Agreed. Made 'custom' for the tech crowd. Almost every image is accompanied by the words "A Free Syrian Army fighter ..." because you know, without those words we might confuse them with terrorists or guys from Palestine fighting Israel.
Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe the people of Syria have a right for their own freedom, but it is striking how selective our news is. Ben Ali, the dictator from Tunis was supported by the West for 23 years, as was his neighbor the dictator from Egypt, as is Saudi Arabia, hell even Saddam was.
It's not just a war over there. There's a war for your minds as well. Reminds me of the famous "incubator story" where Iraqi soldiers stole incubators from hospitals in Kuwait and left the premature babies to die on the floor. Never happened, but was crucial for the public opinion in the West. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)
The difference is that in America you can watch Al-Jazeera or the BBC or even TeleMundo(1) as well. Sometimes people forget this when they complain about media bias. It could be much worse. Imagine a country where the only news you can watch is a government approved faux-news(2) channel.
(1) TeleMundo is also American but has a somewhat different ideological slant.
(2) For fun, pronounce that with the X and imagine that this was the only news network you were permitted to watch. How different would your world-view be?
... with the net effect being that people believe they are choosing media of their own free will, and therefore much less likely to question what it says. Even though all of the major culturally-sanctioned channels are advocating a consistent bias, their emphases create an illusion of variety.
I doubt people in places with state-controlled media tune in and think they're getting the whole story. In the Western world, we've moved beyond the battle for facts - the battle is for control of their interpretation.
If you want to argue that America is better than countries like Cuba, then you win. I was comparing America to other rest of the developed world (i.e: non-government controlled media). And by controlled, I mean controlled by corporations such as News Corp and not the government. Well, that is probably the case in most countries. And that sucks.
It's certainly true that the American media has a pretty big bias towards rebels in non-democratic states, but that doesn't mean that they're being controlled.
The American media holds "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" almost up there with objective truth. It's definitely not a bad principle on the whole, but you can generally predict an article's take from that.
No country or region has perfect media, but the one here in America is absolutely disgusting. I mean, are you kidding? Have you compared American media to British for example? Do you see the quality of news here? Or worse, how controlled the media is?
Compare BBC or the Economist to any American outlet. Or even better, compare them to Democracy Now <-- real independent media.
I'm not sure I agree -- from my perspective, the US left seems as crazy as the US right.
As a Swede, I follow NY Times and BBC to compare with the Swedish daily media, for the laughs -- it is like laughing at mongloids doing pratfalls. :-( I think I could do the same with most other countries' media.
On the one hand, it's pretty obviously trying to appeal to this crowd. On the other hand, it actually does appeal to this crowd. I remember seeing the homemade tank in a video someone posted here a little while ago and thinking it was pretty cool. (Though at the same time skeptical of how well it could stand up to infantry, let alone another tank.)
Reddit has this same problem with PR people managing to get thinly veiled ads on the front page of Reddit or various subreddits. [0] Though partly these things make it to the front page because they are genuinely interesting. To me it boils down to a question, "Do I want to see stuff from people who have an agenda, even if I think it's pretty cool?" For me the answer is, "Yes, but only if I don't get drowned in it.".
I wouldn't mind if we acknowledged this and had an overt discussion about it.
The article does somehow manage to neglect to mention the fact that these are the same party that executed dozens of people for suspected adultery (yes, suspected), and cut of hands of suspected thieves in a freaking warzone. That's the kind of government they're fighting for. It also shows just how honest they intend to be if they win.
Makes it kinda hard to choose. I may not feel to good about the alawites winning, but I feel a worse about these guys winning. I'd vote for the dictatorship, but I doubt they're taking votes. Also, everywhere else in the middle east, the same party that forms the rebels here is persecuting alawites close to the point where it can be called genocide. If the alawites/government lose this battle, they will be slaughtered to the last man.
Regardless of what side they're on, these guys are fighting a war using home made technology. In #20 the guy is operating a machine gun using a playstation controller! I think many in the community here would find that interesting.
