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This guy thinks it's a botched intelligence-gathering operation (thread). https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1061722937085050881
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Nov 11, 2018 23:38
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This is quite the read:quote:Saudi officials have portrayed Mr. Khashoggi’s death as a rogue killing ordered by an official who has since been fired. But that official, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, was present for a meeting in March 2017 in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, where the businessmen pitched a $2 billion plan to use private intelligence operatives to try to sabotage the Iranian economy. quote:They sketched out operations like revealing hidden global assets of the Quds force; creating fake social media accounts in Farsi to foment unrest in Iran; financing Iranian opposition groups; and publicizing accusations, real or fictitious, against senior Iranian officials to turn them against one another. quote:Mr. Nader and Mr. Zamel enlisted Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater and an adviser to the Trump transition team. They had already discussed elements of their plan with Mr. Prince, in a meeting when they learned of his own paramilitary proposals that he planned to try to sell to the Saudis. A spokesman for Mr. Prince declined to comment. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/world/middleeast/saudi-iran-assassinations-mohammed-bin-salman.html
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Nov 12, 2018 03:30
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Is Quds something like the Iranian CIA? I'm not too familiar with them.
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Nov 12, 2018 04:43
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Fuschia tude posted:Is Quds something like the Iranian CIA? I'm not too familiar with them. They're the part of the Revolutionary Guard that operates outside Iran. So yes, they do intelligence work, but also foreign military interventions.
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Nov 12, 2018 04:57
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Darth Walrus posted:They're the part of the Revolutionary Guard that operates outside Iran. So yes, they do intelligence work, but also foreign military interventions. And also terrorism, allegedly.
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Nov 12, 2018 05:05
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The difference between foreign paramilitary ops and terrorism is mainly spelling.
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Nov 12, 2018 05:38
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Darth Walrus posted:They're the part of the Revolutionary Guard that operates outside Iran. So yes, they do intelligence work, but also foreign military interventions. More like the Green Berets.
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Nov 12, 2018 08:35
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https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1061898967456321536 Où sont les tapes?
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Nov 12, 2018 09:38
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US backed  Al Qaeda vows to fight US backed terrorists PKK.https://twitter.com/joshua_landis/status/1061736763448836099
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Nov 12, 2018 10:02
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This seems to have been what Macron had in mind when he talked about maintaining stability in the oil markets: https://twitter.com/borzou/status/1061893962007494656 It's the diplomatic equivalent of la la la, can't hear you!
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Nov 12, 2018 13:27
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The French Government is currently anxious of facing angry car-owners furious about the upcoming increase in Oil price.
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Nov 12, 2018 14:12
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Probably the best place to put this, seeing a lot of what is in the film started on the Something Awful Middle East threads. There's a feature length documentary coming out about Bellingcat on Friday at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA). Myself and other Bellingcat members were filmed for 2 years as part of it, and it debuts at the festival, then Dutch TV, and it'll hopefully then be sold to an international distributor and end up on Netflix or something like that. https://twitter.com/PeriscoopFilm/status/1061990400469147654
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Nov 12, 2018 16:12
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https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1062063124977672192?s=19 So Israel just going all in uh
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Nov 12, 2018 20:48
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Isn't I/P stuff supposed to go in its own thread?
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Nov 12, 2018 21:06
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https://twitter.com/AAhronheim/status/1062074141535285252
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Nov 12, 2018 21:08
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Isn't I/P stuff supposed to go in its own thread? That thread is garbage though, I'd like to be able to talk about it here too.
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Nov 12, 2018 21:14
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Count Roland posted:That thread is garbage though, I'd like to be able to talk about it here too. That's because I/P chat always turns into angry shrieking, which is why it's quarantined in a separate thread.
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Nov 12, 2018 21:17
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:That's because I/P chat always turns into angry shrieking, which is why it's quarantined in a separate thread. This is a pretty big event though, I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up in a bunch of other threads.
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Nov 12, 2018 21:59
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:That's because I/P chat always turns into angry shrieking, which is why it's quarantined in a separate thread. I know, and I understand the rationale and largely agree with it. But when big poo poo goes down it inevitably has effects on things we discuss in this thread. Whatever, I'm just bitching I guess.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:06
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Brown Moses posted:Probably the best place to put this, seeing a lot of what is in the film started on the Something Awful Middle East threads. There's a feature length documentary coming out about Bellingcat on Friday at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA). Myself and other Bellingcat members were filmed for 2 years as part of it, and it debuts at the festival, then Dutch TV, and it'll hopefully then be sold to an international distributor and end up on Netflix or something like that. Congrats! Can I get some points on the royalties?
