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LeoMarr posted:A lot more israeli planes going down FWIW Israel has a pretty solid K/D ratio vs the Russians. Russia is obviously an enemy Israel would be wise to avoid making, but Israel also has more potential than most to embarrass Russia in a limited conflict (particularly if the F-35 actually turns out to be worth a poo poo). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rimon_20
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Sep 23, 2018 19:08
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Just reading through this lengthy report by Nafeez Ahmed, State Propaganda in Syria - From War Crimes to Pipelines. He looks at a lot of the messaging around Syria, examining people like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett though to Seymour Hersh and Ted Postol, even Bellingcat, and gives every argument a thorough examination and judges them on their merits. It probably appeals to a very particular kind of person, but I'm finding it very interesting, as it's subjects I'm very engaged with, and think I know a lot about, but there's a lot in here I don't know.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:11
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Sinteres posted:FWIW Israel has a pretty solid K/D ratio vs the Russians. Russia is obviously an enemy Israel would be wise to avoid making, but Israel also has more potential than most to embarrass Russia in a limited conflict (particularly if the F-35 actually turns out to be worth a poo poo). I think I've found a flaw in your reasoning.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:13
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Sinteres posted:You think deliberately murdering civilians can be good? Subjectively any act of violence can be good, otherwise there would be no violence of any sort because what would be the point. Was bombing German cities in WW2 good, even when it killed civilians, including children and people who resisted Nazis? It depends entirely on perspective. But objectively there is zero difference between good and evil, you idiot!!!
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Sep 23, 2018 19:13
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Brown Moses posted:Just reading through this lengthy report by Nafeez Ahmed, State Propaganda in Syria - From War Crimes to Pipelines. He looks at a lot of the messaging around Syria, examining people like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett though to Seymour Hersh and Ted Postol, even Bellingcat, and gives every argument a thorough examination and judges them on their merits. It probably appeals to a very particular kind of person, but I'm finding it very interesting, as it's subjects I'm very engaged with, and think I know a lot about, but there's a lot in here I don't know. what does he write about bellingcat?
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Sep 23, 2018 19:16
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HorrificExistence posted:what's a civilian? If you pay taxes or otherwise give any material or moral support to a military or a non-state armed faction, then you are a legit military target according to someone's definition.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:21
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:what does he write about bellingcat? He introduces Bellingcat's work, focusing on the specific criticism of our work on MH17 when we used error level analysis and Spiegel retracted their story on our work because of that, and it caused a bit of drama that trolls love to bring up now. He concludes: quote:Given the gravity of these criticisms of Bellingcat’s digital forensic image analysis for this report, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this analysis was essentially propagandistic and not grounded in genuine expertise. That is not to automatically dismiss the validity of everything in Bellingcat’s analysis – as noted by Dr Marco Langbroek, a Space Situation Awareness consultant for the Royal Dutch Air Force and Leiden Observatory, there are other grounds to infer that some of the satellite images released by Russia were manipulated. As a general rule, therefore, Bellingcat’s open source analyses of video and images should not be simply taken at face value, but instead should be critically evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Now being overprotective of Bellingcat that feels like a bit of a gently caress you, but I'm biased. However, rather than being unreasonably critical of Bellingcat when he examines our work later on in the report, it just seems to make him extra thorough, so when he sides with our conclusion it feels like it's genuine, and when he doesn't it's for a good reason (even if I might not agree with him).
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Sep 23, 2018 19:24
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Nenonen posted:Was bombing German cities in WW2 good no, it largely didn't affect public support for the war, and didn't accomplish very much in the way of diminishing german industrial capacity, especially compared to the expense of developing, building, and refining strategic bombers and doctrines even if you set aside the civilian human cost entirely, it wasn't a productive strategy except when it was directed at specific military targets (eg railroads, romania's oil industry) Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 19:26
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For those who like to skip to the end:quote:Conclusion: You are either with us, or against us
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Sep 23, 2018 19:28
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Sinteres posted:FWIW Israel has a pretty solid K/D ratio vs the Russians. Russia is obviously an enemy Israel would be wise to avoid making, but Israel also has more potential than most to embarrass Russia in a limited conflict (particularly if the F-35 actually turns out to be worth a poo poo). Yeah, here's the thing: this is from 1970, and dogfighting is now essentially dead. I'm thinking advanced anti-aircraft with actual competent crews and no more of whatever handicap they have that prevents them from shooting down most Israeli planes on bombing runs.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:32
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Basically, be skeptical of everything. Everyone has a narrative they want you to buy, it is up to you to claw through the detritus to get anywhere near to the truth. (Btw, I will ask around in Moscow if the Skirpal investigation is of interest to anyone. I know Meduza's readership is very focused.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 19:34
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Ardennes posted:Basically, be skeptical of everything. Everyone has a narrative they want you to buy, it is up to you to claw through the detritus to get anywhere near to the truth. Unfortunately many of the most vocal people use "skeptical" to mean "outright reject any data that in any way interferes with my narrative". 
