there when it was bombed, which suggests that the project may have stalled or been abandoned. That in turn supports the notion that this raid was aimed in part at Iran, as a warning, as a practice run, and to gain operational intelligence.
Pardon my French, but what the fuck? Tac-nukes? American jets? What the fuck is the idea of putting a story like this out there, even if it is only propaganda? (And the fact that we DID have that “missing nukes” thing happen a month or so back makes it all the more suspicious.)
What fucking possible propaganda value could come of publishing something like that?
WTF? This is BS. The global nuclear explosion detection system http://www.ctbto.org/ would have detected and announced any such nuclear explosion. The Syrians would be enraged beyond control.
I agree with above posters. This article should be deleted from CD.
COMarc
I thought about those nukes on those planes that landed in Alabama, too.
Well, the first thing we need is a confirmation (or not) of the Jerusalem Post story, which it claims came from Al Jazeera.
Here’s another mention of the US using a nuke on Syria, but it’s far less definitive than the Jerusalem Post story.
=====
http://fresnozionism.org/archives/712
Did US hit North Korean bombs in Syria with tactical nuke?
Rumors that have been circulating in Israel for some time have now hit the mainstream press:
The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.
The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.
The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed. — Jerusalem Post [my emphasis]
If this is true, it would be the first time since 1945 — at least, as far as I know! — that a nuclear weapon has been employed operationally.
On October 17, I received a copy of an email (in Hebrew) that was circulating in Israel. In addition to the above, it said that at least one Israeli plane was damaged by Syrian antiaircraft fire, but returned safely to base. And it added that
The target included three nuclear weapons, which had been shipped in pieces by sea from North Korea and assembled by North Korean technicians in Syria.
This story is a hoax. First of all, there is no indication outside of misinformation leaked by US and Israeli government sources that the Syrian site attacked had anything to do with a nuclear program. Any honest reporting on this should put quotation marks around “nuclear” site.
Second, the media reports immediately after the attack indicated that the Syrians were engaged in cleaning up and dismantling the facility, whatever it was. If the site had been hit by a tactical nuke, it would be radioactive and everyone would be staying the hell away. (There is nothing dirtier than a nuclear ground-burst except a nuclear ground-penetrating blast.)
Third, as someone else has mentioned, a nuclear attack would have released radiation into the atmosphere that someone would certainly have noticed, either by satellite or by ground-based observation downwind.
The interesting question is why this report appeared in the ultra-conservative Jerusalem Post. The idea here is clearly to set up a real nuclear strike on the Iranian uranium-enrichment sites by lowering the barrier to the use of tactical nuclear weapons (”What’s the big deal? We used them on the Syrians.”). A second effect is to exaggerate the “nuclear” threat and justify a sense of hysteria in Israel and the US (”The Syrians had them! The Iranians have them! We’ve got to nuke them before they nuke us!”)
This article needs to be discussed and debunked in the mainstream press before the rumor-spreading goes any further!
is there any corroboration for this story?
I don’t see why people are so quick to say this is lies. The U.S. conducts secret operations in countries all over the world that ‘we aren’t supposed to be in’. I’ve heard stories several times from former military personnel.
Of course the U.S. would want to have kept it secret, and the said Israeli and Arab sources obviously are talking about sensitive info so of course they won’t give their names and why would an Israeli source admit something like this if it weren’t true? It wouldn’t help their cause at all.
Best comment yet:
whatfools November 2nd, 2007 1:24 pm
I can not find anything about this when I search Al-Jazeera.
Remember that the source of this story, The Jerusalem Post, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Note that in the Jerusalem Post story, the headline is in quotes.
Propaganda.
This is nonsense.
If we had actually used a tactical nuke, the whole world would know about it right now.
The attack was carried out to showcase weapons for the recent US-Israeli arms deal. It has nothing to do with nucler weapons, power, or chemical weapons. We did it just to show off weapons and aircraft stealth.
If you read the article carefully, it says only that two planes each carried a nuclear weapon. It says that a bomb was dropped that destroyed a building. It does not say that the bomb was a nuclear one. For several reasons it seems to me extremely unlikely that the bomb that was dropped was a nuclear one.