War is a very good negative example of the fact that the economy is not zero-sum. Think if all this work - as well as that of the other side - and inventiveness were going towards productive pursuits, rather than blowing up other people and their things. Most everyone would be far better off.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
"This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
In this instance, the alternative is brutal oppression. They're better off rebelling than not.
ETA: Of course it'd be better if both sides went about things peacefully and democratically. To parent's point (now better understood hence ETA), the situation is the consequence of governmental leadership viewing socioeconomy as "zero-sum", and the oppressed taking extreme & desperate steps to eliminate the "zero-sum" restriction.
Most likely. Note that I also said "the other side". If both sides went about things peacefully and democratically, they'd all be better off on average.
They shot down a civilian airplane? When? I was aware of a collision of a loyal helicopter with an airliner (which caused a crash of the helicopter
http://avherald.com/h?article=45671063
) and an incident when they were shooting on Iran Air Force 747 (
http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/506899-free-syrian-army-firi...
) but they didn't shoot it down. Also, it is an air force plane, so somebody could argue that it's not really civilian.
You are fully aware of that a relevant counter to my point would have been that the FSA mainly attacked civilians. A single example from such a heterogeneous mix as FSA in a civil war? Sigh...
I'd continue with the lack of NATO-backing, but since your (Karma 72) account's comment history makes claims that North Korea can't be called communist (they are not true Scotsmen either, eh? :-) ) I'll just let it rest here. Bye.
A comment I made almost two months ago is relevant here... how? And not refuted either, just pointed out? I quite support North Korea on the grounds of their anti-imperialism. That doesn't mean I support the regime (hyperbolised Western media reports notwithstanding).
Anyway:
* The USA has openly joined the war [1a, 1b]
* The FSA uses child soldiers [2]
* The FSA executes surrendered soldiers with child soldiers [3]
I made a point. You didn't have an answer, you still have no answer.
I made fun of you, because you lacked an answer and instead took single examples from very heterogenous groups (not even correct, you couldn't answer yread). You ignored that.
Instead, you grumble when I dismiss you because you seem to consistently support dictators against democracies.
After being unable to argue my points, you are only writing to claim that FSA is supported by NATO, despite not answering "yread"'s questioning of your last claim.
(Are you actively looking for discussions to write this?)
Some simple points:
1. Obama has, according to all news, been unwilling to support FSA with weapons, no-fly zones, etc -- despite e.g. bombings of suburbs filled with civilians. This shame comes from under table dealings with Russia and/or fear of islamists getting support.
2. Your first link discussed how the British might talk to FSA, not that NATO supports them actively and about e.g. how the Syrian army shells suburbs -- NOT that the US had joined the war, which you claimed. I didn't check the rest.
3. Your one-eyed criticism of one side and ignoring the artillery/bombs against cities, torture, etc, etc, etc from the other side tells volumes.
4. It is hard to see if you're a troll, a leftwing extremist or some paid Iranian "50 cent army" shill. But that doesn't matter, the difference between a griefer, a "useful idiot" and a propagandist is minimal: You're a complete waste of time, at best.
What points did you make? You said you wouldn't continue with the lack of NATO-backing because you have more karma than me or whatever you meant by that.
I don't ignore nor support the things that go on in the current regimes ceteris paribus. But I do support them over, in North Korea's case the USA and UN, and in Syria's case the FSA.
I could provide more links to news sites but it's obvious that despite your claims of my closed-mindedness, you are unwilling to listen to any other points of view than 'freedom® good, everything else bad'.
Your fourth point (if you can call it that) is mostly just ad hominem. Who's the idiot again?
I suspect the fellows in the pictures could add a few new chapters to the Improvised Munitions Handbook [1] and add some refinements to the ones that are already there.
