Tag: Airstrikes

Yemen Finally Makes The News!

For about half a decade the Saudis have been hammering Yemen, the Middle East poorest countries, with airstrikes…..most Americans have no idea where it is or why it is being fought….please take 8 minutes and learn about this conflict…..

Now that I have caught you up…..the incident that finally put the Yemen war in the news was the Saudi attack on a school bus…..

An airstrike hit a bus in a market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 43 people, including children, and wounding as many as 63, according to Yemen’s rebel-run Health Ministry. The airstrike came from the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite Houthi rebels in the country, and the coalition said it was in retaliation for a missile fired at the kingdom the previous day. Yemen’s rebel-run Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers, per the AP. The attack took place in the Dahyan market in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold that lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. The bus was ferrying local civilians, including many children, according to Yemeni tribal leaders.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said an ICRC-supported hospital received dozens of dead and wounded following the attack. “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten,” adds the head of the ICRC in Yemen. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said the attack targeted rebels who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south, killing one person and wounding 11 others. The coalition said Wednesday’s projectile, fired toward the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan, was intercepted and destroyed but its fragments caused the casualties. The spokesman insisted Thursday’s attack was a “legitimate military action.” Saudi Arabia backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government and has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sa’naa.

The Saudis are one of the US biggest customers for weapons and armament….as can be seen in this photo from the bus attack….

A prominent Yemeni journalist who throughout the war has been instrumental in getting images and information out of the country ahead of Western journalists has photographed and examined fragments from one of the exploded missiles found at the site of the US-Saudi coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which left as many as 50 people dead and 63 injured — the vast majority of which were children. 

https://theantimedia.com/yemen-bus-bombing-lockheed-martin/

The price of war that few want to hear….the death of children….unacceptable from a country that cares so little for their fellow man…..

This transgression will go the way of all such attacks….swept under the proverbial rug…..for you see NO ONE gives a shit especially Americans!

Turn The Page!

Yemen: Finally The Media Has Noticed!

I have been writing about the war that the Saudis have waged on their poorer neighbor to the South…..in all that time, a couple of years, the largest group to suffer have been the civilians especially the children…..I touched on this just recently……https://lobotero.com/2018/07/27/why-not-yemen/

Kids trapped in a cave endless reports with live feeds……children dying from bombs or starvation not really that important to the media or the world at large.  And that is pathetic and disgusting!

Finally the Saudis have committed a crime that could not be ignored…..

An airstrike hit a bus in a market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 43 people, including children, and wounding as many as 63, according to Yemen’s rebel-run Health Ministry. The airstrike came from the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite Houthi rebels in the country, and the coalition said it was in retaliation for a missile fired at the kingdom the previous day. Yemen’s rebel-run Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers, per the AP. The attack took place in the Dahyan market in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold that lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. The bus was ferrying local civilians, including many children, according to Yemeni tribal leaders.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said an ICRC-supported hospital received dozens of dead and wounded following the attack. “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten,” adds the head of the ICRC in Yemen. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said the attack targeted rebels who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south, killing one person and wounding 11 others. The coalition said Wednesday’s projectile, fired toward the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan, was intercepted and destroyed but its fragments caused the casualties. The spokesman insisted Thursday’s attack was a “legitimate military action.” Saudi Arabia backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government and has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.

It is f*cking sad that it takes an atrocity like this to get the attention of the MSM…..

Warning:  Video is graphic so pleas be advised

Saudi Arabia should be held accountable…if they are they will just use some oil wealth to make this barbaric act go away…..and the US will just turn a blind eye to the people that gave us AQ and ISIS……their money talks and will protect.

So I Have written!

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Closing Thought–09Aug18

Ever heard of “Bock’s Car”?

Nope not some fanciful car from the past.

Would you know what I mean if I said….”Enola Gay”?

Almost all Americans know the name of the plane that dropped the first A-Bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

“Bock’s Car” is the name of the plane that dropped the second and final A-Bomb on Nagasaki that ended World War Two.

Today is the anniversary of the 2nd bomb dropped on Japan that devastated the town of Nagasaki just days after the bomb on Hiroshima.

By August 1945, U.S. Navy submarines and aerial mining by the Army Air Forces severely restricted Japanese shipping. The AAF controlled the skies over Japan and the AAF’s B-29 bombing attacks crippled its war industry. A plan for the invasion of Japan had been drawn up; Operation Olympic was scheduled for November 1945. Estimates of Allied casualties ranged from 250,000 to a million with much greater losses to the Japanese. To repel invaders, Japan had a veteran army of some two million ready, an army that had already shown its ferocity and fanaticism in combat. Some 8,000 military aircraft were available that could be used for devastating Kamikaze (suicide) attacks on U.S. ships. The draft had been extended to include men from age 15 to 60 and women from 17 to 45, adding millions of civilians ready to defend their homeland to the death, with sharpened sticks if necessary.

