19 September 2007

Fire Sale


It is a curious story from a region where the truth is ephemeral, and subject always to embellishment.

For a change, though, it is not people in the Middle East who saying too much, but too little. What happened seems to qualify as an act of war, as if that meant anything in a world where some violence is virtual, happening in computers, and sovereignty is a matter of interpretation.

We have the luxury of wringing our hands over niceties, and I am grateful that the wolf is perceived to be so far from the door that Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, can worry about the rights of the people who have sworn to kill us.

Everyone has rights, I suppose, and God bless the Senator for caring. Others in the world do what they think is necessary, and that brings us to what happened in early September.

Who is talking is a clue about what might have happened. The North Korean Foreign Ministry said it was “…a very dangerous provocation little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security."

The North Koreans have recently made some real progress in the six-party talks, and managed to flummox President Bush into a major foreign policy faux pas at the APEC Summit in Australia, which was in progress as the provocation happened. The South Koreans are incensed.

North Korea had agreed to rid itself of its nuclear weapons program. Bush said that he might consider a formal end to the Korean War, which has lingered for more than a half century under an armistice.

If they have to rid themselves of the equipment anyway, why not have a fire sale in the Axis of Evil?

A ship called the “Al Hamad,” flying the North Korean flag docked in Tartus, Syria, before the incident. It could have been carrying anything, even the “cement” that was on the manifest. The cargo could have been weapons destined for the Hamas fighters in southern Lebanon, who are regularly re-supplied by their Syrian sponsors, with the bills paid by the Iranians.   

That is what Washington said about what happened. But the Israelis regularly trumpet the interdiction of weapons shipments, and there was precisely nothing from Jerusalem.

Immediately after the incident, Damascus said it didn't happen. Nothing in Syria was bombed by the IAF, and nothing was damaged. Reports of and air strike in the north of the country were ridiculous, and spokesmen added that they did not have North Korean nuclear facilities.

I don't know who was asking.

Later, Imad Moustapha, Syrian Ambassador in Washington, said that that Israel would pay for the incursion that didn't happen.

The Turks are mum about how drop-tanks from Israeli Air Force F-15s came to be laying about in its soil.
 
Damascus later amended its denial, and said that mystery warplanes entered its airspace, came under fire and dropped munitions and fuel tanks to flee.

Someone had to talk, eventually, though not in Jerusalem. Word is that the IAF 69th Squadron flew out of Ramat David airfield feet-wet over the Med up the coast, and cut back east over Turkish airspace. Something made the Syrian air defense system go stupid. A special operations force was waiting to provide laser designation on the target, only fifty miles from Iraq.

Exactly what was in the target is still unconfirmed- officially- but it isn't hard to figure out. A major raid on a sovereign state is not something you would undertake over a shipment of Katusha rockets.

It had to be something big, and something very special. Timing was right. Ramadan starts with the new moon on Thursday.

What was in the bunker was some North Korea material available at fire-sale prices, and useful for anyone with a nascent atomic weapons program.

You can fill in the dance card on who that might be.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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