A significant item in this article is that the attack was a joint Israeli/U.S. operation. Is this really true? Is it also true that the planes carried nuclear weapons? If so, why was this revealed? All the assertions found in this article seemed designed to mainly to intimidate Iran. None should be take at face value. The U.S. press should be asking a lot of questions about this.
An interesting and an improbable story to say the least. I cannot imagine American planes carrying nuclear weapons…… though they could well have participated in the strike….. though I would doubt it. The provenance of this story… Jerusalem Post … makes it immediately suspect, as does the fact that it attributes the most outrageous claims to Al Jazeera….. a favorite whipping boy of the western governments, and particularly our own (US) and Israel and the UK. Al Jazeera is a very reputable source, and their stories have time and again proven to be true after all the denials of the western press have been blown off. What is interesting is that no links to the story have been given. What this obviously appears to be is an effort to discredit Al Jazeera, rather than a serious story. If it looks, smells, and tastes like BS ……. it probably is. That would be the case here. It should NOT have been posted here without a bit more background and verification effort.
H.W.
Anyway this all these reports are speculation and opinion.No-one Syrian, Israeli, or American seems to want to come out and tells us the fcts. So the only fact right now is that SOMEONE bombed a site in Syria. Other thatn that at this point until someone comes out and givces concrete evidence and facts, evrything else is irrelevant
Cannot be a nuke. No way, No how.
Ground penetrators send up the most fall-out - by far. An air burst sends up the least. A ground penetrator cannot get deep enough to prevent a surface eruption. The depth required to contain a blast is over ten times the depth that is currently acheiveable.
Even the smallest yeild nuke is about 30 times the yeild of the very largest non-nuke (about 1000 times the yeild of normal bombs). The Russians and Chinees both have satellites to detect these blasts. Siesmologist can detect the signature of a nuke blast.
The EMP from an air bust would have been disruptive all over the middle east.
And, as stated earlier, the Syrians would have everything to gain by tracing the blast back to the USA. The isotops generated by a nuke blast are traceable to their source.
Cannot be a nuke. No way, No how…
The story seems fishy to me. Probably bits of truth mixed in with a lot of embroidery.
Let’s hope to God this isn’t true. If it is, then our traitorous President and Vice President are egregious criminals and should be impeached immediately and shot.
two things seem true, and we are probably fortunate that we’re even remotely in the loop.
1. the nuke incident at Barksdale.\
2. A site was destroyed in Syria.
These stories remain obscure. To be sure the Syrian incident was a warning to Iran.
I agree that “faith” is our best strength. A kind of faith that the world will grow for the better past whatever crisis might or might not be looming. And come what may to our own selves, for better or for worse. That much seems to be based in historical reality so far, to the current moment.
I suspect the REAL story is the published story. Is it true or false? If false, why was it published? Why did the Jerusalem Post publish it? What was their source? Why did they claim it was al Jazeera?
OTOH, if it’s true, what about all the questions raised above?
I mean, it’s one thing for a supermarket checkout rag to publish outrageous stories, but the rightwing Jerusalem Post?
This sounds like complete crap to me. It’s unbelievable on a few levels. First, I doubt this administration could execute such an attack without word getting out. These bastards would brag. Second, I doubt that if a nuke was used, the Chinese and the Russians (who would keep an eye on such things) wouldn’t notice the radioactive fall out headed their way. Third, a missile strike would be much easier and safer.
The BS detector is going off.
After reading all the comments above, I have concluded that this whole thing is about “softening us up” to make a future strike somewhere seem somehow more acceptable - but what do I know?
Thoroughly ridiculous. You cannot explode a nuke of any type, anywhere in the world without many governments and NGO’s knowing about it within hours.
Of course there are plenty of idiots out there that belive we bombed the World Trade Center so the gullibility quotient of the Mideastern press services has already been established.
I can’t imagine being an Arab power (or Iran for that matter) and wanting nuclear weapons. It would make you a target for Israel’s own nukes. If a bomb exploded Tel Aviv, I don’t know if they would wait to determine the origin of the fissile material or not before they turned your country into radioactive, molten slag.
And yes, COMarc I too read this before in CD. It may have been fiction, but I bet it’s part of the grand strategy to lower the threshold of indignation over the real thing when it happens.
