Sensible Erection | Israelis killed in Bulgaria bus explosion

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Israelis killed in Bulgaria bus explosion

quote [ "We cannot confirm yet that this is a terrorist incident, but Iran and Hezbollah have been responsible for incidents like this in the past." ]

This happened just hours ago and PM Netanyahu is already publicly blaming Iran. Stay tuned for further developments.

Updates from Haaretz.
7 reported dead so far.

Netanyahu: "Iran is responsible for the terror attack in Bulgaria, we will have a strong response against Iranian terror."

This immediate and explicit assignation of blame is worrisome, to say the least.

[by sanepride@6:13pmGMT] [+4 Informative]

Comments

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 6:26pm GMT on 18th Jul
Well, I suppose there is a slim possibility that Ireland or Japan are behind the attacks...no reason at all to suspect Iran right off. Other than it is probably Iran...

afrasr said @ 6:42pm GMT on 18th Jul
Oh please.

Iran KNOW that Israel are itching to nuke the fuck out of them, because they are going to take away Israels strategic nuke advantage in the middle east.

This means Israel would have to *gasp* negotiate on a *shock* level playing field !

This smacks of the same thing that happened during Sept 11. Within hours of it happening, Iraq was being mentioned as the culprit.

Given that Netanyahu's governing coalition is in the process of imploding, and the Israeli parliament is in summer recess , not much will happen except Netanyahu waving his dick in Iran's direction.

I say again IRAN ISN'T THIS STUPID !

It'll be the usual suspects.

sanepride said @ 6:49pm GMT on 18th Jul
Let's hope that it's just his dick he's waving.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 6:50pm GMT on 18th Jul
No, Iran is pretty stupid, but not so stupid to think a minor terrorist act will prompt israel to nuke Iran...now that is stupid....what is one more terrorist provocation from Iran, piled high on top of the other 1000 or so....Israel will no doubt respond, but it will be more likely a measured targeted response rather than the hysterical nonsense you just spouted.

afrasr said @ 6:55pm GMT on 18th Jul
So they'll go into the west bank, shoot a whole heap of un armed civillians, bomb some random houses, and build another 5000 settler homes then?

So just the normal response?

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 7:36pm GMT on 18th Jul
Yes and they will likely carpet bomb Gaza, kill everyone there and turn it into the worlds largest theme water park.

Does that make your outrage feel better?

sanepride said @ 7:03pm GMT on 18th Jul
Obviously a nuclear strike is highly unlikely, but any direct military strike on Iran will be a major escalation of hostility and could very well spark a dramatic regional conflict. It's very disturbing that Netanyahu is all but promising payback before the smoke's even cleared, without even forensic evidence of a bomb, much less Iranian involvement.
And it's not a foregone conclusion that Iran was involved, either directly or by proxy. There are still other players capable of carrying out such an attack, including Al Qaeda affiliates (who being mostly Sunni, would be adversaries of Iran as well).

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 7:35pm GMT on 18th Jul
AQ has been more inclined to attack the "west" rather than Israel. I can't even think of an AQ attack on Israel.

Hezbollah on the other hand has launched terrorist attacks on Israelis far from home before...so there is more of a chance it was an Iran proxy than AQ. And if as the PM says is true, that Iran is behind a string of recent attacks....

I don't think it would be a military response. There usual response to this is to send agents and off some of those involved. Probably as I write, there are bagmen in Thailand, Indonesia and Georgia who are very nervous about answering their cell phones.

sanepride said @ 7:57pm GMT on 18th Jul
Pretty strong language there for just covert action (which they would probably do anyway). Not to mention that this is the first serious attack against Israeli civilians in years.
I would fully expect something highly visible, dramatic, and soon. Chances are they already have it planned out.
Sure there's a reasonable chance Iran or a proxy like Hezbollah are behind it, but I'd like to see some sort of convincing evidence before F-16's swoop down over Tehran. Our friend afrasr may have a flair for dramatic exaggeration, but it's no secret that the Netanyahu government has been itching for an excuse to strike Iran for some time now. If this isn't it I don't know what is.

afrasr said @ 8:07pm GMT on 18th Jul
Without US help, Israel can't rain down any sort of airstrike on Iranian targets.

Israels jets just don't have the capacity to get there and back without mid air refueling, and currently Israel does not own any flying tankers.

Tactics are discussed here

http://wartard.blogspot.ca/2010/11/my-favourite-war-that-hasnt-happened.html

So... this is dick waving by Bibbi at the moment. If the Israelis DO conduct airstrikes on Iran, people are going to be pointing the finger at the US for aiding encouraging Israel.

cb361 said @ 8:21pm GMT on 18th Jul
The Berlin Wall fell a year later and the world got all misty eyed. We were supposed to believe that a world without war was possible from then on because the Russians had run out of money. Stupid humans thought a new war free age had dawned and the human habit of killing themselves for fun and profit had gone away.

