For Israel, Signing Obama's New Us-Israel Arms Deal Was A Mistake

After a long negotiation, Benyamin Netanyahu signed a new MOU with President Barack Hussein Obama on a military aid package for U.S. military aid to Israel over the next ten years.

While it was touted as 'an unprecedented increase it military aid' to Israel, in reality, it was a decrease, and one with stringent and dangerous conditions that Netanyahu should have rejected outright.

Before we get to the details, let me dispose of some nonsense coming from figures on the Israeli  left like Israel's former Labor Prime Minister, Ehud Barak,  that Israel would have gotten a better deal if Netanyahu hadn't opposed Obama's Iran deal and made that 2015 speech to a joint session of Congress to try and head it off.

President Obama has made it clear from the beginning of his presidency that he loathes Israel and wanted to 'create distance' between the U.S. and Israel to appease the Muslim world. End of story.

Nothing Netanyahu could have done short of surrendering to all of Obama's demands, creating 500,000 Jewish refugees and moving Israel to unsafe borders would  have changed that, and President Obama would still have insisted on appeasing Iran with farcical Iran deal whether Netanyahu had stayed home and kept his mouth shut or not. Providing billions of dollars to Israel's most genocidal enemy and giving them a clear path to nuclear weapons was something Obama was always going to do, just like his efforts to empower Islamists in the region that ended up destabilizing the Middle East was always something he was going to do.

That, of course is one huge reason  for rejecting the agreement.  The Israelis should never have taken seriously any offer coming from President Obama, let alone signed on. This was just a convenient political smokescreen in an election year designed to appear to counteract  Obama's progress in making U.S. support for Israel a partisan issue, and what will likely be a U.S. abstention or perhaps even a vote in favor of a biased UN resolution. That resolution will be written to abrogate U.S. signed treaties like the Road Map and Oslo which call for direct negotiations between Israel and PLO and substitute a UN diktat, gifting the Palestinian Authority everything it wants without negotiating anything, at least on paper.  And yes, Barack Hussein Obama was always going to do that eventually too, when the opportunity arose, in this case after the 2016 elections. He is simply not to be trusted in any regard where Israel is concerned and neither is the current Democrat nominee, Mrs. Clinton. To be sure, such a UN resolution would never be accepted by the Israelis, but it would provide additional strain on the U.S.-Israel relationship, something President Barack Hussein Obama has had as a policy goal since he took office.

Netanyahu accepted this for a couple of reasons, both political rather than strategic. He didn't want to face political pressure at home for 'ruining the relationship with America' (the Israeli press has its strident leftists, just like America) and he was likely hoping to throw a bone to Obama in hopes he could mollify him during his last few months in office. So at best, this new agreement was  a calculated risk, but we'll see.

So that disposed of, let's look at the deal itself. It allocates $3.8 billion a year in military aid to Israel for a period of ten years, up from $3.1 billion per year. That's an increase of $700 million dollars per year, but it's not the increase it would seem to be. For one thing, arms costs have risen by between 20-25% since the last U.S./Israel arms agreement was signed. Subtract that percentage  from the new  the new amount, and you'll see it amounts to hardly any increase at all, and will likely even be a substantial decrease in ten years. This is especially relevant because this agreement forbids Israel from asking for more, no matter what. It also takes congress out of the equation, where Israel's real friends live and puts this in the hands of the White House.

This amount also includes funds for Israel's missile defense. which Congress funded separately as an additional appropriation of approximately $500 million on an annual basis. So this actually amounts to another cut in this supposed 'increase' in aid. This is especially bad in view of the fact that Congress had already decided to appropriate $3.4 billion of regular foreign aid, plus an additional $600 million for missile defense in 2017, or $4 billion in total. Obama, of course would never have signed off on that but at least it should have been a starting point, especially since Obama and Secretary of state John Kerry promised Israel 'unprecedented aid' after shoving through the Iran deal.

This ain't that, not by a long shot.

The only provision for any increase at all would be if Israel is involved in a war. That decision on whether Israel is at war would be dependent on President Obama or perhaps (G-d forbid) a President Clinton, herself no fan of Israel. Remember than President Obama was the only U.S, president since Israel became a U.S. ally to actually cut off arms shipments to Israel during a shooting war. This part of the deal actually legitimizes that kind of action.

Then there are the various other restrictions. Right now, Israel is allowed to spend 25% of the aid it receives in Israel with Israeli defense companies, while 75% must be spent in the U.S. That restriction, by the way, is unique to Israel. Here's just one example. Egypt receives $1.5 billion in military aid from the U.S. every year. They can spend it however and wherever they choose. After the breach between Obama and the al-Sissi government over Obama's pique over the removal of the president's Muslim Brotherhood favorite Mohammed Morsi from power, Egypt got its $1.5 billion after some song and dance. But the arms they bought with it were Russian.

The new deal mandates that 100% of U.S. aid to Israel be spent in the U.S. in the final five years of the proposed deal. Ironically, the 25% Israel now spends with Israeli defense companies like Rafael actually benefits the U.S. because it usually ends up being used for R&D, something that has produced a number of products that benefits our military like the unique light weight super strong helmet that has become standard issue for our troops.

There's another even more insidious problem with this. What if a future U.S. president for whatever reason decides not to sell arms to Israel any more? The most crucial need in a modern military to keep it up and running, especially in wartime is spare parts - airplane tires, nuts and bolts, engine parts, tank treads, electronics, repair kits, things like that. In 1967, France's Charles DeGaulle, who had been Israel's chief arms supplier decided to curry favor with the Arab world by suddenly cutting off all arms shipments to Israel on the eve of the Six-Day-War, even shipments Israel had already paid for. One of the miracles of the Six -Day-War is that it only took six days...had it lasted much longer, Israel would have had crucial problems finding spare parts. This new deal has that same risk built into it.

As I've pointed out before, the U.S. - Israel alliance is heavily weighted in America's favor, one of the only agreements of this type that is.  Israel actually provides goods, services and other considerations worth far more than the aid money it receives.

Rather than accept what Obama offered, perhaps Israel should have held out not for more money but for the ability to spend what it gets  where it wants  just like a lot of other countries do. Foreign aid totals about 1% of the U.S budget. The aid Israel will get under this new deal is less than 20% of it's overall defense budget and while that's not insignificant, it isn't overwhelming either.

Israel might be far better off not receiving these funds and charging the U.S. the going rate for those services it provides like other countries do. The going price for  hosting America's Middle East Strategic arms depot per year alone  would provide Israel with as much or possibly more money than this  aid package does based on what similar bases cost us. They could then invest that in Israeli companies to enable Israel to become self sufficient in  building their own weaponry without the necessity of depending on a foreign country for spare parts or shipments of armaments at crucial times. A few years ago, this wouldn't have been a problem but post-Obama and with the creation of Israel as a partisan issue for the Democrats, it is now.

If Israel is going to accept the funds, it should spend as much as possible on machinery and technology for its domestic arms companies that will eventually enable this kind of self-sufficiency.

Seeing how the first truly anti-Israel president in history has behaved, Israel needs to learn the lesson that a client state status has its risks. Things change. While there's an excellent  chance the relationship between Israel and America  would be vastly improved with Donald Trump and Mike Pence in office, it's far better to take precautions and opt for self sufficiency and independence, just in case.

-Selah-

So, Why Not Dump Israel ?

Why all this fuss about Israel? Aren't they nothing but trouble for America?

To hear a lot of what's going around these days, Israel is at the heart of the problems we have with the Muslim world, and things would be just fine if we became more 'balanced'...or translated, became more pro-Arab and curtailed our support for those pushy, stubborn Jews. Besides, aren't they an ungrateful ally? Certainly President Obama, John Kerry and a lot of others in Washington say things like that all the time. Although they dress it up a little, that is essentially what they believe. Israel is a problem, not an asset.

ISIS, terrorism against the west, Iran's belligerent behavior, the problems in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and especially with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are all mostly Israel's fault. And murdering Jews is just a natural reaction to 'occupation', although no one's country is being occupied in any usual sense of the way the word is used. Gaza is an example of how bizarre and distorted the idea of Israel's 'occupation has become.

