U.S Intelligence support to Israeli military campaign

[RAPTOR]

U.S. Intelligence Support to Israel's Military Campaign[URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][/URL][/URL][/URL][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][/URL][/URL][/URL][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][URL="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/images/spacer.gif"][/URL][/URL][/URL]

The New York Times reported on July 22 that the Pentagon is speeding delivery of smart bombs to Israel. The appearance, as David Cloud and Helene Cooper reported, is that "the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah."

That's exactly right -- U.S. aid to the Israeli campaign is one facet of the Bush Administration's broader effort to destroy Middle Eastern terrorists, which among other things means countering Teheran's support of such groups in the Levant. But expediting the shipment of laser-guided bombs is probably just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how America is helping Israel.

As a military source told Michael Gordon of the Times on June 18, the hard part about hitting elusive targets isn't building accurate bombs: "We can do the 'how.' It is getting the 'what' and 'where' that is the challenge." That's why so much of Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as defense secretary has been devoted to improving intelligence and surveillance capabilities.

Without a precise idea of where the enemy is, the most accurate munitions aren't much better than Hitler-era iron bombs. Israel probably relies heavily on human intelligence (spies) to find Hezbollah targets. But the U.S. brings a wealth of technical intelligence to the table that can be decisive in tracking terrorists. Here are some systems that could be used.

MANNED AIRCRAFT

The U.S. used nine RC-135 Rivet Joint jets in Operation Iraqi Freedom to monitor and target emitters across the radio-frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Because Beirut, Damascus and other areas of interest in the current campaign are all within the 240-mile listening radius of an RC-135, a single plane crammed with antennas, processors and linguists could monitor many different enemy transmissions as they were happening.

The Navy operates a dozen slower, lower-flying EP-3 Aries II eavesdropping planes that have similar capabilities but less listening range. Also, the Air Force's U-2S Dragon Lady can carry over 4,000 pounds of eavesdropping equipment and cameras for generating tactical imagery; its high operating ceiling permits the greatest listening range of any manned aircraft.

UNMANNED AIRCRAFT

Few people know what the Air Force's high-altitude, long-endurance Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has been doing since Operation Iraqi Freedom, but it has flown about 200 secret missions, some involving the collection of signals intelligence. The smaller Predator unmanned aircraft is much slower and does not collect signals intelligence, but like Global Hawk it can generate still and moving imagery potentially useful to targeters. The Air Force only has one Global Hawk currently available in-theater, but dozens of Predators could be deployed.

SEA & SPACE

Lebanon, Syria and Israel are all littoral countries within the listening range of eavesdropping equipment on the Navy's Los Angeles-class attack submarines. Intelligence gathering is now the main mission of these warships, which are the stealthiest systems in the U.S. arsenal and offer the longest persistence on station. The subs probably can monitor signals as far away as Damascus (60 miles from the sea) with the aid of natural phenomena such as evaporative ducts that bend radio transmissions.

The Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office also operate half a dozen constellations of satellites for collecting intelligence from across the spectrum -- radio waves, infrared signatures and visible-light imagery. For instance, missile-warning satellites are linked to an already-operational processing architecture for the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) that can detect and in some cases track tactical missile launches.

Communications links to get such information to users quickly exist if the U.S. wants to share.

-ends-

 

[Owais]

Israeli army receives orders to take control of southern Lebanon

TEL AVIV: The Israeli army received orders from Defense Minister Amir Peretz to prepare for an eventual seizure of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, Peretz's spokesman said.

As per orders Israel's army was trying to up to the Litani River, which is up to 30km (19 miles) north of the border.

The plan is part of its campaign to force the Shiite guerrillas away from the border and make room for a planned international force to patrol the area.

 

[TexasJohn]

Israeli army receives orders to take control of southern Lebanon

TEL AVIV: The Israeli army received orders from Defense Minister Amir Peretz to prepare for an eventual seizure of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, Peretz's spokesman said.

As per orders Israel's army was trying to up to the Litani River, which is up to 30km (19 miles) north of the border.

The plan is part of its campaign to force the Shiite guerrillas away from the border and make room for a planned international force to patrol the area.