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196194/bockscar-the-aircraft-that-ended-wwii/

But why a second bomb?  Was the devastation of Hiroshima not enough?

Everyone knows that Nagasaki came three days after Hiroshima — but Nagasaki doesn’t get talked about nearly as much. The reason Nagasaki gets “overlooked” is pretty obvious: being the second atomic bombing attack is a lot less momentous than the first, even if the total number of such attacks has so far been two.

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/08/09/why-nagasaki/

Just a little history to close my posting day.

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Did The Nukes End The War?

World War Two kept raging even after the surrender of Nazi Germany….he US was locked into island hopping warfare heading towards the Japanese homeland…..Japan’s cities were fire bombed almost daily….and then Truman decided the only way to end the war was to use the new weapon….the Atom bomb.

After two nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Japanese leadership decided they had had enough and they sued of peace and formally surrender shortly thereafter.

Ever since the first bomb was dropped there had been a debate on whether they truly did end the war……..

the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki.

Residents of former Allied countries all generally agree on what happened next: An awed Japan surrendered and the world was spared the devastating human cost of a land invasion of the Japanese home islands. A particularly chilling fact is that United States has yet to use up the vast supply of Purple Hearts minted in anticipation of a bloody landing.

Arguments against the bombings usually take a moral tack. That whatever the ends, it’s never right to intentionally vaporize women and children. But in recent years an entire new argument has emerged: Bomb or no bomb, the war would have ended anyway.

Read more……….

https://nationalpost.com/news/did-the-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-really-end-the-war

Never let it be said that I only offer one side of a post…..so in all fairness this article on the choice the US had to make during WW2……

On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later another B-29, Bock’s Car , released one over Nagasaki. Both caused enormous casualties and physical destruction. These two cataclysmic events have preyed upon the American conscience ever since. The furor over the Smithsonian institution’s Enola Gay exhibit and over the mushroom-cloud postage stamp last autumn are merely the most obvious examples. Harry S. Truman and other officials claimed that the bombs caused Japan to surrender, thereby avoiding a bloody invasion. Critics have accused them of at best failing to explore alternatives, at worst of using the bombs primarily to make the Soviet Union “more manageable” rather than to defeat a Japan they knew already was on the verge of capitulation.

https://www.americanheritage.com/content/biggest-decision-why-we-had-drop-atomic-bomb

Personally, I believe that these bombs were not necessary…..but then it was not my choice.

Could the Soviet Union entering into the Pacific theater have been another reason for the surrender of Japan?

At the Tehran Conference in Nov 1943 and at the Yalta Conference in Feb 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had agreed declare war on Japan three months after Germany would be defeated. On 5 Apr 1945, the Soviet Union informed Japan that the Soviet Union would not renew the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941, which ensured non-aggression between the two nations through 13 Apr 1946. At 2300 hours Transbaikal time on 8 Aug 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed Japanese ambassador Sato that the Soviet Union was revoking the neutrality pact with a declaration of war effective on 9 Aug; at this point, the neutrality pact was still six months from its natural expiration.

https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=167

My point is that there was more to the closing days of WW2 than the dropping of a couple of potent bombs.

Class dismissed!

Turn The Page!

Operation Opera

That time again for your history lesson….since I started the day with post on Israel and nukes….I decided to continue along those lines…..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera

On this day in 1981 Israel launched Operation Opera……a plan to destroy an alleged nuclear reactor being built in Iraq……

It is the world’s first air strike against a nuclear plant.

An undisclosed number of F-15 interceptors and F-16 fighter bombers destroyed the Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad, on the orders of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The army command said all the Israeli planes returned safely.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm

And now the story is that Israel is helping an Arab neighbor with their hopes for a nuclear reactor…..my how times change……or do they?

June seems to be the magic month of Israel’s military adventurism…..watch the news after all this is June…..

Your history lesson is complete…..thanx for stopping by……

Syrian Attack Debrief

Below is a debrief of the attack of a couple weeks ago……yes it is from a Russian source and it does not hold to the lies Trump tells but to be honest the truth will be somewhere in the middle of both accounts…..

https://southfront.org/trumps-smart-missiles-in-syria-summing-up-evidence-and-numbers-provided-by-russia/

We have seen a detailed account from Russia…will we see the same from our government….something other than a lie?