Israel pulled every Jew living in the area out, with effusive guarantees from the EU ,UN and the Bush Administration that it would never be allowed to become a security problem for Israel. Yet the Jewish State is still regularly referred to as 'the occupying power' by the UN and the so-called International Community.And that 'occupation is based on Israel's blockade of Hamas that even the UN called fully legal, a blockade that was only necessary because of the failure by these other entities to honor those those same security guarantees made to Israel to get them to pull out of Gaza in the first place! You literally can't make this stuff up.

Just as an aside, one reason many Israelis aren't the least bit interested in giving up any more land no matter what the UN or anyone else says is precisely because of what happened with Gaza. Why make themselves even more vulnerable for guarantees that won't be kept and demonization as 'occupiers' even after they've left?

Another homily heard often is that Israel can't survive unless it retreats to what people call the 'pre-1967' borders.' That seems fair, doesn't it?

What isn't said much is that those were never borders at all, but simply cease fire lines from 1948 between countries still then in a state of war. Going back to those ceasefire lines would push Israel into an indefensible enclave,turn half a million its citizens into refugees, divide its capitol and make the Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem and Hebron off limits forever to Jews. And it would also give up high ground within easy missile and artillery range of its airports and the country's most populated areas to people who make no mistake about being genocidal when it comes to Israel's Jews.

 

That, after all is what President Obama, the UN and the EU are saying with their insistence on a two state solution based on those 1948 ceasefire lines, and it actually appears that the Obama Administration is willing to sign on to or at least abstain from vetoing a new UN resolution sponsored by France to insist on exactly that.

But hey, isn't that Israel's problem, not ours? So what?

Let's take an objective look. What difference does what happens to Israel make to us here in America? Why should we care? Why is what happens to Israel important to the US? If Israel somehow ceased to exist, would it matter to America? I mean, we give them all that aid money. Why not spend it at home? And who knows, maybe if we weren't giving all that aid to Israel, we might not have all those problems with the Muslim world!

There's a very well organized, well funded effort going on now to convince people of exactly that. Could they be right? Let's find out.

And to do that, let's put aside any of those slooshy considerations of fairness, justice, religion or humanitarian principles and go for the cold, hard, self-serving realpolitik mindset to find out if what happens to Israel is important to the US:

Wouldn't America be more secure if we weren't supporting Israel?

Like it or not, Israel occupies some very strategic real estate in the Levant. It is in a position to safeguard NATO's soft underbelly, especially significant since most of the NATO countries lack any significant military component...and also would have a significant political problem convincing their electorates to support any kind of military action anyway, given whom their electorates increasingly are composed of these days.

As tired of the Middle East as many Americans are, this is an increasingly strategic part of the world where whatever allies we might have had or thought we had among the Sunni Arab states are either alienated, ultimately untrustworthy or weak. Israel is none of these things, and unless you're like John Kerry or our president and are convinced that Iran is now going to be just a peace loving pussycat and ISIS isn't really a major problem, the value of having a strong ally in the region with a powerful military and superior HUMINT on the ground is obvious. Here's a few examples of how that's worked in the past and how it continues to work now:

• Israel pushed the Soviets out of the Middle East during the Cold War  and provided America a first hand look at the latest Soviet weapons and technology...all without the cost of a single American soldier. When the then new Soviet Mig 21 was knocking our pilots out of the air in Vietnam, it was Israel who bribed an Iraqi pilot to bring one to Israel, which they turned over to the United States so we could figure out its weak points and stop the carnage.

• Israel saved literally thousands of American lives by taking out Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak. Yes, they did it for their own reasons, but if not for that, the casualty lists from the first Gulf War ten years later would have been very different if it could have even been fought at all. And just imagine what would be going on now in Syria if Israel hadn't knocked out the nuclear facility Basher Assad got from North Korea back in 2007 over the Bush Administration's objections... and ISIS or some other bad actor got it's hands on it?

• Israel has a first class intelligence service in the Mossad and its native Arabic and Farsi speakers contribute immeasurably to US intel by adding to its access in the region and by adding the dimension of `HUMINT'-human intelligence - on the ground. General George Keagan, former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, once stated in Congress that "Israel is worth five CIAs," based on the value of intelligence passed to America. Essentially, Israel is a security bulwark and a vital window on America's enemies in the region...unless, of course you agree with President Obama that everything's just wonderful when it comes to countries like Iran and we can rely on Iran's self inspections when it comes to their nuclear weapons program.

• Israel is one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. It has been and continues to be a major partner of the US in weapons technology in numerous joint projects and the US has access to the fruits of some of the most sophisticated technological installations in the world at Tel-Aviv University and the Technion, Israel's MIT. A lot of those projects have saved US lives and enhanced our own military. Numerous Israeli innovations are now commonly used by our troops on the ground. For example, there's the lightweight helmet Israel developed that's more bullet resistant than the one we had. Our troops use it. There's advanced anti anti tank systems, the Green Pine radar, the AGM-142 Have Nap (AKA the Popeye Missile), the Marine Corps Laser Range Finder made by Israel's Elbeit Systems, the SIMON breach rifle grenade...again, it's a pretty long list.

• Israel also hosts America's Strategic Arms Depot free of charge on its territory, so that American troops can deploy in the region quickly and have their armor, supplies, arms and equipment ready and waiting for them when they get there if we have to deploy our troops there in a hurry. The US arranged that after the First Gulf War, when we had to hire merchant ships to get the stuff over there because we lacked merchant marine capacity. It amounts to a base on foreign territory that America gets for free, and without having to deploy any US troops. Going price for that? Based on what other bases cost us, around $4-5 billion per year....a lot more if you include the cost of stationing personnel there. And that's assuming we could find another reliable country in the region we could trust to let us do it. For instance, we have bases in Bahrain, KSA and Turkey, but those countries have all imposed restrictions on our deploying US forces there or using them for military operations at one time or another.
  
  And Israel's one of the few allies we have who routinely makes its facilities available to US forces when needed, its ports, airfields and air space. That also comes in quite handy.
  

So all things considered, I'd have to say it looks like American security is actually enhanced because of our relationship with Israel, not the other way around.


But what about all that money we give Israel?

'Give' Israel? By law, almost all of that $3.5 billion Israel receives has to be spent here in America, a restriction not many US aid recipients, Pakistan ($5-7 billion) and Egypt ($1.5 billion) for example are subject to. Israel means jobs and prosperity for America's defense industry.

Again, you also have to consider the value of the Strategic Arms depot, free use of Israel's facilities,and HUMINT and the value of all those joint weapons projects. That all adds up to a lot more money than Israel gets in aid from the US.

And here's another aspect to be considered. This partnership allows the US to pressure Israel's defense companies to withdraw from lucrative contracts around the world. One recent example is the $13 billion Polish missile defense contract. The Poles really liked David's Sling, developed by Israel's Rafael and they also had their own issues with Obama, so they were ready to accept Rafael's bid and buy. The US pressured Rafael to withdraw its bid so Raytheon could get the contract. That's by no means the only time this has happened.

All this adds up to Israel being one of America's few foreign policy bargains. The aid is less than one tenth of one percent of the Federal budget and the US receives far more in return than it shells out.

OK, so Israel's a bargain. But maybe we should just get out of the Middle East altogether. We'd have much better relations with the Muslim world if we did that and didn't support Israel, wouldn't we? And wouldn't that stop terrorism against the U.S.?

Is that really how it would work? President Obama and two successive Secretaries of States, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have operated on that principle for the last 7 years. President Obama famously said he wanted to create 'distance' between America and Israel, and no objective observer can doubt that he's succeeded to a large degree. The EU has followed the same policy to an even greater extent for some time. How has that worked out? Is the EU experiencing peace, tolerance and kumbaya from their own Muslim populations let alone groups like ISIS? Are we?

If Israel were to magically disappear tomorrow, would ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Jaish Islami, al-Nusra and all the rest go out of business?

