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Brown Moses posted:Another example of the importance of infantry support for tanks from Syria Holy crap! I guess they're bunkered down and don't have eyes on anything around them? It reminds me of that Band of Brothers episode, "The impressive thing wasn't when Lt. Spears made it over the wall...it was when he ran BACK."
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Apr 2, 2013 20:20
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Brown Moses posted:I've reached my £6000 total for my Indiegogo fundraiser, I can now blog for the next 6 months without having to worry about getting a real job, hurrah! Hooray! Did you solve the paypal issue?
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May 17, 2013 20:11
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Kurt_Cobain posted:Wow, what purpose does attaching these to a parachute serve? Seems like incredibly effective psychological warfare when you can see what will kill people slowly raining down. If you shoot it, great, you ruined the parachute and now die even quicker. Nenonen posted:More time for the plane to get out of the blast radius in low altitude bombing, among other things. Not only does the parachute slow the descent but it also takes out all forward momentum.
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May 17, 2013 20:32
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Kurt_Cobain posted:So psychological warfare is not involved at all with those? I guess it depends on whether you're freaked out more by immediate, certain death or beautiful floating death. From my experience flying the F/A-18 hornet (*cough*in a video game*cough) that lack of forward momentum is essential for some types of weapons, like the BLU-107 runway bomb, which descends vertically and then fires a rocket to drive itself deep into the ground and buckle the runway so it can't just be paved over.
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May 17, 2013 20:37
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Brown Moses posted:He's pretty bad at arms identification. This is a fantastic post. I hope this stuff in particular gets quoted elsewhere. It seems the consensus is that the victims were staged in some way. I wish there were more reasoned reporting like this at other outlets.
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May 21, 2013 20:33
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Shaocaholica posted:Not to make light of the 15yr old boy that was killed but he seemed to be pretty bad rear end. Can you imagine if God ACTUALLY wanted humans to mete out death sentences based on passing references to someone who talked to him? I understand there's a deep cultural and religious upbringing to extreme religiosity anywhere. But it boggles the mind if you just step back and consider how horrible our existence would be if God was actually so freaking severe. And I concur with this coffee klatch.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:26
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Install Gentoo posted:Regardless of how much oil is actually there, Australia needs to build up the infrastructure and industry to start tapping it and most importantly to export it, before it will really affect the global oil market and have real consequences for middle east petrostates. Knowing nothing about it, I'm curious — would their proximity to southeast asia make them more attractive even if they lack the infrastructure now?
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Jul 22, 2013 21:45
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Raneman posted:Precisely. This further adds to the suspicion as the US seems to be in a very opportunistic position that they weren't a few days ago. Now they have a somewhat flimsy Casus Belli that's good enough to sell to the American people. I'm not convinced there's a big upside to the US for this. Public approval of military intervention in this conflict is at an all-time low. The threat of radical islamists forming the vanguard of a takeover of the country if Assad falls, and subsequent ethnic cleansing, is also high. We're at a low-point of Russia-US relations. What's the real politik upside for the US right now? Far from rushing to war, Obama has been clearly regretting the "red-line" comment.
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Aug 27, 2013 22:21
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cremnob posted:A good article in Foreign Affairs on how to implement regime change in Syria, which is the only sensible option. Anything short of that is just a waste of time and money. Excellent article! Although I don't know whether to add or dock 1000 points for his use of the word, "recrudescence."
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Aug 28, 2013 23:50
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Xandu posted:How does it take 3+ weeks to test biological samples. That seems like a really long time to confirm. Maybe there's only a couple of labs in the world that can break down the compounds and confirm exactly what's in them, and their turnaround time isn't stellar. Edit: I seem to recall that recently there was a manufacturing halt to the rabies vaccines, and turns out it's only made in one factory in all of Europe. Mind blowing!
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Sep 4, 2013 18:05
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Xandu posted:Gotta side with Russia on this one though "Please, I'm not insecure at all. I just feel most comfortable going about my activities, such as hunting, fishing and judo fighting, shirtless and with a posse of photographers."
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Sep 6, 2013 02:11
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Shageletic posted:Some more evidence of the top notch coordinating in the Obama administration. According to today's Congressional hearing: I think you can state both. Proliferation of chemical weapons and normalization of their use could hurt US citizens or soldiers. At the same time, the Assad regime cannot personally strike us.
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Sep 10, 2013 20:05
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Brown Moses posted:Here's my appearance on CNN International's Amanpour talking about Syria. Nice. You got some legit screen time there and Amanpour seems engaged. How long was the unedited interview?
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Dec 17, 2013 21:07
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Brown Moses posted:Are you interested in barrel bombs? Do you like complex scientific formulas about explosions? Then here's the post for you - Syria's Barrel Bomb Technology Relative To Aleppo Syria Attacks - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Very interesting article. You may already be looking into this for your new website but I think it would help a lot to hire a copy editor who could clean up some of the basic errors in your contributors' articles. Richard Lloyd may be an expert in his subject but it's distracting to have so many writing errors and awkward language in his article.
