muff528

presumably we're talking about the gaza strip here... Well, refer to billvon's mention of the 1952 "purge" and expulsion of the Arab League fighters and other mercenaries who were provided aid and refuge by the resident Arab population. The Arabs who fled into the Arab countries during this action, including into the West Bank and Gaza, were placed into so-called "refugee" camps and were refused assimilation into Jordan and Egypt respectively. Many of those camps still exist within the WB even though the Palestinians were offered citizenship and voting rights by Israel. They refused. But my point here is that they were herded into these concentration camps by the Arab countries. Rehashing the same old same old again.

Might be worth turning that around and experimenting with a "junk cam".

you agree that israel launched a surprise attack on egypt in 1956... well? Seems that Egypt brought that upon themselves, too. Just a continuation of the war started by the Arabs in '48. back into your shell then (see how i led you on that my position was weak and then launched a surprise attack - works in debates too

you agree that israel launched a surprise attack on egypt in 1956... well? Seems that Egypt brought that upon themselves, too. Just a continuation of the war started by the Arabs in '48.

the opposition air forces had been decimated so that threat had gone... Yes, afterwards. They weren't decimated when the decision was being made. the opposition air forces were no longer a threat - israel was secure. why did they then launch a ground attack? Israel has not been secure since its inception. I really don't see a point continuing with arguing these same points over and over.

or they led the opposition countries into a position where a first strike could be seen as 'acceptable' by its allies - feigning weakness until they were ready... That would have been a stupid strategy.

so the egyptian plan was to defeat israel economically... Yes, militarily and economically ...and not just Egypt. And not just a plan ...it was in the process of being made to happen.

but there was no surprise advancement... Israel made sure that wasn't going to happen.

the opposition air forces had been decimated so that threat had gone... Yes, afterwards. They weren't decimated when the decision was being made.

I may have posted some version of this before. Not sure if it was here or another forum. Loyd and Marion were not strangers to the realities of aerial combat. But, far from being old battle-hardened warriors, Loyd was just 17 and Marion only a couple of years older. As crewmates aboard "Panting Stork II", a B-17 assigned to the 452nd Bomb Group, they had become close friends. In January, a few months earlier, their B-17 had been shot down and had made a forced belly-landing near Buchy, France during a raid on Frankfurt. There they met Renee, a young lady with the "French Underground". As "evadees" she aided them in their escape to Allied lines and they ultimately were returned to their base in England. But that was not to be the end of her help... Now it was early morning April 7, 1945 and the war in Europe was entering it's final month. Their squadron, the 730th, began the day much like any other Saturday as they prepared for their mission. After breakfast of what we now call "Spam" and something they referred to as "eggs", they were briefed and began preparing to board their assigned ships for the raid. Their target that day was to be an airfield near Kaltenkirchen in the vicinity of Hamburg and the Elbe River. Their original crew had been dissolved and the two friends had been separated and assigned to different crews. (I am not sure why their crew had been separated but my best guess is that at this late date in the war it was more efficient to use them as replacements for other existing crews that needed them). When my dad's crew arrived at their assigned base in February 1945 their navigator had elected to go to H2X radar "mickey" school and they needed a replacement. After shuffling a couple of the positions around within the crew, Loyd was assigned to my father's crew as "togglier". Dad's crew was assigned that day to what had become their regular ship, "Up 'n' At'm", a B-17 formerly known as "Silver Shed House". (Dad said that he'd never heard of any bombers named "Shed House" and that the names had probably been "cleaned up" by the censors when they were referred to in reports, etc.) Marion's crew was to fly "Snake Eyes" today. The two friends had gotten into the ritual of seeking each other out before each mission and exchanging the words, "See you at tea time" ...a sort of superstitious rite. But this day they somehow missed each other earlier and now the aircrews were mostly boarded and props were turning. As my father (flight engineer) went through his checklist he heard a loud banging on the waist door. When he went to check it out he saw that it was Marion. Marion asked Dad to tell Loyd "See you at tea time". Dad closed the door and the day was on. The slow, tedious task of "forming up" (into their assigned slots within the "combat box" formation) and joining other Groups to form the bomber stream was mostly uneventful. Loyd and Marion had always tried to keep up with each other's position and "Snake Eyes" happened to be in its slot a bit ahead and above the position of "Up 'n' At'm". Dad had a pretty good view from the top turret. The bomber stream had progressed to well inside enemy lines and as far as Steinhuder Lake to the south of Hamburg before they began to see Me109 fighters "swarming" through their formation randomly from all clock positions. Me262 jets and experienced Me109 fighters were above the formation keeping the escort fighters busy. There seemed to be no coordination to these swarming attacks. In earlier encounters the fighters were much more deliberate and the attacks followed a disciplined tactic. These random actions of the fighters today was completely different and created an overall air of confusion. A pair of 109's came in from 6 o'clock just as Dad was rotating the turret to the rear. He said he tried to follow one fighter but the turret lagged just behind as he was firing. That Me109 crossed their path and rammed another B-17 in the waist. That bomber buckled and broke into two pieces as it fell. (After debriefing the bomber crewmen when they got back they would assign "kills" to the gunner whom they thought had the best chance at it since each 109 was probably being shot at by dozens of guns at once. They assigned this one to Dad, his only "kill" during the war. It wasn't until many years later that we all learned that this wasn't a kill at all. The rammings were intentional and many of the German pilots, including this one, lived through their attacks.) Almost immediately after that ramming attack Dad remembers a fighter diving from behind and pulling up into the nose of "Snake Eyes" destroying both aircraft. Dad described seeing the wing of that Me109 fluttering down over his turret like a leaf in the wind as they passed through the falling debris of both planes. He said he remembered the image of that wing and its black "cross" marking as it fell as plainly as the day it happened. Sadly, all crewmen of "Snake Eyes", including Marion, were KIA. Incredibly, that Luftwaffe pilot also survived. Several bombardment groups within the stream were attacked by the ramming fighters but the 452nd sustained the greatest losses. The 452nd BG received the Distinguished Unit Citation (now Presidential Unit Citation) for that action. Sometime after the war, according to his family, Marion's body was returned to the USA. Renee had located his body in Belgium and with her help Marion finally made it home. If interested, some search terms for more info on this desperate Luftwaffe tactic: Rammkommando Elbe, Rammjaeger, Sonderkommando Elbe. Mostly flown by inexperienced pilots with stripped down aircraft, they were told to clip the flight surfaces of the bombers and, if necessary, bail out. Probably not as easy as it sounded. Interesting page from Marion's diary from the day before: (mission #) "24. Apr. 6th. GERA. Flew with Owens in Snake Eyes. Objective - Rails. Opposition - None! Comments - Bombed from 15,000 - Good bombing results - long haul - bad landing"