Even after getting $150 billion in cash, the sanctions watered down and eventually ended and getting literally everything they wanted at the negotiating table on their illegal nuclear program, is Iran less aggressive or more aggressive towards the U.S.? Did President Obama's decision to create that distance between America and Israel, ignore the Green Revolution and the Iranian government's hideous crackdown on dissidents seeking democracy lead to a less belligerent Iran? Have the Iranians even stopped the massive public chants of 'death to America' or referring to America as the Great Satan?

The answers are obvious. Iran is far more aggressive, hostile and belligerent towards America than they've ever been, even to the point of refusing to cooperate with America against a common enemy in ISIS. There's no reason at all to think this behavior on Iran's part would change one iota if America completely cut off all ties with Israel. Actually, with Israel weakened or even removed as a check to Iran's ambitions, Iran's hostility and warlike behavior would probably even increase. In any event, if things got that hot the Israelis might very well resort to some drastic means to win out...and we might not like the results.

Another thing about cutting all ties with Israel has to do with how it would affect the geo-political balance. Most Israelis understand that the chief benefit of their relationship with the U.S. is not financial but American back up strategically and in international forums like the UN. If that ends, as President Obama and Secretary Kerry have hinted, how would that affect America?

Israel has very good strategic and trade ties with China, and fairly decent strategic relations with Russia. Wouldn't  America cutting strategic ties be an incentive to Israel to form stronger ones with them? How would that affect the U.S.? And how would the spectacle of America dumping a long time ally affect how other U.S. allies looked at their own relationships with America?

Another allegation that's fairly common these days in DC is that al-Qaeda and ISIS use Israel as a recruiting tool. To a certain extent that's true to a degree now, but it's also true that neither group used 'Palestine' as a marketing tool until after it became a common talking point in certain circles emanating out of the White House and in media outlets like the NY Times. Osama bin-laden and al-Qaeda didn't even mention 'Palestine' until years after 9/11 and ISIS was far more interested in Basher Assad and the corrupt, oppressive Shi'ite dictatorship we put in power in Iraq. For that matter, ISIS wasn't even particularly hostile to the US until President Obama started bombing them.

Any casual examination of history shows the fallacy of abandoning a loyal, powerful ally to appease an enemy, especially during wartime. Nor would it meaningfully improve relations between the US and the Arab world. The proof of that is to examine the US relationship with the Arab World before we became one of Israel's main allies in 1970, after the `67 Six-Day War. President Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles pursued a pro-Arab, cool to Israel policy as part of their Cold War strategy to keep the Soviets out of the Arab world. As even Eisenhower admitted, it failed utterly.

Getting rid of what the Muslim world refers to as the Little Satan would just weaken the Big Satan, America and deprive us of one of our strongest and most valuable allies. And a victory over the hated Jews would only embolden America's enemies.

Take Israel out of the equation and America would manage. So undoubtedly would Israel without America as an ally. But nothing would change except we would have weakened ourselves to the delight of our enemies.

-Selah-

More On The F-35 Debacle - Its Guns Are Useless Until At Leasr 2019!

I - and more importantly, pilots who've flown and tested it - have had a lot to say about the new F-35 stealth fighter.

Aside from being ridiculously expensive to design and produce, the end result after a trillion dollars is an airplane that's too heavy, far too slow and not maneuverable enough to compete in air-to-air combat. It tested so poorly that the Pentagon had to ignore its on standards to pass it, according to a leaked report that  actually called the new F-35 unsafe.

Nevertheless, the Defense Department is going to purchase 2,443 of the F-35s in three different versions, for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, starting in 2015. And they're going to replace two superb combat airplanes with it, the F-22 and the workhorse A-10.

The latest episode in this sorry story? Along with its' other problems, the F-35 (AKA the Joint Strike Fighter or JSF) lacks cannon, and even when it finally gets them they are configured as to be virtually useless.

The F-35 uses a GAU-22/A four-barreled rotary cannon. And in order for the pilot to use the gun, it needs special Block 3F software to aim it effectively.

Block 3F's estimated release date? Sometime in 2019, over four years from now. Until then, the F-35 has no operable gunnery.

It gets better. The GAU-22/A  is  able to fire off 3,300 rounds per minute, but the Air Force's version of the F-35 is designed to carry just 180 rounds. And the Navy and Marines versions are designed to carry only 220 rounds. In other words, a pilot gets one  burst of about for a few  seconds or so.

That pretty much means that the F-35 is almost useless for ground support, something the A-10 it was supposed to replace is superbly successful at.

The A-10 carries a seven-barrel GAU-8/A Avenger in its nose, with 1,174 rounds and a fixed rate of fire of 3,900 rounds per minute. Not only that, but the Avenger uses 30mm ammo, which can devastate tanks the GAU-22 can't as well as taking out fixed enemy ground positions. The GAU-22/A? Just 25mm ammo, not nearly as deadly...but since these so little of it, it doesn't really make much of a difference.

In fact, a big problem with the F-35 is that while it was designed to do a lot of different jobs (far too many, actually) it really seems only fit for one, that of a BVR (beyond visual range)plane for long-range missile warfare. Aside from the F-35's huge cost and reliability issues, it's far too slow and unmaneuverable to engage in dogfights with competing aircraft, especially when compared to the F-22 it's supposed to replace.And its other weaponry - a pair of Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM long-range air-to-air missiles and two JDAMS, either 1,000 pound satellite-guided bombs or 500 pound laser-guided weapons - are primarily designed for the BVR function.

The F-35's defects aren't lost on foreign purchasers either, with a number of orders being cut severely or canceled. Israel, for instance was supposed to buy 31 F-35's from Lockheed Martin..but cut its order to 14 and may even scratch its F-35 order altogether as more details about the plane leak out.

Germany To Build Israeli Warships

Israel and the German government have finalized a deal for the German firm Thyssen Krupp to build four new corvettes for the Israeli Navy at the Kiel shipyards.

The exact details of what model the Israelis settled on is classified, but based on previous talks the ships will probably be either MEKO A100 class (pictured above) or the MEKO CSL's, something more along the lines of a littoral combat ship. The new frigates will be configured with Israeli electronics like IAI’s Elta’s EL/M-2248 MF-STAR radar systems and Israeli weaponry like the new Barak-8 medium range air defense missile. There's also a rear pad for an attack or recon helicopter. The cost of the deal is a billion euros, of which Germany will subsidize 115 million euros. This is a similar type of deal to the one Israel did with Germany to get its six Dolphin-class nuclear capable subs, also built at Kiel.

Israel's strategic mission for the corvettes is the protection of Israel's off shore drilling installations, so they needed a fast ship that can provide decent defense against any attacking enemies as well as surface attack punch. Israel's SOTA Heron UAVs are already operating in maritime patrols and the new ships will augment that.

The work is expected to start in a matter of weeks, as soon as the German parliament’s budget committee gives final approval, which is expected to be forthcoming.

US Pressures Israel Out Of $13B Contract For Missile Sales To Poland

Israel has been forced by U.S. pressure to bow out of a contract worth $13 billion to build a missile defense system for Poland.

The Poles were interested in buying David's Sling, manufactured at Israel's state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It is an advanced system designed to shoot down heavy rockets and cruise missiles using interceptor missiles.

Since the system uses missiles that  are produced by Raytheon, a U.S. company, the U.S. quietly exercised  an 'export veto'  to force Israel to withdraw and allow Raytheon to get the lucrative contract.

Israel apparently went along with the veto even though Rafael is capable of producing its own interceptor missiles, according to what one of my Notorious Little Birdies told me. Based what a source identified as an Israeli defense official told Reuters, Israel's Rafael will be allowed to have a lesser role in a future U.S.-led arms sale to Poland.

"The Americans will be happy, the Poles will be happy, and there'll be something left over for us," he said.


Why is this story important? I just want the usual Israel haters who whine about 'all that money the U.S. gives Israel' to see some of what that $3 billion, almost all of which is spent here in the U.S. on American weapons buys.

Nor is this the only time this has happened.

