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Best Friends posted:Best case scenario for this guy, the Al Nusra front never has any violent interplay with America or its allies, and he comes home and is on a first name basis with a wide variety of FBI interrogators, and never flies commercial again. Worst case scenario is he falls on the bad side of his new friends, or someone high up just decides he'd make a good hostage or example for something. Everything in between in the federal justice system deciding they do actually have a problem with him. Or there's always normal old combat with the regime. Always that. You seem to have neglected to mention the possibility of his being Schlieren fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 16:44
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Speaking of al-Nusraquote:Al-Nusra helped Turkey capture border gate bombing suspects: Report
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Mar 12, 2013 17:07
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Brown Moses posted:Speaking of al-Nusra Also interesting to show how Assad is using the typical false flag tactics.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:09
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Schlieren posted:You seem to have neglected to mention the possibility of his being I doubt that will happen unless he crosses the line into becoming directly involved in attacks on the US. Right now he's just an idiot who's in much greater danger than he realizes.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:17
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Brown Moses posted:Remember that American who started showing up in videos in Syria? US Army veteran from the DCU era, and a complete dumbass. I was right on both of my baseless accusations! All your shabiha are going to die with you.  I hope he gets killed in a drone bombing from Obama just to see what the public response will be. How could someone who hasn't been buried in these conflicts their whole life think that JAN and groups like them are the real heroes?
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Mar 12, 2013 17:19
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Volkerball posted:How could someone who hasn't been buried in these conflicts their whole life think that JAN and groups like them are the real heroes? He has severe moodswings and a plate in his head. That's why he was discharged from the Army in the first place. Mostly I just feel bad for his dad, who seems like he's pretty much just helplessly waiting for his son to get killed. quote:'Now he has mood swings and what-not,' he said. 'He was already suffering from depression before that, and the accident just kind of multiplied it,' the elder Mr Harroun said he frequently talks to his son by phone. He said he doesn't agree with what Eric is doing but can't get him to stop.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:03
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Kaal posted:He has severe moodswings and a plate in his head. That's why he was discharged from the Army in the first place. Mostly I just feel bad for his dad, who seems like he's pretty much just helplessly waiting for his son to get killed. I was wondering what happened to that guy. So he wants to be the next Adam Gadahn huh? Yeah, drop a bomb on him.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:16
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I don't know, is there any evidence Jabhat al-Nusra has any global aspirations?
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Mar 12, 2013 18:17
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Charliegrs posted:I was wondering what happened to that guy. So he wants to be the next Adam Gadahn huh? Yeah, drop a bomb on him. JAN is Al-Qaeda, but they aren't currently fighting against American interests. Until Eric Harroun actually starts opposing the US, he's no Adam Gadahn and there's no reason to kill or arrest him. He's not doing anything illegal and he's not an enemy of the state.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:25
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Xandu posted:I don't know, is there any evidence Jabhat al-Nusra has any global aspirations? Not that I know of, but the brutal executions of prisoners, burning down of mosques, and all the other generally lovely salafist behavior that has everyone worried about sectarian violence following the fall of Assad you'd think would be a deterrent towards joining them. Few, if any of the "moderate" opposition groups have their hands clean in that regard, but most Western news, and the videos I've seen all seem to suggest that JAN are easily the most destabilizing figure in the region behind the Army. Of course, that's not conclusive at all, but all the same. The only way I could see it is if one was trying to join the most militarily competent group just to basically gently caress poo poo up without thinking twice about it. JAN seems to fit that MO. Edit: Oh the drone thing. I'd imagine JAN is going to be pretty wrapped up in Syria for the next couple years. I don't think they really have THAT many guys either. Somewhere in the 10k range was the last I'd heard. They'd have to really step on the throttle to justify preemptive strikes. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 18:26
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Xandu posted:I don't know, is there any evidence Jabhat al-Nusra has any global aspirations? Well that is sort of the million dollar question. But since one of the overall goals of fundamentalist jihadists is a re-establishment of the caliphate that would pretty much mean they would have to move on from Syria when the war is over. I don't know if its as coordinated as "Hey guys, now that we are done with Assad and established Shariah law, lets all move to Jordan now and continue the resistance!" It appears as though Jihadists tend to appear once a conflict has already started. The civil wars seem to be started by nationalists who want freedom (like Libya) and the Jihadists appear later. The Iraq insurgency is generally believed to have been started by Iraqis, but foreign Jihadists soon started pouring in. And in all of these places they pick up new recruits, some of whom go on to the next conflict. Like how some of the Syrian rebels are veterans of the Iraq war.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:26
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Charliegrs posted:Well that is sort of the million dollar question. But since one of the overall goals of fundamentalist jihadists is a re-establishment of the caliphate that would pretty much mean they would have to move on from Syria when the war is over. I don't know if its as coordinated as "Hey guys, now that we are done with Assad and established Shariah law, lets all move to Jordan now and continue the resistance!" It appears as though Jihadists tend to appear once a conflict has already started. The civil wars seem to be started by nationalists who want freedom (like Libya) and the Jihadists appear later. The Iraq insurgency is generally believed to have been started by Iraqis, but foreign Jihadists soon started pouring in. And in all of these places they pick up new recruits, some of whom go on to the next conflict. Like how some of the Syrian rebels are veterans of the Iraq war. Yeah, there's definitely some truth to that. There will be far more permanently radicalized jihadists as a result of this. I've always liked Hegghammer's categorization of various Islamist groups,  Where with the socio-revolutionaries, you've got groups fighting against what they see as an illegitimate Muslim power, compared to the Umma-oriented violent pan-Islamists, which "fight to defend the entire Muslim nation and its territories from non-Muslim aggression. Among these, classical jihadists will fight conventionally in local conflict zones, while global jihadists fight the West with all means in all places." And then within Syria, you have to consider which groups can be considered purely sectarian.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:33
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That's from a study on just Saudi Arabian muslims, not all branches of Islam worldwide.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:53
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http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/ahmadinejad-image-hug-chavez-mother-photoshop-133036230.html It's a pretty funny read all things involved, doubly so because of Iran's history of photoshop fiascos.
