Middle East Thread of Despair: More Broken Than Syria

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Middle East Thread of Despair: More Broken Than Syria

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mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Xandu posted:

Wow

Car bomb explodes at Syrian funeral in Zamalka.

obviously
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyD0hBR83v8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlBM2wj-44M

this is so like...

I don't even know how to respond to this. I feel sick. Those poor people, this is so disgusting

# ¿ Jul 4, 2012 00:21

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:11

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

something original posted:

photo from the funeral of the pilots today.

Do Turkish funerals for military personnel always have that many high ranking officers and politicians, or is this just politics in action?

# ¿ Jul 6, 2012 16:33

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Now sure how accurate this is:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002403.html

The entry on the website is dated 7/23/12

quote:

I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.

According to the email our cyber experts sent to our teams, they believe a hacker tool Metasploit was used. The hackers had access to our VPN. The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down. I only know very little about these cyber issues as I am scientist not a computer expert.

There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 16:11

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Uncle Jam posted:

As far as I know they hired the north Koreans to build their mountain fortresses.

What? Source, please?

# ¿ Aug 16, 2012 20:16

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

There's no way this could go bad at all, nope, not one

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/internet/news/article.cfm?c_id=137&objectid=10835018

quote:

Fears that a wave of anger in the Islamic world could spread to Europe mounted as it emerged a French magazine was planning to publish cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed.

Satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo confirmed that its latest edition contains several cartoons featuring Mohammed that the publication's editor said would "shock those who will want to be shocked."

The magazine is due to hit the streets later today against a background of protests across the Islamic world over a crude US-made film that mocks Mohammed and portrays Muslims as gratuitously violent.

At least 30 people have died so far in demonstrations held in over 20 countries.

Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy over its handling of the issues relating to Islam.

Last year it published an edition "guest-edited" by the Prophet Mohammed that it called Sharia Hebdo. The magazine's offices in Paris were subsequently fire-bombed in what was widely seen as a reaction by Islamists.

Charlie Hebdo's latest move was greeted with immediate calls from political and religious leaders for the media to act responsibly and avoid inflaming the current situation.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault issued a statement expressing his "disapproval of all excesses."

The magazine's editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the name Charb, denied he was being deliberately provocative at a delicate time.

"The freedom of the press, is that a provocation?" he said. "I'm not asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just like I wouldn't go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go against everything I believe."

Dalil Boubakeur, the senior cleric at Paris's biggest mosque, appealed for France's Muslims to remain calm.

"It is with astonishment, sadness and concern that I have learned that this publication is risking increasing the current outrage across the Muslim world," he said.

"I would appeal to them not to pour oil on the fire."

And France's Muslim Council said it was "dismayed'' by a satirical weekly's decision to publish "insulting cartoons'' featuring the Prophet Mohammed.

The cartoons will appear in an edition of Charlie Hebdo that comes out on Wednesday, its editor confirmed earlier.

The Muslim Council, the main representative body for France's four-million strong Islamic community, said in a statement that it "vigorously condemns this new act of Islamophobia.''

It added: "We launch an urgent appeal to the Muslims of France to not react to this provocation.'

France is home to Western Europe's largest Islamic community, with at least four million Muslims in the country.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2012 04:36

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Pakistan is apparently declaring this Friday a holiday to protest the youtube video

http://www.businessinsider.com/pakistan-friday-will-be-a-holiday-to-protest-film-mocking-islam-2012-9

e: also saw this...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9552147/Syrian-regime-will-deploy-chemical-weapons-as-last-resort.html

quote:

Major-General Adnan Sillu said he defected from the Syrian army three months ago after being party to top-levels talks about the use of chemical weapons on both rebel fighters and civilians.

"We were in a serious discussion about the use of chemical weapons, including how we would use them and in what areas," he told The Times, referring to a meeting held at Syria's chemical weapons centre south of Damascus.

"We discussed this as a last resort � such as if the regime lost control of an important area such as Aleppo."

Speaking from Turkey, General Sillu said he was certain President Bashar al-Assad's regime would eventually use chemical weapons against civilians, adding that the discussion had been "the last straw" which triggered his defection.

His comments come after German press reported on Tuesday that the Syrian army had tested a chemical weapons delivery system.

In his first interview since his defection, General Sillu said the Syrian regime had also considered supplying chemical weapons to the Lebanon-based militant group Hizbollah.

"They wanted to place warheads with the chemical weapons on missiles � to transfer them this way to Hizbollah. It was for use against Israel, of course," he said.

He suggested that the regime now had "nothing to lose" in sharing the weapons and added: "If a war starts between Hizbollah and Israel it will be only good for Syria."