Now you know one reason why America's alliance with Israel is one of the greatest U.S. foreign policy bargains in history.

Germany To Sell Two Destroyers To Israeli Navy

 

Germany has agreed to sell two destroyers to the Israeli Navy at a cost of one billion euros ($1.3 billion). The new ships are a significant investment for the Israeli Navy, and will primarily be used to protect Israel's gas and oil pipelines in the Mediterranean.

The new destroyers are high-end MEKO Class F221 frigates with a full range of capabilities, equipped with 76MM guns, Surface to Air missiles, torpedoes, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles, so there's a good set of air defense, anti-ship, and anti-submarine weapons.

These would add punch to Israel's current Sa’ar 5 Corvettes, equipped with bow-mounted and towed sonars, 6x 324mm torpedo tubes for Mark 46 torpedoes, a Mk15 Phalanx 20mm gun and a Typhoon remotely-operated 7.62-30mm gun/missile systems, as well as the two upgraded Barak-8 missile launchers.

The Israelis also now have 5 of the 6 German-Built Dolphin-class nuclear-missile capable subs they purchased in their possession.

The Dolphins, with their 2700 mile cruising range can reach Iranian or Hezbollah targets easily.

Obama Continues Tantrum Over Egyptian Removal Of Islamists, Halts Sale Of F-16s To Egypt

 

President Obama continued his hissy fit over the ouster of Islamist Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood by halting a pending sale of F-16s to Egypt:

Pentagon spokesman George Little said the United States values its relationship with the Egyptian military and characterized the delay of the F-16s as a cautionary measure.

“We do not believe it would be in the best interest of the United States to immediately change all of our assistance to Egypt,” Little told reporters Wednesday. But “given the current situation in Egypt, we do not believe it is appropriate to move forward at this time with the delivery of ­F-16s.”

The decision was announced shortly after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel held an hour-long conversation with Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, the Egyptian military chief, who this month deposed the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, with the backing of a large segment of Egyptian society. A U.S. senior defense official said the move was not intended to be construed as punitive.

“This is not a way of punishing them,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to explain policy deliberations. “It gives us more time to consult with Congress, walk them through our strategy and explain our views to them.”

I can just imagine what that conversation between Hagel and al-Sissi was like:

"General, If you want the planes, you gotta put Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood back in power."

"Pound sand, Mr. Hagel. And tell your boss to do the same."

As for 'more time to consult with Congress', for anyone in the Obama Regime to say this verges on stand up comedy material. This is the same administration that took the unheard of step of overriding congressional holds on aid to Morsi's Egypt not once,but twice.

President Obama was just fine with a hard core Islamist Muslim Brotherhood regime hostile to Israel getting all the F-16s and other military hardware from the US they wanted. A non-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian government? Not so much.

In another instance of this president's tantrum over the events in Egypt, he has apparently used U.S. influence to torpedo badly needed International Monetary Fund(IMF) loan for Egypt that was being pushed through with President Obama's assistance.

Needless to say, this pretty much marks the end of U.S. influence with Egypt - at least while Obama is president.

At this point, the new Egyptian government is getting funding from the Saudis and the other GCE countries, as it is considered a Sunni ally in the current Sunni-Shi'ite civil war, while Morsi and the Brotherhood were just a bit too cozy with the Mullahs of Iran.

With the Brotherhood continuing to cause civil unrest in Egypt (and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if President Obama was funding it covertly)the main task of the new government is to get the security situation under control, and they've made some definite progress there. There's enough aid money right now to carry things for awhile even without U.S. help, but the Egyptian government is going to have to take some serious steps to get its house in order just to feed its population.

Stay tuned...

Israel And Russia At The Brink Over Arms Shipments To Syria, Hezbollah

 

A meeting between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu ended  in a deadlock earlier this week when Netanyahu's attempt to convince Putin not to send advanced Russian arms to Syria and Hezbollah fell on deaf ears.

In particular, the Israelis are concerned about Russia supplying Hezbollah and Syria with S-300 surface-to-air missile defense systems and Yakhont anti-ship missiles.

Putin was reportedly angry about the USS Kearsarge docking at the Israeli port of Eilat with 1,800 marines and a consignment of 20 V-22 Osprey helicopters, which Secretary of State Hagel had promised to supply Israel with during his last trip to Israel. From Putin's viewpoint, he sees it as duplicity for the Obama Administration to talk about Russia and the US working on a diplomatic solution to the Syrian War on the one hand while the US is bringing troops into the region and deploying them. The Marines are likely bound for the Jordanian/Syrian border.

Needless to say, Putin is not at all concerned about how the presence of Russian military in Syria looks to anyone else. He's committed to preserving Assad and Syria as a Russian client.According to US sources quoted in the Wall Street Journal today, Putin warned Israel not to interfere with the Russian arms shipments.

Actually, according to my sources, Putin even went further, warning the Israelis that any attempt to destroy the shipments could lead to a war in which Russia might conceivably get involved, especially if its nationals were killed. Netanyahu countered by telling Putin that Israel would continue to hit advanced weapons shipments bound for Syria or Hezbollah, and that if President Bashar Assad attacked Israel the Israelis would destroy Assad's military capabilities.

The Russians have doubled down in favor of Assad by vastly increasing their naval faces in the region.Russia currently has 11 ships in the eastern Mediterranean, organized into three taskforces, including destroyers, frigates, support vessels and intelligence-collecting ships. The group includes the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, two amphibious warfare ships called Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, a tanker and a tugboat.Another three-ship group of amphibious attack vessels is headed to the region.

The ships come from Russia's Pacific Fleet, the first time Russian warships from that fleet have ever appeared in the Mediterranean. Our Egyptian 'friends' allowed them to use the Suez Canal.

US CIA head John Brennan is in Israel today and Israel's Channel 10 is reporting that he's been in serious meetings with Israeli defense Minister Moishe 'Boogie' Y'aalon  and PM Netanyahu. The Israelis  are not going to allow advanced weapons to get into the hands of Syria or Hezbollah even if they have to kill a few Russian technicians and trainers to do it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

In fact, during the '67 and especially during the '73 Yom Kippur War, the Israelis had no problems handling Soviet pilots flying the most advanced 'Egyptian and Syrian' Migs or dealing with Soviet military 'advisers' on the ground. In fact, a number of them were captured alive by the Israelis and exchanged later after a through debriefing by both the Shin Bet and our CIA.

What I'm reasonably certain is that Brennan is counseling the Israelis to hold off on any strikes to allow our clueless Secretary of State John Kerry to try and work out something with Putin.

The Israelis may wait for a short  time, but in the end, they will act, just as they ended up acting to put the cork in the bottle on Syria's nuclear reactor back in 2007, in spite of determined obstruction by Condi Rice and Robert Gates. If Israel had listened to them, Basher Assad would probably have a couple of nuclear warheads by now.

On the other hand, the Russians have backed down before when it comes to  shipments of S-300's and similar weaponry before.

Stay tuned..

Egypt Seizes Ship Carrying Over 40 Tons Of Weapons

Egyptian authorities seized a ship today with a crew of 13 and a cargo that included over 40 tons of arms and ammunition.The weaponry included sniper-rifles, AK-47s,and RPGs.

According to Israel's Channel 10, the arms were from Iran and Iranians were part of the crew.The ship itself is an Iranian vessel, the "Sawit 1" . Apparently the ship suffered a breakdown at sea and was towed into an Egyptian port.

The vessel was interdicted off of Sinai and was believed to be headed for Gaza or Syria. Given the location, the arms probably originated in the Sudan, an Iranian ally where Iran has both bases and arms factories. The Sudan has been a source of arms convoys to Gaza before, but they've used land routes before.

According to the Lebanese website Ya Libnan, the ship was carrying more than 50,000 light and medium weapons as well "a huge quantity of ammunition."

Sgyptian spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mohamed Ali said on his Facebook page the ship belonged to a company that secures maritime routes in the Red Sea and that "The weapons and ammunition on this ship are related to its work and mission to secure commercial vessels."