What the heck is "nowhere near ready"? Should Israel have allowed all of the co-belligerent countries to get their troops and equipment in place? Should they have waited until all of the aggressors declared their "readiness" and that the war may now begin? I doubt that the Arab aggressor countries were very concerned about whether Israel was "ready" for war or not. Given the very small distances Israel had no choice. It is only about 100 or so miles from Israel across the Sinai to the Suez and the Red Sea. That's no meaningful distance at all for the air forces. And Egypt was only one of a coalition of other countries which were "ready". It's 9 miles from the West Bank to the Mediterranean. A surprise advancement from there would have cut Israel in two. Like the article also said, just the buildup alone would have required Israel to maintain a state of readiness that could not have been sustained economically for very long. I have to believe that the Arab countries knew this as well. Israel was forced into a "first" strike. In Israel's precarious situation the notion that they must wait until the first bullet crosses the border is ridiculous.

I have no idea who this website is but i'd take anything that dude posts as questionable at best... so you can't refute it - did israel accept the us offer of an armada or not? if you don't know look it up and get back to us with some facts and not endless reruns of your opinion... I don't see anything odious here. Why would Israel's acceptance of help from its allies be a "bad" thing that would require some "denial". The US simply offered to help form an international "coalition" to force Egypt to allow Israel its legal (and, as your source points out, UN-backed) access to the Strait. Other countries that promised to help begged out and Israel accepted our offer to help enforce their legal passage through the Strait of Tiran (at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba ...we're not even talking about the Suez canal here). Sounds reasonable to me. Within these three paragraphs in that article this point seems to be the least important ...especially since the war didn't last long enough for the armada to "happen" anyway.

