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A Dutch refugee organisation is reporting that the Syrian governement ( they found no evidence of rebels doing the same) is performing targeted rapes on groups of women and girls of which the youngest found was 8 and most are between 14-16.
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Sep 26, 2012 07:06
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Likely the bombing occurred too early for many VIPs to be present, and at least one pro-Syrian government feed is saying it was timed with the arrival of "buses of soldiers" in the morning. edit: Damascus on lockdown, shaky reports of third major explosion by Hala Jaber and other activist, suspected to be near the foreign ministry or prime minister's office. MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Sep 26, 2012 |
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Sep 26, 2012 07:13
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It's interesting that after yesterday's attack more attacks were promised. I guess they weren't bullshitting this time.
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Sep 26, 2012 07:37
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Augure posted:Absolutely I think their methodology was scientific. Did you read the paper? Nobody is claiming that their sources are unbiased, but you appear to be claiming that their sources are uniformly liars. Wait, what? It's hard to read irony over the Internet; was this actually a serious post? Reading this paper and what you've posted has made me wonder, perhaps there's more to Obama's intensification of strikes than I've realized and that drones are much cooler and less destructive than we thought. I mean, for instance, the methodology makes it seem that a level of interaction between researchers and subjects is made that would likely cause its outright rejection from a standard medical journal, or at the very least enough to cause a lack of proper detachment. Alas, the paper doesn't really elaborate; the methodology section is sadly brief considering how important it is. This is to a significant extent unavoidable for various reasons, as stated in the paper, but even if it is true that poo poo data is better than no data, it's still poo poo data. The best claims made in the paper are things such as those about the unreliability and lack of transparency about US government claims about civilian casualties -- which we already knew even without this paper. Note that well over half the body of the paper is devoted to summarizing what has been said in the past, not presenting new information; maybe I'm just used to reading papers on medicine and biology, but the old:new information ratio is awfully high here. The best that can be said of this paper is that at least there is enough transparency in it to see how shoddy the methodology is: the actual new information amounts to little more than self-selected anecdotes pasted together. And I can't help but note that the paper's claims of the need for secrecy is suspiciously similar to those that the US government makes. I mean, what's with the appendix? It's either appallingly short, or shouldn't be there at all. It reads as if it were put there to "put a human face to the suffering", which may work from a humanitarian standpoint and making heart-rending propaganda, but not so much "scientifically", because there are only several accounts. It appears it's only there for emotional and not rational reasons. Maybe you could say it's for brevity, but I've read through about a thousand first-hand survivor accounts of the Hiroshima bombings; the high number of said accounts is very much part of the serious literature. Much of that was collated by a single psychologist! So bring it on. Where's the information? What, that's all this paper can present? Where's some sort of cite where we can see more of this? In a paper in the biological sciences, this new information still wouldn't be worthless, and poo poo data is indeed better than none, but more emphasis would be laid on the data's unreliability. I didn't see anywhere near enough emphasis laid on this. Also, much of the information in this paper is collated from other sources. While there is indeed much value in a review paper that collects conclusions from disparate sources and puts it together into a new, more coherent whole, this paper is presented to the public as if it had much exciting new information -- which it doesn't.
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Sep 26, 2012 08:07
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The Ministry of Defense building  Badly. edit: the Emir of Qatar is calling for an Arab intervention in Syria, per Al Jazeera. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/09/20129267210189122.html But Egypt isn't having any. mllaneza fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Sep 26, 2012 |
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Sep 26, 2012 08:44
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Yep, they've blown it the gently caress up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXTwoyGbpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmb1_IeVehE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fht9vtl-eHw There's been an ongoing gun battle for 4 hours as well, so this is a major attack by all accounts.
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Sep 26, 2012 09:07
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Here's a video from a much close angle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxD0QF1MfL0 It's interesting there's been no reports of any hospitals being surrounded by security forces, which was the case with the July bombing, and has been the case in other countries in similar circumstances when major figures were injured. Quote from the Syrian information minister, Omran Zoubi, via AP: quote:I can confirm that all our comrades in the military command and defence ministry are fine.
