Wars and Rumors

For Ike, it was Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s Sinai invasion. For Lyndon Johnson, it was the 1967 Six-Day War. For Nixon, it was the 1973 war. For Carter, it was the Iranian Revolution. For Ronald Reagan, it was Lebanon. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq. For Bill Clinton, it was Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. For George W. Bush, it was Iraq and Afghanistan. For Barack Obama’s first term, it was Iran and Afghanistan, again. And for Obama’s second term, I fear that it could be the full nightmare — all of them at once. The whole Middle East erupts in one giant sound and light show of civil wars, states collapsing and refugee dislocations, as the keystone of the entire region — Syria — gets pulled asunder and the disorder spills across the neighborhood.

We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.' —Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, quoted by David Hirst

Israel is bracing for terrorist attacks perfectly understandable spontaneous reactions to a video

Fixed!

Army bombs multiple terror targets in the Gaza Strip, killing up to six, as Operation Pillar of Defense commences against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets; Hamas’s armed wing warns assassination of top activist has ‘opened the gates of hell’

Israeli military experts have concluded that a conventional strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities may fail, and have been forced to change their plans accordingly…. Defense experts claim Israel have two options, either deploy special forces on the ground, or use ballistic missiles with tactical nuclear warheads….

The greatest satisfaction today over the re-election of Obama… is surely being felt in Iran. With four more years of Obama in the White House, Iran can now be sure that it will be able to complete its infernal construction of a genocide bomb to use against the Jews and the west. World War Three has now come a lot closer. … Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative to any of this for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right. Romney lost because, like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void. …

Terrorist groups have acquired a "container" to smuggle uranium undetected past the global network of sensors to prevent a dirty bomb, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has warned. [War News Updates editor comments: "When reading stories like this one, one cannot help but feel that it will only be a matter of time before a terror group is successful in a 'dirty bomb' attack."]

North Korea on Tuesday warned that the U.S. mainland is within range of its missiles, and said Washington's recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of the North shows the allies are plotting to invade the country.

A senior North Korean diplomat warned a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York that "a spark of fire could set off a thermonuclear war" on the Korean Peninsula.

The notorious underwear bomber who tried to bring down a jumbo jet on Christmas Day had a dirty little secret - he'd been wearing the explosive skivvies for weeks.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wore them for three weeks to be exact, and it may have been the reason why he was unsuccessful in his 2009 terrorist plans aboard a Detroit-bound airliner.

“The two leaders discussed a range of security issues, and the President reaffirmed his and our country’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security,” the White House said in a brief summary of the call. “The two leaders underscored that they are in full agreement on the shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Police fired tear gas at rioters hurling gasoline bombs and chunks of marble Wednesday during Greece's largest anti-austerity demonstration in six months — part of a 24-hour general strike that was a test for the nearly four-month old coalition government and the new spending cuts it plans to push through. The brief but intense clashes by a couple of hundred rioters participating in the demonstration of more than 60,000 people came a day after anti-austerity protests rocked the Spanish capital, Madrid. Hundreds of Spanish anti-austerity protesters gathered again Wednesday, ending near parliament in Madrid amid a heavy presence of riot police. In Tuesday's protest, police arrested 38 people and 64 were injured.

...commander of a powerful Libyan militia said Monday that looters had stolen “a large number” of shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles from the militia’s base when protesters who called for dismantling the country’s militias overran the compound. … used by fighters to “hit airplanes” and known to the U.S. intelligence community as MANPADS (man-portable air-defense systems), were stolen along with 2,000 semiautomatic rifles and ammunition, as the militia withdrew from its base amid a firefight early Saturday. … It was unclear whose hands the weapons had fallen into. … A senior Obama administration official said earlier this month that U.S. intelligence estimates that 100 to 1,000 MANPADS are still unaccounted for in Libya, despite U.S. efforts to destroy them. Intelligence officials believe that some of the MANPADS have been smuggled across Libya’s borders. … Although military aircraft now have countermeasures that have rendered the weapons largely ineffective in conventional battle, MANPADS continue to pose a serious threat to passenger planes. … “In the wrong hands, shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles pose a major threat to passenger air travel, the commercial aviation industry and possibly military aircraft around the world,” Andrew J. Shapiro, an assistant secretary of state who oversees the effort said in a speech this year. “Not only could a successful attack against an aircraft cause a devastating loss of life, but it could also cause significant economic damage.”

[War News Update editor's coldly simple comment: "This is ominous."]

MOSCOW — Seven individuals were reportedly arrested for allegedly trafficking uranium and weapons in a breakaway region of Moldova.

The unnamed group had been detained last week in the separatist enclave of Transnistria, according to Moldova’s interior ministry, Reuters reported.

The group had allegedly been involved in shipments of hand grenades, Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, and even containers of uranium-235, which could be used to produce a nuclear bomb. The ministry provided no further details about the uranium shipment or its origin, according to Reuters.