The pictures of them building mortar shells and missiles are pretty interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that turning the nosecones on a lathe is the preferred way of forming them. I mean, you'd be removing a lot of material from the outside, then turning it around and removing a lot more from the inside to make room for the contents. Does anybody know if they're usually formed from sheet metal as I had always thought, or if they're actually pretty heavy-duty for improved penetration of the target?
I haven't seen mortar rounds made, but I would guess their noses are forged or formed then turned to final dimensions.†
By whatever process they are made in the large military industrial complexes, these pictures show how they are made when you can't invest in custom machines, tooling, and material. You are seeing what happens when you have a bunch of bar stock in inventory and a lathe.
It's the "I need a message queueing system and all I have is PHP" version of a mortar.
Medico is a pressing company and mentions on their web page that they've made over 7 million mortar shells of various types. http://www.medicomfg.com/products.php (In the second picture of the last row, the part held in fingers, that pattern you are seeing is pressed in before the metal is formed into a cup. It provides the fragmentation pattern to get the part to break into a nice even spread of the maximum number pieces that still carry lethal energy into human flesh. Probably a 25mm OCWS round. You could set them for a distance and have them airburst just after they went in a window or over a wall. Looks like the program was canceled. Maybe precision and 4 rounds per second didn't need to intersect.)
Complexity and reliability. If the batteries die on your xbox control mid-Halo, it's just annoying. If the batteries die on your remote machine gun with the enemy literally at the gates, it's life and death.
I don't think there's much need for wireless inside the tank in any case. Maybe for a remote placement turret without a vehicle mount it would be more useful.
I actually meant wireless so that you wouldn't have to be present inside the tank, you would control the gun remotely.
You would still use wired controllers, but you would use wireless networking to control the tank close by. As long as you maintain a connection with the tank, you are safe from enemy fire, and the enemy would be shooting at an empty tank, with no way of telling what your physical location is.
Even more increased complexity. That would require them to make electronic controls for the steering, gas and whatnot. More parts would thus be required.
In addition such a system is highly prone to jamming considering the kind of parts they have available, and the location of the controlling transmitter can be quite easily triangulated.
Just wanted to point out that it's not so easy to make a wirelessly controlled tank and the benefits can be dubious.
How disgusting. Very easy for you to equate the sad situation in Syria with America's gun control gun-obsessed society issue, from the comfort and safety of your home.
(Shrug) For better or worse, there seems to be a sort of genetic memory in at least some Americans that dates back to the time when we had to do something similar to gain our freedom.
I'm not taking a stand either way, but considering that most of the people murdered by guns in the 20th century were killed by their own government and police forces, I can see why some people prefer not to give those entities a monopoly on the use of force. Perhaps you could open your own mind a bit to alternative points of view, and quiet that jerking knee.
Most people in the US have no intention to apply their guns to other US citizens, whether or not they were working for the postal service or issuing parking tickets. Your readiness to do so for political reasons is more similar to the readiness of Mussolini's blackshirts than to the mentality of normal beat cops or members of the highly professional, civilian-controlled US military.
Again, where have I advocated the initiation of any sort of violence? You seem to have some kind of projection issue going on, or else you're confusing me with someone else.
Beautiful photos, good lighting, great casting... what's not to like. They still missed one "rebel" in flip-flops, must've missed the memo from the Lebanon crew. Though he's technically working on a secret factory, so I guess it doesn't count.
(edit) For those downvoting - you can't be in combat and wear flip-flops. Ask your favorite person who's been to the military service. If you are in flip-flops and holding a gun or throwing a grenade, then you are an actor re-enacting fighting in a staged photoshoot.
Dude, have you ever seen footwear in the third world? There's a lot of people out there who are lucky not to be barefoot. People don't wear flip flops in combat by choice, but many don't have a choice.
To be frank, he got the mechanism, the scope and the barrel from a store. What he actually built was the scaffolding, which is still nice but more like assembling or repairing an AK than building one.
The more I see pictures like these The more I wonder how well America would have fared if the rest of the world disengaged its self from our revolution the way we are disengaging ourselves from the Syrian one. I understand you don't want to put boots on the ground, but at least give them something so they are not fighting tanks and airplanes with giant slingshots.