Syria And The Question Not Asked

Now that the US and NATO has boldly gone where others feared to go…..then there are a few questions that need to be asked….

1. Why couldn’t the military wait for inspectors to do their jobs?

2. How do we know we’re being told the truth?

3.Have strikes like these ever really “punished” a country’s leader – or “sent them a message,” for that matter?

4. Why isn’t the full range of U.S. activity in Syria getting more coverage?

5. Where are the advocates for a smarter national security policy?

6. How can a country uphold international norms by violating international law?

7. Did the airstrikes make Trump “presidential”?

The answers can be found here…..

http://theantimedia.com/7-questions-about-syria-airstrikes/

Personally, I feel these questions should have been asked before throwing missiles at Syria.

Now that the smoke is clearing, in more ways than one, there is a big mess coming Trump’s way.

President Trump celebrated firing more than 100 missiles into Syria by Tweeting, “Mission Accomplished!” They say if you cannot learn from history you are condemned to repeat it. So I guess we are repeating it.

We all remember that “Mission Accomplished” was the banner behind then-President Bush as he gloated aboard a US navy ship that the war in Iraq had been won. After his “victory,” however, some 4,000 US military personnel were killed, perhaps a million Iraqis were killed, and the country’s infrastructure and social fabric were so badly destroyed that they probably can never be repaired.

Actually, there is much about the US attack on Syria that reminds us of Iraq.

http://theantimedia.com/trump-syria-attack/

At least one Trump adviser wanted to do the right thing……Mattis…….

According to the New York Times, US officials said that ahead of Friday’s US-led attack on Syria, Defense Secretary James Mattis urged the president to get Congressional approval first. Trump overruled this, however, and officials say he wanted a “rapid” response.

Officials went on to say that Trump was worried about being seen not to follow through on his “get ready” Tweet about the attack. Mattis argued about the risk of a “wider war” with Russia. The compromise was the Friday attack, which was more limited than some hawks were expecting.

It again shows a divide between Trump and Mattis on key foreign policy issues. It is particularly huge in this case because it reveals an active Defense Secretary wanting Congressional authorization for an overseas strike.

(antiwar.com)

Mattis could be playing with fire as far as his tenure at the Pentagon goes……

I believe that I have shot my wad on this situation…..You may return now to the melodrama or is it Kabuki of the Trump White House……I shall re-visit this topic as events may dictate.

Syria: Is There A Truth Bubble?

The deed is done!  Parts of Syria is a smoldering rubble in retaliation for the alleged chemical attacks on civilians by Assad forces.

It is interesting that a Russian general predicted the chem weapon and the US response about a month before the story began……

Sometimes bizarre claims by foreign governments are so shocking they are dismissed and never thought of again. But what happens when the events predicted occur exactly as described?

A stub of an article published by Reuters on March 13, 2018, almost a month before the purported chemical attack in Ghouta, reads:

“Russia said on Tuesday it had information that the United States planned to bomb the government quarter in Damascus on an invented pretext, and said it would respond militarily if it felt Russian lives were threatened by such an attack.

http://theantimedia.com/russia-predicted-chemical-attack/

After the attack the inspectors have arrived to check out the report….I am wondering why we did not get that report first……some are saying that Trump may have gotten it all wrong……

This is the story of a town called Douma, a ravaged, stinking place of smashed apartment blocks – and of an underground clinic whose images of suffering allowed three of the Western world’s most powerful nations to bomb Syria last week. There’s even a friendly doctor in a green coat who, when I track him down in the very same clinic, cheerfully tells me that the “gas” videotape which horrified the world – despite all the doubters – is perfectly genuine.

War stories, however, have a habit of growing darker. For the same 58-year old senior Syrian doctor then adds something profoundly uncomfortable: the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html

I give these articles because the real story may never be known……only the crappy story line that leads to what the masters what to be done to Syria….

Syria: Is It Over?

The US, France and the UK have released their penalty on Syria for the alleged CW attack on civilians……the attack occurred before there was a positive report saying beyond the shadow of a doubt it was Syria that attack and killed civilians….

Now after the attack can we say that Assad will never be able to do this accused dastardly deed again?

