By: Mordechai Ben-Menachem, HUMAN EVENTS
During Operation Protective Edge, in 50-days of combat, about 2,100 Palestinians were killed – perhaps nearly a third of them appear to have been civilians. The IDF fired 34,000 artillery rounds; 12,000 were smoke, 3,000 were illumination, and 19,000 were explosive; at a cost of about 4,000-5,000 shekels per shell. Hamas extensively uses “Qassam” rockets which cost about 500 dollars each (largely funded by US and European taxpayers). These are blocked by Iron Dome whose rockets cost about 50,000 dollars each. This is now called asymmetrical warfare. Rather an understatement of a new sort.
At the same time, while in what used to be called Iraq, Sunni insurgents (a.k.a. Islamic State) have been moving fighters, weapons and supplies from western Iraq through secret desert tunnels to Jurf al-Sakhar, Iraqi officials have said. (US air-strikes can’t find and bomb them in tunnels.)
Egypt has now destroyed some 1,800 tunnels between Gaza and Sinai. Hamas is complaining that Egypt is damaging their economy. Egypt is complaining that Egyptians are dying by the tens.
Tunnels are growing more ubiquitous.
This article is a ‘Heads up” but not about tunnels, per se, but about one aspect of the war being waged against the West for the past two decades (read that as past 1,400 years – two decades is the ‘present iteration’).
Iran is the global epicentre for the Opium trade and its derivatives, and has been so now for at least ten years. Some ten percent of Iranians are drug users. This has been as large a foreign currency earner for the regime as has oil. The richest man in the world is not Bill Gates or Carlos Slim. It is Ayatollah Khamenai, but Forbes is afraid to tell you that. His net worth now exceeds 90 Billion Dollars; much of that is drug money. Where is Mr. Reagan who had the courage to take out Noriega and put him behind bars?
For well over a decade, perhaps closer to two, Hezbollah has been king-maker, and prime weapons supplier, of Latin American Drug Cartels. They have extensive tunnels throughout the region and under the United States border region. While Iran has an extensive missile infrastructure in place, in several Latin countries, aimed at the US heartland.
Lately, for the first time, we are seeing reports of Sunni activity in Latin America rivalling that of Shia Hezbollah. If there is any surprise here, it is that it took them (the Sunni) so long to get started, where Hezbollah has had a business monopoly for so long.
The Sunnis had a built-in disadvantage in that they had no unity to direct these activities. Business activities over great distance are difficult without smart management. Dr. al Baghdadi, the Caliph Ibrahim, is finally providing that missing management and direction. He’s a smart fellow. He is also getting very rich. Islamic State is building a drug network to rival that of the Shia.
Their first base seems to be Ecuador – but these reports are still unconfirmed.
This is VERY bad news for the United States. This is very good news for the Latin Drug Cartels.
Heads up America, your real war is being fought right in your heart land and your leadership is AWOL.
@ yamit82:
Damned if that doesn’t sound (in each-&-every particular) JUST like that clown who frowns bleary-eyed at PresentCompany from the mirror every time he crosses the threshold of his bathroom door.
Nobody ELSE hereabouts — and I mean nobody but NOBODY else (not even the windy & witless turkey to whom you addressed your comment) — is anywhere NEAR as tightly and thoroughly wedded to an ideology as PresentCompany
— nor as closed to the notion of questioning it (let alone, acknowledging his attachment to any part of it as being ‘wrong’) . . . . as he.
yamit82 Said:
HMMMMM? the $64,000 question…..this is a hard one…
yamit82 Said:
a job for your scimitar?
@ bernard ross:
Begins with Cave….
yamit82 Said:
who’s that, pray tell?
Interesting article which demonstrates the presence of ex saddam military and especially gives an explanation as to why IS eliminates other Sunni forces. It appears that they view the fractious sounni competing groups)(FSA,Nusra, etc) as being MORE dangerous than their designated enemy in terms of being able to hold onto their gains once conquered. They see their competitors as preventing their victory against the enemy. They treat the cancer within the same as the enmy without and give it first priority. This is likely the view of the saudis towards the sunni groups they began in collaboration with the US. They probably view those groups as ineffective due to trying to meet international norms for liberation movements when they know that terror is much more effective. Hence, they distanced themselves from jihadis in the couple of months prior to the emergence of IS so they would not be associated with the group who has achieved their goals using their methods.
This reminds me of Israel where the left appears to be a greater danger than the enemy itself. The enemy is conquered but the left incites the world against Israel and seeks to give Israels gains to the enemy. IS methods are cruel and barbaric but are they actually more cruel than the despicable libels of the left that MUST result in dead Jews? The libelers of the left and europe must be aware that their lies murder Jews. Personally I wish ISIS on Europe and sometimes wish for kapo Jews the same fate.
@ bernard ross:
@ bernard ross:
Neither Israel nor the Palis earn even a thought in the minds of Arab rulers… It’s Iran stupid!!! Israelis no threat to them nor any impediment for making money.
Israel if anything is looked upon as a possible regional defensive umbrella against Iranian Nukes and regional hegemony. They seem to have given up on America and even they can’t understand why Obama is beating a dead horse when everyone know where the real source and problem lies.
Obama the ideologue reminds me of a poster to this blog who can never admit to making an error or misreading the tea leaves. To do so he would have to reevaluate all of his preconceived ideological foundations to his long held beliefs. He will never concede that willingly
LOL, the manadatory “Israel” statement required for the street…
Such a transparent and absurd logic:
the fact that terrorist groups “USE the plight” and read their script means that their usage of the plight is a FACT, LOL, if they say it then it must be so. More amusing is that the sunni jihadis of the spring in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq do not appear to have mentioned Israel or the plight of the pals. there is a marked absence of anti israel rhetoric among their issued memos. This demonstrates the “plight” of tthe saudis in their “relationship” with Israel.
Faisal spelling out the Saudi focus and goals?
Faisal warns and PRESTO, ISIS appears.
without IS Saudi would not have any leverage in Lebanon,Iraq or Syria
@ bernard ross:
Still are in Afghanistan…Finances much of illegal CIA operations off the official books. One of the reasons why Poppy fields left intact.
Latest poll in Lebanon show christians supporting Hezbollah ostensibly because they feel Hezbollah best positioned to protect them from ISIS.
Isnt the bekaa valley also poppy fields for opium?
Perhaps the bush takeout of Noriega was that he welched on a drug running relationship. the CIA was long known to be involved in the guns and drugs business.