Fellow truth seekers, truth is the zionists were testing the Anti- aircraft defense of syria, and got turned back even though the 2 aircraft dumped two gas tanks each 2 in turkey and 2 in syria to reach mach 2.5 Russian supplied weapons are state of the art…. Also the us and zion have the whole area encircled by land, sea and air, no such nuclear material would reach syria without inside approval by the world police…Ron Paul for president
This is a HOAX.
“I can not find anything about this when I search Al-Jazeera.
Remember that the source of this story, The Jerusalem Post, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.”
Not to pick nits but the Jerusalem Post is not owned by Rupert Murdoch. It was sold in 2004 by Conrad Black to Mirkaei Tikshoret LTD., an Israeli media conglomerate. MTL’s Chairman is one Eli Azur. and The Jerusalem Post’s new editor is David Horovitz.
That being said, I too can not find a shred of evidence to back up this story. Frankly I’m suprised that Common Dreams, whom I have come to respect, would even run a farfetched piece like this with out checking it out further. Sloppy reporting, people!
Couldn’t locate anything on al-Jazeera report about attack. Could only find report from Jerusalem Post, for 9/6/2007.
From what I was reading re;Tactical nuclear weapons. it says it includes gravity bombs, missiles and others with nuclear warhead, that could be dialed down to a very minimal nuke capability, also akin to bunker busters.
I have no idea WTF is going on.
bald-n-sb wrote: The Russians and Chinees [sic] both have satellites to detect these blasts.
Every US-launched satellite has had a bhang meter on them since 1957. Not infallible (e.g.the South African “nuke” in 1979). But the International Monitoring System has 80 radionuclide systems around the world, one downwind in Kuwait, that would detect any air/deep penetrator blast - aka the smoking gun. Very accurate.
Willy Nilly wrote: I’m surprised that Common Dreams, whom I have come to respect, would even run a farfetched piece like this with out checking it out further.
CD joins the MSM in crappy reporting.
CD, please remove this garbage lest your followers start repeating it out of context and giving the neocons more fodder to call us loony liberals.
CD please remove this dangerous Israeli propaganda, thanks.
Give me a break… You don’t think that the Syrians have Geiger counters? You don’t think that someone would happen to notice that, oh, a region was being dosed with a thousand millirems of radiation? It’s not like it’s Israeli propaganda, it’s just BS… So, I’d agree that stories like this shouldn’t be posted unless there’s a little bit of investigation. Chernobel (granted bigger than any tactical nuke) still contaminated Sweden for God’s sake… Wouldn’t anyone notice a freakin’ nuke going off and make a hayday of propaganda against he US, Isreal, etc? Only any idiot would do that!
Hmmm - well, we do have El Chimp as president… Sorry. Good point.
I have been waiting to hear some real news on exactly what that event was all about. There seems to be very scant news of the event. This is the first I heard of direct US involvement or the use of a nuclear bomb. Usually by this time the real purpose and facts would be sifting through the propaganda. I still feel uniformed.
“There is certainly a double-standard in effect regarding Israel’s nukes. But lets also admit that Iran is well on the way to getting the capability to make nuclear weapons, and Syria has definitely done some work in that direction, whether or not this was a reactor project.”
Mark Abram,
No, let’s not admit that Iran is well on the way to getting nukes. While this in fact may be true, there is no evidence to prove this and even less (read, none) to prove that they will use the nuclear material for anything other than for providing energy.
If we fall for this stuff again, we are all conspirators in one of the biggest travesties of the last few generations.
Israel is behind this - make no mistake.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/31/4914/
Beware.
Maybe they’re hoping with reports like this — rhetorically — to ease the use of tactical nukes. To make it seem like an everyday thing, nothing to worry about. Just use small nukes here and there, and it’s not something to take notice of, no worries.
“The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources…”
What a bunch of baloney. First, I have not seen that article in Aljazeera. Second, who are the sources? Israelis and Arabs? Israelis are a bunch of liars anyway, and why didn’t those Arabs who are supposed to have known talk about it before?
This article is total misinformation for the naïve. The fact is that the US ordered Israel to fly over Syria to check the effectiveness of its air defenses because it’s the same type used by Iran and supplied by Russian. The article also attempts to water down the use of nuclear weapons in the public mind and reduce its seriousness, and gauge the public reaction to its use also.
