Middle East War Roundup 9/20/24
Things are heating up—Israel is pulling out all stops to instigate a major war. Regarding the Daily Mail report that Israel “made” the pagers, and has been doing so for years, I take that to mean that Israel has been counterfeiting devices like pagers for years and “inserting” explosives in them. I’m somewhat skeptical of this story—it sounds like a bit of disinformation to me. It would be a scattershot tactic, unlikely to be able to target even large groups with much, if any, accuracy. The reason for the disinformation, if that’s what it is? To mask the insiders who facilitated the operation, which would require knowledge of where the pagers were being shipped and, likely, who the recipients might be. Note that a “network of companies” is specified—to deflect from a more specific colluding partner in the crimes? Maybe even one or more additional government secret services—CIA/MI6? Even so, the shipments seem clearly to not have been limited, for example, to IRGC or Hezbollah. Meaning, not limited to designated targets. State of information on this? Fog of terror.
Mega Geopolitics @MegaGeopolitics
BREAKING:
 The Daily Mail reports that the israeli intelligence has been making the pagers and electronic devices itself and inserting explosives into them through a network of companies in Europe for years.
It’s the nature of terrorist government services that they cover their tracks with disinformation and don’t concern themselves with narrow targeting. That pattern can be traced all the way back to the end of WW2, for example, in Italy.
Megatron @Megatron_ron
Imagine if Putin planted explosives in electrical devices all over Ukraine and blew up a bunch of children, civilians and a few dozen soldiers.
Think about this in the context of MI6 narratives of supposed Russian assassinations of Russians. These aren’t simple questions, necessarily, but that’s the point. Uncertainty.
Megatron @Megatron_ron
NEW:
How can we be sure that many of Israel's electronic bomb devices did not end up in Europe through private sales?
The Mossad has been making the pagers and electronic devices itself and inserting explosives into them through a network of companies in Europe for years, the Daily Mail reports.
The question is whether they were just sending them to Lebanon, which is unlikely.
Many of the devices are likely to have been distributed across multiple countries.
Many of those devices have definitely left those countries through private sales.
Many people from the Middle East countries are migrant and living in Europe, so it is not at all surprising that such bomb devices are now traveling around Europe and the world.
Note in this next tweet that a “Burkan” rocket is specified. These missiles are relatively short range missiles—not rockets—and are a development of the SCUD missiles. Relatively means the range could be around 600 miles. I’ve linked to the Burkan 2 page. Wikipedia doesn’t mention Hezbollah having these missiles, but the Houthis had them in 2017 or so, so …
These missiles use inertial guidance systems:
An inertial navigation system includes at least a computer and a platform or module containing accelerometers, gyroscopes, or other motion-sensing devices. The INS is initially provided with its position and velocity from another source (a human operator, a GPS satellite receiver, etc.) accompanied with the initial orientation and thereafter computes its own updated position and velocity by integrating information received from the motion sensors. The advantage of an INS is that it requires no external references in order to determine its position, orientation, or velocity once it has been initialized.
An INS can detect a change in its geographic position (a move east or north, for example), a change in its velocity (speed and direction of movement) and a change in its orientation (rotation about an axis). It does this by measuring the linear acceleration and angular velocity applied to the system. Since it requires no external reference (after initialization), it is immune to jamming and deception.
In other words, they should be pretty accurate and “immune to jamming.”
Megatron @Megatron_ron
BREAKING:
 The war is slowly escalating
Nearly 100 air strikes have been carried out by Israel on Lebanon in less than two hours.
Bombings all across southern Lebanon, the most intense during this war.
Evacuation sirens sound at UNIFIL base in Naqoura, southern Lebanon
Hezbollah targets 'Metula' settlement with heavy Burkan rockets, causing extensive damage and a power outage
IDF Statement: 'During the weekend, our troops will be active within the sanitary zone (northern Israel), entering these areas is a danger to your life – gunfire and explosions may be heard'
The IDF has declared a total 'information vacuum' in northern Israeli settlements – no one is allowed to enter, film or publish
Meanwhile … Trump seems to have some notion of winning New York:
Megatron @Megatron_ron
BREAKING:
 Donald Trump, as if he was running for president of Israel, declared the Jews a greater nation even than Americans:
"Israel is one of the greatest, if not perhaps the single greatest nation on earth – and the Jewish people are incredible
I am the best friend of the Jews, and I will spend my entire Presidency defending and protecting the State of Israel, nobody loves Jewish people more than me'. [sic] If I do not win the elections, Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years.'
With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24 percent of the Jewish vote. I really haven't been treated very well, but it's the story of my life. If I don't win this election, and I've been very good, in my opinion the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I'm at 40%
In the past, if you said something about a Jewish person or something about Israel that was bad, you were out of politics."
Megatron @Megatron_ron
NEW:
 Trump says he will “crush” antisemitism on his first day in office.
What could go wrong with a government move to “crush” opinions defined and designated by the government using propagandistic narratives that require suppression of historical knowledge? Note that Trump uses the word “demonstrators” in designating who is to be “crushed.”
Dr. Rob Campbell mentions the fallout of the pager attack may be an avoidance of Western consumer goods:
https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-weekly-update-006?
Add to this the Snowden revelations about how U.S. networking equipment has backdoors required by the U.S. government for spying.
I found this article incredibly enlightening with respect to Israel's ability to manipulate the manufacturing of many electronic devices and Trump's comments. That Israel could populate a large number of devices begs the question, "How wide is their operation and how deep is their penetration and how many and where have all these devices ended up?
My business has been in the tech industry with a number of years working with with the MAD market (Mil/Aero/Defense). My customers were the Lockheeds, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc. Some years ago (lmid-late 90's) defense contractors began to move away from total in-house customization to buying hardware and software in a model known as COTS (commercially off the shelf). As they increasingly embraced this model more and more of the compute industry moved over seas to China. The defense contractors grew increasingly concerned with Chinese manufacturer's slipping in snooping devices into their hardware and firmware. Some mandated US only suppliers in mission critical applications, but how do you avoid Chinese manufacturing? This latest terrorist attack by Israel has to make the defense Industry nervous. One area that the US has subsidized and outsourced is cyber security and the Israeli tech sector in general. How do you explain their massive emerging tech sector if not for US involvement both financial and IP? I have to think our systems are compromised just as much by Israel as China.