They're probably worried that whatever weapons are donated will eventually be used agains them. Fair point considering the number of religious nut jobs currently on the side of the good guys.
This photo montage is a bit misleading, because it's about improvised weapons, and so doesn't show the conventional weapons the rebels do have. And they have an impressive amount. Significant quantities of small arms, RPGs, mortars, even tanks, and other weapons. There are plenty of videos on youtube of Syrian rebels taking out tanks of regime forces using ATGMs.
The Saudis have started shipping them Croatian weapons, like shoulder-fired rockets. The NY Times speculates that it's being done with tacit American support.
The more you read actual journalism about the conflict the more you'd wonder exactly how the rebels have broadly deployed encrypted frequency hopping radios, high end western .50 cal sniper rifles with spotting equipment, shoulder fired emissions seeking anti-aircraft missiles, vehicle mounted 40mm AA, and daily arial based wide area photography.
And if you went as far as chatting up some folks that had recently been in syria, you might wonder why they'd say it's not uncommon to see a fair amount of guys with short blond hair and high end tactical clothing "advising" syrian rebel rear echelon types.
You clearly have an axe to grind against the US here.
Terrorism conventionally refers to asymmetric warfare directed strategically against soft targets, often in peacetime. Good examples include the attacks of RAF and IRA in the 70s, Timothy McVey, the Unabomber and the WTC attack in the 90s.
Syria is a war zone. It is in civil war. War has always terrorized civilians.
I'm just hoping that once this conflict ends eventually all of these bombs, rockets etc. won't be used to attack other countries in the region (i.e. Israel)
Doubt it. They're getting a lot of weapons from other countries that have just had civil wars, like Iraq and Libya. When this is over, the weapons will probably make their way to the next country undergoing an Arab Spring movement.
I agree that on its surface it is propaganda. I also think its interesting to see how people fabricate weapons in a war zone (or not). Some of them don't seem like they would actually do what the designer hoped.
In general, in this age of 'high tech' weaponry, it's amazing that rebels can go up against a modern army at all much less keep it bogged down for as long as they have.
That said, in a non abstract way the material is deeply saddening.
I wonder how safe those slingshots are. Throwing heavy objects are hard, and remembering some mythbuster shows, a bit dangerous. Have the grenade bounce, fall out of the slingshot grip, or rubber-band back and you got a big problem.
Is this actually in big use, and how common is "misfire"?
I'm jealous. Looks like they're having a mighty good time. Such freedom to be a man I'll probably never know.
It's sad to think that the time for people to truly rebel is quickly running out.
You were modded down (Score: -1, Bloodlust or whatever), but you still have a good point: if the Syrian regime were as technologically well-equipped as most Western governments, this uprising would have been a very short one.
We are going to be in a lot of trouble if a major Western power ever goes ape the way Germany did only one lifetime ago.
if the Syrian regime were as technologically well-equipped as most Western governments, this uprising would have been a very short one.
Likewise, if the Syrian uprising were as technologically well-equipped as a large fraction of Americans, the uprising would have been a very short one. Every year we field some 18,000,000 well-equipped civilian snipers in a live-fire live-target exercise aka "Operation Deer Season". This may explain why the US government is keen on disarming citizens of "assault weapons", even though such items are demonstrably less of a societal problem than stairs or swimming pools.
To append a relevant quote from Einstein
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
A lot of it comes down to institutional strength. There's probably some good academic models for this, but I'd say:
1) Institutional cohesion and alignment with population. Many dictators have ethnically homogenous security services - their clan, tribe, whatever. People are loyal to the ethnicity, not the country or institution. That's how you get a nations military killing it's own people. In democratic western countries, the military is much more reflective of the overall population, which puts a check on that.
