Dissident Veteran For Peace

Friday, December 25, 2020

Israel & the SolarWinds/SUNBURST Hack

It's interesting how quickly the mainstream media settled in on the unproven and disputed claim that Russia is behind the SolarWinds/SUNBURST hack of US government computer systems. The hack is believed to have begun as early as March 2020 and was first detected by private cybersecurity firms.

Russia is one likely suspect but there are a number of other countries that might have the means and motive for such a cyberattack. However, most accounts only mention Russia and, rarely, China and do not mention the possibility of a cyber false flag attack.

Israel, which has a long history* of espionage and related attacks against US targets, is, to my knowledge, never mentioned as a suspect country. I don't have any evidence that Israel was behind the SUNBURST attack but here are some interesting coincidences not widely reported. They don't all have an obvious tie to Israel.

1. In April 2019, SolarWinds bought an Israeli IT firm called Samanage. Globes described the puchase: "This is the first time it [SolarWinds] has bought an Israeli company. It is expected to set up it[s] first development center in Israel on the basis of Samanage." Samanage was founded by an Israeli cyberwarfare unit alumnus, Doron Gordon. Here's what Gordon said in a 2016 interview:

The Israeli entrepreneurial culture originates from a military-based education instead of a formal collegiate path that is commonly found in Western societies.

My passion for technology started in elementary school and significantly accelerated during my service with the Israel Defense Forces in an elite computer unit. After completing my service, the military experience and friendships developed helped me forge my own strategic framework for building a company and leading a team of highly-qualified engineers to create amazing products.

2. Christopher Krebs, a (recently fired) Trump administration official, who was widely hailed for pronouncing the 2020 US presidential election the "most secure in American history" was the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during the entire months-long period that the SUNBURST attacked went undetected. Krebs was also in charge when "cellphone surveillance devices ... were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington". Unnamed US officials fingered Israel as the likely culprit.

3. "Just days before the [SUNBURST] hack came to light, the firm's [i.e. SolarWinds] two biggest investors, Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo, sold more than $280 million in stock to a Canadian public pension fund", according to Security Week.

4. According to Globes, "The share prices of Israel's two largest publicly traded cybersecurity companies ..." rose "sharply" on the news of the SolarWinds breach.

Note on Israeli Attacks on the U.S.
* For example, there is the 1947 attempted assassination of Harry Truman by Lehi/the Stern Gang; 1954's Operation Susannah/the Lavon Affair, a false flag bomb attack against US diplomatic facilities in Cairo; the deadly 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty; an alleged false flag assassination attempt against the US Ambassador to Lebanon in 1979; decades of transfers of US and US-bankrolled Israeli military technology to China by Israel and other economic espionage; the Jonathan Pollard espionage scandal in 1985; the Lawrence Franklin/AIPAC espionage scandal in 2004; the Ben-Ami Kadish espionage scandal in 2008; and, the Stewart Nozette espionage scandal in 2009. These are only the alleged or confirmed Israeli operations that have been exposed. They are all largely unknown by the American public and Israel has never been held publicly accountable for any of them.

In 2014, Jeff Stein at Newsweek wrote a series of articles on Israeli espionage directed against the United States. Here are some of them:

Labels: China, government, Israel, Russia, surveillance, technology, Trump, USS Liberty, video

# posted by VFPDissident @ 12/25/2020 09:41:00 PM 0 comments

Friday, June 07, 2019

On This Day: Israel attacks USS Liberty

The USS Liberty (AGTR-5) is the US Navy's "most highly decorated ship ... for a single action."* The content in the image below appeared on the web site of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the US House of Representatives until it was removed sometime before July 21, 2011. (click on the image to enlarge it):

The removal of the USS Liberty entry coincides with the takeover of the intelligence committee from Democrats by Mike Rogers (R-MI) and his fellow Republicans, including Michele Bachmann, as a consequence of the 2010 mid-term elections. The "On This Day" feature was apparently discontinued altogether during the same time period. In any case, over the years Rogers has carried a lot of water for Israel (see e.g. here and here).