What surprises me is the propagation of this misinformation by Common Dreams. Hey, which side are you really on?
rod65, thank you.
rod65 and medusa,
Your thoughts are significant and generally agreeable, but a certain technicality should be noted: despair is psychologically perverse and philosophically absurd, and therefore never rational.
Rational considerations may pressure emotional stability. But that is a different issue. This is an important point when people are vulnerable to despair. The erroneous notion that reason could justify it can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Yep story not found on Al Jazeera just disinformation propaganda and an attack on domestic population only.
I still want to see those buggers swing though.
my reaction to the quoted story seems typical according to the comments I’ve read here. It seems to me that the story was created to assess the “public reaction” to the dropping of a nuke. If we convict the driver of the getaway car with murder in a robbery where someone else pulled the trigger,we should convict convict rupert murdoch with war crimes against humanity.
This story is a crock and there’s nothing on Al-Jaz. A fine piece of tabloid level disinformation the purpose of which could fuel many a conspiracy theory. Any nuclear blast would be seismically detectable and unless someone has developed an EMP and radioctive fallout free nuke then is double nonsense.
But here’s a thought: What if there was some danger that the attacking aircraft could be hit by Syrian AA missiles. What if you then slipped information that the attacking aircraft were going to drop conventional bombs but also carried nuclear bombs that could cause dirty bomb fallout over a wide area if any attempt to shoot the aircraft down was made? The idea sounds fanciful to me but I thought I would bounce it off the board and see if anyone has the technical savvy to know whether this is a plausible tactic or not?
CD was ‘on the job’ posting this story (and in no-fashion should delete/edit/pass-judgment, on even a propaganda-piece, appearing in major news-sources). It obviously is a ‘feeler-leak’, and no one as-yet knows how much is factual…
That said, Syria is very-much more ‘at risk’ of-late than Iran (which, if ‘contained’ or cooperative, serves a continuing-role as ‘exemplar-Enemy’ for all other/future ‘goals’ in the ME/Caspian, and for justifying/ensuring ‘homeland-support’ and international-allowances). Further, Syria is the biggest impediment to several joint-Goals in the area — such as pipelines to N. Israel refineries and reducing ‘aid’ to the Hezbollah (and other S.Lebanese defenses) against loss of farmland/water up to the LitaniRiver. In short…its likely ‘next’, and “this term”.
No mention above is made confirming a nuke-strike, but if the US planes did carry nuclear-weapons into a country’s air-space while on a bombing-mission — that, of itself, is a ‘remarkable thing’. This ‘leak’ — if it is one — is also remarkable. I’m keen on hearing the follow-ups…
Two possibilities.
One, agreed, the story is based on wrong information, “an alleged source says” sort of thing.
Two, Syria’s plant was supposed to be clandestine. Why wouldn’t they want to hide it with all the saber rattling at anyone wanting to protect themselves from more preemptive attacks.
Other wise I assume the UN would have been notified.
If this is true, Bush must be removed (impeached) from office on an expedited basis to prevent the start of WWIII.
Obviously the Aug 30th ‘accident’ of a B-52 flying with 6 ACM missiles armed with the exact type of tactical nukes (W80 warheads) that are part of CONPLAN 8022 was related to this sneaky ‘false flagged’ attempt to actually start the WWIII (for oil) that the certifiably insane Bush/Cheney are now desparately trying to start with Iran.
This incident (bombing Syria) is totally investigatable as to the US planes and nukes described. If the US planes were involved they had to be ordered sorties from somewhere by a US senior officer, and the tactical nukes (though now insanely allowed to be used at the theater level) had to be ordered through a chain of command —- all of which can be investigated by Congress.
If the Dems in Congress do not demand immediate investigation and impeachment of Bush/Cheney, if they are proven to have ordered a preeptive and NUCLEAR attack on Syria, then the Dems are clearly part of this conspiracy of EMPIRE and imperial oil-war in the Middle East — and the Dems will be directly culpable in enabling the start of WWIII.
“I can not find anything about this when I search Al-Jazeera.”
“Al Jazeera never reported and certainly no news agencies have reported.”
“What is interesting is that no links to the story have been given. What this obviously appears to be is an effort to discredit Al Jazeera, rather than a serious story.”
“What was their source? Why did they claim it was al Jazeera?”
“Yep story not found on Al Jazeera…”
“This story is a crock and there’s nothing on Al-Jaz.”
