Melanie wrote:
> John: "...they definitely do get things wrong..." Could you
> please amplify your knowledge and provide background to that
> statement and identity of "they". Thank you. Once again we are
> talking about the fictional international law. National laws are
> no longer being enforced. If the UN is not prepared to deal with
> Assad, then the genocide will continue. Israel will protect
> itself. Russia's part in this is interventionist and foolish long
> term decision-making. Those who are trapped are hostages to
> fortune. Israel has been left to deal with this, a matter of
> survival. From a military perspective, the ROE's are obvious.
> However, in the arab and political worlds that vast grey chasm
> holds several ugly possibilities.
A web site reader who was a Debka subscriber used to send me the
weekly subscriber-only Debka newsletters, and I referenced their
findings fairly frequently.
I like Debka's material because the material is extremely interesting,
and is unique, in that it's not found elsewhere, and is based on a
variety of intelligence sources they have in a number of countries.
But a lot of their findings are based on single unconfirmed sources,
and they occasionally get things wrong. So I got into the habit of
mentioning that, if only to cover myself.
The report in today's article is an example. Since Israel isn't
commenting, the only authoritative open source is Sana, which merely
said, "Two Israeli missiles fell in the vicinity of Damascus
international airport."
The Debka report says that the missiles struck an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo
plane, which is completely unconfirmed by other open sources. So what
should I do with that? Well, AFP and dpa say that an Iranian cargo
plane was hit, so I decided that it would be safe for me to say that,
and I even put it in the headline. As for the type of cargo plane, I
just quoted Debka and said they sometimes get things wrong.
Even today, I can't find any news story that confirms that it was an
Ilyushin Il-76. So maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong, but either
way, what I wrote was OK.