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Sep 26, 2012 09:26
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Brown Moses posted:Quote from the Syrian information minister, Omran Zoubi, via AP: Well, if we heard it from an information minister it has to be true 
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Sep 26, 2012 09:34
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iyaayas01 posted:Erecting strawmen and refusing to acknowledge that there might be methodological concerns with this study makes it that much harder for those of us who actually have serious problems with the U.S. drone campaign but who also recognize that UAVs aren't literal godless killing machines that do nothing but intentionally kill babies and puppies. I understand that North Waziristan is not going to be the easiest place to conduct any sort of rigorous social science study, for a whole variety of reasons, but the proper way to address that is to acknowledge that shortcoming while you make your point, not going Are there any good scientifically rigorous pieces on the effects of the drone war? I'd like to read more. It also seems that while the survey might not have been the most scientific, the conclusions reached by the article are pretty accurate as far as the terror felt by the populace, lack of transparency, 'collateral damage' etc. I don't like to start my opinions with the word "seems" though which is why I'd like to read more about the topic.
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Sep 26, 2012 09:45
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: "Well I guess you just think all brown people overseas are terrorists, typical American."
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Damascus Dan says "There are no FSA infidels in Damascus. Never!"
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Sep 26, 2012 09:47
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A journalist who was in Damascus Tweeting this morning has just been killedquote:Press TV correspondent Maya Nasser has been killed by sniper fire in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Maya Nasser was described by Press TV as "a Damascus-based political analyst" in this piece from June. Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Sep 26, 2012 |
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Sep 26, 2012 09:52
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Hmm, journalists being targeted?quote:The bureau chief of Iran’s Press TV and Al-Alam television networks, Hussein Mortada, has been injured in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
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Sep 26, 2012 10:03
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presstv.ir
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Sep 26, 2012 10:06
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Laopooh posted:Are there any good scientifically rigorous pieces on the effects of the drone war? I'd like to read more. It also seems that while the survey might not have been the most scientific, the conclusions reached by the article are pretty accurate as far as the terror felt by the populace, lack of transparency, 'collateral damage' etc. I don't like to start my opinions with the word "seems" though which is why I'd like to read more about the topic. Brian Glyn Williams (2010): The CIA's Covert Predator Drone War in Pakistan, 2004–2010: The History of an Assassination Campaign, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33:10, 871-892 - is quite good but behind a Taylor & Francis pay wall. These two are free: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2011.615082 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17539153.2011.623397 None of them are what I'd call scientifically rigorous in a quantifiable sense, that'll be hard to do until years into the future imo, but their arguments are framed in a wider context than just what selected tribesmen say about drone attacks. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C01%5C02%5Cstory_2-1-2010_pg3_5 Thats an interesting article by the one of the people involved in the The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy's "Drone Attacks—A Survey" paper, about how the Taliban in the region are able to control the collateral damage count. Which is interesting at least.
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Sep 26, 2012 10:54
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More from the Guardianquote:Explosions, then fighting with rebels
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Sep 26, 2012 13:16
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Brown Moses posted:Quote from the Syrian information minister, Omran Zoubi, via AP: Real world translation: "HOLY gently caress WE JUST GOT OUR poo poo ROCKED BIG TIME"
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Sep 26, 2012 14:44
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Umayyad Square, where the Syrian MoD is located, used to be known in the diplomatic circles as the "russian roulette" - it wasn't unusual to have a car come from the opposite direction, which, considering it's a roundabout, was surprising to most diplomatic and UN drivers. They've expanded it with tunnels these days, so maybe it's not half as bad. What's more important though is that it's really close to Assad's palace. There's also a Sheraton there with a view on the MoD (I'm not sure, but it's either in the foreground in that photo, or the photo might be taken from Sheraton itself), where most diplomats stay, so I find it a bit surprising all we have is a grainy picture of the building on fire. Also, the area directly west from the MoD is where most foreign staff lives - there's a French school, an international Pakistani school, and the now closed American school there, and numerous embassies along Fayez Mansour (we just called it Mezzeh), differentiating from Old Mezzeh a few streets away. Anyhow, very ballsy on the FSA's behalf.