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Sep 23, 2018 19:36
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Unfortunately many of the most vocal people use "skeptical" to mean "outright reject any data that in any way interferes with my narrative". That is more or less the times we live in. It is a zero-sum game now. One can only hope that as an individual you are able to not fall into self-deception and deny an argument (even if it is privately) simply because it doesn't gain you an advantage. The only other choice beyond that is to simply accept what is given to you, but yeah that isn't going to work. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 19:38
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Ardennes posted:That is more or less the times we live in. It is a zero-sum game now. It's not really new. You got the same thing during the Cold War.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:41
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So my Iraqi friend has been trying to get his family over. His dad got rejected a couple months ago because he didn’t have my FRIEND’S birth certificate. Well he just found out yesterday that they changed their mind and his dad’s visa was approved!! No one has any idea what the gently caress but it’s pretty awesome. Did our policy change or something? Apparently just everyone has been getting denied.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:42
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Yeah, here's the thing: this is from 1970, and dogfighting is now essentially dead. I'm thinking advanced anti-aircraft with actual competent crews and no more of whatever handicap they have that prevents them from shooting down most Israeli planes on bombing runs. Nobody really knows if Russia has an answer to stealth aircraft yet, so (despite all the fuckups and delays), the F-35 might be a problem for them. Israel bombing S-400 sites if Russia did try to take down their planes would be pretty humiliating for Russia, even if it would also be an extremely risky decision for Israel to take. Of course losing an F-35 or two if Russia does have an answer to them would be humiliating not just to Israel, but to the US (and harmful to efforts to sell future planes to other countries) as well, so even aside from the fact that it would be better for the US to try to mediate now rather than have to mediate later if the situation starts to get out of control, the US may have reasons to persuade Israel not to escalate to that point.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:42
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Sinteres posted:Nobody really knows if Russia has an answer to stealth aircraft yet, so (despite all the fuckups and delays), the F-35 might be a problem for them. Israel bombing S-400 sites if Russia did try to take down their planes would be pretty humiliating for Russia, even if it would also be an extremely risky decision for Israel to take. Of course losing an F-35 or two if Russia does have an answer to them would be humiliating not just to Israel, but to the US (and harmful to efforts to sell future planes to other countries) as well, so even aside from the fact that it would be better for the US to try to mediate now rather than have to mediate later if the situation starts to get out of control, the US may have reasons to persuade Israel not to escalate to that point. Are Israel's F-35's operational yet? Have they ever actually been combat tested anywhere? It's funny how we're back to the Israeli-Arab conflict being the one place where the latest US/Russian (previously Soviet) technologies actually get to openly clash.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:46
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Are Israel's F-35's operational yet? Have they ever actually been combat tested anywhere? It's funny how we're back to the Israeli-Arab conflict being the one place where the latest US/Russian (previously Soviet) technologies actually get to openly clash. It looks like Israel used the F-35 in Syria in May: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/05/24/israel-just-showed-that-the-f-35-can-fight-so-whats-next/ Obviously both sides have reason to avoid conflict, so I hope they manage to do so, and assume they will. It would be fascinating to see how some of these new techs match up if they did skirmish a bit though.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:59
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Absurd Alhazred posted:It's not really new. You got the same thing during the Cold War. Well there was a period between the Cold War and now where generally there was more or less a single narrative to follow. This slowly started to diverge and then now has become part of a clear geopolitical divide.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:59
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Sinteres posted:It looks like Israel used the F-35 in Syria in May: Welp! Ardennes posted:Well there was a period between the Cold War and now where generally there was more or less a single narrative to follow. This slowly started to diverge and then now has become part of a clear geopolitical divide. I mean, there are at least three big narratives: globalization good, globalization bad because capitalism, globalization bad because foreigners. And in some places the ethnic/tribal narratives never stopped, it's just a matter of whether anyone was paying attention.
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Sep 23, 2018 20:08
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What’s more likely than Russia shooting down more Israeli aircraft is Israel giving Russia data on top of the line US equipment to smooth things over. Sorry about your IL-20, here’s the crystal form and phase-shift data for top of the line patriot radars. Or here’s how best to jam the frequency hopping ptp microwave comms they use, etc.
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Sep 23, 2018 20:25
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thesurlyspringKAA posted:What’s more likely than Russia shooting down more Israeli aircraft is Israel giving Russia data on top of the line US equipment to smooth things over. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot, though, because that information will then be available to go to Iran or Syria, and Israel uses this stuff.