* Source: Wells, Anthony R. A Tale Of Two Navies: Geopolitics, Technology, and Strategy in the United States Navy and the Royal Navy, 1960-2015. (Naval Inst. Pr., 2017) p. 82.

Labels: Israel, military, United States, USS Liberty, War

# posted by VFPDissident @ 6/07/2019 12:00:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, January 18, 2019

US Troops Prepared to Die for the Jewish State

(U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Matthew Plew)

Less than a year ago Lt Gen Richard M. Clark, an American Air Force officer, spoke with a reporter from the Jerusalem Post during Juniper Cobra, a joint military exercise with Israeli forces. Clark's Israeli counterpart, Brig Gen Zvika Haimovitch, told the Post: "While 'the exercise demonstrates the close and strategic cooperation between the IDF and the US armed forces,' Haimovitch continued, Israel has the capabilities to protect the country from threats posed by its enemies."

To reiterate, according to Haimovitch, Israel can take care of its own military needs. Nevertheless, later in the article, the remarks of Clark, the ostensibly American military officer, are reported as follows:

According to Clark, the US and Israeli troops will work side-by-side under each other’s relevant chain of command.

“As far as decision-making, it is a partnership,” he continued, stressing nonetheless that “at the end of the day it is about the protection of Israel – and if there is a question in regards to how we will operate, the last vote will probably go to Zvika [Haimovitch].”

Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist Israel with missile defense in times of war and, according to Haimovitch, “I am sure once the order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our deployment and team to defend the State of Israel.”

And those US troops who would be deployed to Israel, are prepared to die for the Jewish state, Clark said. [emphasis added][1]

This is amazing for two reasons. First, the command authority for the American military forces is invested in the President of the United States, who is designated in Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution as the "Commander in Chief". Transferring operational control of US troops to a foreign commander is a controversial matter and not a decision for Air Force officers, not even generals. Here is what current US military doctrine says on the matter:

Operational Control. While the President cannot relinquish command authority, in some multinational environments it might be prudent or advantageous to place appropriate US forces under the OPCON [operational control] of an MNFC [multinational force commander] to achieve specified military objectives. In making this decision, the President carefully considers such factors as mission, size of the proposed US force, risks involved, anticipated duration, and ROE [rules of engagement]. Normally, OPCON of US forces is assigned only for a specific timeframe or mission and includes the authority to assign tasks to US forces already deployed by the President and to US units led by US officers. US commanders will maintain the capability to report to higher US military authorities in addition to MNFCs. For matters perceived as illegal under US or international law, or outside the mandate of the mission to which the President has agreed, US commanders will first attempt resolution with the appropriate foreign MNFC. If issues remain unresolved, the US commanders refer the matters to higher US authorities.[emphasis added][2]

One wonders if Lt Gen Clark was speaking out-of-turn or on the basis of knowledge that the existing agreement he referenced proactively relinquishes the operational control of US forces to Israel.

Second, I took the US military oath of enlistment twice and I just don't remember the part about being willing to die for Israel or any other foreign country. Of course, every member of the US military, hopefully, understands that they may be required to put their life at risk while abroad in fulfilling their oath "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". But they would be putting their lives at risk, at least ostensibly, to defend the United States and its vital interests. I wonder what the troops would say if they knew the commander of the US 3rd Air Force was telling Israelis that they—US troops—were willing "to die for the Jewish state". I think I know what the survivors of the USS Liberty would say.

In writing this I was momentarily tempted to say that it is surprising that Clark's comments were not more widely reported in the US media. In fact, I am unaware that they were reported by even a single US mainstream media outlet. However, over the years I have come to realize that, for the most part, the US media is a propaganda mill that actively and/or passively works to keep the American public misled or uninformed about many or most important aspects of the US-Israel relationship.

Notes
1. Anna Ahronheim, "U.S. and IDF troops, in major joint drill, simulating battle on 3 fronts", Jerusalem Post, March 8, 2018.
2. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States (PDF), March 25, 2013 (incorporating Change 1 of 12 July 2017).

Labels: Israel, Jews, media, military, United States, US Constitution, USS Liberty

# posted by VFPDissident @ 1/18/2019 09:17:00 PM 0 comments