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Mar 12, 2013 19:03
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I know, but I think the categorization is applicable to the whole movement. Particularly the classic vs global jihadism.
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Mar 12, 2013 19:03
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Just watched the BBC2 doc on Syria that was aired yesterday. Definitely a good watch, with some solid historical perspective as well.
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Mar 12, 2013 19:36
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This is getting everyone talking on Twitter, an Israeli mortar round found in Homs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQHT4jptJ9Y
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Mar 12, 2013 21:46
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Private Speech posted:Ehh, it's not that bad. Sure there's a lot of corruption and human rights might not be respected as much as in western europe (and even this isn't really so bad in most of the countries), but the general society is far more free and open. To the point where things are not necessarily all that different from the western countries in the first place. A lot of the general 'shoddiness' of the place has to do with old infrastructure that takes decades to rebuild. Czech Rep, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland didn't seem to have many issues, and they all started in a similar position.
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Mar 12, 2013 22:36
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Can't speak for the others, but Poland seems to have gotten lucky in the transition - the guys who scooped up the privatization of the state (Jan Kulczyk, looking at you) were actually interested in advancing things rather than running them into the ground for a quick kleptocratic profit. Or at least that's the impression I got flipping through the shock doctrine craziness as a side note to some research on the country's infrastructure.
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Mar 12, 2013 22:40
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I've read that a lot of people felt betrayed by having the promise and struggle of free unions get replaced with neo-liberal poo poo. Some have also argued that unemployment has only gone down recently thanks to Eurozone flight of youths and suicide.
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Mar 12, 2013 22:42
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Can't speak for the others, but Poland seems to have gotten lucky in the transition - the guys who scooped up the privatization of the state (Jan Kulczyk, looking at you) were actually interested in advancing things rather than running them into the ground for a quick kleptocratic profit. Yep, the way I see it is that some of the Eastern Bloc countries went the route of development and advancement (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Rep), and others went the route of "gently caress you got mine!" (i.e. Romania, Bulgaria and the Ukraine)
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Mar 12, 2013 22:44
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SilentD posted:http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/ahmadinejad-image-hug-chavez-mother-photoshop-133036230.html This will be hilarious if this is what finally undoes his administration in the upcoming elections. And he tried so hard to get those votes after the fake airplane thing.
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Mar 13, 2013 00:29
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Young Freud posted:This will be hilarious if this is what finally undoes his administration in the upcoming elections. The elections should prove interesting.
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Mar 13, 2013 04:08
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Brown Moses posted:This is getting everyone talking on Twitter, an Israeli mortar round found in Homs This is interesting. They say that it and many others were captured from the signal base although they don't say which base in particular. Also interesting is how the Syrian regime has turned all Jihadi. Bouti, a prominent cleric has called for Jihad, the Supreme Iftaa Council has called for everybody to partake in defending the homeland. This comes at a time when general mobilization is declared, then withdrawn. This sudden pivot in Syrian media from emphasizing secularism and liberty to a rhetoric with a lot of Islamist innuendo in it is strange, to say the least. Martyrs of Chavez Brigade for Secular Jihad in the Levant
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Mar 13, 2013 09:00
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This has got to be a loving joke. They photoshopped beards on to Hugo Chavez and Bashir Assad and then photoshopped hijabs on to Assad's all-women counterinsurgency detail. Also, there's a Rage Comic face on there. What the gently caress is going on?