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Sep 26, 2012 15:46
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Lascivious Sloth posted:presstv.ir Gotta counter balance accusations of NATO/FSA bias. Who is killing these journalists in Damascus? The Regime or the Opposition? Both have reasons for doing so.
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Sep 26, 2012 17:02
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Re: Iran/Nuclear Is there any reason Iran doesn't use invest in thorium reactors? Always wondered this, never really got a good answer.
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Sep 26, 2012 17:36
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mitztronic posted:Re: Iran/Nuclear Because they don't have the money/talent to develop a completely new technology. And let's be honest, they want nuclear weapons (but what state doesn't?)
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Sep 26, 2012 17:41
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McDowell posted:Because they don't have the money/talent to develop a completely new technology. And let's be honest, they want nuclear weapons (but what state doesn't?) Well, what they really appear to want is the capability to make nuclear weapons. It'd be risky and expensive to maintain a nuclear stockpile (not to mention illegal under the NPT) compared to just a nuclear capability.
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Sep 26, 2012 17:43
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mitztronic posted:Re: Iran/Nuclear I would guess that they dont because it is a relatively untested technology that they do not have the resources to fully develop and the available knowhows are not as familiar with it.
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Sep 26, 2012 17:47
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Morsi is currently addressing the UN General Assembly and he has been very aggressive in his speech condemning Assad, even going so far as to talk about the future of Syria without Assad and the need to make sure the country is democratic.
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Sep 26, 2012 17:49
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Zudgemud posted:I would guess that they dont because it is a relatively untested technology that they do not have the resources to fully develop and the available knowhows are not as familiar with it. 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.
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Sep 26, 2012 18:18
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Damascus isn't the only place that got bombed recently. Looks like the PKK is stepping it up again:Al Jazeera posted:Deadly blast hits eastern city in Turkey My girlfriend is currently visiting her family in Dersim ("silver door", renamed into "Tunceli", or "bronze fist", by the Turkish government right before they killed off a lot of the local Kurds back in the 1930s) and told me on the phone that the explosion was heard throughout the city and that a neighbor of her mother who happened to be driving down the road was killed when the bomb went off.
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Sep 26, 2012 18:56
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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.
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Sep 26, 2012 20:45
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mitztronic posted:Is this referring to me? :conf: Thorium does not generate as much, but it still generates some, and that's all that's needed to whine bitch and moan about it. Also, do keep in mind, that the difference here is that these were reactors that were either already operational and running out of fuel, or reactors which had been sitting unfinished for a long time (after the US provided them). It really does not matter one iota. It's just rhetoric. If it wasn't this, it would be claiming MEK as a terrorist group linked with AQ and being harbored by Iran or some other tripe.
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Sep 26, 2012 21:01
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I've put together a new post on my blog looking at videos showing some of the DIY weapons being used by the opposition in Syria. http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-diy-weapons-of-syrian-opposition.html [edit] And on that same theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIBoBQqrJw Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 26, 2012 |
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Sep 26, 2012 22:18
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One of the Libyans who helped catch Gaddafi died after being kidnapped and tortured. Sad story. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/26/14111459-libyan-who-helped-capture-gadhafi-dies-after-alleged-kidnapping-torture?lite
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Sep 26, 2012 22:50
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New Division posted:One of the Libyans who helped catch Gaddafi died after being kidnapped and tortured. Sad story. I've been following that over the past few days, apparently there's a decades old feud between Bani Walid and Misrata, and there's a lot of concern this might reignite it and start a war between the two cities.
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Sep 26, 2012 22:53
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Brown Moses posted:I've been following that over the past few days, apparently there's a decades old feud between Bani Walid and Misrata, and there's a lot of concern this might reignite it and start a war between the two cities. It sounds like something straight out of the city-states era of Italian history.
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Sep 26, 2012 23:47
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Mokotow posted:Umayyad Square, where the Syrian MoD is located, used to be known in the diplomatic circles as the "russian roulette" - it wasn't unusual to have a car come from the opposite direction, which, considering it's a roundabout, was surprising to most diplomatic and UN drivers. They've expanded it with tunnels these days, so maybe it's not half as bad. Are you Syrian or have you just spent time in Syria? On that note, are there any known Syrian SA posters?
