What happens is that most ME countries will have diminished internet access for at least the next 10 days, and even then, many of their communications will go primarily through the US, not Europe. (There was a comment in one of the articles about how, after a cable goes down, communication patterns often remain in the interim path).

I kind of said this before.

First, the Israelis seem to have little to no warning about the Hamas break-out, and there was coordination between Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood and someone else (I forget whether it was Ahmadinejad or Abdullah) got involved in a new way. So there you’ve got an event the Israelis (and presumably, therefore, the US) didn’t “hear” about before the fact.

But there’s another possibility. The US is prepping to put a bunch of special forces into the tribal lands in Pakistan and things are beginning to go really FUBAR there. There’s a whole lot of obscure factionalism in Pakistan, that, if you’re not seeing it, might put off a nuke or something.

So if this was NOT a mistake (and I agree, it seems unlikely), then I’d say one of those two are likely explanations. Doesn’t mean the US took out the cables–that sounds like somethign Mossad would be particularly good at. But when you consider the communication patters (and the way Israel has its own lifeline) you can imagine they’ve kept this in mind as a possible strategy for some time.

Just follow the obvious…

Actually, I only have your old one–remind me.