The Opinionated Bastard

See, last night I learned from the PBS documentary that the Soviet Union sold Egypt a bunch of jet fighters and other cool stuff just prior to the 6-day war. They then made up some intelligence that Israel was going to invade Syria (they weren’t) so that Egypt would invade Israel to show off their new toys. Their theory was that this would show the “superiority” of the Soviet weapons.

However, those jet fighters were missing the valves, because the fact was that the Russians didn’t have enough. At one point the Egyptians went to Russia to beg for the parts for their planes. As they put it, they could have carried them back in a suitcase.

Putting two and two together, we see what a comedy of errors the 6 day war really was:

• The Soviets sell Egypt their crappy planes
• Planes missing key components
• The Soviets then tell everyone the Israelis are massing at the Syrian border when they aren’t.
• This pushes Egypt into threatening Israel
• More people get involved, like the US
• The Soviets get cold feet and tell Egypt that they have to provoke Israel into attacking first or they can’t back them
• The US tells Israel that Egypt has to attack first or they can’t back them
• Public opinion in the Arab world turns against Israel, putting pressure on Nasser
• The Egyptians make a lot of trips to Russia
• The Soviets start painting some of their bombers with Egyptian coloring so they can do a fake attack
• The US tells Israel they’re on their own no matter what, but sends an Aircraft carrier closer to Egypt to prevent Soviet involvement
• Israel, since they’re going to be alone anyways, launches a surprise attack against the Egyptian Air Force
• The Egyptian Air Force, which probably couldn’t have flown anyways due to the missing valves, is destroyed.
• Israel kicks Egypt’s ass, because they have total control of the air, so despite being hugely outnumbered, they can destroy Egypt’s tanks and army at will.
• Israel goes on to win against Jordan and Syria, recovering the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Now some people think Bush is nuts for believing that God intended Israel to be there. (If he actually does, I don’t know that he’s ever said that he believes that.)

I’m not so sure. I remember reading about Moses and the Pharaoh, and it doesn’t seem much different. God wants those people there, for whatever reason. Let’s face it, the Israelites are tough little fuckers. How mean are they? They’re so tough that the Romans figured it was easier to spread them all over the world and have lots of little problems then one big problem. Now we’ve let them join together, and we’re surprised they’re so tenacious.

However, there was a lot of weird shit going on in the Cold War. Seems kind of funny that the whole thing was started by the Russians, mismanaged by them, but ultimately brought down because of a little valve somewhere. The Russians were so stoned on their own Kool-Aid though, that somehow, it ends up just being typical of that period.

Update: By “Israelites” above I mean all the people who live or have lived in that region, which includes the Palestinians, the Arabs in that region, and the people of the Jewish faith who live in the state of Israel now. Also, personally, in this age of pansy-ass wannabees, I think being “tough” is a compliment. At least on this blog, YMMV on left wing blogs.