In a move that a cynic might note may be designed to save their $900 million investment in Hamas, the Obama Administration has stepped in to block the sale of six Apache helicopters to Israel and also stopped the integration of the Spike missile system with the Apache's millimeter wave radar.

The Obama administration has blocked Israel's request for advanced U.S.-origin attack helicopters.

Government sources said the administration has held up Israel's request for the AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter. The sources said the request was undergoing an interagency review to determine whether additional Longbow helicopters would threaten Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

"During the recent war, Israel made considerable use of the Longbow, and there were high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip," a source close to the administration said.

What a naked, ideologically-driven crock.

Obama's Administration, which apparently has little knowledge of or use for military systems, does not seem to grasp that the use of the Longbow's mast-mounted sensor suite enables it to more carefully select targets that other variants of the Apache, which in and of themselves are a better targeting, surveillance, and attack system than most alternatives.

Nor do they seem to grasp that the close air support function of helicopters with lighter weapons loads is less likely to cause the collateral deaths of civilians than other weapons systems that would have to step into the suppression role that helicopters typically occupy.

Artillery units (in Israel, typically 155mm self-propelled howitzers) fire salvos of "dumb" high explosive or incendiary shells that either burst above the target (spraying shrapnel over a wide area), point detonate on impact, or less frequently, on a time delay that lets them penetrate structures before exploding. But artillery is not designed to be a precision weapon, and Obama's decision could force the Israeli's to use this area weapon, directly putting civilian lives at risk.

The other option for the Israeli's if these Apache's are out of the picture are "fast movers" such as the F-15i and and F16i, fighter-bombers armed with bombs weighing hundreds or thousands of pounds. While they can be armed with precision weapons, the warheads on these munitions are typically larger than those of helicopter mounted weapons. Once again, this creates a situation where the Israeli's are boxed into a less-than-optimal weapons system and put civilians at greater risk of death because of an ignorant decision made by a neophyte's Administration trying to play hardball not with an enemy, but an ally.

The net result is that Obama's short-sightedness and inexperience is potentially leading to a situation that will increase the collateral damage of Israeli strikes, even if the strikes are carried out with the utmost care, because Obama has blocked the sale and integration of the most precise and surgical weapons system available to handle the threat.

Instead of being able to target a Hamas rocket team that has retreated into the garage of an apartment building with a Longbow's precision gunfire or a pinpoint missile strike, Obama's decisions may lead to Israel being boxed into a position where their options are to respond with artillery strikes that run the risk of bringing down the building and spraying everyone nearby with shrapnel, or bombing the building with fighter aircraft armed with bombs large enough to flatten the building and kill everyone inside it.

Obama stupidly thinks that by denying Israel precision-strike capable aircraft and precisions munitions integration that Israel might not fire on the Palestinian terrorists he's provided more money to than anyone but Iran. He thinks he's protecting his investment. Israel, however, does not suffer terrorist rocket attacks on it's neighborhoods and schools, nor should they.

Those innocent Palestinians that may die as a result of this shortsightedness need look no further for a culprit that then man who hides behind the fence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

(h/t Bookworm)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More is coming out about the four Newburgh men who were arrested in a plot to carry out attacks on synagogues in New York City and shoot down C5 Galaxy transport aircraft at Stewart ANG base in Newburgh.

You'll hardly find it surprising that the terror team is bunch of dead-end convicts who converted to Islam in prison, and that none are a threat to join Mensa:

One is a petty criminal who spent a day in 2002 snatching purses and shooting at people with a BB gun from an SUV. His lawyer calls him "intellectually challenged."

Three have histories of drug convictions, one of them for selling narcotics in a school zone. The man prosecutors portrayed as the instigator of the scheme said he smoked pot the day he planned to blow up the temples.

In other words, if they hadn't decided to become terrorists, they would have fit perfectly in ACORN.

As it is, one of the uncles of the suspects feels that he knows where to place the blame:

"The Onta I know wouldn't do something like this, but the new Onta, yeah," said Richard Williams, an uncle. "He wasn't raised this way. All this happened when he became a Muslim in prison."