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard also attended numerous meetings to discuss the use of chemical weapons, he said.

"They were always coming to visit and to advise. They were always sending us scientists and bringing our scientists to them. They were also involved on the political side of how to use the chemical weapons."

The German magazine Der Spiegel, citing "witnesses, reported Monday that the Syrian army has tested a chemical weapons delivery system, firing shells at a research centre in its northwestern desert region.

"Five or six empty shells devised for delivering chemical agents were fired by tanks and aircraft, at a site called Diraiham in the desert near the village of Khanasir," east of the city of Aleppo, Der Spiegel reported.

The Safira research centre in question is regarded as Syria's largest testing site for chemical weapons.

mitztronic fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Sep 19, 2012

# ¿ Sep 19, 2012 21:01

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Re: Iran/Nuclear

Is there any reason Iran doesn't use invest in thorium reactors? Always wondered this, never really got a good answer.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2012 17:36

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Pro-PRC Laowai posted:

That, and it really doesn't make a difference. It's not about nukes, or even nuclear power. It's about finding an excuse to bitch at Iran.

Is this referring to me? :conf:

I was asking because today I was thinking about how the general consensus in this thread was (back when this discussion was going on months ago) that Iran was not actually building nuclear weapons and there wasn't any proof to say it was for anything but non-peaceful means. I realized that thorium, of which I will concede isn't as well engineered or researched as uranium nuclear, is considered a (far more?) peaceful technology as it can't be weaponized nearly as easily. Probably would have been a better question to ask back then but I didn't think about it.

I actually don't have much of a clue (as an engineer) as to the engineering difficulties of the different nuclear reactors and how much information is available for the different forms, so it makes a lot of sense that they would go with uranium for both engineering reasons (availability of experts) and weaponization potential.

Anyways, my question was pretty well answered, thanks goons.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2012 20:45

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

The Monkey Man posted:

The Fars page now just reads

Came to request if anyone took a screencap

# ¿ Sep 28, 2012 19:24

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Brown Moses posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdItymwxjjo

The other vidos were pretty bad (shaky, poor quality, bad angle), this one is awesome though (in terms of quality) - you can see the tail get hit (?) and then the helicopter loses its stability and the tail rips off as it enters a sharp spin/dive/flip, and then you can even see what appear to be the blades breaking off during its fall

I wonder what they used to shoot it down? Some kind of high caliber non-explosive round?

(e: I am appreciative that you posted all the videos, I was just pointing that one out because it was the 4th in your list and not everyone clicks on all of them)

mitztronic fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Oct 5, 2012

# ¿ Oct 5, 2012 17:05

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Pureauthor posted:

Wh - why on earth would Syria do that?

# ¿ Oct 5, 2012 18:18

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

DarkCrawler posted:

This thread has taught me that apparently "Allahu Akbar" means "Holy poo poo I can't believe I just did that!"

Allahu Akbar translate best to "god is great" or "god is greatest" (?), but in terms of it's usage it is also a parallel to "oh my god"/"oh god" and other similar things

# ¿ Oct 11, 2012 20:05

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

The drone that was downed over Isreali airspace was a Hezbollah drone, made and designed in Iran.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/2012101118514612756.html

quote:

The leader of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah has said that his organisation launched an Iranian-built drone that was shot down in Israeli airspace last week.

"A sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft was sent from Lebanese territory ... and travelled hundreds of kilometres over the sea before crossing enemy lines and into occupied Palestine," Hassan Nasrallah said on television on Thursday.

He said the drone had overflown sensitive sites in Israel.

"Possession of such an aerial capacity is a first in the history of any resistance movement in Lebanon and the region," he said.

"It's not the first time [that a drone was sent] and it will not be the last. We can reach all the zones" of Israel, said Nasrallah, referring to a less sophisticated drone sent by Hezbollah during Lebanon's 2006 conflict with Israel.

He said the drone was "Iranian built and assembled in Lebanon", and was refered to as "Ayoub".

# ¿ Oct 11, 2012 22:30

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

CeeJee posted:

Somewhere Michael Bay is nodding 'now people will respect the realism in all my films'.

It only exploded once though, not 5 or 6 times

# ¿ Oct 17, 2012 16:07

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

MothraAttack posted:

Looks like Sudan is blaming Israel for the explosion at an arms factory overnight. Interestingly, early eyewitness accounts alleged that a plane with arms had crashed in the area, or that planes were seen in the sky around the time of the explosion. Footage of the area shows a crater and alleged rocket debris, which Sudan says it will take to the UN. Still seems a bit implausible that it was Israel, but not outside the realm of possibility I suppose.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/10/20121024142531802810.html

Some people are noting that Khartoum is a few hundred Km further than Iran. I also read something about how the factory may have been supplying weapons to Iran, but I haven't read anything to substantially corroborate that yet.