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Nov 12, 2018 22:27
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I'm not the only one seeing a skull in the fireball right? e: lol I see a pig too.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:34
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You are, although tbh I'm always a little suspicious of "OMG look at the explosion photos" like this, too easy to photoshop these days.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:41
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Brown Moses posted:Probably the best place to put this, seeing a lot of what is in the film started on the Something Awful Middle East threads. There's a feature length documentary coming out about Bellingcat on Friday at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA). Myself and other Bellingcat members were filmed for 2 years as part of it, and it debuts at the festival, then Dutch TV, and it'll hopefully then be sold to an international distributor and end up on Netflix or something like that. Looking forward to it. Probably a bunch of fun memories they dug up. Re: IP stuff, this thread has functioned as the IP thread before when there wasn't an IP thread and when there is fighting serious enough that it gets front page coverage, it generates hundreds of posts and buries everything else. This thread isn't any more sane than the IP thread when there's that kind of activity, all the shitposters just crosspost.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:54
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mlmp08 posted:KSA has its own tankers. So does UAE. But tankers and crews cost money and have maintenance and crew rest cycles, so if the USA were willing, of course KSA is going to request support. What the gently caress!? "Hey we have everything we need for this, but will you help us bomb school buses?" "No problem, thanks for all the help with ISIS. We'll totally pick up the tab here." Why would we agree to this, they are RIGHT THERE.
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Nov 13, 2018 01:25
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pro starcraft loser posted:What the gently caress!? KSA probably offered to pay triple the going rate. Kind of surprised KSA doesn't just pay Erik Prince $10 billion to genocide the Houthis for them so they can say it wasn't them who did it.
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Nov 13, 2018 02:03
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This kinda got buried in the I/P chat, but the Prime Minister of Canada confirmed that they received the audio of Khashoggi's murder.
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Nov 13, 2018 04:22
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Do you guys forsee anything real in terms of consequences coming from this khashog deal
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Nov 13, 2018 04:38
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So who'se wondering how the war in Afghanistan is going? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-attack-jaghori-district.html Taliban Slaughter Elite Afghan Troops, and a 'Safe' District is Falling quote:A small team of journalists from The New York Times went into Jaghori’s capital, Sang-e-Masha, on Sunday morning to report on the symbolic importance of what everyone expected to be a fierce stand against the insurgents. So I don't normally spam this thread with updates of the latest district to be occupied by the Taliban, but this time seems special. Firstly because we rarely get reports on the events of this caliber. The Afghan government lies shamelessly about any defeats so it's often hard to discern what's really happening. For example immediately before fleeing the district, the mayor tells the NYT reporters that the dead bodies stacked in the courtyard are local militiamen, even though they were obviously dressed in the uniforms of Afghan commandos. The main reason I thought this article was striking though is that Jaghori's population is almost entirely Shia Hazara, who generally hate the Taliban. For this reason the Taliban have previously ignored the district, where they must have had few prospects for raising new recruits and which would be difficult to administer. Instead they preferred to focus operations on Pashtun communities. The fact that they are now pushing hard in places like Jaghori indicate to me their control of such friendly communities is nearing 100% in this region. In the article they estimated this offensive involved roughly 1000 Taliban fighters. I expect we will increasingly see this kind of large scale operations against minority communities, as the solidified Taliban control of the countryside allow them to rapidly concentrate forces on increasingly isolated regions.
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Nov 13, 2018 05:04
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Squalid posted:So who'se wondering how the war in Afghanistan is going? live under taliban or get genocided by taliban i mean really what choice do you have. I mean the US troops are most likely sitting inside their bases waiting to get home. No one wants to be the last guy getting capped in Afghanistan. So the country is falling and it's doubtful there will be any foreign lift of the country. Contractors and soldiers alike are scorching as much tech as possible and waiting to leave.
