Train watching again

As I posted before Chimpy invaded Afghanistan and Iraq I noticed a huge increase of train traffic near my house here south of Chicago. I normally see between 3 and 5 trains go by here a day. Well guess what? Lots of trains going by here again for about a week now. Up to 50 or 60 a day. Two at a time going in both direction some times. Long heavily loaded and slow moving with three engines all burning diesel. Lets have some guesses who the idiot is going to invade next. Because I think he is going to invade someone again. Shit.

Don

Where they are going to get the troops is beyond me.

eom

was next on their list...

Iran or Syria are obvious choices. But it would be an odd choice during the election cycle. A gamble to be sure. I mean how does Kerry respond to this? "We must suppor the troops even if we disagree with the president." "Why is this President determined to pursue this military adventarism?" I'd prefer the second, but both have potential political down sides.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

Are they all heading south? Can you tell what is on them?

Mostly containers. But some look like large car carriers. Large enough to carry armoured personel carriers.

Don

Usually, tanks, trucks, APC's, and so forth will be transported on flat cars about 80 feet in length. You can clearly see the cargo. The flat cars are often painted haze gray or olive drab. They have reporting marks DODX-something.

Containers can hold anything from trash to Panasonic wide screen TVs.

I could be wrong.

suddenly "unhappy" with Iraq, even the "casual" RWers would say the chimp is out of his mind if he did something like this. And you couldn't exactly sell it on WMD now, could you?

It could only be contemplated if he was ready to be voted out by all 50 states, or declare martial law and cancel elections.

My guess would be Venezuela. Lots of oil there.

Don

That is about all Junior might need to get elected. Cuba is not out of the question either.

Don

the next 'attack' :scared: is coming to Chicago, so they're movin' all the good stuff out now.

:tinfoilhat:

(edit: Jeez I wish I lived in a world where one didn't have to imagine crap like that.)

I wouldn't be surprised if you are right.

parts and vehicles for the stuff broken or blown up over there. Also could be equipment for the new Iraqi "security" forces.

Port Newark had a huge amount of outbound traffic just as the war was ending.

These guys like invading countries, but I can't see how they could possibly do even Syria with what we've got left. Iran is completely out of the question-- it's bigger and badder than Iraq and there's no evil dictator we can pretend we are deposing "for the people." They're gonna fight back.

Cuba's a good guess, though. Makes the point to the Marxist in Caracas without having to fight in the jungle again. There's already enough Venezuelan force we paid for to take him down if he doesn't play ball.

ground invasion but i'm sure we have plenty of bombs left and enough planes and ships to flatten pretty much anything which may explain why some ships were deployed to the gulf a couple of weeks ago. I think Iran is way off the table, far bigger population than iraq, Syria wouldnt surprise me at all though.

I Saw huge a increase in train traffic for Gulf War I and a little before Afghanistan and Iraq II. I guess normal traffic would be to the Eastern seaboard. Hey, I live next to the Odgen line so I really notice these things.
On a side note, I live under the flight path to Travis AFB and have noticed a large increase in air traffic lately. C-5's, C-141's, air refueling tankers (KC-10's ), C-131's, C-17's, and even a couple of F-16's. It's hard to mistake a C-5 because conversations have to stop when they pass! Do you suppose troops from Korea are being repositioned as we speak?

yesterday I saw pairs of fighter jets fly overhead, two every couple minutes or so, for a very long time, maybe an hour, maybe more. Late yesterday evening more flew over, for about the same period of time. All flying north.

Last time we saw that was right before the war.

I'd say that's a spike. I do hope you are wrong this time.

Some reasons I think so:

I have a friend from my Army days who's still serving. He's currently in Landstuhl Germany. They're currently undergoing a lot of heavy prep work and the rumors are that it's in advance of a near future invasion of Syria.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1450929

he saw a huge train hauling freshly painted desert-sand heavy armament on it's way to Fort Hood from Stewart and Stevenson (near Houston). Said it was armored personnel carriers and 109-A2's (self-propelled Howitzers). He's thinking Syria is next.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1448892

The United States has been fighting what officials term a silent war with Syria which killed at least five soldiers over the weekend.

U.S. officials said U.S. Marines have deployed along the Syrian border to stop the flow of insurgents and equipment to Iraq. They said Marines have engaged with both Sunni insurgents as well as some Syrian security personnel along the border in clashes that have intensified over the last few weeks.
http://216.26.163.62/2004/ss_syria_04_19.html

Cambodia is to 1970 as Syria is to 2005.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1451333

But for all the sabre rattling, and despite the administration's recklessness, there's disbelief that the US could be so foolhardy. Where, for example, could the extra troops come from?

Well, how about Israel?

Israeli Army Radio reported that a cabinet minister, Gideon Ezra, told Sunday's meeting the next target would be Hamas's main leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, who lives in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

"The fate of Khaled Meshaal is the fate of Rantissi," Mr Ezra told the meeting. "The minute we have the operational opportunity we will do this."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/19/1082357118446.html

A Syrian parliamentarian has expressed his rejection of the American repeated demands for his country to dispatch forces to guard its border with Iraq in order to prevent the sneaking of what Washington call foreign fighters, noting that Damascus will not isolate its borders with Israel in order to help the American forces in Iraq.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/040421/2004042116.html

Just last year, the sight of US and Israeli troops conducting a joint action upon an Arab country would have been inconceivable. But is anything inconceivable now? Bush and Sharon have torn up the road map. There's not even the pretense anymore that the Bush White House cares about the "Arab street," other than that it be brought to heel.

So is 50-60 trains, up from under 5 a day.

So, we'll have to watch for the propaganda build-up, won't we? We've already got a Syria resolution of some sort on the books, don't we? And the Chalabi-Iran fabrication (or at least I believe it's a fabrication) which I said yesterday I thought was potential backstory for extending the war in that direction...

We're pulling troops out of NKorea, so it doesn't seem like that's what we've got planned.

However -- we ARE sending many more troops to Iraq, so I'm wondering if this could simply be support stuff for them?

We're going to have to watch this very carefully. But DAMN, reading this thread gives me the creeps and I keep getting images of what it must've been like in Nazi Germany when Hitler went crazy with whatever happened after the invasion Poland. Shudder

here in the Bay Area before the invasion, it was months in advance. They have to preposition equipment and troops long before an engagment.

Also, in the months before, I heard from a neighbor who worked for United Airlines that they were cancelling flights so they could flying huge numbers of soldiers out of a midwest hub.

I haven't seen anything strange as far as air traffic, but will ask my neighbor if he's noticed anything.

Look at all they have been up to -- preparing for a draft that includes women and special skills persons, looking at calling up inactive guard members, trying to get permission to use the IRS database to track down guard members who may have not fulfilled their requirements -- we are talking about a potential of tens of thousands of additional guard members alone.

Perhaps they are now in a hurry to get the new Iraqi forces in place so they can free up troops to move on to Iran/Syria, with Iraq as a launching base.

Just had a thought -- there is supposed to be huge shipments of new armoured vehicles going to Iraq -- I wonder if that is what you saw??

Rally all those red-baiters! Support our way of life!

Yes they did.

Don