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Dec 23, 2013 01:19
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Aurubin posted:It's at times like this that this New Republic profile of Assad becomes eerily prescient, considering what so many people are agreeing on now: Thanks, this was a great read. Never underestimate someone who thinks about nothing all day except staying in power.
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Jan 16, 2014 04:19
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dj_clawson posted:Oh, and back in Lebanon, this Vice interview went completely loving insane midway through. Even for Vice. Hahahaha holy crap. I like that the Imam hesitated twice before he decided, "Ok, Ok we'll wait to finish until after I shoot some people." You can get in a street fight any day, but interviews with the press only come once in a while!
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Jan 25, 2014 00:46
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FizFashizzle posted:They were both laughing at the end of the gunfight. What else do you do in that situation? You think, "I should ask VICE for a raise."
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Jan 25, 2014 07:39
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Zudgemud posted:He recently discoverd Steam and bought a new rig. Username: "ASHURAxJIHADx420"
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Feb 17, 2014 00:58
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Volkerball posted:I thought they exiled all these people to the new world back in the day. Listen, 50% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid [citation needed]. That could be helping industrious small business owners instead.
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Mar 6, 2014 19:48
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Brown Moses posted:I've been invited a couple of times, finding time is the problem for me. This month I'm off to New York on Monday to meet with Google Ideas, then Istanbul where I'll be working on my book proposal, website launch, and a presentation I'm doing for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, then Stockholm at the end of March to give that presentation, then in April I start the month by doing a lecture to journalism students in Wales, then I'm off to Norway to speak at an investigative journalism conference, followed by another journalism conference at the end of the month in Italy. Hopefully by that point my agent would have got me a publisher for my book, so I'll be spending time writing that. Just think, in another life you could've run a very successful Etsy store. Way to go!
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Mar 8, 2014 22:11
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VICE news has been firing on all cylinders covering the Ukraine, Venezuela and now Turkey protests: http://youtu.be/wG1JndEu_0U They seem committed to posting at least one update a day from one of these countries.
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Mar 14, 2014 20:27
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Autech posted:Lol. He sure is a pathetic lover. Does either mention the other's 'Turkish delight'? Because they should.
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Mar 25, 2014 01:20
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Brown Moses posted:In the war of words between Google and Turkey over YouTube, it appears I'm to play a role gently caress, man. That's crazy. While you've obviously worked your butt off, doesn't it terrify everyone a little bit that we'd consider starting a war with intelligence that's not as good as a guy watching freely available online videos and using deductive reasoning? Definitely gives a troubling impression of military intelligence as something to base policy decisions on.
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Apr 2, 2014 20:28
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Brown Moses posted:As I've met more people with links to the intelligence community, it's become increasingly clear the intelligence community isn't always very intelligent. Supposedly my work is discussed at very high levels in these communities, and based on my recent visit to Sweden to speak at SIPRI I now know I have some long time readers in very influential positions. I think part of the problem is just the machinery of those communities taking forever to pick up on new ideas, and I've pretty much popularised the use of open source information from social media as part of conflict analysis single-handedly, and I think there's probably a certain degree of snobbery involved in all this as well. I can't really discuss a lot of the stuff I do or people I meet, but I'm currently a very busy person meeting lots of people from all sorts of organisations at every level who know my work very well. I'm sure institutional inertia and bureaucratic hand-wringing make intelligence agencies home to simultaneously some of the country's smartest patriots and at the same time most asinine rear end-kissers. So to be clear, I think what you're doing is clearly the way forward for a certain segment of intelligence gathering in the age of the smartphone. But it's also a good reminder that the people who operate at very high levels of policy are just as smart or stupid as anyone else. It helps chip away the illusion of the US and foreign governments are playing 4-dimensional chess, or whatever the metaphor was. And quick question for you BM: are you still planning on rolling out a new website? I've just been visiting your blogspot one. I don't really follow twitter.
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Apr 2, 2014 21:02
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suboptimal posted:So I think we can all agree that the insurgents have better propaganda videos than the pro-Assad side. This is a Shoa' song depicting Hizballah and Iraqi fighters guarding the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus, and it's awful. Pretty sure there's a Hadith against excessive auto tuning.
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Apr 17, 2014 17:07
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suboptimal posted:Your move, 50 Cent. Feels more like a Kanye move, TBH. Edit: George Bush hates Middle Eastern people.
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Apr 22, 2014 20:06
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Umiapik posted:The PLO and Hamas are at loggerheads. Exactly! I was surprised to read Israel's critique of this move, although maybe I shouldn't be. They could at least pretend like they care if it helps moderate Hamas. But they want Hamas to dissolve completely then PLO takes over the strip, I guess. It does make Israel confront their hypocrisy on the unified negotiating front bit.
