Friday, November 02, 2007
The Big Lie redux: Al Jazz accuses the United States of attacking Syria
According to the Jerusalem Post, al Jazeera is reporting that the United States bombed Syria on September 6 with tactical nuclear weapons.
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 US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a suspected 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.
Righty bloggers are all over the story, with reactions ranging from approval to skepticism.
None of them, however, have pointed out that this is really an old story, a rewrite of a tale we first heard more than forty years ago. In June 1967 Israeli pilots shattered Egypt's air force. Nasser was so humiliated that he conspired with Jordan's "moderate" King Hussein to blame the United States and the United Kingdom. From Michael Oren's outstanding Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
:Over the course of the night [of June 6], Hussein conveyed no less than four requests for a de facto cease-fire [via the Americans], but each time the response was negative. "I believe it is probably too late to arouse any interest in Israel for the preservation of Hussein and his regime," [American ambassador Wally] Barbour explained from Tel Aviv. Citing the continuing battles in both the Jerusalem and Nablus sectors, the Israelis claimed that Hussein had either lost control of his troops or was trying to deceive them into canceling their attack. While it supported a halt to the fighting, Washington's reply to Hussein was no warmer: Either take personal charge of your army [Hussein having ceded command to Egypt] or else remain a target.
Gravely disappointed, desperate, the king retorted with a warning of his own. If the fighting continued, Jordan would have no option but to corroborate Nasser's charge of Anglo-American conspiracy.
It was not an idle threat, as Hussein proved a half-hour later, when a phone call arrived from Cairo. "Will we say that the U.S. and Britain [are attacking], or just the United States?" asked Nasser, inquiring whether the British even had aircraft carriers. Hussein responded, "United States and England," and agreed to issue a statement to that effect immediately. Nasser was heartened. "By God," he exclaimed, "I will make an announcement and you will make an announcement that American and British airplanes are taking part against us from aircraft carriers. We will stress the matter. And we will drive the point home."
Two small and probably obviously observations come to mind. First, there really is nothing new under the Middle Eastern sun, especially regarding false accusations against the United States. Second, Nasser and Hussein thought it politically useful to smear the United States only 11 years after Eisenhower had come down hard on Israel during the Suez crisis, and before we had become Israel's principal guarantor. Sufficiently large numbers of Arabs hated us in 1967 that the leading proponent of pan-Arabism thought it would boost his popularity to invent an American attack out of whole cloth.
Draw whatever conclusions you will.
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Nov 03, 12:53:00 AM:
And these terrorists have plenty of supporters in the UN
By 
Elijah, at
Sat Nov 03, 12:59:00 AM:
why would it be outside the realm of possibility that the U.S. provided the electroinic warfare capabilities and Israel the attacking force?
US pilots in Israel for joint air force drill
BLACK SURPRISES
By , at
Sat Nov 03, 02:47:00 AM:
interesting post...
OFF TOPIC?
Request?
Can TIGERHAWK write about the upcoming NJ Elections?
Especially the special referendum on the STEM CELL research?
Is it a tax increase enclosed in research?
Have you read the poll that suggests 50% of the NJ populace wish to leave the State mostly due to the high cost - taxation?
What does Tigerhawk think of the Election?
By Purple Avenger, at
Sat Nov 03, 03:34:00 AM:
The before/after sat pics are definitive. There was no nuclear detonation at that site.
AJ simply beclowns itself when such publicly available Google Earth evidence is available.
By , at
Sat Nov 03, 08:42:00 AM:
Second, Nasser and Hussein thought it politically useful to smear the United States only 11 years after Eisenhower had come down hard on Israel during the Suez crisis
Before the 6-day war, a Palestinian Christian grad student told my mother that the only reason that Eisenhower had come down hard on Israel was that Eisenhower was afraid of the Soviet Union.
So, even when the US sides with the Arabs, our help is denigrated.
When someone tell you that 9/11 happened in part because the US sided with Israel and not with the Palestinians, remember this anecdote.
By Pax Federatica, at
Sat Nov 03, 11:01:00 AM:
I've also seen it suggested that this claim is designed to deceive investigators seeking evidence of nuclear weapons at those sites. That is, if/when traces of nuclear material are found at the site, it can supposedly be attributed to U.S. rather than Syrian nukes.
By , at
Sat Nov 03, 09:12:00 PM:
Could'a been a MOAB delivered from a B-2. With, maybe, an F-22 flying "shotgun."
p.s. I hope the Bad Guys think it was.
By , at
Sun Nov 04, 02:22:00 PM:
Joshua, I had the same thought.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Nov 04, 05:21:00 PM:
Doesn't the physical characteristics of the material used in an atomic weapon in fact change during the detonation? I always figured that was a side-effect of the fission or fusion process.
Meaning, of course, that the 'radioactive readouts' would be different in pre- and post-blast materials.