It will be interesting to see where this goes, if anywhere.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2012 21:26

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Armyman25 posted:

Not sure if this is the thread to ask in, but does anyone have a link that covers what happened at Benghazi? Not the political aftermath, but the actual events on September 11?

Here you go: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/10/198791.htm

# ¿ Oct 31, 2012 19:15

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

gwaaargh posted:

Assad is staying put, it seems.

This is not news, he has said this multiple times already since the conflict started. I was surprised to see that the UK offered him safe transport and the media hyped it up, when he's clearly said multiple times he has no intention of leaving, ever.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2012 17:33

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

gwaaargh posted:

I didn't realise he'd mentioned it before. I rode into the story on DC's offer and assumed this was a new, direct comment. Sorry.

No need to apologize, I wasn't chastising you. Sorry for my poor wording!

In other news, Reuters reporting that Iran fired on a US Drone in international airspace on Nov 1st. The drone returned unharmed.

Here is the news link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/us-usa-iran-drone-idUSBRE8A71C520121108

quote:

(Reuters) - Iranian warplanes fired multiple rounds at an unmanned unarmed U.S. surveillance aircraft in international airspace over the Gulf last week, but the craft was undamaged and returned safely to its base, Pentagon spokesman George Little said on Thursday.

President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta were both advised early on about the unprecedented incident, which occurred at about 4:50 a.m. ET (0850 GMT) on November 1.

Iran was later warned through diplomatic channels the United States would keep conducting surveillance flights in the region and would protect its military assets, Little said.

"The United States has communicated to the Iranians that we will continue to conduct surveillance flights over international waters over the Arabian Gulf consistent with longstanding practice and our commitment to the security of the region," Little told a Pentagon briefing.

"We have a wide range of options from diplomatic to military to protect our military assets and our forces ... and will do so when necessary," he added.

<more in article>

Would this have been casus belli if the drone were shot down? I doubt the US would go to war over a single drone, I dont understand war law and international airspace very well.

mitztronic fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Nov 8, 2012

# ¿ Nov 8, 2012 21:52

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Lascivious Sloth posted:

Well, you'd think they would either put some type of 'self-destruct' into the system that makes it impossible to duplicate, or on the other hand make it almost impossible to reverse engineer for the most critical systems. But I don't know..

They do

# ¿ Nov 10, 2012 02:12

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Crasscrab posted:

For a country that relies pretty heavily on tourism this seems like a stupid thing to do.

Isn't it equally stupid to do nothing? If they are having problems supplying power, something needs to be done.

When traveling I tend to not stay out past midnight, so I don't think this will effect their tourism much, unless Egypt is known for their nightlife (something I've never heard, but admittedly don't know either way.)

Obviously, there are a lot of possible solutions. I'd like to think they'd make the best decisions with the information available to them, but we all know that isnt the case.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2012 19:09

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Oh man, are we really doing the I/P thing again? Can we take it to it's own thread? This poo poo never ends without probations and bans and a thread getting :regd08:

And I really like this thread.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2012 22:40

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

never happy posted:

who broke the truce brokered by egypt recently anyways? Did Israel brake it by this recent assassination or were a couple rockets fired out of the strip recently?

From the news article I read on AJE, it sounds like there were a few rockets fired into southern Isreal prior to their airstrike.

That said, I believe wholeheartedly that Isreal was planning to execute these airstrikes weeks/months ahead of time. There were just too many (20+) for it to be retaliation.

As others have said, Netanyahu has a lot of political posturing to do for the upcoming elections under the facade of 'keeping the people of Isreal safe'.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2012 23:41

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

No, the US said it fully supports Isreal's right to defend itself. I know this sounds pedantic, but there is a difference between this and what you said (with the comma).

# ¿ Nov 15, 2012 02:52

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

What is that on the stream??? Missiles?

e: definitely was rockets

# ¿ Nov 15, 2012 07:25

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Iran says they captured another drone, and the USN says it was not one of theirs. Could be a CIA drone or flown by a non-US group since this particular drone is used in several other countries.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/us-iran-usa-drone-idUSBRE8B308920121204

# ¿ Dec 4, 2012 21:16

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

A student posted:

Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order

NO

e: VVVV I don't want to believe it/it's really bad news

mitztronic fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Dec 6, 2012

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 00:53

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

e: nvm, talking about two different videos

mitztronic fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Dec 6, 2012

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 18:41

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Egypt getting worse, Morsi has moved some tanks in, as if that will help anything:

quote:

Egypt deploys tanks outside Morsi palace

At least seven people have been killed and more than 770 injured in clashes outside the presidential palace in Cairo.