2) Training. Just because Syria has "jets" doesn't mean they're well-maintained, flown by skilled pilots and employed with excellent tactics. It's very expensive and time consuming to apply the tools of modern war. NATO nations spend a ton of money training their troops to improve effectiveness.
Really, I think the first one is most important. Theoretically you don't get violent uprisings in western nations because democratic governments are more responsive to needs and social composition of the population.
The traffic signals in one intersection a block away from my house include six cameras. I don't know what they're all for... but I'm guessing that it would be a bad idea for me to trundle my homebrew trebuchet up to that intersection and start chucking grenades around.
When you are discussing "chucking grenades around" in your own neighborhood, it seems that cameras are the least of the worries for peaceful, law-abiding civilians in your area (not to mention police who are just doing their jobs).
Why it is publicly acceptable to talk like Timothy McVey?
What would be an example? I'm more of an advocate of individual liberty than I am an agitator against any particular organizations. Bad things happen when governments, even Western ones, have too much power over individuals, just as bad things happen when individuals gain too much power over their neighbors.
Get the book The World's Most Dangerous Places by Robert Young Pelton. It's basically a tourist guide to where you want to go and most people shouldn't.
Notice the trend with the revolution photojournalism? Toyota pickup trucks. There's a reason my beat-up Tacoma pickup has the nickname 'Taco Jihad' - key ingredient to uprisings.
These types of vehicles are now widely referred to as "technicals":
> Africa, says [David] Kilcullen, is where the truck got its
> nickname as a fighting vehicle, “the technical.” “When
> [nongovernmental organizations] and the U.N. first went into
> Somalia,” he says, referring to a period in the 1990s, “they
> were not able to bring their own guards. So they got so-called
> ‘technical assistance grants’ to hire guards and drivers on
> the ground. Over time, a ‘technical’ came to mean a vehicle
> owned by a guard company, and then eventually to mean a Hilux
> with a heavy weapon mounted on the back.” [1]
I don't know about syria, but in large parts of southern africa (botswana, mozambique, ...) Toyota Hilux and Isuzu pickups have a large share of the car market. They're sturdy, hard to kill and every mechanic knows the cars. I literally had a mechanic rewire the engine of our Isuzu on a bush road after large parts of the wire harness ended up wrapped around the drive train. Took him like two hours but not a single look in the tech manual.
Trend? This is decades old. In Somalia in the 90s they were called "technicals". And the Chadian-Libyan conflict in the 80s has been dubbed the "Toyota War".
Yes, there is: (a portion of) people who try not to generalize and fall victim to logical fallacies. Even if Libyan rebels were all terrorists and Gadhafi was a good guy (I'm not saying that' what you're sating; I'm just trying to make a point), it doesn't mean Syrian rebels, or North Korean rebels (of future!), or anyone else for that matter, are also X (I'm saying X, because I'm not entirely sure what you were implying Libyan rebels were).
Brutal dictator ends up with a rebellion, who'd have thought? Unfortunately the byproduct of any measure of success of a rebellion in the middle east is credited to piousness. If it weren't the case, would you really have a problem with the people overthrowing this guy?
I know I sound fairly like a white imperialist bearing the burden and all that, but bear with me.
We (i.e. first world countries) created really fantastic consumer devices for our daily lives. #30 showed a Samsung Galaxy S3 being used as a guidance tool for a missile. Do we have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by our devices?
Yes I am aware that you can hack anything into weapons, given the breadth of human ingenuity, but does anyone else here feel a little morally obligated that these technologies are being used for targeted mass destruction?
(that said, I'm really impressed by the S3 being used... as well as the pirated PS3 controller being used to control a machine gun)
Does Toyota have blood on its hands for manufacturing pickup trucks? Are the people put machine guns in the back balanced by the people using identical pickups to deliver aid? What about all the pickups that people use going about their day to day lives? Some of the people using trucks in their daily lives are no doubt able to raise their standard of living by using the truck to carry more material more effectively than they could without.
