Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

well not the *only* question but still

if it was an explosion, then an explosive device is a distinct possibility. but airliners are full of jet fuel, which is also explosive. and some items that are not considered bombs, like a scuba tank, can explode in an unpressurized airplane hold. so, there are still questions to answer, even if it was an explosion.

the anonymous intelligence claims are that they have evidence from monitoring ISIS chatter before + after the event that leads them to believe it's a bomb

ISIS is claiming credit

Seems like just a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's then. Wouldn't want to award them the 'kill' if it's not legit.

Getting pretty short shrift from Russian security analysts without evidence being presented.

The headlines seem to have drifted from 'most likely' to 'strong possibility' overnight.

If it was a bomb, it's going to be catastrophic for Egypt. Sharm el Sheikh has been the one constant tourism magnet through everything. In theory it exists in a secure bubble separate from the rest of the country.

Getting pretty short shrift from Russian security analysts without evidence being presented.

Not in Russia's interest for it to be a bomb.

Security analysts and the Russian state don't always agree. There's always going to be an underlying scepticism of anything unsubstantiated leaked by the US though.

Bomb or not, Putin would play it to his advantage. The usual suspects were talking it up as a potential false flag to strengthen his hand last night.

looks like the CIA, Saudi Arabia, etc. are ramping up again in Syria

Saudia Arabia was previously busy causing uh collateral damage in Yemen bombing. Meanwhile, the announced 50 Special Ops US troops are getting the standard reaction-- some folks upset that Obama is getting US that involved in the Syrian mess, while others proclaim its too little too late, and that the US somehow has to get involved more directly in Syria while somehow doing it differently than prior actions in Afghanistan, and Iraq and the Libya support mission. Others want more involvement in an effort to influence talks with the Russsians and others.

@ggreenwald
The campaign vows of presidential candidates are typically unreliable but I believe Clinton means every word of this

Qasim Rashid, Esq.
‏@MuslimIQ
Not even a single word about the illegal occupation or ongoing oppression of Palestinians. Smh

http://forward.com/opinion/national/324013/how-i-would-rebuild-ties-to-israel-and-benjamin-neta/

greenwald much more confident than the ppl i keep hearing from in the jewish community. on one hand there's a lot of unnecessary fretting; lots of ppl very angry at obama for not giving israel full-throated defenses and for suggesting the security council veto won't be automatic or for criticizing israel during the last gaza conflict, while ignoring that fact that he's probably given israel more funding and military support than almost any other US administration. there are maybe reasons to be less certain about hillary's full support for israel - like her relationship w/ sydney blumenthal and there are a number of emails in the recent releases where she praises max's recent work (which is very critical). nb that could easily have just been her being nice about a close friend's son and not necessarily relevant to her own beliefs. greenwald has ideological reasons for downplaying any nuance that might actually exist in hillary's position (ie appealing to mouth-breathing jew baiters like mobrz) but the fact that she had this published in the first place speaks to some of the anxiety in the american jewish community whether it's legitimate or not. fwiw i don't really know from this what she would or wouldn't do - honestly there's little in here that's interesting to me. the most interesting thing re her position to me was when she was on the daily show and made references to the oslo accords in terms of seeing palestinian intransigence at the root of the talks failure. if i were a pro-Palestinian (or an anti-Israel activist) obv something like this wouldn't comfort me - but tbh those ppl are always going to be disappointed by mainstream american positions on Israel. the US polity is vastly more favorable towards Israel than Palestine (ppl worrying about decreasing Democratic support for Israel have not seen polling which shows D support for Israel close to historical highs atm - obv R support has gone off the charts in recent years) so hoping for a POTUS candidate to not give full-throated support is hoping for a pipe dream. nb that pipe dreams are what that activism group live for so at least they're being consistent.

you're a mouth-breathing brain-baiter

that slap at morbz was entirely gratuitous to the point you were trying to make

should've replaced it with a paragraph break

Delightful Mordsian wordplay.

She published it in the Forward. My sense is that the American Jews I know who think "Obama might secretly hate Israel" or "Clinton might secretly hate Israel" invariably think the Forward NOT-secretly hates Israel. Makes no sense to me, but I'm just saying, I don't think this will alleviate the anxiety of those anxious on this.

Those comments on the article are such a cesspool too it makes me wonder who the readership of the Forward is in 2015. Maybe all the pro Israel Jewish readers migrated to Tablet?

https://twitter.com/RamiAlLolah/status/662351496026202112

btw haven't read it yet but war nerd's take on the plane crash will be unlocked at this link for the next 47 hours:
https://pando.com/2015/11/05/war-nerd-russian-airliner-bomb-or-loose-screw/6864e736e4881d21f2c679a84ee6989a6c204fa3/

It's more reminiscence of holidays past than analysis, which is probably appropriate given the lack of evidence, but it's appropriately vivid on the inherent dangers of flying on dubious charter airlines out of places like the Khanti-Mansy Autonomous Okrug.

ime his best articles are travelogues

I'm a pro-Israel Jewish reader and I definitely read the Forward more than Tablet, fwiw

I like the Forward generally and I don't really *get* Tablet a lot of the time.

full disclosure one of my very first journalism gigs was working at the forward and i even wrote a takedown of a jpost columnist (who had been advocated for an IDF military coup) and jj came to the bullpen and gave me kudos for writing it. but i've pretty much switched over to tablet - primarily bc the old a&c editor at the forward (whom i think is great + i've written for a bunch) moved over to tablet and i think their arts + culture writing is much better than the forward. and idk in general even the political op-ed at tablet seem to be more diverse + interesting than the forward which has become sorta one-note on these topics (and there's for sure an anti-orthodox streak at the forward that tablet doesn't have).