At least five tanks were deployed outside the Egyptian presidential palace in a street where supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi had been clashing into the early hours of the morning, witnesses said.

The state news agency said the military deployment on Thursday around the palace was to "secure" the building. Nine armoured troop carriers were also reported on the street outside the palace.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/201212662141734397.html

And here is what Syria has to say regarding chemical weapons:

quote:

(Reuters) - Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war as a "pretext for intervention", President Bashar al-Assad's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8AJ1FK20121206

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 18:46

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

McDowell posted:

http://www.infowars.com/shock-video-shows-syrian-rebels-testing-chemical-weapons/

warning: super cute bunnies being killed in this video. don't click if you don't want to ruin your day

e: VVVV what the gently caress is a "concern troll"? And believe it or not we post disclaimers on this site for disturbing videos (i.e. every single disturbing video in this thread is marked NMS, go ahead and take a look back. just because we have all seen multiple videos of people with their intestines hanging out and dead/maimed children doesnt make this video any less disturbing)

mitztronic fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Dec 6, 2012

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 19:21

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Golbez posted:

The U.S. rattling sabres about chemical weapons brings us back to a problem throughout the whole civil war: Why not get involved sooner?

Because we aren't the world police (and shouldn't act like it). Why should we get involved?

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 19:24

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

I'm just going to leave this here.

"Syrian homemade tank"
http://imgur.com/a/pyqst

# ¿ Dec 10, 2012 18:39

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

I think the tank was more of some FSA member's project rather than they planned to use it in actual warfare. People can be passionate about strange things, building that 'tank' was probably a great learning experience and a lot of fun.

Just a different perspective, we can't really know from a few images what the purpose was.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2012 02:43

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Vladimir Putin posted:

Edit: Am I the only one that feels that the revenge killings and the cleansing in the aftermath of this is going to be absolutely brutal?

No, I am loathing the coming "cleansing", which according to what little I've read (speculation/opinions/etc) it's going to be pretty bad. Some of the FSA groups, if they get power, will be really terrible.

Whoever wins the civil war, the people of Syria are going to lose.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2012 18:21

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Al Jazeera feed reporting that the number of refugees from Syria has surpassed 600,000 with there being (over?) 100,000 from last month alone

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 04:33

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Here is a video taken in Syria*, 10-20 metes away from tanks that are actively shooting at the buildings near/that the videographer is in.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=91e_1358349215

*According to video, it's taken from: Darayya, Rif-Dimashq Governorate, Syria

# ¿ Jan 17, 2013 18:48

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

A thermal what? I'm pretty sure that's not a thing

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 07:53

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Svartvit posted:

I think he's talking about a thermal decoy. I'm not sure that's how it works though.

A flare? That's not how flares work, and I've never heard of any other thermal countermeasure, but I am not an expert.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 21:31

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Sucrose posted:

Sentencing 21 people to death for rioting is pretty terrible, even if the riots did cause dozens of deaths. And now they're in one of those situations where they won't rescind the sentences because then they'll look like they're rewarding violence. And so the protests will continue and......that's how revolutions start. Doesn't look good at all.

Part of me wants to believe they had proof that those 21 people were responsible for some of the murders that happened in February 2011, but from reading some articles it seems like the Egyptian people feel like the trials were a sham.

This whole thing is loving ridiculous. How many people have died now because of a football game? I really don't understand it at all. I can understand getting upset about your friends/family being sentenced to death (why death, anyways?), but I dont understand re-rioting and killing even more people. It's disgusting.

BTW, we are on page 911 :911:

# ¿ Jan 28, 2013 03:29

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Worst video for me is still the post-airstrike video where you see a bunch of dead kids and people walking around disemboweled, carrying their missing limbs, holding dead loved ones... Yeah... that imagery will never leave my mind

I do remember the video you are asking about, but I dont have a link or anything. That was also pretty gruesome.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 00:48

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:11

mitztronic: Jun 17, 2005; mixcloud.com/mitztronic

Spirit Tree posted:

Good news from today.

al-Jazeera: UK man jailed for selling fake bomb detectors

If you might recall the stories from a few years ago about the ADE 651 "Bomb Detector". In that there was a British company who sold what were effectively empty tubes with Security tags inside designed to prevent shoplifting, as a bomb detection unit and sold them for over $60,000 a piece to Iraq. Obviously no way of accurately measuring how many deaths might have been caused from this, but it was a really cynical abuse of the whole Iraq War for absurd profits.

I was so happy when I read that headline. A rare 'feel good' news story :v:

# ¿ May 3, 2013 04:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Middle East Thread of Despair: More Broken Than Syria

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