Hot Air War? Judeo-Christian What?

Right. I know modern balloons (aerostats) use gases of some sort, but …

Anyway, Hezbollah has downed an Israeli spy balloon. Interestingly, a US balloon also went down over Syria, near a US base, but details are unavailable right now and the Pentagon isn’t commenting.

US Spy Balloon Crashes In Northeast Syria

It’s big, as you can tell from the photo:

Unlike Chinese weather balloons, our spy balloons do carry sophisticated equipment. There have been claims that it was shot down, but those claims could simply be opportunistic.

Regarding the Israeli balloon, there’s more info available and it’s rather interesting:

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Israeli media:

Yesterday, Hezbollah recorded its greatest success since the beginning of the war and destroyed one of the most expensive and advanced defense systems.

A Hezbollah drone worth 20,000 shekels targeted a multi-billion project east of Tiberias yesterday

The occupation army announces that Hezbollah targeted the Sky Dew balloon, the large surveillance balloon,at an air force base near Tiberias, which is of great importance for monitoring air threats in the north, especially drones.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense boasted of the spy balloon's superior ability to monitor Lebanon and Syria.

24 hours later, Hezbollah targeted the balloon with a suicide drone.

@ME_Observer_



1:10 PM · May 16, 2024

That sounds like a “shootdown”, but the account by The Cradle is more detailed and claims the balloon was downed by targeting the base that controlled the balloon. If this account is correct, it sounds like a fairly sophisticated operation:

The Cradle @TheCradleMedia

Hezbollah announced that it targeted and destroyed an Israeli balloon used to spy on Lebanon over the Israeli settlement of Adamit.

Through close surveillance, the group was also able to determine and target the spy balloon’s control center, which appeared to have been in a separate location.

“After tracking the movement of the spy balloon to monitor and spy on Lebanon and after determining its control center, our fighters targeted it with missiles,” the Lebanese resistance’s statement said.

Three targets were hit as part operation: the launch base, which was destroyed, causing the balloon to fall; the control mechanism, which was completely destroyed; and the management crew, killing or wounding its members.

The operation appears to have harnessed Hezbollah’s impressive intelligence-gathering capabilities, which it has displayed throughout Al-Aqsa Flood.

8:45 AM · May 14, 2024

This is probably a rather big deal. These balloons aren’t toys—they’re expensive and carry sophisticated instruments, to include radar. Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel have been quite successful in forcing large scale evacuations. Taking out the balloon will likely cripple Israel’s efforts to counter Hezbollah drone attacks.

Recommended read. In case you were wondering where the dubious concept of Judeo-Christian values comes from, this article is quite informative:

How conservatives adopted the term ‘Judeo-Christian’ to justify the Zionist agenda

Where does the phrase 'Judeo-Christian' come from and why do we hear it? It has been used by people who for political reasons wish to form in the minds of the public a 'common faith,' which can be used to direct support for Zionism.

The history behind this is actually more complicated than you might think. While it originated with 19th century Evangelicals (in England!) as a way to convert Jews in Poland (go figure—they weren’t interested in converting the Catholic Poles), it was largely rejected by Evangelicals in the US until it gained legs through the likes of FDR and Ike. Now it’s on steroids, at least in certain circles—it does have a fair amount of currency among conservatives. Weird. Now of course there is big Evangelical money behind this. Interesting.