It's interesting how people who convert to just about any other religion in prison—say, Christianity as a popular choice—come out of prison and often use their newfound zeal as a convert to make something out of their lives.

A blogger friend of mine recently remarked in a private email (hence no name) about how her brother turned his life around after going to prison and finding God there. The one-time petty criminal and recreational drug user is now clean and sober and found a work ethic that has amazed his sister. He now owns a commercial landscaping company. He recently purchased ten acres of land with a pond, and just started building a dream home with his new bride. All of this occurred just six years after he walked out of the prison gates with nothing but his faith and support form his family. He gives all the credit for his phenomenal success in such a short amount of time to God.

If James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen has been successful in their quest to carry out murderous synagogue bombings in Riverdale and managed to bring down a C5 Galaxy carrying even part of its full fuel load of 332,500 pounds—enough to fill more than six railcars—and managed to burn a massive swath of their hometown to the ground—perhaps the massive jet veering into the 2,700 student Newburgh Free Academy (which is very near a landing jet's flight path) in the worst, worst case scenario—they would no doubt give all the "glory" of their massacres to Allah.

It is interesting, and sometimes insane what adherents of different religions think brings glory to their God, and worth noting that what these converts would have lauded as the will of their God parallels what we would expect from the will of Satan himself.

As for Masjid al-Ikhlas, the mosque these men shared on Washington Terrace in Newburgh, I'd like to hope that they were not involved in the plot in any way, or were working with the authorities in bringing down this band of murder-minded misfits. If they were encouraging jihad, however, I hope the authorities shut them down.

There is a freedom of religion in this country, but that stops when the individual practitioners or promoters of the religion use it to destroy the lives of others.

Update: And radicals they are. Phyllis Chesler does some digging and reveals the radical Islamist roots fo Masjid al-Ikhlas.

Perhaps Peter King or another New York politician should consider finding a way to close such radical centers that seem to do little more than condone and organize criminals to become indoctrinated mass murderers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:52 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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When I lived in Newburgh, New York I had a paper route that took me down Washington Terrace, an utterly forgettable section of road in an ugly part of worn-out town.

It's beena few years, but the mosque one source calls Masjid Al Jihad Al Akbar (the local paper calls it Masjid al-Ikhlas, but puts it at the same address) was a worn-looking Islamic Center on Washington Terrace that never seemed to have anyone around when I drove past. If news accounts are correct, the two-story building that may be the only mosque in Newburgh was most likely a link between four Muslim terrorists that were attempting to bomb synagogues in Brooklyn and try to shoot down aircraft with Stinger missiles at Stewart ANG base.

The FBI busted a homegrown terror cell late Wednesday night as the men sneaked around a Jewish temple in Riverdale planting what they thought was packages of C-4 explosives, sources told the Daily News.

The four African American men, three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam, also allegedly had what they believed was a working Stinger missile in their car.

Officials said they hoped to shoot down a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh in Orange County.

Sources said the four men were arrested after a year-long investigation that began when an informant connected to a mosque in Newburgh said he knew men who wanted to buy explosives.

FBI agents posing as militants sold them what they thought was 30 pounds of C-4 and a plane-downing Stinger missile.

The weaponry was all phony.

The ANG plane most often flown out of Stewart is the massive C5 Galaxy, on a predictable flight path that would make the plane a relatively easy target as it came in for landings from any of a hundred possible launch sites along Route 17K or Route 300, with easy escape routes to nearby interstates just minutes away.

I remember that after 9/11 some locals grumbled about wanting to burn down Masjid Al Jihad Al Akbar. In retrospect, if it is the mosque where terrorists came to plot, then finding some way to shut the mosque down certainly seems like an idea worth considering.

Update: Confirmed. The mosque's imam is an ex-con who di d a 12-year stretch for robbery and is the protegee of another Imam who was fired for praising the terror attacks of 9/11.

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