Which, of course is why the ship had Iranians on board and was headed in the opposite direction, away from Africa and the Red Sea!

That's also a change from the story the Egyptians were putting out before, that it was an Israeli ship out of Eilat.Again, that would explain why it was an Iranian ship flying the flag of the West African nation of Togo with Iranians on board that somehow ended up headed towards those well known friends of Israel, Hamas-ruled Gaza and the Assad regime in Syria.

Apparently even the Egyptians eventually realized how far fetched that one was.

No word yet on whether the ship was released, but if it is I guarantee the IDF is watching and waiting....

More on The F-35 Debacle -Leaked Pentagon Report Calls It Critically Flawed

 

The more that comes out about the F-35, the worse the news gets.

Not only is it too slow,too heavy, less maneuverable, and far too expensive to produce, a leaked Pentagon report actually calls the new F-35 unsafe:

In a leaked memo reported by the RT news agency, a Pentagon official prefaces a report on the F-35 by cautioning that even training missions cannot be safely performed on board the aircraft at this time.

“The training management system lags in development compared to the rest of the Integrated Training Center and does not yet have all planned functionality,” the report reads in part.

“The out-of-cockpit visibility in the F-35A is less than other Air Force fighter aircraft,” one excerpt reads.

Elsewhere, the report includes quotes from pilots commenting after test missions onboard the aircraft:

“The head rest is too large and will impede aft (rear) visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements,” said one. “Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned (down) every time” in dogfights, remarked another.

“Aft visibility could turn out to be a significant problem for all F-35 pilots in the future,” the Pentagon admits.

In one chart included in the report, the Pentagon says there are eight crucial flaws with the aircraft that have raises serious red flags within the Department of Defense.

The plane’s lack of maturity, reduced pilot situational awareness during an emergency and the risk of the aircraft’s fuel barriers catching fire are also cited, as is the likelihood of a pilot in distress becoming unable to escape his aircraft during an emergency.

The Pentagon report described flaws as “unacceptable for combat or combat training.”

This is the plane that President Obama scuttled the perfectly acceptable F-22 for because in his words, "the F-22 cost too much.".

The Pentagon has already suspended all F-35 flights while Lockheed-Martin scrambles furiously to try to correct the flaws.

While they may mange to fix a few things, the biggest problem is that the F-35 was designed to do far too many jobs, and thus has to carry a lot more equipment than an average fighter. That's why development alone cost a trillion dollars, even with U.S. allies like Israel, Canada, Italy, Britain Turkey, Australia, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands contributing to the cost of joint development.

Because of the poor performance, high price tag ($238 million each) and high maintenance costs, a number of countries who initially were lining up to purchase the F-35 are now having second thoughts. Canada canceled a deal to buy 65 F-35's just last week and Italy cut it order from 131 to 90 planes, with a caveat that they may cut the order even further at a later date. Even the Defense Department has delayed most of its purchases.

The Israelis signed on for a squadron's worth, 25 planes, primarily because the F-22 was no longer available according to my sources. They're supposed to be up and running in 2016. The Israelis won a prolonged battle with Lockheed-Martin to be able to modify the plane's electronics with Israeli-unique systems once they're delivered, which should be between 2015-2017...provided the F-35 isn't scrapped.

Israel and Japan got screwed that way when the Obama Administration canceled the F-22. They had contributed to its development with the agreement that they were going to be able to purchase the plane, but since it was aborted, they never received what they paid for.

We'll see what happens with the F-35, but so far it doesn't look promising.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Not Morsi Is Calling The Shots In Egypt

The German publication Der Spiegal is noteworthy for having some of the best coverage on the Middle East. As they report, it's not Mohamed Morsi who's in charge but his superiors in the Muslim Brotherhood. Here's a slice:

"The Muslim Brotherhood feels that it has reached its goal of finally being able to implement the ideals of its founder, Hassan al-Banna. They've been preparing for this for 84 years," says Cairo political scientist Siad Akl. "That's why they won't give up power that quickly."

For many Egyptians, the rioting of the last few weeks is proof that it isn't the president but the Brotherhood that is pulling the strings -- and that it has no scruples about pushing the country to the brink of civil war, if necessary.

In late November, the US newsmagazine Time named President Morsi the most important politician in the Middle East. But very few people believe that the ponderous engineer is actually the most powerful man in the country. There are likely two other men who make the decisions: Mohammed Badie, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Khairat El-Shater, its first candidate, who was excluded from the election for formal reasons and is in charge of organization and financial affairs for the Brotherhood.

At the moment, state-owned television is probably the best place to see who is in charge in Egypt. Almost every week, it broadcasts encounters between the president and important dignitaries. Morsi often meets with Badie, greeting him by kissing his hand. It's a gesture meant to express obedience, and it shows that the oath of allegiance Morsi, like all members of the Brotherhood, once swore to the movement and its leader still applies.{...}

El-Shater, meanwhile, is the chief strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood, meaning he is nominally responsible for all political maneuvers the Brotherhood has employed to control the revolution since Mubarak's overthrow. They include the deal with the former military leadership that enabled both sides to save face, depriving the top military officials of some of their power while simultaneously preserving all of their privileges.

And his relationship with Morsi? El-Shater was once Morsi's direct superior. "Internally, the current president was seen as nothing but his errand boy," says a former member of the Brotherhood. "Morsi can't make any decisions on his own," confirms Amr al-Laithi, one of nine presidential advisors who resigned in recent weeks in protest against Morsi's dictatorial behavior. According to al-Laithi, everything -- every word, every proposal -- has to be approved by the Brotherhood's second-in-command. It isn't El-Shater who calls the president, says al-Laithi, but the president who calls El-Shater. The experts who are supposed to advise the president on key issues are all members of the Brotherhood, says al-Laithi, adding that he resigned when he realized that he had no say whatsoever.

Read the whole thing.

When the referendum adopting the Islamist 'constitution' is put before the Egyptian public on December 15th, it will almost certainly pass. Then we'll see the real face of the Arab Spring.

And, meantime the Obama Administration plans to send Egypt 20 F-16s on the American taxpayer's dime, believe it or not:

Key lawmakers expressing concerns about the Obama administration's plan to send 20 F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, where new President Mohamed Morsi's allegiances are as uncertain as his grip on power.
Under a foreign aid deal signed in 2010, when Morsi's U.S.-friendly predecessor Hosni Mubarak was in charge, the U.S. is giving the planes to Egypt's air force, which already has more than 200 of the aircraft. The first four jets are to be delivered beginning Jan. 22, a source at the naval air base in Fort Worth, where the planes have been undergoing testing, told FoxNews.com. But the $213 million gift is raising questions on Capitol Hill as Morsi is under fire for trying to seize dictatorial powers and allegedly siccing thugs and rapists on protesters.

Florida Rep.Vern Buchanan, who recently called for ending foreign aid to Egypt altogether, said the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi government has been sending increasingly troubling signals to Washington, and giving it state-of-the-art fighter jets is a dangerous idea.
“American tax dollars must not be used to aid and abet any dictatorial regime that stands with terrorists,” Buchanan said.


Rep. Mac Thornberry, (R-Texas), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told FoxNews.com Egypt is a wild card under Morsi.

“At this point, we don't know where Egypt is headed," Thornberry said. "We should be cautious about driving them away, but we should also be cautious about the arms we provide.” {...}

The U.S. government ordered and paid for the fighter jets for Egypt's military back in 2010. But since Mubarak's ouster, the democratically elected Morsi has sent mixed signals about whether he wants an alliance with Washington, even meeting with leaders in Iran earlier this year.


Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, recently criticized U.S. military aid to Egypt:

“The Obama administration wants to simply throw money at an Egyptian government that the president cannot even clearly state is an ally of the United States,” Rep. Ros-Lehtinen said.


If Egypt receives those planes, want to bet they'll eventually be used against Israel?And perhaps even against our own forces?

Pentagon Urges Congress To Approve Thousands Of Bunker Buster Bombs For Israel

 

SecDef Leon Panetta has requested that Congress to increase military aid to Israel by an additional $647 million.