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Sep 23, 2018 20:28
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thesurlyspringKAA posted:What’s more likely than Russia shooting down more Israeli aircraft is Israel giving Russia data on top of the line US equipment to smooth things over. Technological advances are Israel's lifeblood. They'll never have the numbers of their many enemies, so they must stay ahead in other ways. Giving up this advantage is far, far too costly for them.
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Sep 23, 2018 21:31
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Lol every side of this conflict has shot down a russian plane I could see russia proliferating MANPADS in the region which would definitely cause problems for the americans and israelis.
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Sep 23, 2018 21:46
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Yeah, here's the thing: this is from 1970, and dogfighting is now essentially dead. I'm thinking advanced anti-aircraft with actual competent crews and no more of whatever handicap they have that prevents them from shooting down most Israeli planes on bombing runs. Fun flashback to just before 1970: quote:In August 1966, Iraqi Air Force fighter pilot Captain Munir Redfa defected, flying his MiG-21 to Israel after being ordered to attack Iraqi Kurd villages with napalm. His aircraft was transferred to Groom Lake within a month to study. In 1968 the US Air Force and Navy jointly formed a project known as HAVE DOUGHNUT in which Air Force Systems Command, Tactical Air Command, and the U.S. Navy's Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four (VX-4) flew this acquired Soviet made aircraft in simulated air combat training. Because U.S. possession of the Soviet MiG-21 was, itself, secret, it was tested at Groom Lake. A joint Air Force-Navy team was assembled for a series of dogfight tests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-FPcbleciY Syria's still using MiG-21 variants. Just a hunch, I don't think they'd be the top favorites to win a dogfight. 
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Sep 23, 2018 21:48
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Brown Moses posted:Just reading through this lengthy report by Nafeez Ahmed, State Propaganda in Syria - From War Crimes to Pipelines. He looks at a lot of the messaging around Syria, examining people like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett though to Seymour Hersh and Ted Postol, even Bellingcat, and gives every argument a thorough examination and judges them on their merits. It probably appeals to a very particular kind of person, but I'm finding it very interesting, as it's subjects I'm very engaged with, and think I know a lot about, but there's a lot in here I don't know. The syrian conflict has had by far the most globally distributed propaganda of any conflict I've experienced in my lifetime. It's amazing that they've managed to get their message out so widely in ever major language on every major platform.
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Sep 23, 2018 21:55
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Saladin Rising posted:Fun flashback to just before 1970: As I said, dogfighting is mostly dead. Nobody's expecting the Syrians to win a dogfight with even pre-F35 tech. That's why Israel almost exclusively talks and warns about AA technology.
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Sep 23, 2018 22:41
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Absurd Alhazred posted:As I said, dogfighting is mostly dead. Nobody's expecting the Syrians to win a dogfight with even pre-F35 tech. That's why Israel almost exclusively talks and warns about AA technology. To the US, that defector-gotten MiG-21 is a museum piece, a reminder of the history of the Cold War, a memory of the Vietnam war, the Six-day war, and even the breakup of Yugoslavia. To Syria, that plane's not a memory or a museum piece, that's a proud member of the 2018 Syrian Arab Air Force.
Saladin Rising fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 23:04
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Saladin Rising posted:Oh yeah I agree, I was using your post to show just how dead dogfighting (of the plane variety, not the dog variety unfortunately) really is. A week or so ago I was looking up some stuff about what's been released about Area 51, and I laughed my rear end off when I realized that I actually recognized the names of some of the planes they tested back in 60's, and that I recognized them because Syria and Libya are still flying those ancient rust-buckets 50 years later. Fair enough. Although doesn't the US still use B-52's and A10's?
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Sep 23, 2018 23:29
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Even if Russia gave the SAA a bunch of S-400 AA systems it wont matter as long as Russian planes continue to fly in and out of Damascus constantly. The SAA wont be able to use the S-400s as long as Russian planes are in the air, and Israel is just going to keep planning its bombing runs when they see that there are Russian planes near the area they want to bomb. Maybe the Russians can trick the Israelis by flying a bunch of decoy planes at the same time a big weapons shipment from Iran arrives in Damascus, allowing the SAA to shoot at any plane in the sky when the Israeli jets are detected.
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Sep 23, 2018 23:39
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This seems interesting: https://twitter.com/barbaraslavin1/status/1043968636824817665
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Sep 24, 2018 00:05
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Sinteres posted:This seems interesting: House of Saud's own Li'l Yachty.
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Sep 24, 2018 00:10
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Not that I necessarily believe everything that article claims but for sure MBS has made a massive array of enemies due to that hotel torture stunt alone. However long he reigns there will always be someone after him because of that.