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Nov 13, 2018 05:28
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Squalid posted:So who'se wondering how the war in Afghanistan is going? The New York Times seems to be the only place reporting on the Taliban's success this year. They seized most of Ghazni Providence in August (which Jaghori is in) and wiped out a different Afghan Special Forces unit that was defending Ajristan District. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/world/asia/afghanistan-ghazni-taliban.html?module=inline https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-ghazni.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/world/asia/afghanistan-war-reflections.html
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Nov 13, 2018 06:59
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New Al Qaeda flag https://twitter.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1061686405196218368
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Nov 13, 2018 07:07
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OhFunny posted:The New York Times seems to be the only place reporting on the Taliban's success this year. They seized most of Ghazni Providence in August (which Jaghori is in) and wiped out a different Afghan Special Forces unit that was defending Ajristan District. The really nuts thing about the NYT's report on the loss of Ghazni was that it had happened many months before August. However the Afghan government and US army just continued to pretend they controlled areas via "virtual" administration, i.e. local governments in exile that existed more on paper than reality. The US military and Afghan government lied for months or maybe even years in their public statements that territory was firmly under government control they knew was completely lost. They even maintained this facade in the SIGAR report published in September I think. The brazenness with which they lie is really astounding.
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Nov 13, 2018 07:19
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Missing your  's
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Nov 13, 2018 11:37
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Squalid posted:The really nuts thing about the NYT's report on the loss of Ghazni was that it had happened many months before August. However the Afghan government and US army just continued to pretend they controlled areas via "virtual" administration, i.e. local governments in exile that existed more on paper than reality. The US military and Afghan government lied for months or maybe even years in their public statements that territory was firmly under government control they knew was completely lost. They even maintained this facade in the SIGAR report published in September I think. The brazenness with which they lie is really astounding. This is right from the Vietnam playbook.
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Nov 13, 2018 14:14
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Squalid posted:The main reason I thought this article was striking though is that Jaghori's population is almost entirely Shia Hazara, who generally hate the Taliban. In other words: quote:“This is genocide,” Commander Hussein said.
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Nov 13, 2018 14:28
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Reading the backlog of (terrible) news out of Afghanistan, I kept seeing casualties reported as "commandos", which I assumed was just the term for Afghani special forces and turns out I was mostly right, but I was still confused as to why they seemed to always suffer such disproportional heavy casualties compared to conventional forces, but going back and reading some articles about the new afghan army*, I guess it makes sense. To quote: "The country’s current number of 21,000 special operations troops, while set to grow soon, account for only 7 percent of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. But they do from 70 percent to 80 percent of the actual fighting." It must be incredibly demoralizing for the rest of the under-equipped and under-trained army that these guys seem to be getting their asses kicked left and right. *https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/world/asia/afghanistan-military-strategy.html
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Nov 13, 2018 18:49
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Bohemian Nights posted:Reading the backlog of (terrible) news out of Afghanistan, I kept seeing casualties reported as "commandos", which I assumed was just the term for Afghani special forces and turns out I was mostly right, but I was still confused as to why they seemed to always suffer such disproportional heavy casualties compared to conventional forces, but going back and reading some articles about the new afghan army*, I guess it makes sense. That's a very bad way of fighting a war. You don't just keep sending the same troops to the front line and replace them as they die. This is incredibly demoralizing to those troops since they know that their chances of surviving the war are slim. Instead what every modern military does is rotate the troops on the front, which gives every individual soldier a good chance to survive the war, so they have something to fight for. A good example was how the US was struggling with bombing mainland Japan because the bomber crews kept turning back as soon as they encountered any anti-air resistance. They fixed this by offering a big leave of absence to any bombing crew that successfully completed their run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay posted:General LeMay was informed by a senior staff member, Colonel William P. Fisher, that bomber pilots were turning back from these low altitude bombing runs due to heavy anti-aircraft fire from Japanese defense forces. Fisher suggested to LeMay that crews who achieved successful strike rates should be rewarded by being released from their deployment. LeMay implemented this unorthodox plan and the strike rate went up to eighty percent.
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Nov 13, 2018 19:13
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I’m not sure the commandos really do suffer a disproportionately high share of casualties. We just hear about it more when they get hit because they’re more important. It’s also harder for the Afghan government to cover-up their losses because they are so prominent. When the Taliban annihilate some remote border post full of local police and militia it either doesn’t make the news or the government just lies about it. I think one reason why few publications besides the N YT cover Afghanistan in-depth is because it’s no longer safe for them to operate inside the country. Most journalists are stuck in a few neighborhoods of Kabul can’t really go anywhere. I’ve heard from at least one source that it’s significantly less safe than it was 10 years ago for journalists. As the US government refuses to release any information, that means we in the public are essentially blind to the course of the war.
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Nov 13, 2018 19:22
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Bohemian Nights posted:It must be incredibly demoralizing for the rest of the under-equipped and under-trained army that these guys seem to be getting their asses kicked left and right. The Afghan government's claimed troop numbers are largely a work of fiction.
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Nov 13, 2018 20:59
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