I won't go so far as to call all technology inherently neutral (machine guns and nerve gas being just two examples I'd be pressed to find much neutrality in), but cell phones, like pickup trucks are about as neutral as you're likely to find. Globally, for every person using their Galaxy S3 to target missiles, there are probably a comparable number using a similar phone to coordinate medical or material relief efforts and tens or hundreds of people just using their phones as they go about their lives, many of whom benefit materially from the ability to contact other people or look up information online at their convenience.
And if you aren't convinced of the neutrality of pickups and cell phones, what about the companies that made:
1) the pot the guy is stirring explosives in?
2) the lathe they're turning missiles on?
3) the ladder that got incorporated into the slingshot?
4) the glass beverage bottles that have become Molotov cocktails?
5) the steel pipe and sheet steel that show up in weapons in half the pictures?
Do they/we all have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by these things?
I also found that picture very interesting. The juxtaposition of technology is striking.
It is generous to call an improvised set of rocket tubes "targeted" and the small conventional explosive payloads of those rockets falls far below the bar for "mass destruction."
Technology is fundamentally neutral. Higher technology means better tools. Better tools are greater multipliers of people power. It's up the person to decide how to use the tools.
Sometimes we are responsible for death via technology transfer. America's support to the Afghan Mujaheddin against the Soviet Union is a great example. There's no question that Soviet helicopters blew up as a direct result of American-supplied stingers. That particular case was a clear action by the US, and in the end a very effective one (US clearly won that round of the Cold War).
The real tragedy here is that the Galaxy S3 is civilian technology. The tragedy is that part of the world conceived, designed, built and deployed that gadget to millions of people to make their lives better. Another part of the world has been thrown down to a lower level of civilization by a horrible war. They're not building the S3, they're not even using it to check their email at a coffee shop. They're bolting it onto a hobby shop of explosives to kill their fellow countrymen.
If there is a moral obligation here, it's a geopolitical one, not a technological one.
I started typing up something about technology and morality but I thought better about it, I'll take a different tack.
Your post is racist. Now, I'm going to assume that it is not intentionally racist, but it has the same ultimate effect.
Let me explain.
There are many different types of prejudice. There is prejudicial hatred, that tends to be obvious and blatant but is also people's stereotypical example of the sort of prejudice that we should all fight against. There's also something that people call "the soft bigotry of low expectations", and this is also pretty bad. It manifests itself in forms such as "well, that's pretty good... for a girl" or "for an Indian" or what-have-you. This is a pernicious sort of prejudice because it affects how people are treated, what sorts of opportunities people have, etc. But for the perpetrators of it can feel more justified and less morally wrong than more blatant racism.
But there's a semi-related form of prejudice which I'll call paternalism. It's where you remove agency and culpability from certain folks and rest responsibility in the hands of "more developed" people. This is even more pernicious than low expectations because it sort of feels like you're doing the victims a favor. By taking away moral responsibility and devolving it on oneself it may seem like you are accepting a burden for someone else. But in reality you are denying them agency, denying them responsibility, and diminishing them as people. All human beings are responsible for their own actions, and to treat them like children or animals by denying them the responsibility for their deeds is incredibly dehumanizing.
So to answer your question, no, the makers of the Samsung Galaxy do not have a moral obligation for creating a device which can serve as a compass, even though a compass can be used to point a weapon. That responsibility lies with, and should never be removed from, the individual who uses the device.
From the caption, it looks like the S3 was just being used as a compass. It's a strange state of affairs when, in what's effectively a war zone, it's easier to use the compass in your phone than a real physical compass!
> We (i.e. first world countries) created really fantastic consumer devices for our daily lives. #30 showed a Samsung Galaxy S3 being used as a guidance tool for a missile. Do we have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by our devices?
I think the first world countries got a bigger problem with carnage they've been bringing the world DIRECTLY.
There is a moral obligation for us (UK here) due allowing our governments to do this and indirectly support them by our taxes.
Edit: if you are also dismayed, use this link to find people who want to show something new to the community:
http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22show+hn%...