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Sep 26, 2012 23:53
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Are there any good sources specifically on the history of suicide attacks in the Islamic world?
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Sep 27, 2012 05:12
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New Division posted:^^^^^^^^^^ He's actually Iraqi.
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Sep 27, 2012 06:38
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steve1 posted:Are you Syrian or have you just spent time in Syria? On that note, are there any known Syrian SA posters? I spent a summer in Syria a couple years ago, and one of my best friends is of Syrian descent (his dad grew up there) so I could answer some questions you have.
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Sep 27, 2012 07:17
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SpaceMost posted:Are there any good sources specifically on the history of suicide attacks in the Islamic world? Not sure if there is, especially since suicide attacks as we're familiar with them are a pretty recent development, I think the first group to use them were Lebanese Christians as well. Basically it depends on what you mean by history, there's no Islamic tradition of suicide attacks so the sort of book you'd be looking for would be focused on paramilitary/terrorist groups primarily in the Middle East since the 70's. Although I guess 40 years is probably long enough ago to be history now.
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Sep 27, 2012 07:51
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Dead Reckoning posted:The problem I have with this study and similar ones conducted by organizations like the Bureau of Investigative Journalism is that their methodology involves interviewing people from the FATA who come forward to claim they were innocent victims of American attacks. In this particular case: None of their interviews were actually conducted in FATA, either. It'd be much more useful if they did a random sample of residents in areas with heavy drone strikes, rather than just victims and subject matter experts/politicians. That way we could really know how average Pakistanis in these areas (which are unfortunately, very hard to conduct research in) feel about drone strikes, terrorist groups, etc. I've been critical of drone strikes for a long time because of their terrible effects on civilians and their ability to radicalize people, unfortunately this report isn't as useful at it claims to be. There's still value in it, of course, but we can only conclude so much from it. edit: In addition to your concerns about the organization, there's simply no way to get good, neutral data in these circumstances quote:First, it is very difficult for foreigners physically to access FATA, partly due to the Pakistani government’s efforts to block access through heavily guarded checkpoints, and partly due to serious security risks. This collection should have been outsourced to a Pakistani organization capable of conducting research in FATA. Women should have been used (and trained, if necessary) to ensure data could be collected from women. Xandu fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 08:17
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steve1 posted:Are you Syrian or have you just spent time in Syria? On that note, are there any known Syrian SA posters? I am not Syrian, no. I've spent time there and miss it dearly, but my knowledge is limited to Damascus and everything south towards the Syrian-Israeli border, and it's 20 years old at this point.
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Sep 27, 2012 10:25
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iyaayas01 posted:Erecting strawmen and refusing to acknowledge that there might be methodological concerns with this study makes it that much harder for those of us who actually have serious problems with the U.S. drone campaign but who also recognize that UAVs aren't literal godless killing machines that do nothing but intentionally kill babies and puppies. I understand that North Waziristan is not going to be the easiest place to conduct any sort of rigorous social science study, for a whole variety of reasons, but the proper way to address that is to acknowledge that shortcoming while you make your point, not going They did acknowledge those shortcomings in the study, referencing the logistical impossibility of traveling into Waziristan and having to rely on shuttling in people from there to interview - in addition there's been several interviews conducted with people other than Pashtun villagers, including members of the press, government officials and politicians, doctors operating in the area etc. Acknowledging shortcomings though is a far cry from the responses here asserting the paper lacks any credibility at all, from the braindead character assassination of people risking retribution to give firsthand accounts of living under US terrorism as "the equivalent of asking a cigarette manufacturer to provide people for a study on lung cancer" to questioning their 'bias' as 'self-selected anecdotes' from 'selected tribesmen' (ie people affected by the attacks); imagine asking friends and families of 9/11 victims how unbiased they are towards Al-Qaeda.
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Sep 27, 2012 10:55
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Bloodiest day of the rebellion, 199 civilians killed, and Russia and China do nothing.quote:More than 305 people were killed across Syria on Wednesday, making it the bloodiest day of the 18-month revolt, a human rights group said, after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged action from the "paralysed" UN Security Council.
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Sep 27, 2012 11:21
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