OT: Today

I wonder what IBM thinks of that!

Guys I went to school with and knew died on the Liberty. Israel is no ones "ally."

Israel is a modern, peaceful, tolerant democracy. Israel is majority Jewish but tolerates Christians, Muslims, and anything else. Muslims are citizens with full rights, and vote, and hold public office.

How many Muslim-majority countries tolerate Jews and Christians? How many grant women full legal rights? How many other democracies are there in that region?

Israel is our natural ally, and will be again in about two years.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Technically, Iran does. (Read your world governments!) Of course, the religious direction makes the practicalities more than a bit different...

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs 
Electrical Engineering Consultation 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com

"Mehmed II allowed his subjects a considerable degree of religious freedom, provided they were obedient to his rule. After his conquest of Bosnia in 1463 he issued a firman to the Bosnian Franciscans, granting them freedom to move freely within the Empire, offer worship in their churches and monasteries, and to practice their religion free from official and unofficial persecution, insult or disturbance.[70][71] His standing army was recruited from the Devshirme, a group that took first-born Christian subjects at a young age and destined them for the sultan's court. The less able, but physically strong, were instead put into the army or the sultan's personal guard, the Janissaries."

Same religion in theory...

--
Les Cargill

Israel[1] estimates that there are 200,000 (?) missiles currently deployed by Hamas/Hezbollah. Historically, I think less than 10,000 rockets have hit Isreali targets in the decade(?) since we've heard of their widespread use.

Even a "trained monkey" with that much in armaments can do a shitload of REAL damage. Especially when the "sponsor" is located on the *other* side of their country.

[1] First-hand report from an Israeli military intelligence officer who's name I won't mention, here.

Those crummy little rockets are not a threat to their national security, they are for harassment. Israel has been shooting them down with their Iron Dome and low cost interceptor missiles, at $50K each.

The Orthodox nutcases there wouldn't tolerate anything except other Orthodox if they had their way. So you're comparing a secular democracy to surrounding Muslim theocracies. There are examples of predominantly Muslim republics, Tunisia is one.

Forget it.

I'm sorry about your pals. Friendly-fire deaths are especially hard to take. If everybody who died from friendly fire caused the loss of an ally, though, we'd all be at war with everyone, because our guys have done it too. It just goes with the territory.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

They have an unelected Supreme Leader who decides who can run for office, and who can veto anything.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Okay, the Liberty incident is something else you know absolutely nothing ab out. A deliberate attack by torpedo boats and fighter jets and at very clos e range so that there was positive identification is NOT friendly fire. The Israelis raked the superstructure with large caliber automatic weapons fir e to destroy the numerous ELINT antennas. The Liberty was not a warship, it was an intelligence gathering ship. Israel told the U.S. to get it out of the area because it was intercepting their communications for later comprom ise. It was not a surprise attack. Washington ordered the ship out of the a rea a few hours before but the communication ended up being routed to the P hilippines where it sat in someone's inbox.

The supreme leader always consults the Koran first, so that's Allah making the decisions, not him.

The Koran, like the Old Testament, is a pretty violent and contradictory document. Both Jews and Christians seem able to "modernize" the Old Testament, and not adhere to the more outrageous requirements, like killing sinners and slaughtering entire cities and such. Most Muslims seem able to do the same, but many are not. Majority Muslim countries trend towards sharia law and heavy-duty intolerance.

There must be a reason for that. Maybe it's the underlying cultures, not the religion itself.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

IN the mid to late 70's they had to be specially registered and their cars were identified by a specific prefix (IIRC) on their number plate. Do you know when that changed? or if it changed?

Yeah that's the official story all right, case of mistaken identity, but for the fact that the bomb loads the planes had were for ground attack, communications was established with the fleet after the antennas were shot up, and a few machine gun bursts at the torpedo boats standing by, she'd have been sunk.

But she was the only ship in the entire world with a radome on it at that time, nothing the Egyptians had, hull numbers and over flights the day before, not to mention flying the holiday ensign in a 15 knot breeze with guys off duty and sunning on the deck.... And a ship sporting two machine gun mounts in international waters is a threat to Israel?

More like she was supposed to go down without a peep so they could blame the Egyptians.

Well, mistaken identity happens all the time. Like the time the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian airliner.

As Napoleon famously said, regarding a particularly inept general whose colleagues thought he was a traitor:

"Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence."

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

Yes, I'm sure you would feel the same if those "crummy little rockets" were flying over __your__ home. No threat to national security....right?

Regards Mark

200,000 * $50K = $10,000,000,000 to "swat them out of the air" -- assuming each threat is met with a response. Can their *economy* support that sort of expenditure? [Let's assume none of the incoming rockets actually cause any *deaths* or property damage -- nor have any impact on the psyche's of the population.]

How do you define "national security"?

You mean can our economy support it because we pay for them. The $50K price tag is a phenomenal engineering feat for the capability.

" A defense posture capable of successfully resisting hostile or destructive action from within or without, overt or covert." will do.