What's even more interesting is what that aid consists of:

.. the Pentagon wants to arm the IDF with a tail kit system used to convert free-fall bombs into satellite-guided ordnance, as well as with missiles that can be mounted on F-15 and F-16 fighter jets and are capable of penetrating underground or fortified targets.

The military aid includes 1,725 JDAM tail kits together with BLU-109 bombs, also dubbed "bunker-buster" and weighing in at more than 900kg. According to the Bloomsberg report, the bombs are intended to "defeat an enemy’s most critical and hardened targets such as protected weapons storage sites, and penetrate as much as six feet of reinforced concrete."

The official word on this is that the shipment is designed replenish stocks aftewr Pillar of Defense and to give Israel increased air strike capacity against Hamas' underground bunkers in the event of a future Gaza outbreak of hostilities, not to increase Israel's capacity to attack Iran.

But as one of my notorious Little Birdies tells me, while many Iranian facilities are located underground and protected by more than six feet of concrete, (A) multiple precision hits can increase the penetrating ability of the JDAMS and (b) the tail kits are quite easily adaptable to larger bombs.

That last hint leads me to believe that Israel may have something special in the works.Or that a future clandestine shipment of BLU 116s or even BLU 113s may be in the works. Either by themselves can penetrate any of the underground sites Iran currently has, with the BLU 113 capable of smashing through up to 20 feet of reinforced concrete.

My source further informs me that the new shipment is part of the quid pro quo to Israel for calling off the ground invasion of Gaza.

From this, I would assume something else. While President Obama remains indecisive about taking out Iran's nuclear facilities, from a political standpoint he probably realizes that Iran going nuclear on his watch would result in a political firestorm and a major stain on his legacy. On the other hand, if the Israelis do it...

-selah-

Der Spiegel: Israel’s German-built Submarines Are Equipped With Nuclear Weapons

The German publication Der Spiegel has reported that the Dolphin-class submarines built (and partially financed) by Germany and supplied to Israel are equipped with a special hydraulic launch system capable of launching nuclear missiles. They're also saying that Germany was fully aware of this but chose not to publicize it.

This is all part of a 12-page expose entitled “Secret Operation Samson: How Germany arms nuclear Israel.”

Of course, to those of you whom read these pages regularly, none of this is exactly news. The Dolphin-class subs ( Israel now has four with two more scheduled for delivery) are perfect additions for Israel's naval needs.

They have a cruising range of 4,500 km/ 2,700 miles, which makes some potentially interesting targets in Iran or Hezbollah's bases in Lebanon easily reachable for Israel's “Popeye Turbo” cruise missiles, which are also nuclear capable. The ten torpedo tubes can also fire torpedoes or anti-ship missiles like Boeing’s UGM-86 Harpoons, and the Dolphins also have a wet and dry compartment for deploying underwater frogmen and commandos.

The Israeli newspaper Yediot's translation of the Der Spiegel piece quotes it as saying, “Research in Germany, Israel and the US leaves no room for doubt. Using German marine technology, Israel has created a floating nuclear arsenal in the Middle East.”

According to the article, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has denied that the submarines have the capability to carry nuclear warheads. In truth, according to the Der Spiegel report, the German government has long been aware of the nuclear capability of the submarines, but out of understanding for Israel’s security needs has always agreed to “look the other way.”

It really doesn't make any difference whether Merkel was telling the truth, of course. The Israelis have a long history of modifying foreign military equipment to suit their own needs that goes back to the 1948 War of Independence, when the Jewish State was largely limited to whatever arms they could manage to manufacture, purchase on the black market or capture from the Arabs.

There's no question that they have the technology to make the Dolphins nuclear-capable whether the Germans went along with it or not.

Pentagon Now Buying Helicopters From Russia - For The Afghan Air Force!

Every time you think the Obama Administration has hit bottom when it comes to ridiculous nonsense, they surprise you by sinking to a new low. Get your mind around this...the Pentagon is using your tax dollars to buy helicopters from Russia - for the Afghan air force.

The Pentagon must pay Russia’s state- run arms trader to provide helicopters for Afghanistan’s air force even though the company also been has supplying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with weapons to kill his own people, according to the Defense Department’s top policy official.

The U.S. Army has taken delivery of nine Russian-made MI-17 helicopters for the Afghans from Rosoboronexport under a $375 million contract issued in May 2011, with six more awaiting shipment and another six to be delivered by May 31, Acting Undersecretary for Policy James Miller said in a previously undisclosed March 30 letter to lawmakers. The U.S. has an option to buy an additional 12 Russian helicopters for the Afghans, who have been flying them for 30 years.

“I share your concern that Rosoboronexport continues to supply weapons and ammunition to the Assad regime and acknowledge there is evidence that some of these arms are being used by Syrian forces against Syria’s civilian population,” Miller wrote Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who’s led opposition to the contract in Congress.

The U.S. barred deals with Rosoboronexport from 2006 to 2010, citing its arms sales to nations including Iran and Syria as violating efforts to curb proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In his letter to Cornyn, Miller sought to reconcile the Pentagon’s purchases from the Russian government arms company with the Obama administration’s pleas for nations and companies to stop doing business with Assad.

The Syrian angle aside - and that alone is a pretty large one in view of all the pious rhetoric and inaction from the Obama Administration - a few other questions come to mind. Why are we paying the Russians to build helicopters with U.S. tax dollars when we have American companies here that can do it, combined with an 'official' unemployment rate of over 8% nationally? Is building helicopters yet another one of those jobs Americans won't do? And if we are outsourcing this, why not to one of our allies, instead of to a nation that is in many ways hostile to us and our foreign policy aims?

And while we're on the subject, why do we need to subsidize the building of an Afghan air force anyway? Just like the shiny new armies we have built at U.S. expense for the 'Palestinians' and for the Iraqis, exactly what good is America going to get out of spending over a billion dollars to buy helicopters from Russia to give to the Afghans?

Dumb and dumber.

Netanyahu Was Blackmailed By Germany To Release 'Palestinian' Funds

You may remember last week that Benyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli cabinet caved in to pressure and made the decision to resume the release of tax funds to the Hamas-allied 'Palestinian' Authority.The funds were suspended after the 'Palestinians' violated the Road Map and the Oslo Accords by making an attempt to bypass negotiations with Israel with an unsuccessful unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN and a successful bid to become a full member of UNESCO.

I along with many others criticized Netanyahu for folding, but I also cautioned my readers that such decisions don't happen in a vacuum and Israel and Netanyahu obtained a quid pro quo behind the scenes for acquiescing to this folly.

It turns out that Netanyahu didn't cave in at all - he was simply blackmailed.



According to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened Prime Minister Netanyahu with cancelling a German agreement to deliver a sixth Dolphin-class submarine to Israel unless Israel resumed the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority.

Directly after Israel announced it would resume transferring the funds, a German government official announced that Germany would not only build and deliver the submarine to the Israeli navy, but pay up to one-third of the construction cost.

At the time of this writing, the sum the Germans have agreed to underwrite amounts to 135 million euros, the equivalent of $182.4 million dollars while the amount of money released to the 'Palestinian' Authority amounted to about $130 million.

In addition the new submarine, which like all of Israel dolphin subs can fire cruise missiles and support nuclear weapons enhances Israel's deterrent strike capability quite nicely, especially if things heat up with Iran.

So in retrospect, Netanyahu didn't cave. He made a rational choice and received a sixth submarine Israel needed at a 30% discount that amounted to substantially more than he was giving up to the 'Palestinians'. I would have made the same decision.

Now, why the Germans would do this is another story. Germany's ship building industry is in dire straits and they certainly needed the work. But on the other hand, Germany is one of Iran's biggest trading partners, and the new submarine might be used in hostilities that could affect that particular bottom line severely.

It may simply have been a case of political correctness run amuck and coalition politics with the German left needed by Merkel to sell the new eurozone preservation deal she's working on to the Bundestag.