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Sep 24, 2018 00:14
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Where does al monitor get its funding? I’ve thought for a long time the Yemen adventure had potential to destabilize SA, but I’m instinctively suspicious of any media organization covering the Gulf with which I’m not familiar.
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Sep 24, 2018 00:19
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Fair enough. Although doesn't the US still use B-52's and A10's? The B-52 is indeed old as gently caress, but it's basically unbeatable at what it does. Like, how the gently caress do you top this: quote:
This post is probably a little bit on the ooh-rah side, but this is basically why we've been able to do whatever the gently caress we want in Syria. ISIS has no airforce, Nusra/HTS has no air force, Turkey is (at least nominally) allied, Syria's poo poo is decades out of date, and we're de-conflicting air flights with Russia because they're the only one who could potentially cause a flare up if one or the other of us blows each other's high-tech poo poo out of the sky, as seen with the Russia-Syria-Israel thing. E: Like for example, one of the planes involved when the US murked the Wagner mercenaries a while back was the F-22. The F-22 is an air-superiority fighter, meant to do plane-on-plane battles. Why are we flying the F-22 in Syria? To test it out in the closest thing to an actual "war" it's probably seen since it was built. So how's the plane-on-plane thing going? quote:On 22 September 2014, F-22s performed the type's first combat sorties during the American-led intervention in Syria; aircraft dropped 1,000-pound GPS-guided bombs on Islamic State targets near Tishrin Dam. By January 2015, the F-22 accounted for three percent of Air Force sorties during Operation Inherent Resolve. General Mike Hostage of ACC said that the aircraft performed "flawlessly" during this deployment. Between September 2014 and July 2015, F-22s flew 204 sorties over Syria, dropping 270 bombs at some 60 locations. On 23 June 2015, a pair of F-22s performed the aircraft's first close air support (CAS) mission after receiving a short-notice request for airstrikes in close proximity to friendly forces. Saladin Rising fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 00:23
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Squalid posted:Where does al monitor get its funding? I’ve thought for a long time the Yemen adventure had potential to destabilize SA, but I’m instinctively suspicious of any media organization covering the Gulf with which I’m not familiar. I felt like you did when I first came across it, especially when they had some big scoop nobody else covered. The funding, back then anyway, was a bit sketchy. Some Washington types, with I think at least one neocon as a founder. Looking back now I see two prominent people connected to the Levant Foundation, the Council of Foreign Affairs, and a Houston-based investment company. If they're towing a line they're being real subtle about it. They cover Israel, Palestine, Hezbollah, Iran, KSA etc, and I've seen them be critical of all of them. Their audience is clearly other journalists and policy types, so maybe there is an underlying message I don't see.
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Sep 24, 2018 00:35
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Veteran Israeli foreign reporter and analyst Ron Ben Yishai has a breakdown of the Russian response. He thinks a lot of it is an internal struggle between the Defense Ministry and President's Office, some of it is internal propaganda, and some of it is to give Russia leverage on Israel, and as a result on Syria and Iran.
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Sep 24, 2018 01:02
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Ardennes posted:Basically, be skeptical of everything. Everyone has a narrative they want you to buy, it is up to you to claw through the detritus to get anywhere near to the truth. rip ardennes, identified as Brown Moses collaborator and then fell out of window onto bullets
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Sep 24, 2018 01:41
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GreyjoyBastard posted:rip ardennes, identified as Brown Moses collaborator and then fell out of window onto bullets To be honest, the people who care are probably the readership of Meduza, liberal Moscovites. It isn't that different than when some story about the CIA turns out to be true, most Americans give it a shrug. They are "our guys" after all. Kremlin's soft spot isn't adventurism/dirty tricks abroad, but boil-plate issues like pensions, wages, and domestic spending. The Ruble is an issue as well, although the biggest factor is its effect devaluation has on inflation. There does seem to be a pattern of the Kremlin using the destruction of RuAF aircraft as points of leverage. If anything this strategy seems to have worked relatively well versus Turkey. Israel is significantly riskier an opponent (plenty of Russians, both Jewish and otherwise, travel back and forth between Israel, and many Slavic Israelis have relatives in Moscow). Also, that article published from Ynetnews is almost unreadable. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 02:08
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Saladin Rising posted:The A-10 is newer (mid to late 70's), and its main job is blowing up idiots like ISIS or the Taliban who have no air force. The A-10's battle prowess against modern targets in the air is immaterial when a drone carrying a grenade is the extent of your opponent's air capabilities. TBF the US missile capabilities are so good at ensuring that no belligerent within a thousand miles has any meaningful AA pointed at them that that's not going to change in the near or medium future.
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Sep 24, 2018 04:56
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