UAV Fiasco

by
Mike Packer


My friend David M. at the moment residing in sunny Florida, sent me an email in which he noted his concern over a DEBKAfile post of Sept.5 which reported of a raid by Russian Special Forces on two Georgian airfields which were, supposedly, being used by Israeli forces. Tibilisi has allowed Israel to use the airfields as bases for a potential strike against Iran and US intelligence sources have also reported that the Russians had captured some Israeli equipment and carried it home.

The bases were purported to have been used by Israel to fly UAV's over Russia and into Iran. If the equipment that the Russians captured included sensitive Israeli UAV technology then we can bet our bottom dollar that it will soon be in the hands of the Arab nations. This will cause irreparable security damage to Israel and the question that needs to be asked is "who issued permission for these UAV's to be based in such a high risk area?"

According to all the reports that came out of Georgia in the recent flareup the Israeli personnel in the area were from private security companies. This being the case then it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that those crews had their own well-being in the forefront of their thoughts and didn't care a fig for the sensitive equipment that they abandoned.

Of course, this is all speculation but I feel there is a grain of truth in it. I can also imagine who these Israeli "mercenaries" are. Like all mercenaries their only thought is for the money and to hell with the consequences, it reminds me of the then Belgian Congo in the sixties when mercenaries from all over the world gathered like vultures to pillage and plunder what was left during the civil war there. They were, on the whole, the dregs of humanity who had no love for human life and came out of darkest Africa with a fortune in their pockets and mayhem in their wake.

I sincerely hope that the personnel from Israeli security companies that operated in Georgia were of a different mettle, but I have my doubts. To get back to who was responsible they should be brought before a civil court in Israel and be prosecuted for leaking sensitive information to an enemy and as they were there with tacit permission of the Israeli Ministry of Defense then Ehud Barak should also answer for this fiasco.