( hat tip, Carl)

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Egypt Moves Towards The Abyss

The recent bloody clashes and unrest in Egypt is merely a foretaste of what could easily occur next month, when elections are supposed to be held.

The latest violence, between Egypt's Christian Copts and the army, involved a protest over a whole series of church burnings and killings at the hands of Muslims and ended with the army driving armored vehicles at top speed into the crowd and crushing people to death. It left 26 dead and over 200 wounded.

The Copts, who comprise about 10% of Egypt's 80 million population mostly supported the ouster of Mubarak. They're one of the earliest groups who are likely destined to be very disappointed at the way the 'Arab Spring' turns out in Egypt.

One of my notorious Little Birdies on the ground who ought to know tells me that if elections were held today, there's absolutely no doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood would win a majority in both the Majilis Al-Sha’ab ( "People's Assembly") and the Majilis Al-Shura, the lower and upper houses in what passes for Egypt's parliament.They have proven far better organized than the group we'll refer to as the Twitter Liberals and are in position to dominate the next Egyptian government provided elections are held as scheduled.

Mubarak's National Democratic Party(NDP) controlled the last national assembly. While it no longer exists, its members are active among a few newly formed secular parties whose agenda is to band together to block the Muslim Brotherhood from establishing a religious state.

In response the Muslim Brotherhood upped the ante by giving the military leaders now ruling Egypt an ultimatum - that they expect former NDP members of Parliament to be banned from participating in the upcoming elections.

As in most Muslim countries, Egypt's Army is one of the few parts of society that actually functions. It's an entity unto itself that owns about one third of Egypt's economy, and supports a number of wealthy businessmen with Army connections. At present, the Egyptian Army rules Egypt through the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

The big question for the Army is whether to continue to assume its normal role in Egypt as guardian of the status quo or to stand aside and allow the ascension of an Islamist government, which would entail the loss of a number of its current privileges.

That's the choice the Egyptian Army is going to have to make fairly soon, and by all accounts there's a deep division within the military on which way to go.

Even worse, whatever choice they actually make is going to lead to more outbreaks of violence and instability, the last thing Egypt needs right now.

The country's economy is on the verge of free fall. Tourism is at historic lows thanks to the scenes of violence on television and the publicity of the Lara Logan gang rape, foreign investment is almost non-existent, food and commodity prices have risen dramatically and the country's stock market has lost half its value.

According to my sources, a number of wealthy Egyptians have already sent a lot of their wealth overseas, mostly to Europe and the Emirates, and many of those who can have made arrangements to leave the country if the situation continues to deteriorate.

That will likely include a steady emigration of Egypt's Copts, a number of whom tend to own businesses and be better educated than many of their Muslim neighbors.

It's especially interesting to watch the Obama Administration's reaction to this.

While America is very unpopular among the majority of average Egyptians, at present, Egypt is still a linchpin of U.S. strategy in the region, although nothing like what it was under Mubarak. The country guards the Suez Canal, allowing the quick transit of shipments of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe and American Naval forces between the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa with the large U.S. base at Djibouti and the Gulf. Egypt also allows the overflight of American military aircraft.

In exchange for that, Egypt gets $2 billion a year in U.S. military aid and was recently the recipient of an additional $1 billion in debt forgiveness.

While the current military government has made few changes in the status quo as yet, there's no telling what could happen in the near future. Every sign points towards either a Muslim Brotherhood Islamist government or a repressive military dictatorship that would need to appeal to both Islamism and the Brotherhood and the Egyptian popular disdain of America. Either scenario would entail a large change in Egypt's future relationship with the U.S.

Another wild card involves al-Qaeda head Ayman Zawahiri, an Egyptian and ex-Muslim Brotherhood leader. As my regular readers know, according to my sources the reason Osama bin-Laden was fingered for assassination was because of a dispute between bin-Laden, who wanted to keep the organization rooted in AfPak and Zawahiri who saw new opportunities in the Arab world with the coming of the Arab Spring and the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

In view of that, many of the Obama Administration's actions towards Egypt's military government are puzzling, to say the least.

The administration has ordered the transfer of a number of advanced U.S. military systems to Egypt, including the M1A1 Abrams tank, 24 F-16C/D Block 50/52 aircraft (at a cost of $3.2 billion Egypt doesn't really have to spend), E-2 AWACS, and Raytheon's ACES Electronic Countermeasures system among others. Since Egypt's military is already far more advanced and more than a match for that Libya or the Sudan, one has to wonder why the transfer of all this hardware is taking place, since the only other country Egypt has a border with is Israel. Perhaps that's not coincidental.

Not only do these transfers destabilize peace in the region, but Egypt has already been caught numerous times violating its end user agreements by illegally sharing U.S. technology with people like the Chinese. And then there's the concern over Egypt's ongoing clandestine illegal nuclear program, something the Obama Administration is fully aware of.

In view of Egypt's precarious political situation,it's disquieting that the Obama Administration is taking the unnecessary risk of having sophisticated U.S. weaponry in the hands of a hostile regime. While President Obama is even more of a fetishist for the ever-elusive 'Arab Democracy' than his predecessor, even a casual observer of what's going on in Egypt ought to understand the inherent danger.

While Egypt's Hosni Mubarak might have been deposed anyway, the fact is that President Obama's engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood and his backing of Mubarak's ouster gave things a significant shove in that direction. In later years, we could very well be talking about President Obama's blunders with Egypt the same way we currently discus President Carter's failures in dealing with Iran.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Obama Administration To Sell 125 Abrams Battle Tanks To Egypt

The Obama Administration has determined that it's a great idea to sell Egypt 125 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks. Yes, we're selling offensive weaponry to a country where the situation could be described as 'fluid', no one really knows who will end up being in charge from week to week, and the popular consensus is for abrogating Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

The deal is part of a $1.3 billion package that includes associated weapons, equipment, parts, training and logistical support. Since Egypt is essentially bankrupt, that cost is going to be borne by the American taxpayer.And the deal calls for a portion of the materials to be be produced in Egypt, so we're not even getting the benefit of putting a few Americans to work.

Egypt is a country unable to feed it's eighty million population, yet the US is 'selling' offensive weaponry like the Abrams tanks, 24 F-16 fighter jets, Hellfire missiles, Harpoon antiship missiles, TOW anti-tank missiles, Chinook transport helicopters and Apache attack helicopters.

One wonders who these armaments are designed to 'defend' against, since Egypt has no hostile states on its borders. Unless of course, come the September elections, a new president backed by a Muslim Brotherhood controlled parliament takes over and declares Israel a hostile state. In that case, this weaponry is going to be turned against Israel, supposedly a US ally!

This genuinely stupid deal still needs to be approved by Congress. Get busy and call, e-mail and fax your representatives. Aside from the fact that we shouldn't be subsidizing possible Egyptian aggression against Israel, we can't afford it.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

The Victoria's Secrets - What Was Aboard The Iranian Arms Ship

The international media is uninterested in this story, busy as they are with Japan and Libya. And besides, the last thing they want to know about is an Iranian arms shipment en route to Hamas intercepted by Israel that justifies the 'siege' of Gaza.

The IDF spokesperson reported on Tuesday night that the ship was carrying 50 tons of weapons - about the equivalent of the Karin A, which was caught bringing weapons from Iran to the 'Palestinian Authority' in 2002.

And what concerns the IDF more than anything else is not the quantity but the quality of the arms they found.

Just for the record, here's a partial list of what was found aboard the Victoria:

• 230 mortar shells, 120 mm
• 2,270 mortar shells, 60 mm
• 6 C-704 anti-ship missiles
• 2 radar systems manufactured in England
• 2 launchers
• 2 hydraulic mounting cranes for radar system
• 66,960 bullets for the Kalashnikov, 7.62 millimeter

The C-704's, pictured above are of particular concern. They're 'silkworm ' type missiles that have an effective range of 21 miles (35 kilometers). Fired from the Gaza Strip, they're a danger not only to Israeli shipping but to Israeli ports in close proximity like Ashkelon.

