Standards Have Fallen
It wasn’t that many years ago that the Israelis were able to carry off bogus propaganda attacks against their “enemies” [the rest of world] in a convincing fashion, but no more. The days when Israelis spoke unaccented Arabic and could create the documents of any nation in the world have passed.
When it comes to faking Iranian munitions the US has proved its incompetence, and now the Israelis have screwed up in a major way: from Juan Cole, 20-Year-Old Letterhead points to Israeli Forgery in Francop Affair.
Come on, this is what Wikipedia is all about, current information. Intel agencies need to get out more and look at what’s happening in the real world.
Of course, the Israelis will claim that the Iranians did this on purpose to shield them from charges, but I would point out that when governments transfer weaponry and don’t want to have it traced back to them, something the US does a lot, they use cut outs, intermediaries for the operation. The US often used the Israelis for this purpose [Iran Contra ring a bell?].
The Israeli seizure of the Francop was an attempt to create anti-Iranian propaganda. It’s just another area that the Israelis are no longer any good at after years without any credible threats.
9 comments
I think I’ve commented here a couple of times on what I think of the current Israeli *intel* services! Bloody disgusting really… Really glad I’m no longer in the biz. I’d have to go over there and smack a few senior officials upside the head! Or… something. 😆 Some of us have… had… professional standards and pride in our work! *sigh* This World is really going to Hell fast (assuming one believes there is a Hell *down below*, I’m personally of the opinion that life generally, is Hell! I’ve seen far too much to have any other opinion, it certainly cured me of my strict Catholic upbringing rather fast!) 🙂
Maybe they should be renamed to: ‘Lack-of-intelligence’ services. 😆
Bloody disgusting! Hmmph!
Well, they wouldn’t have screwed up the dates, like the US did with their “Iranian” munitions, using the very American MM/DD/YY format to mark RPG rounds, but blowing a 20-year-old name change is pretty bad. Everyone has used up the old letterhead after 20 years, hell, there probably only a handful of old sergeant majors who even remember the old name.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the ordnance on display came from Israeli stores and had been manufactured for the Shah’s government. There was a lot of military cooperation between Israel and the Shah.
For that matter, there was a fair bit of military cooperation between the Israelis and the ayatollahs in the aftermath of Saddam invading Iran. Enemy of my enemy and all that, the Israelis were far more worried about the Iraqis than about the Iranians then, if you recall the Israelis were still somewhat upset that it was an Iraqi force that stopped their advance upon Damascus in the 1973 war and this was before the Israelis made the deadly mistake of a long-term occupation of a majority-Shia land, an occupation that led to both Hezbollah and (indirectly) Hamas as well as poisoning relations with the nation which viewed itself as the protector of Shia Islam i.e. Iran. So the weapons could have come from Israeli stores in the period 1980-1982 just as easily as prior.
Regarding Israeli intelligence, any residual respect I had for them evaporated in 2006 as it became clear that they had seriously underestimated Hezbollah’s preparations for war and ability to inflict significant damage upon invading Israeli ground forces. At that point it became clear Israeli intelligence had degenerated to the point that they were as useful as warts on a beauty queen.
Given all of the available resources Israel had/has in Lebanon, that was totally FUBAR. How the hell do you miss bunkers? They fed tanks into obvious traps.
They got their butts kicked because they didn’t respect their enemy. They have spent so much time as occupation troops, that they don’t know how to run a real assault.
Iraq made no more sense as an ally, than an enemy. The US has never taken the trouble to learn hard facts about the Middle East, it has always been political, too often following Israel’s lead.
This modern all-volunteer military has been short-changed. We always got phrase books and country profiles when we were sent to a foreign country. Apparently they don’t do that anymore, like a lot of things that made life easier. A little “cultural sensitivity” training would have saved lives on both sides.
Iraq made no more sense as an ally, than an enemy. The US has never taken the trouble to learn hard facts about the Middle East, it has always been political, too often following Israel’s lead.
As someone who spent quite some time learning about and working in ME… BINGO!! Bigtime! 😉
The “Country Profile” that our troops are apparently being dispatched with is an obnoxious racist tome entitled The Arab Mind, which includes such gems as “the only thing Arabs understand is force”, “Arabs are lazy and shiftless and will work only if forced to do so via hunger or at gunpoint”, and “sexual humiliation is the best way to motivate an Arab to cooperate.” It’s like assigning a KKK tome to police forces responsible for policing Harlem. And my understanding is that the Israelis, too, have fallen in love with this racist tome whose best use is as a doorstop.
The U.S. has largely allowed Israel to run U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East because Israelis seem “Western” and a known/knowable quantity, while Arabs seem “Eastern” and mysterious and unknowable. I.e., we are allowing mystical woowoo truthiness (“truth” that arises from “gut feel” rather than facts) to direct U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Unfortunately the same applies to far too much of the deranged nonsense that characterizes U.S. “politics” today…
– Badtux the Cynical Penguin
The mistakes are too egregious and too obvious. They defy comprehension in any rational world. It’s not as if we lack people who understand the area; it’s just that no one in power wants to hear anything that contradicts their preconceived notions and prejudices.
The Arab Mind is like the Elders of Zion in too many ways. The anthropologist who wrote had only studied a small sample of Sunni Bedouin and generalized from his personal experience. From my readings about the Bedouin and talking to the old guys who were stationed is North Africa and other locations with Bedouin tribes, I came away with the distinct impression that Bedu went into an act whenever outsiders were around, They played roles and didn’t reveal themselves to avoid people discovering any weaknesses. Weak and lazy people don’t survive in the desert for hundreds of years.
You know Bryan, in all seriousness, you know much more about the Arab’s and the ME in general than any supposed official *expert* I’ve heard or read (and then puked) in recent years.
I actually came to the conclusion some years ago that most Westerners don’t want to truly understand the Arabs and how incredibly tough they are, because it would give them all a raging inferiority complex.
One of the places I worked was Fujairah, UAE. It’s one of the smallest States in the Emirates (a pop of about 100k when I was there), but one of the toughest. It’s pretty much all mountainous terrain and get’s more rain than the rest of the UAE put together. I am always so amused when I hear that some US wealthy idiot or Politician is doing deals with Dubai because that is where they think all the power is. 🙂 Understanding what the UAE really think of *outsiders* is simple by looking in Fujairah. Fujairah is different than the other UAE STates in that they don’t hide their feelings to outsiders. One example is that local *national’s* are treated free at the federal government hospitals, while foreigners have to pay big fees for medical care. And no money, you die. 🙂 Foreigners cannot buy land there. Nationals can purchase land from the government, after proving their nationality. Etc.
Once the UAE have sucked all the money from these wealthy idiots, they will find out what the local’s truly think of them. 😉