If your takeaway from the reports on Friday’s air strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities by US, French, and British forces was that President Bashar al-Assad’s ability to conduct future chemical strikes had been eliminated, you’d be wrong. In an analysis titled, “A Hard Lesson in Syria: Assad Can Still Gas His Own People,” the New York Times outlines four reasons why this is so, and the Wall Street Journal adds a fifth:

  1. Though the Pentagon characterized the strike’s three targets as “fundamental components of the regime’s chemical weapons warfare infrastructure,” it’s possible that is only true in a historical sense. In the wake of the strikes, there have been no reports of casualties at the targeted facilities—the Barzeh research and development center, the Him Shinshar storage facility, and a bunker—nor any reports of gas leakage, suggesting the sites could have been abandoned or only in light use.
  • The Times takes a historical view, to 2014, when Syria agreed to hand over its “declared” stockpiles of chemical weapons. Then-Secretary of State John Kerry said “we got 100% of the chemical weapons out,” and some 600 metric tons of chemical agents were destroyed by the US. The takeaway: “Mr. Assad has learned a lot about how to hide his stockpiles from inspectors.”
  • And not everything is in hiding: The Journal cites a UN report from early 2018 that names at least two suspected chemical weapons facilities that weren’t taken out on Saturday. The Pentagon reportedly limited the strikes to targets where civilians wouldn’t be affected.
  • Even if the destroyed facilities were key, it’s not that hard to rebuild them elsewhere, at least when it comes to making chlorine or sarin, which can be produced in bThe U.S. military claims the ability of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons has been set back “for years” following strikes on Saturday. Given it is just one year since the U.S. last struck Syrian targets following a chemical weapons attack, the latest claim won’t wash for many.Indeed, the Pentagon concedes Bashar al-Assad will still likely have the ability to use chemical agents following the weekend attacks by U.S., British and French forces. The U.S. has warned it remains “locked and loaded” to strike again.
  1. And in terms of chlorine, it’s a big challenge. It’s essential in the Middle East for water purification, making it both legal and lethal. Though chemical weapons treaties ban the use of chlorine as a poison, they do not make it illegal to possess. How Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, puts it: “For me, the big story is chlorine; it’s not sarin. … You either have to deter the regime from using it by imposing significant costs, or you have to get rid of the regime. But there is no way you can get rid of the capability.”

Head to the Times for the full analysis.

Basically this attack will be as useless as the attack from a year ago……

The U.S. military claims the ability of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons ha

s been set back “for years” following strikes on Saturday. Given it is just one year since the U.S. last struck Syrian targets following a chemical weapons attack, the latest claim won’t wash for many.

Indeed, the Pentagon concedes Bashar al-Assad will still likely have the ability to use chemical agents following the weekend attacks by U.S., British and French forces. The U.S. has warned it remains “locked and loaded” to strike again.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/04/16/syria_strikes_mission_accomplished_113327.html

 

Syria: Empire Strike Back!

Over the weekend the US and its allies the UK and France hit the country of Syria…..below is the transcript of the speech announcing the raid (it is in the Times of Israel after all that is who’s ass we are protecting away)…..

https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-trumps-address-regarding-airstrikes-on-syria/

And then after the attacks the president went on air to call it “Mission Accomplished” that seems to be the favorite phrase for Repubs these days (circa 2003)…..

President Trump trotted out a familiar presidential phrase Saturday morning to praise the Friday night strikes on Syria: “Mission Accomplished!” The phrase came at the end of a tweet in which Trump hailed “a perfectly executed strike last night.” He also thanked France and Britian “for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military,” adding, “Could not have had a better result.” A second tweet praised the US military, which he said would soon be “the finest that our Country has ever had,” thanks to “the spending of billions of fully approved dollars.”

In an address to the nation Friday night, Trump said the US and its allies were punishing Syria for a chemical attack on its civilians, and on Saturday, Syria and backers Russia and Iran condemned the airstrikes and warned of unspecified payback. The UN Security Council was expected to meet Saturday to discuss the matter at the request of Russia. During the assault, the Navy launched more than 100 Tomahawk missiles from destroyers in the Mediterranean, while Air Force B-15 bombers dropped JASSM “standoff” missiles for the first time in combat, reports the AP. Russia claims that Syria shot down 71 of 103 cruise missiles.

Hopefully they will release photos of the damage as they did with the first Trump strike last year and we will see if they were as unaffected as last years.

Personally, I am not sure that we hit the right people….I mean just because the president said it was them does not make it so…..why the rush to attack?

President Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria as a team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was about to arrive on Saturday to determine whether a chemical weapons attack had even occurred.

President Donald Trump on Saturday (Syria time) ordered air strikes against Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack last weekend outside Damascus.

http://theantimedia.com/trump-attacks-syria/

So basically we attacked because someone (probably Israel) said that Assad used CWs….is that about it?