OK, I'm a little curious as to why you cited the who-where-when article when it is largely non-supportive of your position on this topic.

http://what-when-how.com/social-sciences/arab-israeli-war-of-1967-social-science/ Just for context, the paragraph just prior to yours (above, same source): "On May 15, 1967, Egypt began moving troops into the Sinai Peninsula and massing them near the Israeli border. This was followed on May 18 by a Syrian mobilization that moved forces into position along the Golan Heights. On the same day President Nasser demanded that the United Nations Emergency Force, which had been stationed in the Sinai as a buffer between Israel and Egypt since the 1956 war, be withdrawn. United Nations Secretary-General U Thant complied with the demand, in spite of a prior promise to take any such request before the UN General Assembly. " ...and just after: "On May 30, responding to pressure for Arab unity, Jordan joined the military alliance between Egypt and Syria. This, along with the entrance of Iraq into the alliance on June 4, brought the combined size of the Arab armies to approximately 465,000 troops, 2,880 tanks, and 810 aircraft. Against that force the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mustered 275,000 troops (including reservists), 1,100 tanks, and 200 planes. Israel’s demographics (a relatively small population of around 2.3 million in 1967) and military structure (a small standing army backed by large numbers of reservists who could be called into duty when needed) made it difficult for the army to stay mobilized for long periods of time without doing massive damage to the domestic economy. Faced with hostile armies seemingly gearing up for war on all sides, the closure of a major shipping route, and the prospect of a troop mobilization with no immediate end in sight, Israel chose to launch a preemptive strike." It seems that Israel was forced into making a proactive decision within a very short window of opportunity. A misstep here could have meant the demise of Israel, and given the recent history of aggressive behavior against them it seems that they made the correct decision ...and got a few acres of high and dry land for their trouble.

It seems that "A man hears what the market researchers think he wants to hear". Or more nefariously, what the ideologues at Google want him to hear.

This stuff ain't nuthin' compared to some of the ridiculous (and ridiculously expensive) "must have" doo-dads peddled to some big bucks audiophiles. At least this skydiving stuff does something. But I'd prefer to have my ears open for what's going on around me, especially in the landing pattern.

Here's one I drew up last year and posted in a similar thread topic. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3866083;search_string=political%20spectrum;#3866083 I think anyone who defines or devises a "political spectrum" will do so from their own political/ideological vantagepoint and just that, in itself, will cause these graphs to be constructed differently from person to person.

Well, the topic is just not as interesting to me now as it was this morning anyway.

...Not your grandma's pyrex casserole Long, but worth seeing.

that and the sandwich is pretty much it. It's not Eastern European bad, but history is not going to remember the Brits for their contributions to food. Really, so what has America got that is any better at all? a hell of a lot. That you don't know any better is another sign that you're British. We could say the same. The whole Brit food myth is due to GIs coming over during WWII when there was rationing and everything was boiled. Things have moved on a long way since then. As is the old teeth joke - dentistry has moved on a lot in 70 years. See -> One of my dad's war stories was about fish 'n' chips. On "frying day" (only once a week or so) they would try to be first to grab one of the bicycles at the base to run down to the nearby community (Hingham or Attleborough) to get some "fresh" FnC. It was especially good after a steady diet of "potted meat". He said the vendor would serve it wrapped it in a "cone" of old newspapers. They then would ride back down the road between high hedges looking up at the night sky for enough light to navigate down the road back to base. By the time he got back the old frying grease and the newspaper ink had run down his arm. They also combined to give the fish and chips a uniquely charming flavour. ...Quite good, though, he said.

So, someone has figured out how to "hire" mercenaries, and instead of having to pay them you get them to pay you! ...sweet!

Yeah, you pretty much made those points clear in an earlier thread a few weeks ago about State laws vs. Fed laws and preemption, etc. I do think it is a good thing that these conflicts get tested from both directions. But my question was more about the wording of Murphy's letter and his statement that the proposed Texas law would cause them to lose the ability to ensure airline safety that (by implication) they have now. IOW, They can presently ensure (guarantee) safety and will allow flights but the Texas law would remove that existing ability to ensure safety. So any terrorist action that occurs would be because of their failure to foresee the security hole that allowed the attack. It gives the impression that, since they now allow flights, they have it covered

clicky “If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.” Is DOJ setting an unattainable standard for TSA here? Is the attorney saying that without the proposed Texas law that safety is being ensured and that canceling flights is not necessary? Would TSA and/or DOJ be held responsible for their failure to ensure safety for any other reason in the event of a terrorist attack? The simple fact that a terrorist attack occurs would mean that they failed to ensure safety in some way. (Of course they couldn't be held responsible in any real sense ..."sovereign immunity". It would only be the "Janet Reno" type of accepting responsibility ..."OK, I fucked up, people died, let's move on". Well, words to that effect. Responsibility without Accountability.)

The entire American style of "classifying" a person's "race", or for that matter, "ethnicity", is so arbitrary and rife with inconsistencies as to be utterly (and factually) useless. He's an Eastern Hemispherian-American ...same as me.

Yep; everybody knows that the best American food is Chinese and Italian. But, the Brits have Indian, so at least there's hope. I heard their "Fish 'n' Potato Wedges" are pretty good.