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Mar 13, 2013 09:24
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Young Freud posted:This has got to be a loving joke. They photoshopped beards on to Hugo Chavez and Bashir Assad and then photoshopped hijabs on to Assad's all-women counterinsurgency detail. It is a joke. EDIT: Facebook is full of Syrian parody pages. Riots in the UK? A whole ecosystem of parody pages appears. Including 'pro-queen' pages and a parody pro-revolution news agency. There are also pages for the Indian Revolution against Mahmotan Singh and the Jahiliya Revolution. Most active of course is the famous Chinese Revolution page, which has spawned various various tank-washes and garages around Syria. Muffiner fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Mar 13, 2013 |
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Mar 13, 2013 10:23
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Young Freud posted:This has got to be a loving joke. They photoshopped beards on to Hugo Chavez and Bashir Assad and then photoshopped hijabs on to Assad's all-women counterinsurgency detail. The "take beeeeeeeer" thrown around in a bunch of the posts didn't tip you off? 
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Mar 13, 2013 16:59
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This is worth a read, looking at two videos that show the same incident from both sides of the battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn1NWU3nGQc&t=327s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxm2bbU9V1M&t=45s
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Mar 13, 2013 17:40
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And somehow both sides manage to miss the footage of the tank attack completely.
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Mar 13, 2013 18:22
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Brown Moses posted:This is worth a read, looking at two videos that show the same incident from both sides of the battle drat, that place is bombed the gently caress out. Also, further proof that tanks in an urban area (or the remnants of one...) are little more than giant targets.
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Mar 13, 2013 18:54
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Brown Moses posted:This is worth a read, looking at two videos that show the same incident from both sides of the battle Good grief. I think I'd throw that sucker in reverse and distance myself from that mess.
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Mar 13, 2013 18:55
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redscare posted:drat, that place is bombed the gently caress out. Also, further proof that tanks in an urban area (or the remnants of one...) are little more than giant targets. Tanks in an urban area are significant force multipliers, but they need infantry support and clear ROEs. If you just drive a tank column into a residential area with suspected insurgents, they're going to get hit before they can react.
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Mar 13, 2013 19:22
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Brown Moses posted:This is worth a read, looking at two videos that show the same incident from both sides of the battle The few RPG29s that were used by Iraqi insurgents against coalition tanks are believed to have come from Syria (or Iran). The RPG29s being used by Syrian rebels are probably from looted regime stockpiles. So its interesting to see Assad getting a dose of his own medicine.
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Mar 13, 2013 21:18
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Brown Moses posted:This is worth a read, looking at two videos that show the same incident from both sides of the battle Huh. That's pretty remarkable. I wonder how many people the Syrian government has analyzing these sorts of videos? The 'documentation of war' must be a goldmine for intelligence services. (And the video-taped war crimes, like those posted earlier, will be a goldmine for post-war courts.) e: this is probably being far too optimistic about the state of the country post-war, of course.
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Mar 13, 2013 21:59
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Young Freud posted:This has got to be a loving joke. They photoshopped beards on to Hugo Chavez and Bashir Assad and then photoshopped hijabs on to Assad's all-women counterinsurgency detail. Rage Comics and Trollfaces are really popular in the arab world. There was one recently with a picture of an attractive female IDF soldier with the text "A Saudi asked his sheikh: If we free Palestine can we have sex with their soldiers? The Sheikh replies: If you free Palestine you can have sex with me (trollface goes here)"
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Mar 14, 2013 08:59
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Dusseldorf posted:And somehow both sides manage to miss the footage of the tank attack completely. The only thing they missed was the projectile hitting the tank. Everything up to the rocket being fired was captured (the camera was knocked down by the backwash) and the immediate aftermath was captured in both. Coincidentally it'd been maintained by many people that the T-72/80 series being prone to explosion or spectacular propellant fires and consequently losing their turret after being struck was a myth to discredit Russian tank designs. Previously most video evidence of it happening came from videos of western tests against combat loaded vehicles, which had spawned claims that the tanks had been filled with explosives or whatever to fake a more spectacular result. Apparently not so much. Edit: Also not really a surprise the place is bombed out. The tanks in the video kept up a pretty high rate of fire and didn't really seem to be providing support fire or attacking identified combatants so much as roving around popping shots into any structure they figured might contain people. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Mar 14, 2013 |
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Mar 14, 2013 13:17
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quote:Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest Islamist movement, criticized a United Nations report that aimed to end violence against women and girls, saying it violates principles of Islamic law.
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Mar 14, 2013 14:53
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Had to rub my eyes for a moment and make sure I didn't wander into one of the Tea Party threads.quote:are little more than giant targets. Without solid infantry support tanks in an urban setting are completely worthless.
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Mar 14, 2013 16:05
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This is the kind of positive thinking terrible civil wars often lack:quote:Success of Chinese Missiles in Syria To Boost Image of Country’s Weapons, Paper Says
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Mar 14, 2013 17:06
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Brown Moses posted:This is the kind of positive thinking terrible civil wars often lack: This really makes me wonder if possibly the Chinese secretly gave a small amount of the FN-6s to the rebels to see how the missiles perform in combat? I know that seems extremely far fetched considering China is on Assads side (officially anyway) but perhaps they don't really expect him to win so they figure giving a few MANPADs to the rebels isn't going to drastically alter the war's outcome and ,like the article says, if the world knows that Chinese MANPADs work well then they might get new customers for them.
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Mar 14, 2013 17:59
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