And even…
“There is no mention of this story on either the english or arabic sites of Aljazeera.net”
No doubt the Jerusalem Post has staffers who, unlike you folks, read Arabic. Neither do I, but the fact that the story didn’t appear in English is no reason to jump to the conclusion that Al-Jazeera didn’t run it. (The author of the last quote appears to have jumped to that conclusion in a different sort of way.)
Is the story credible? Probably not. Did Al-Jazeera run it? Yes:
http://tinyurl.com/2kqbdy
For a translation (of sorts), paste into
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
and select Arabic to English BETA.
FWIW, some people on the Democratic Underground forum are saying that the Jerusalem Post picked this story up from a poster on the Al Jazeera forum, and it wasn’t in any Al Jazeera news report. Apparently it’s a only a rumor floating around Israel, and why the Jerusalem Post would publish it is baffling.
Nice work doc j!
I found the article and translated it as you suggested. The first few paragraphs (translated) are:
{begin quote}
“Homepage: Arab
The United States participated air raid on Syria
Aircraft invasive Syria crossed Turkish territory (French-Archive)
Israeli source revealed that an Arab and another air raid launched by Israeli aircraft on Syria in the ninth of September last been with American participation, via Turkish territory.
It quoted a personal milestone on the Israeli security source by the beginning of the local air raid on Syria last September aimed at the nuclear facility under construction.
The businessman, who asked not to be identified - in an exclusive statement to the island’s Net - that the process was the participation of two strategic bombers vehicle sticking small tactical nuclear bombs, aircraft squadron They were accompanied by Israeli F-15, F-16, took responsibility for control and protection.
The security source said that both the American fighter carried a nuclear bomb tactical one, pointing out that the target has been established and one bomb, which led to its destruction and causing great Bhfarh in place.”
{/end quote}
The article is still nonsense. The only operative words are in the first line: “Israeli source revealed …” Israel has all sorts of motivations for floating such a story, including exaggerating the US backing for their military adventures (as if it were possible to overstate the Bushco support for Israeli war-making!) and preparing public opinion for using tactical nukes on Iran.
The Jerusalem Post is applying a standard tactic to get Israeli-generated propaganda into the news: get some Israeli source to leak misinformation to Al Jazeera and then when they print it, then the Post can report that “Al Jazeera says…”
Anyway, this article should be ignored except as an indication of how far the right wing in Israel is willing to go and how much influence they have in a major newspaper.
I’d not dismiss/speculate just-yet…
This story, as they say, “has legs”.
To those of you who did some research on the original topic, posted back and actually cited your sources…THANK YOU.
Then there are those like “whatfools” who attempt to sound authoritative by posting inflammatory bullshit like “…Remember that the source of this story, The Jerusalem Post, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.”
NO, IT’S NOT! If you had done your research, you would have learned that the JP was previously owned by The Hollinger Group until 2004; now the Jerusalem Post is owned by the Israeli media group Mirkaei Tikshoret. http://www.ketupa.net/black2.htm
whatfools, corentan, Ray Kondrasuk, et al: It’s bad enough we have to read articles like ‘USAF Struck Syrian Nuclear Site’ with no corroboration. You need to either look up what you “think” you know and cite your sources in your post so others don’t have to waste their valuable time looking it up for you, OR simply STFU! I wouldn’t doubt that you often get the feeling that other people are ignoring you but you “just don’t know why.” Well, here’s a clue: you’re intellectually LAZY and you allow others to do your thinking for you. Instead of thinking critically, you believe everything you (read, see, hear) and repeat it at will.
Stop playing into the hands of the radical right…regardless of their geographical location.
cromerovich,
You are most likely correct “idea sounds fanciful to me”.
I cannot speak to Israeli weapon design, but I assume they follow US practice. Hitting an aircraft carrying a nuke with a missle almost certainly does not create a dirty bomb, at least with current designs. The devices are designed with a great deal of structural integrity and the integral expolosives package is non-responsive in nature. That means that it takes a highly specific seqence of events to achieve a high order detonation of the conventional explosives package. If that happens, it is no “dirty bomb” but a “BOMB!!!!!”. Likely incorporated into the design is an accelerometer, where if the device is subjected to the G forces of an explosion, it disables the arming mechanism making the device inert. It would likely be similarly unresponsive to fire or physical impact.