Not only is Iran known to have these weapons,but identifying documents and manuals in Farsi were found aboard the Victoria as well. Just imagine what would be coming in if Israel wasn't monitoring this situation?

In other encouraging news, the Egyptians intercepted a convoy of Iranian arms headed towards Gaza via Egypt's southern border with Sudan. The 5 vehicle convoy carried large quantities of mortars, rocket propelled grenades, rifles and explosives.

Sudan, you'll remember, is an Iranian ally that has a mutual defense pact with Iran.

I'd absolutely love for the cretins who keep whining about the 'siege of Gaza' to put their money where their fetid mouths are and to move themselves and their families into Israeli territory within rocket and mortar range for a few weeks.

I guarantee you'd see them change their attitudes quite quickly.

(h/t Carl)

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Russia Sells Syria High Tech Missiles

In yet another sign that the Russians are looking to stir the pot in the Middle East, they've decided to sell P-800 Yakhont cruise missiles to Syria.

The sale is worth at least $300 million and will have the Russians delivering around 72 cruise missiles to the Syrians.

The Yakhont is an advanced supersonic, long range, anti-ship missile that features its own high tech inertial navigation system to reach the target area.

The Yakhont can be used at extremely low altitudes and is able to fly between 5 and 15 meters like a sea-skimming missile. Aside from reducing its radar footprint, the low altitude mode increases the element of surprise and minimizes reaction time against the incoming missile.

Of course, it can also be used against land-based targets.

The above map shows the potential range of P800 Yakhont missiles fired from Syrian bases like Tartus or land sites in Southern Syria and Lebanon.

For Israel, the P800 puts its naval vessels at risk, at their main base in Haifa or at Israel’s second naval base in Ashdod.

This has implications not only for Israel but for US ships in the area, since the Yakhont was designed to defeat ships protected by the US AEGIS weapon system and similar European systems.

Since Israel and Syria remain technically at war, the Israelis perceive this as a hostile act - especially since there's nothing to stop Syrian dictator Basher Assad from handing the missiles off to Hezbollah.Or for that matter to Iran, as a nifty way around sanctions that the Russians have used before. It's pretty easy to picture the Iranians using the Yakhont missiles against US ships in the Gulf.

Of course, that's what's been wrong all along with the farcical US attempts to 'engage' with Syria. They are not only a conduit to Hezbollah, but to Iran.

The Russians of course are discounting this, and Russia's defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov took the same stance that Russia did over supplying fuel to Iran's Bushehr reactor...don't worry, be happy.

"The US and Israel ask us not to supply Syria with Yakhont," he was quoted as saying on Friday. "But we do not see the concerns expressed by them, that these arms will fall into the hands of terrorists."

Ri-ight.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Turning The Screws: Obama Expands Arms Freeze On Israel

While President Obama has made a real career out of alienating our traditional allies, he appears to have a special place in his warped heart for Israel.

It started with top administration official snubbing Israel's Chief of Staff on a special trip here or to discuss Iran. and with special new Pentagon rules put in place by the Obama administration that that amount to a de facto cut in military aid to Israel.

It's continued with Secretary of State Clinton's insulting demands that Israel stop building homes for Jews who happen to live in Jewish communities like Jerusalem, Efrat, Gush Etzion, Ariel or other any other Jewish communities the Palestinians want to occupy, and with the Obama Administration's refusal to respect Israel declaration of Jerusalem as its undivided capitol, creating what amounts to almost outright hostility and intimidation of the sort one would expect from the UN rather than from America.

It's continuing with outright freezes and deliberately created bureaucratic delays on Israeli arms requests:

The Obama administration has blocked Israel's request for advanced U.S.-origin attack helicopters.

Government sources said the administration has held up Israel's request for the AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter. The sources said the request was undergoing an interagency review to determine whether additional Longbow helicopters would threaten Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

"During the recent war, Israel made considerable use of the Longbow, and there were high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip," a source close to the administration said.

The sources said Israel has sought to purchase up to six new AH-64Ds in an effort to bolster conventional and counter-insurgency capabilities. They said Israel wants to replenish its fleet after the loss of two Apache helicopters in the 2006 war with Hizbullah. {...}

Israel's Defense Ministry and air force have discussed procurement of additional Longbows with the U.S. firm Boeing. But the sources said the Longbow as well as other defense requests have been shelved by the administration amid its review of the potential use of American weapons platforms by Israel.

Interesting that Hezbollah gets mentioned. They're slated to take over Lebanon in the June 7th elections, and as I write this, Vice President Slo-Joe Biden just got back from Beirut, after promising that the Obama Administration will follow through on a major arms deal with Lebanon even if Hezbollah wins the election:

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr says US Vice President Biden promised to provide Middle Eastern country with 42 fighter jets as well as helicopters, UAVs and tanks, regardless of election results.

US Vice President Joe Biden promised that Washington will provide the Lebanese army with 42 fighter jets, helicopters, UAVs and tanks, Arab media outlets reported on Saturday. {...}

The aid package is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Biden wrapped up his seven-hour visit at Beirut airport Friday, standing before an array of military equipment, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and helicopters that he said are part of more than half a billion dollars in US military assistance to Lebanon since 2005.

"We believe it's crucial that you be able to do your mission to defend the state and citizens of Lebanon," Biden said, standing Murr.

"One army, one armed group, one police power, one capability to control your own country," he added.

Meanwhile Israel continues to be frozen out. And it's not just the Longbow:

The Obama administration has imposed obstacles on Israeli efforts to procure U.S.-origin fighter-jets.

Administration sources said the White House has drafted measures that could prevent Israel and other non-NATO allies from procuring U.S. fighter-jets, including the F-35. They said the administration would require that Israel obtain special permission from the Defense Department and State Department to acquire the Joint Strike Fighter.

The administration has also been resisting Israeli requests for technical data on the new F-15SE fighter-jet.

Under the proposals, the Pentagon would order modifications of JSF to provide the aircraft with nuclear strike capabilities. The sources said such a capability would provide the Pentagon with access to government budgets to maintain and develop the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

"Once JSF obtains nuclear strike capability, there becomes a problem with exports," the source said. "NATO countries would have less of a problem; non-NATO countries would need special exemptions."

The sources said Lockheed Martin would not be instructed to develop both nuclear- and non-nuclear models of the F-35 for the first stage of production. Israel has sought to become among the first export clients of JSF.

Over the last few months, the administration has rejected a series of Israeli requests regarding modifications of the F-35. They included Israeli electronic warfare systems and acquisition of U.S. software codes that would allow Israel to repair the aircraft's central computer. The U.S. refusal meant that the Israel Air Force would be forced to send the F-35 to the United States for any repairs, a process that could take months.

The sources said the State Department has been delaying Israeli requests for pre-export licenses required for an examination of the new generation F-15.

The sources said the administration has not approved the new F-15 for the Foreign Military Sales program. They said this could prevent Israel from using U.S. military aid to purchase the aircraft from Boeing.

"This is a legal issue," a source said. "The F-15SE might not qualify for FMS."

I might also mention that Israel contributed $22 million towards the research and development of the F-35 with the agreement that they would be able to evaluate the fighter and have the right to purchase it.

Here's what's going on. President Obama and his administration have not cut Israeli military aid outright, which might have political repercussions with what is still mostly pro-Israel Congress. Instead, what he's doing is placing unreasonable restrictions and delays on actually spending the money. And since 80% of Israel's US military aid is mandated to be spent in the US by federal law, more and more of the aid will simply become unusable.

Rest assured, Obama will continue to tighten the screws on Israel in an effort to appease the Muslim world, prevent Israel from dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons and force them to surrender to the Palestinians.

He is, after all, George Soros and Reverend Wright's protege and I hope every silly Leftard Jew who voted for him in spite of everything they were told about this president's history and associations is starting to come to terms with what they endorsed and how they were cynically manipulated.Some mistakes in judgment simply aren't forgivable or easily paved over.

As for Israel, they're going to have to come to terms with a foul betrayal by a long term ally and look to their own interests.

(hat tip, the Hashmonean