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Apr 24, 2014 04:47
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Brown Moses posted:Interesting piece on the Southern Front This is fascinating, and one of the few times that I can make sense of the alphabet soup of rebel groups. The SRF is the group that a VICE reporter recently embedded with for a half-hour doc, "Wolves of the Valley". The SRF members show how they have already received non-lethal aid and training from Saudi Arabia, along with heavy weapons and instructions on how to use them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cb3OURdl3g
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May 1, 2014 01:06
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Pimpmust posted:90+ new posts in about a day? That can only mean... Both have been referred to The Hague as war crimes. Unfortunately, SA does not have an extradition treaty.
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May 21, 2014 16:46
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It's the sort of thing that would show up in a ham-fisted fantasy / sci-fi novel to show how oppressive the government is. "Sir, we have rounded up all of the perpetrators involved in expressing their happiness. For these and future thoughtcrimes they will be committed to an iso chamber without parole."
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May 21, 2014 23:55
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While this is the million dollar question, what do we see as the most likely outcome for the political structure a year or two from now? It seems like it will probably be: 1. Government retains control of Damascus and a north-south corridor, 2. Moderate-ish factions in the south and JAN bordering Turkey in the north maintain nominal control of huge swaths of the country 3. From northeast Syria to Iraq ISIS maintains control 4. A continuing stream of refugees adds to the crush of human suffering in camps in all of Syrias neighbors. Unless there's any real external change we can foresee? The moderate stream of anti-tank weapons?
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May 27, 2014 02:54
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Bait and Swatch posted:If they turn the majority of the Sunni tribes, they just have to administer the area they call their caliphate. As long as the region is in chaos, the tribes won't turn on them once they have them under their thumb. This whole thing is turning into the crisis predicted by nearly everyone who watches the region. While this is not a positive development, I think that as soon as ISIS starts doing anything resembling governing they are prone to immediate gently caress-ups. And unlike some parts of Syria they won't be impressing people by distributing pita and gas in an orderly fashion. I would say this bodes very poorly for the Maliki government and the region's stability, but sharia law / caliphate as implemented by ISIS seems untenable anywhere that's not all 20-something men with a deathwish and heavy weapons.
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Jun 11, 2014 05:49
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Kawaii des! 
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Jun 11, 2014 22:40
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MothraAttack posted:Lots of Baathists are claiming this offensive was long in the making, amid reports that commanders in Tikrit ordered the army to stand down. This whole event is more complex than a surprise ISIS win, although that's a bit part of it too. Wait a second, are you saying my black and white interpretation no longer fits? Now how am I supposed to feel??
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Jun 12, 2014 16:12
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Count Roland posted:That number was lower yesterday. Looks like the state department wants to avoid Benghazi part two. Which is nuts when you consider it's already the most heavily fortified embassy in the world and has hundreds of soldiers and local security forces guarding it.
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Jun 17, 2014 00:16
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Volkerball posted:When you're talking about the local security, you have to use the term "guarding" really loosely. Blackwater* keeps offering but no one seems to return their calls. *Now known as Xe** **Now known as Academi
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Jun 17, 2014 00:38
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Dexter Filkins of the NYT was on Fresh Air this Wednesday and got the whole hour to talk about ISIS, JAN and the current state of affairs in Iraq (including speculation on the behind-closed-doors discussion about the American troop withdrawal). It's probably old news for most thread readers, but I still found it quite engaging, A++ would listen again: http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2014/06/25/325506903/fresh-air-for-june-25-2014?showDate=2014-06-25
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Jun 27, 2014 20:18
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Brown Moses posted:Also, what is "live at home blogger" meant to mean? Should I move out of my house while blogging? I only trust the homeless to bring me the latest in breaking Middle East news. It's served me well so far.
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Jul 2, 2014 16:42
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Sergg posted:A shitload of Iraqi special forces were wounded or killed in Fallujah and Ramadi before ISIS kicked off its major offensive. They took horrendous casualties trying to retake those cities. Genuine curiosity, what constitutes a shitload? Is it that 200 killed is a huge proportion or that they've been genuinely decimated? Also, how many "special forces" are there, and by whose definition? In the article above it seems like 50 were a very effective force against a couple hundred irregulars. But I also know that when reading about Central America anyone trained by school of the Americas was considered "special forces" by the media, even if that meant only battle tested against impoverished villagers.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:51
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Randarkman posted:For those interested in the first Anglo-Afghan war and Afghanistan in general I would highly recommend Return of a King by William Dalrymple which came out a few years ago and contains much original research, the author actually travelled into Afghanistan and even through the Taliban controlled parts to locate Afghan sources on the war that have been either ignored by or unkown to Western historians. Thanks for the recommendation, this looks like an awesome book.
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Jul 23, 2014 22:38
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