Talk of Imminent War Against Iran Amid an Attack of 'Coincidences'

[tekisui]

The "coincidences":

* A series of internet disruptions due to cut telecom cables that has cut Iran off the Internet!
* Israel is not affected.
* An Iranian Oil Bourse, where oil, petrochemicals and gas will be traded in various non-dollar currencies, is set to open this month.
* Israelis have been told to prepare for war, presumably with Iran

Before leaving the Middle East, Bush is reported to have promised Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would join Israel in a nuclear strike on Iran. In Israel, there is talk of "...a rain of missiles" for which Israelis must prepare now.

Speaking on radio as part of a military propaganda offensive, retired general Udi Shani said: "The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory."

Shani was tasked recently with drawing up a report on the way the military authorities operated during Israel's 2006 summer war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

During that conflict thousands of rockets hit Israel, but were limited to the north of the country from where hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated.

The character of war has changed, said the general.

"Strikes to the rear must now be taken into account -- that is what will come and we must prepare in a totally different way for this eventuality," he said.

--Israelis told to prepare 'rocket rooms' for war

By the time the following dispatch hit what was left of the internet, it was clear: the world is under attack by organized coincidences.

Egypt denies the earlier reports on the Mideast Internet outage, saying there were no ships present around when the cables were cut off.

Egypt's Ministry of Communications announced in a statement Sunday that "a marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time.”

The Ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of much of their internet.

The statement added that the location, 8.3 kilometers from the port of Alexandria, was in a restricted area so ships would not have been allowed there to begin with.

Internet blackouts are impacting large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa after four undersea cable connections were severed.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.

--'No ship behind ME internet outage'

more at link: http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/02/talk-of-imminent-war-against-iran-amid.html

[Selatius]

1. Usually before the assault begins, there is an attempt to destroy enemy communications first.

If your enemy is blinded, he cannot accurately see your moves or counter your attack. I'm not necessarily saying the US or Israel is intentionally attacking Iran's communications grid, but what I said is the basic philosophy of most military planners in the world today.

Blind your enemy. Take down his air defenses/radar defenses. Take out communication nodes/command centers. Soften up enemy troop formations. Once troop formations have been decimated, you are in a better position to invade the crippled nation, but with Iran, the US possesses insufficient ground forces to occupy such a large country.

However, I would hardly think Iranians are dumb enough to have their military use the commercial communication grid to communicate with its forces. I would think they would have a separate, independent grid with which to communicate that is solely used by the military. I think Israeli and American planners already know this.

[nels25]

2. I am wondering

does Iran have communications satellites??

If they do not then maybe some of this going on makes a modicum of more sense.

Since it will be able to defeat ocean cables and other communication grids than com sats.

course my knowledge in this area is very limited, just trying to use logic 101.:D

[DCKit]

3. "I think Israeli and American planners already know this."

Planners? We've got planners this time around? Or is this the same bunch who thought Iraq would be a six week cakewalk and that we'd be thanked with a Brazillion barrels of sweet crude for freeing them from decades of unjust torture and genocide and that the entire ME would become a land of rainbows, flowers, puppy dogs and Democracy within months?

As we have seen, repeatedly, the only beneficiaries of these plans are corporations who benefit from a world in chaos. They don't care how bad it gets, as long as the world keeps buying oil, at whatever cost.

[Selatius]

4. They said we'd need several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq at the beginning.

No, Rumsfeld overrode them and decided to go in lean and light weight, and he had no plan for the occupation either. There is a lot of worry within the military about a war with Iran. Many of the sane ones are opposed to such a war, and some have said they'll resign and bolt for the door if Bush pushes America into a war with Iran. Admiral Fallon, chief of CENTCOM, would likely resign if ordered to go into Iran. Fallon wasn't impressed with Gen. Petraeus either and opposed the surge from the beginning as a waste of time. Fallon called Petraeus an "ass-kissing little chicken shit" at one point.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. A few things.

"A series of internet disruptions due to cut telecom cables that has cut Iran off the Internet!"

This is apparently patently untrue, according to another DU thread with several links to Iranian run websites.

"Israel is not affected."

Well, I didn't think it would be. Wrong coast.

"An Iranian Oil Bourse, where oil, petrochemicals and gas will be traded in various non-dollar currencies, is set to open this month."

And this would effect it how?

"Israelis have been told to prepare for war, presumably with Iran"

Meh.

[tekisui]

6. Good points.

Yet, I still am not comforted by 4 cables being "accidentally cut" over the course of one week. The internet capabilities of Iran are crippled, but not cut-off entirely. It is strange, nonetheless.