There are two big "war stories" out of Israel this morning, and Israel Matzav has them both. They both read more like movies than news reports.
One is the publication yesterday in the London Times of a report ostensibly detailing the "inside story" of the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist. Carl writes that "you might want to take it with a grain of salt. But it rings authentic..."
Unlike at the Times, you can read it for free at The Australian:
.... As the clock ticked towards 8am, an Israeli spotter reported via a secure text that Roshan was being driven from his home. Qashqai was at the wheel, a crucial detail because the bodyguard would be slower to respond if he was driving.
The assassins' commander took the final decision. "Go," he told agents who were standing by with a motorcycle in a hidden garage. They left immediately, weaving through the gridlocked streets of rush-hour Tehran.
In the five attacks on nuclear scientists, the hit squad has used a motorbike every time. The motorcyclist is ubiquitous in the capital's traffic jams, often wearing a surgical mask for protection against the heavy pollution and able to move close to the target between the lines of stationary cars without attracting attention.
They speeded up to reach Gol Nabi Street, which Roshan always passed on his way to work.
At 8.20am they spotted the Peugeot. The masked figure on the pillion seat made a quick check that Roshan was the passenger, then attached a magnetic bomb to the car. The motorbike sped away. The plastic explosive had been shaped to deliver its full force at the passenger. Nine seconds later it exploded. The scientist was killed instantly. Qashqai, badly injured, died in hospital....
Second is the account at YNet News of the latest in global cyber warfare: the websites of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al airlines have been attacked by a Saudi hacker this morning.
Hours after anti-Israel hackers said they would strike the websites of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al, both sites were taken offline overnight on Monday.The prominent hacker 0xOmar, who has been at the forefront of an Internet assault on Israel, and who released tens of thousands of Israeli credit card numbers last month, sent an email to The Jerusalem Post before the attack. He said he had been joined by a hacking team called "Nightmare." The new group "promised to take down" the two websites by morning....El Al released a statement saying it was aware that "a cyber war has been waged against the State of Israel for two weeks. El Al is closely monitoring the activities of the Saudi hacker [0xOmar]."The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange confirmed it was targeted and said it was subject to a denial of service attack (DoS), in which a server is flooded with hits, making it unavailable to other users.
In denial of service attacks, hackers often plant Trojan horses in large numbers of computers, then 'hijack' the computers and order them to send requests to the targeted server, thereby inundating it....
.... Meanwhile, a Jewish pro-Israel hacker named Hannibal published information enabling web users to break into the accounts of 20,000 Arab Facebook users. Hannibal said he held information that would allow for the breaking in to 10 million Iranian and Saudi bank accounts, and threatened to cause billions of dollars worth of damages.
HAMAS on Sunday also called for an escalation of Internet hacking against Israel, saluting Arab programmers who have managed to infiltrate Israeli computer systems.“Penetrating Israeli websites means opening a new field of resistance and the beginning of an electronic war against Israeli occupation,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement e-mailed to reporters in the Gaza Strip.
Maybe the U.S. government should stop working to bring multitudes of foreign students into our country to study [computer sciences and such] at our colleges and universities. Just a thought.
In FY 2009, for example, we offered 243 different U.S. Government-sponsored "international exchange and training" programs involving more than 2.7 million participants -- at a cost to taxpayers of more than $1.8 billion."
On July 24, 2010, twenty-three exceptional English Access Microscholarship Program (Access) students from twelve countries arrived in Washington, D.C. for a three-week workshop in the United States. The students were warmly welcomed to the U.S. by Secretary Clinton at the U.S. Department of State....
".... when all people are given more tools of opportunity,
they are more willing to actually take risks for peace."
--Hillary Clinton, Remarks on U.S. Foreign Policy
And it's not just government per se, but also a mish-mosh of public, private, academic and non-profit overlap:
From October 12 – October 16, the Department of State will sponsor at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) the 2011 Fulbright Gateway Orientation for more than 80 Fulbright students from Pakistan. For the first time, a dedicated Gateway Orientation is being held for Fulbright students from Pakistan, which has the largest Fulbright program for visiting students and scholars in the world.
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) sponsors the orientation to prepare students to adapt to academic and cultural life in the United States and to promote a shared and successful Fulbright experience.
The orientation is jointly administered by the UT-Austin and the Institute of International Education (IIE).
"More than 1,800 new Foreign Fulbright Fellows enter U.S. academic programs each year. Foreign students apply for Fulbright Fellowships through the Fulbright Commission/Foundation or U.S. Embassy in their home countries.
The Institute of International Education (IIE) arranges academic placement for most Fulbright nominees and supervises participants during their stay in the United States.
In October of 2011, the first ever Fulbright Pakistan Gateway Orientation was held at the University of Texas at Austin.
You have to see this stuff to believe it. For instance, who knew that the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs just "announced four modifications to the guidelines governing the award of program grants and cooperative agreements" in order to "futher support the Department's Greening Diplomacy Initiative?
Modification No. 3 increases the "pilot grant limit" (for awards to organizations with less than 4 years of experience conducting international exchanges) from the $60,000 established in 1983 ... to $130,000 "which reflects a comparable ceiling in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation.
"The cyber threat to the United States affects all aspects of society, business, and government, but there is neither a broad cadre of cyber experts nor an established cyber career field to build upon, particularly within the Federal government."
"There are about 1,000 security people in the US who have the specialized security skills to operate effectively in cyberspace. We need 10,000 to 30,000."
I guess none of the 47 separate employment and jobs training programs administered by nine federal agencies at a cost of $18 billion annually... are addressing this shortage.
And just for the record, in case anybody ever looks back on this day in the future, I want to make a note of Pres. Obama's recent announcement at the Pentagon.
WASHINGTON -- In a rare appearance at the Pentagon Thursday, the nation's commander in chief announced a new strategy for America's military -- a strategy to save money.
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