Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Military strike on Iran and/or Syria imminent?

This morning, there was news of a US nuclear powered submarine colliding with a Japanese oiltanker in the Straits of Hormuz. It suggests that the narrow waterway right next to Iran is getting incredibly crowded.

Bush had recently replaced the two most senior generals overseeing the Iraq war, and according to this article from The Nation, it is an ominous sign, and I quote

"The choice of Fallon to replace Abizaid was highly unusual ...

Fallon is a Navy man, with experience in carrier operations, while most of Centcom's day-to-day work is on the ground, in the struggle against insurgents and warlords in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Fallon began his combat career as a Navy combat flyer in Vietnam, and he served with carrier-based forces for twenty-four years after that. He commanded a carrier battle wing during the first Gulf War in 1991 and led the naval group supporting NATO operations during the Bosnia conflict four years later.

...he is primed to oversee an air, missile and naval attack on Iran, should the President give the green light for such an assault--and the fact that Fallon has been moved from Pacom to Centcom means that such a move is very much on Bush's mind."

Ominous signs.

Monday, January 08, 2007

That green flash across the sky on Sunday evening...

By sheer freakish luck, I happened to have seen it. For a while, my heart sank as my ears braced for an explosion. Fortunately, by now, we can safely conclude that it wasnt an aircrash. Whatever it was, it travelled quite slowly, slow enough for my wife to catch a glimpse in the anticipated direction of travel when the object re-emerged after being blocked by some flats. It definitely travelled slower than a meteor. The best way I can describe it is that, it looked like an unusually large ball of fireworks stuff, constantly disintegrating as it moves southwards. No photograph though. Just chipping in my 2 cents worth, desperately hoping to hear the truth about this "UFO".

Update: After reading this account by squareCircleZ, I like to reaffirm that I was in the Bedok Central area, and the object appeared on the east side of where I was heading south. There are some accounts suggesting an alternative direction of travel, which I firmly believe, is wrong. The time was around 7.40pm, as widely reported, just a minute or two in the twilight before the sky turned totally dark. The object was obscured by clouds from time to time, and illuminated the clouds as it streaked past, suggesting that it is pretty higher up than typical fireworks altitude. Given the height, it was pretty fast, but since there was no sonic boom, it cannot be supersonic. Either that, or it was really far away, which could mean that it was a very very large object.