I remember that. The Berlin wall came down, end of apartheid in SA, Iran/Iraq war over, progress in Northern Ireland and other places too. At the time it felt like the human fucking race had finally got its fucking act together. A Human-fucking-being Spring.

mrcucumber said @ 8:56pm GMT on 18th Jul
That was back when when you had optimism, right?

cb361 said @ 9:04pm GMT on 18th Jul
And then Saddam fucked it up. Oh well - if he hadn't, somebody else would have done it.

sanepride said @ 8:32pm GMT on 18th Jul
Interesting analysis on that site but I don't see any mention of the refueling problem. Everything I've read indicates much of Iran is within striking range of Israel's arsenal of F-15's (which have reportedly been refitted to extend their range), , various drones, and of course missiles and naval artillery. They could indeed wreck some havoc on their own.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 8:45pm GMT on 18th Jul
Israel operates hercules and B-707 air tankers

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 9:45pm GMT on 18th Jul [Score:1 Funny]
I find it amusing that there are people who are convinced that Israel has the bombs but are equally convinced that Israel can't refuel in mid air.

Consider...Israel has never tested a nuclear weapon.
Israel has never confirmed or denied they have nuclear a weapon.

Clearly the ambiguity works in Israel's favour. It might even be the cheapest deterrent ever.

afrasr said @ 10:37pm GMT on 18th Jul
Israel has nuclear weapons.

About 200 of them.

And they have tested at least 1 in conjunction with South Africa.

But then again, they probably don't need to test, as they will be getting the designs straight from the Americans anyway.

sanepride said @ 10:43pm GMT on 18th Jul
The Israeli nuclear arsenal is so much of an open secret it's kind of a joke (the estimate I'm aware of is around 300 warheads).

And the attempt at ambiguity isn't so much for strategic advantage but to skirt international nuclear non-proliferation and other containment agreements.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 1:35am GMT on 19th Jul [Score:1 Funny]
That is an estimate based on conjecture. No one has seen one, let alone seen a test of one. The South African test never detonated a bomb....and the israeli connection is again, nothing more than conjecture. Like the claim that israel has weapons, there is no proof. In fact, there has been more proof that Saddam had WMD prior to the US invasion than there is for Israels bomb program

sanepride said @ 2:16am GMT on 19th Jul
For a matter of conjecture, there certainly seems to be a lot of publicly available information about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, much of it thanks to this guy.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 2:52am GMT on 19th Jul
there is a lot about UFOs too....doesn`t make it a fact though

chold_numa said @ 3:29am GMT on 19th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
Exactly.

Which is why Israel has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Wait...

afrasr said @ 4:27am GMT on 19th Jul
Don't worry, at least they signed the convention against biological and chemical weapons..

Right guys ?

sanepride said @ 4:04am GMT on 19th Jul
Right...because these are the same thing.

cb361 said @ 9:05am GMT on 19th Jul
When the CIA suddenly abducts and imprisons somebody in permanent solitary confinement, who claims to have revealed evidence of aliens at Roswell, I'll start to look again at UFOs over new Mexico.

radioelectric said @ 7:08pm GMT on 19th Jul
What the actual FUCK?

afrasr said @ 10:40pm GMT on 18th Jul
Yeah, this can't be cheap to run

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Nuclear_Research_Center

Produces no power.. but is a massive nuclear facility... Gee.. I wonder what it's for.

captainstubing said @ 10:56pm GMT on 18th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
Oh, it produces power. Plenty of it.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 1:45am GMT on 19th Jul
Your definition of massive is hyperbolic. 70 megawatts is not massive. Normal (non massive reactors) produce 787 megawatts.

Or if you like, the Dimona reactor is a little more than twice as large as the one at the University of Toronto

afrasr said @ 4:28am GMT on 19th Jul
Except we have no real idea how big / complex it actually is, because they have never allowed the IAEA into the site, just a heavily knobbled US team, who warned them well in advance when they would arrive.

* (The Asshole FKA Morris) said @ 7:41pm GMT on 18th Jul
And of course, it may only be a coincidence that the attack came on the anniversary of the hezbollah attack in Argentina...

sanepride said @ 8:19pm GMT on 18th Jul [Score:1 Informative]
Just a reminder that the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing remains officially unsolved.

chold_numa said @ 8:58pm GMT on 18th Jul [Score:3 Insightful]
Or a non-state actor, without any direction or support from Iran. I mean, they don't exist and everyone except Iran is great friends with Israel 'cos over the last two decades they've been such swell, upstanding guys, not prone to military excursions at the drop of a hat, or killing people without trial or anything like that.

I was just running some errands in the Middle East the other day (groceries mostly, but also to get a duvet laundered) and all these Syrians, Saudis, Lebanese, and Egyptians were telling me what great neighbors the Israelis were and if it wasn't for those darn Iranians, why, they'd be living in some sort of fucking utopia would you believe.

/sarcasm (in case you needed it)

ckfahrenheit said @ 6:08am GMT on 19th Jul
if it was Japan it would probably have been done by schoolgirls

pleaides said @ 8:35am GMT on 19th Jul [Score:1 Interesting]
It's being reported that the suicide bomber had a Michigan drivers license by AP, which is being examined by the FBI.