From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

George Sherwood wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 10:53:42 +0100, Adam wrote:
>
>> George Sherwood wrote:
>>> On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:05:10 +0100, Adam wrote:
>>>
>>>> http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/06/02/syrianbase.shtml
>>>>
>>>> Y'know wot I woz saying wrt sailing AD warships in for a
port visit when
>>>> the Israelis were bombing Lebanon....welll..... seems like
the Russians
>>>> have twigged the idea...
>>>>
>>>> http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/06/02/syrianbase.shtml
>>>>
>>>> "Russia has begun works in the Syrian port of Tartus
seeking to built a
>>>> full-scale naval base for the ships of the Black Sea
Fleet, currently
>>>> based in Ukraineƒ’s Sevastopol, the Kommersant newspaper reported on
>>>> Friday, quoting unnamed sources in the Defense Ministry
and the General
>>>> Staff of the Russian Navy.
>>> Actually pretty old news.  Nothing to do with the present
conflict in the
>>> Middle East.
>>>
>>> George
>>
>> So you say. Amazing timing though. & once in place this will change the
>> dynamics seriously. Given this is "old news" then one
wonders if it was
>> this which forced the US & Israel to look for any sort of pretext for
>> acts of violence prior to the establishment of the base(s) & the
>> concomitant AADS.
>
> I don't understand the "So you say".  The article you posted
is from early
> June and I had heard the rumor before.

Yes but you & I know that govs purposely re-announce old news as new
news for effect.

They could have made it go submarine for a while, instead it's all over the
Russian press. My how odd. Almost like sending a signal.



> This is clearly not a result of the
> conflict in July/August in Lebanon as you seem to imply.

The re-announcement is. Possibly the timing of the US-Israeli adventure was
predicated upon the timing of the deployment of the s300'es etc.

>  Also if you
> notice this is denied by the Russians that they will home port ships in
> Syria.

Why would they want to annoy the Turks before they are fully ready?
Russians in Armenia & Syria. My how the Turks must smile.

> Seems to me more like port improvements so they have the option of
> port calls there.  Also have you studied lately the number of underway
> days for the Russian fleet lately?
>

Odd to count the deployment of an AADS as a "port improvement".

Wrt underway days, they only need to put a capable AAW cruiser down there
& then tie it up. No need to burn fuel needlessly cruising the levant
when it's job is to sanitise the air over Syria


Adam

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