Raid on Syria raises serious questions

Anyone remember Tel Aviv’s ballyhoo about Iran’s possible acquirement of the Russian S-300 air defense missiles? In their haste to do Iran out of means to defend itself, Israeli officials went as far as calling the system a “game changer” in any military scenario.

Not so it seems from the evidence on the ground. Israel has now hit Syria from the air twice in a short span of five years and has got clean away with it. Syria possesses the S-300 high altitude air defense missiles and is experienced with operating the system. So why were Israeli aircraft “counted out and counted back in” without so much of a scratch on any of them?

The BBC was up to its old tricks: Playing on words to ready the public subconsciously for possible future Israeli aggression against Syria. Their news bulletin said: This is ONLY the second time in five years that Israel has attacked Syria; implying that Israeli aggression against Syria should be even more of a routine.

We should all be beside ourselves with joy that an act of Israeli aggression against Syria, outlawed by the UN, only takes place twice in any five-year period.

But this is not all.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague has also jumped in to excuse Tel Aviv’s wayward ways. He claimed the Israeli regime’s violation of Syria’s sovereignty has been a mere “reaction” to the Syrian crisis.

Britain can be excused for such comic outbursts for a good reason. During Queen Victoria’s reign and the glorious Imperial grab of world resources a deal was reached with the Zionist bankers. They agreed to put in place a foolproof monetary system that would indefinitely shore up the English pound and run the empire’s banking system. This was, so to speak, the Zionist bankers “clipping coins” in ever more innovative ways to tip the British public while the lion’s share of the loot was retained by the state and its bigwigs. So Britain has no choice but to support Israel for “the good of the nation.”

Going back to the S-300 shortcomings: How can an air defense system with state of the art phased array radar designed for multiple engagements including incoming ballistic missiles be so easily defeated?

The answer is that the systems in operation in Syria are actually little different from those first brought into service by Soviet Union in 1985. Another problem is that Russia sold Cyprus the S-300PMU-1, which was then extensively tested for weaknesses by Israeli air force.

Russia stopped the sale of the weapons to Syria in 2012, but batteries of the system are employed in and around the capital Damascus, and the very “research center” bombed by the Israeli air force.

Another version of the story was broadcast by BBC’s rich Arab cousin Al Jazeera news network. Al Jazeera claimed that the target destroyed in Syria had been a convoy of air defense missiles destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. It went on with its cock and bull story to claim that the systems were being acquired by Hezbollah to prevent regular Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace in particular over the strategic Bekaa valley.

It is so delightful to learn that Syrian Arab Muslims can rely on their Qatari Arab Muslim brothers in their hour of need! This should remind all of the Saudi Arab “headlong rush” to supply fuel to an Egyptian Arab Muslim army stranded in the middle of the Sinai desert without fuel at the height of the 1973 war. In that instance, for the record, it was the Iranian tanker fleet that rushed to the rescue but because of the distances involved it got there three days after the commander of Israeli forces in the Sinai, Ariel Sharon, had recognized and exploited the Egyptian army’s lack of ability to close a “small gap” in its defenses. In the event the Israeli units pushed through to threaten Cairo and the rest is yet another chapter in the tragic tale of Arab disunity.

Russia is busily phasing out its “game changer” S-300 missile batteries and is having them replaced with the S-400 system with an even more advanced version called S-500 being put through its paces as we speak.

But the moral of the story is that nations around the world can bleed their peoples dry paying for the most advanced weapons that money can buy from the East or the West. But in the absence of common sense and unity, clearly represented by Saudi, Qatari and Jordanian rulers, none of such ostentatious wastes of national wealth can save the day when it really matters.

A moment of forward thinking by Arab leaders not only does not cost anything, it could be a “game changer” for the lives and survival of Muslim Arab populations. The vulnerability of the Arab world has not been because of a lack of military hardware or capable fighting manpower, rather it has been due to their profound and very visible lack of perspective.