They are trying to secure their water supply!!

 

[RAPTOR]

It's about annexation, stupid!
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Officially, Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon is an act of self-defense against Hezbollah's threat, aimed at creating a security buffer zone until the arrival of a "multinational force with an enforcement capability". But increasingly, as the initial goal of a narrow strip of only a few kilometers has now been extended up to the Litani River deep in Lebanon, the real motives behind Israel's invasion are becoming crystal-clear.

It's about (de facto) annexation, stupid. This is a war to annex a major chunk of Lebanese territory without necessarily saying so, under the pretext of security buffer and deterrence against future attacks on Israel.

Already, since the Six Day War, Israel has annexed the Sheba Farms, considered part of the Syrian Golan Heights, although the


government of Lebanon has long complained that the 25-square-kilometer area was a part of Lebanon. Now the Israeli army is sweeping the area south of the Litani River as a temporary occupation.

"We have no intention of extending our operation more than 70 kilometers north of our borders with Lebanon," stated Lieutenant-Colonel Hemi Lini on the Lebanese border on July 17, one week

after the war's outbreak.

This would put Israel, assuming for a moment that the Israel Defense Forces' operations prove ultimately successful, in control of the Litani River, thus fulfilling Israel's founding fathers' dream, stretching back to Chaim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organization, who in 1919 declared the river "essential to the future of the Jewish national home".

Consequently, contrary to the pro-Israel pundits' reassurances that this war is not about occupation, all the tangible signs indicate the exact opposite, ie, the distinct possibility of a "war of acreage" whereby Israel would expand its territory, acquire a new strategic depth, and simultaneously address its chronic water shortage by exploiting the Litani.

Access to the Litani would translate into an annual increase of water supply by 800 million cubic meters. This in turn might allow Israel to bargain with Syria over the Golan Heights, source of a full one-third of Israel's fresh water. However, a more likely scenario is Israel's continued unwillingness to abide by United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338 calling for its withdrawal from the Syrian territories.

The entire Western media have settled on a naive perspective of the reasons for Israel's invasion of Lebanon, namely as a defensive measure against Hezbollah. Conspicuously absent is any serious consideration of a viable, alternative explanation while focusing on, in essence, the same ingredients as in the 1982 invasion: "deceit and misleading statements" by leaders, "inaccurate announcements" by the military spokesmen, and "gross exaggeration" of threats, to paraphrase a candid reflection of an Israeli general, Yehoshafat Harkabi.

Following this scenario, Israel has dropped leaflets throughout southern Lebanon warning the civilians to leave or risk their lives, as they would be considered "Hezbollah sympathizers" if they refused to leave. Reminiscent of Israel's annexation of Palestinian lands in 1948 and beyond, the present war is causing mass refugees, who in all likelihood will not return to their homes any time soon.

The geostrategic and water dimensions of Israel's quest to possess southern Lebanon notwithstanding, the question is, of course, whether or not the world community will tolerate such a development that would remake the map of the Middle East.

There are plenty of reasons to think that in light of the United States' complicit silence on Israel's violation of the territorial integrity of Lebanon, Israel will somehow manage to ride out the international criticisms and stick to its undeclared plan to annex southern Lebanon. However, what is less certain is that the combined efforts of Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanese society, not to mention other Arab contributions, will prevail over Israel's appetite for a decent part of Lebanon.

With the military balance disproportionately in Israel's favor, we can safely assume that the new Operation Litani will succeed and thus create a "new Middle East" with a "greater" and geographically expanded Israel and a shrunken or diminished Lebanon.

If so, then the chronology of events narrated by future historians will closely follow this line of thought: that Israel deliberately provoked Hezbollah into action, after a six-year hiatus, by pressuring Hezbollah's ally, Hamas, which was subjected to a campaign of terror, financial squeeze and intimidation.

The laying of such a trap by Israel would not have happened in a vacuum of strategic thinking on Israel's part. The fact that Hezbollah fell into the trap is a result of several factors, including an adventurist element lending itself to the "reckless" action of Hezbollah on July 11 with respect to crossing the Blue Line and attacking an Israeli patrol.