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Thursday evening that there was “a possibility” that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the destruction of a Russian passenger plane that broke up last Saturday over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

Guardian leading with "Bomb placed in hold of doomed Russian plane, say reports"'

The reports in question being the BBC saying that an unnamed UK security source thinks based on 'chatter' there is a strong possibility that...etc.

Meduza, the Russian news site, is reporting that the black boxes from the plane have no data on them - possibly because they were not working or not turned on. No confirmation yet though.

looks like bad translation - they apparently contain no useful data, not no data.

Putin Suspends Russian Flights to Egypt Amid Security Fears

guess it wasn't a mechanical failure

http://www.france24.com/fr/urgent/20151106-crash-le-sinai-une-boites-noires-revele-quune-explosion-est-survenue-lors-vol-le-point?

"black box shows explosion"

well that was some quick blowback, way to go Vladimir

i assume putin will be under some political pressure at home to escalate based on this but i wonder if he has more room to maneuver around public opinion than the POTUS might have. it certainly seems like he wanted to deny that it was potentially terrorism for as long as possible - possibly bc he didn't want populist rage to force his hand in any particular direction.

Is it inconvenient for him that ISIS might be on some way be involved in this? Or are Russia now as gung-ho about fighting ISIS as they are about fighting the anti-Assad forces?

The Charlie Hebdo cartoon angering Russians.

lol

i wonder whether "assad's enemies are targeting us" or "yeah russian airplanes are shitty" is the worse story for them. but this whole story is a bit beyond me.

tbh, i think lack of regulation / corruption leading to the crash would be a bigger domestic problem for Putin . He has a lot of experience spinning terrorism.

The entire Romanian government was forced out of office this week because of the perception that corruption led to the nightclub fire. Not going to happen to Putin that quickly but it's arguably one of the things most likely to lead to his fireball.

xpost Yeah, since when has he been reluctant to cry terrorism? Gives him free(er) reign to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants.

Downfall. unfortunate autocorrect.

xp

he seemed reluctant regarding this incident, no? maybe i'm misreading it but it seemed like they held out against saying it even could be terrorism as long as they could, even while the us + uk were claiming otherwise. idk.

I doubt the UK would have been quick to leak rumours if it was their own plane. Russia has not ruled out terrorism but has said it's not appropriate to speculate while investigation is ongoing. Looks by the book to me but idk.

sure i just mean it's not like putin was rushing to exploit "terrorism!" so that he could escalate the war - and even with the most recent news his moves seem to be very deliberate. afaict no passionate speeches about smoking out the bad guys, or public commitments to escalate. if he was looking for an excuse i think we'd see something different from the by-the-book reticence that has until now characterized his response.

He'd look pretty daft if the investigation leads to a verdict of explosive decompression though.

This is astonishing if true:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/06/missed-by-a-1000-feet-how-british-holidaymakers-came-close-to-being-hit-by-a-missile-in-august

A British plane apparently dodged a stray Egyptian missile in August. I didn't know passenger jets could dodge surface to air missiles.

yikes

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/world/europe/confirmation-of-attack-on-russian-jet-may-strengthen-putins-resolve-in-syria.html?_r=0

Alexei Makarkin, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies, saw two main options for Russia. One, he said, was that “Russia can intensify the Syria operation, send more troops and volunteers to support Assad.” That move, he said, would probably worsen already strained ties with the West.

In the second option, “Fighting the Islamic State will become a priority rather than supporting Assad,” he said. “In this situation, Russia will pressure Assad to move toward a transitional government.” Those efforts had already started but not gotten very far before the attack.

...
Last week somebody floated two plain wooden coffins in a canal in St. Petersburg — home to most of the victims — one spray-painted with the question “For what?” in red, and the other with “For whom?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/world/middleeast/as-us-escalates-air-war-on-isis-allies-slip-away.html

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have shifted most of their aircraft to their fight against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Jordan, reacting to the grisly execution of one of its pilots by the Islamic State, and in a show of solidarity with the Saudis, has also diverted combat flights to Yemen. Jets from Bahrain last struck targets in Syria in February, coalition officials said. Qatar is flying patrols over Syria, but its role has been modest.

The engagement of Western allies, like France and Australia, has also been limited.

...
Britain has talked tough about going after the Islamic State, but unlike France, its actions have not matched its talk. Britain currently flies bombing missions over Iraq and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights over Syria

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/t31.0-8/10507021_1187988631215880_6850577068582535421_o.jpg

https://twitter.com/amirtibon/status/663823452902682624