Since then, the Israelis have put on the mask of being reluctant warriors, delaying their troops' entry into south Lebanon and thus perpetuating Israel's self-image as disinterested in any imperial grand objectives. Yet the facts on the ground speak louder than words and, indeed, what fact is more important than Israeli leaders' announced intention to occupy up to the Litani River?

Again, what is understandably omitted in those announcements, adopted as the real reasons by CNN and other US networks, is Israel's predatory lust after Litani's water sources, as well as for new geographical and strategic depth. This in turn might explain the otherwise inexplicably blatant overreaction of Israel to a border incident with Hezbollah.

Instead of searching for answers in the Israeli collective psyche or in the context of action, we must probe the answer in the writings of Israel's founding fathers, including Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, commonly yearning for Israel's control of the Litani River. As a timely addition to their old wish, Israel today has a security-related explanation, justifying the territorial takeover in the near future in terms of the lessons of the present war, the main lesson being Israel's dire need to gain strategic depth to avoid rocket attacks.

Indeed, the verdict will soon be out in Israel about the precious lesson of Lebanon War II, that is, how to prevent future rocket attacks in the only feasible way, that is, direct control of southern Lebanon.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review. He is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

The Israelis are not going to stop the war just because some Arab wants them to stop it. The Hizbollah has given them an opportunity to show the Arabs once again that Israel is supreme and that is what they are out to prove and are proving.

Yet, the whole issue is a humanitarian mess.

The PGMs from the US are so as to ensure that there is pinpoint accuracy and thus reducing the unwanted civilian killings! It is not just to show US support of the invasion. Twisting facts, does not help. It only inflames.

Saudis have the AWACs. Now, if they are so great an exponent of the "Islamic Brotherhood", what stops them from helping the Hizbollah?

Let's not blame the US for total apathy of the Arabs and let's stop publicising the whining of the Arabs!

They deserve what they are getting.

They should have trained and equipped themselves properly before embarking on this misadventure.

Too late to cry over spilt milk!

 

[sigatoka]

The Israelis are not going to stop the war just because some Arab wants them to stop it. The Hizbollah has given them an opportunity to show the Arabs once again that Israel is supreme and that is what they are out to prove and are proving.

Yes, having three dozen soldiers shot to pieces and their prized Merkavas and ships being hit does indeed prove the supremacy of Israel. They will continue to prove this over the next few months by carting more bodies of their soldiers to their early graves.

Israel's current strategy (or lack of it) is one that can only end in failure and tears for not only them but the U.S.

 

[Owais]

Americans split on Bush handling of Israeli-Hezbollah conflict


WASHINGTON (updated on: August 05, 2006, 14:19 PST): Americans are nearly evenly split on US President George W. Bush's handling of Israel's military campaign against the Hezbollah militia, a poll published Friday by CNN television said.

Some 46 percent of the respondents said they disapproved of Bush's handling of the 24-day Lebanon crisis, while the 43 percent said they approved, the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted for CNN showed.

On Iraq, Bush's approval stood at 36 percent, while disapproval was recorded at 62 percent, the August 2-3 telephone poll of 1,047 Americans showed.

Bush's overall approval rating edged up to 40 percent from 37 percent shown in the previous study conducted June 14-15.

At the same time, his disapproval rating rose to 59 percent from 53 percent.

The poll showed that Bush's approval peaked on September 21-22, 2001, just days after the September 11 terror attacks, when it stood at 90 percent.

The last time the president's approval rating stood above 50 percent was in March 2005, the CNN poll showed.

The study has a reported margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

 

[Sid]

Saudis have the AWACs. Now, if they are so great an exponent of the "Islamic Brotherhood", what stops them from helping the Hizbollah?

As far as I know, at one given time, there is atleast one American personnel on board Saudi AWACS meaning they're not really allowed to use them as they would perhaps wish.

 

[melb4aust]

As far as I know, at one given time, there is atleast one American personnel on board Saudi AWACS meaning they're not really allowed to use them as they would perhaps wish.

There you go then, how would you expect them to do something now, gosh i hate them, they cant even operate them according to their will, thats a shame really. At 1st i was having some kind of hope from these saudis but iam loosing it now.