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Google Earth and "Collateral Damage"
netbuzz writes "British news reports say insurgents are using Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within bases in Iraq. Could Google be doing more to prevent this? Should they be doing more? They certainly could explain more."
and make the world "safe for democracy".
What?
This story reminds me of the reporter who was kidnapped in Iraq and convinced his captors that his articles were critical of the war. They Googled him and let him go.
2) That said, it does seem reasonable that insurgents might be able to make use of Google Earth for some targeting information. Since the data is generally fairly stale, though, one wonders just how useful it would actually be.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I wondered when someone was finally going to try to blame Google for blowing buildings up. With GPS as accurate as it is, and satallite imagery easily accessable, I don't think Google is what we need to deal with. We need to deal with the guys with the bombs.
If the army cannot see the general benefit of changing their security positions, guard towers and barracks every few months, then google maps isn't changing much
"They certainly could explain more."
And say what, exactly? Terrorists also use cars, do we ask carmakers to explain? Google earth is just a very nice fancy map, do we ask cartographers to explain?
What a pointless article.
Because Google is the only way to view satellite images. Shutting down Google Earth would totally solve everything! The US is ultimately responsible for concealing its assets from satellite photography. Same goes for every other country on Earth. Someone out there is always watching. PS: Must be a slow news day...
If the UK was invaded by a foreign power, and the people fought back, we would be called 'the resistance', or 'freedom fighters' or what not - so why do Bliar and Bush and co. call the Iraqi people that fight back 'insurgents' ??
A logical solution would be not to have any vulnerable targets, especially "within bases". Here's an idea: guard your bases better. I mean, what if one day you'll have to fight an enemy that has their own aerial and space recon and doesn't have to rely on Google? So blaming Google is a ridiculous excuse for the incompetence of the military commanders entrusted with the safety of these bases.
We should cut out everyones eyes in Iraq, because the insurgents there use their eyes to target western forces. We should also cut of their hands, because the insurgents there use their hands to hold the weapons used on western forces.
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
I had wondered what should be done about this when I first happened across the article on Digg and I honestly believed that that it would make sense for Google to censor sensitive regions of the world. They could do what they did for the D.C. area and beige-out some of the imagery to protect sensitive images of the country. But then the big ugly can of worms is opened as to what's sensitive to who, etc.
And honestly, all this image censorship seems like a waste of time, because this kind of information could be discovered in such a large number of ways. Imagine just floating a balloon in the air with a camera atached and some GPS equipment? I guess the US could shoot every flying object out of the sky and then censor Google, but it's probably a lame solution... it's analogous (in my mind) to application security through obscurity.
I'd imagine the betters solution for the US is to 1) place their own tents over vulnerable points (if they like the security through obscurity solution) and to 2) cut back on those points of vulnerability. What the heck did we do during the cold war -- satellite weren't only a US technology....
Shocked they haven't forced a blackout of critical areas. I'd almost call this more of a failure of the US government not Google. They can't be expected to know where critical areas are.
is to ensure that terrorists, insurgents, and other undesireables, shall not have access to information that is freely and publicly available through other channels anyway.
Perhaps they should recruit all of the ISPs in the developed world to aid them in carrying out this grave responsibility. If will all just signed affidavits of government loyalty and agreed to undergo extensive background checking prior to using the Internet or any Net enabled tools, the problem would be solved.In all seriousness, when did Google become charged with being the Internet Police? Isn't combating "terrorism" someone else's job, already?
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mohandas Gandhi
Why would Google be charged for treason? Courts have even been saying that it's not gun producer's fault when they're gun's are used in a crime. It's not Google's fault what people use their app for. If you wanna keep going, it's Microsoft's or a Linux distro fault because it runs Google Earth.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
I can see a stealth fighter on the pad in Area 51, but I doubt anyone can get near it. The craters to the southwest are interesting. Google Earth could be used to set traps as well. Looky here Habib, unguarded C-4! So where exactly is the playboy mansion's sundeck?
google is a service that provides easy access to data. meaning, the data already exists, so oh well, it is not their problem, the more public information, the better.
The satellite photos Google uses are updated every few years at best. If the UK forces had left their tents in the same place for years, it's not Google they should have been worried about, it's their commanders. But I somehow doubt those tents were left intact for such a long time, so the Telegraph is dishing out a pile of BS here.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Time to set up ranks of inflatable tanks, buildings, and such and move them every week. By the time they pinpoint the tanks, they will find nothing.
Here is an article on the art of deception. I would love them to waste ammo and troups attacking the empty tents in the compound where all those inflatable tanks are.
http://www.psywarrior.com/DeceptionH.html
The truth shall set you free!
Google should required terrorists to identify themselves as such, provide a legimate street address and a valid credit card to purchase the info. That will provide the government with information as they audit such transactions and Google will have a revenue stream to show to the shareholders. It's a win-win situation unless the military arrives after the bomb goes off. But that's not Google's problem.
Many people seem to want those in GitMo to be release. It's always been my thought, following historic precident, to cut off the thumbs of the enemy. They won't be able to hold a weapon (sword, or now adays a gun) and be easily be spotted.
This procedure can be done in a painless way and would not significantly impact the lives of the 'innocent'. Perhaps make it a volunteer program.
I'm sure our brilliant intelligence services worked a deal out with Google to put out false information in these maps to confuse, befuddle and ultimately exploit the enemy, right? You blew our cover!
Also, you can't disprove this.
I wish we had Professor Farnsworth's "what if" machine. If we did, I would use it to give "these people" everything they want: government controlled internet, a video camera with speaker and mic on every block, no crypo among citizens, etc. and see what would happen. Because at this point I see little difference between the "insurgents" and these people in that both seem to believe that they are doing the right thing, and both are ignoring a lot of logic. I have the feeling that if either extreme were to "win" conclusively, the end would be the same: a very restricted society.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Just wait until they discover they can control their Roomba with a Wiimote. Goodbye suicide bombings, hello Roomba bombings! Down with Nintendo, down with iRobot!
and make the world "safe for democracy".
I don't know how to put this for you, but I was reading a suggested article in a rag you boys here probably never read, "Soldier of Fortune". In it, several of our past and present US Army Snipers and Marine Corps Snipers are all yacking about how the officers and politicians are using them in movie style "overwatch" positions. Which as you, enlightened, slashdotters would understand is a "WASTE" of people with training in REAL sniping (long range enemy personnel removal) not defensive positions in visible places.
:)
As one sniper put it, "we're being use as cardboard cutouts on rooftops, any insurgent, or housewife with a gun is going to count her lucky stars and take a potshot at the *grunt* patrolling with a bolt action scoped rifle, this isn't how snipers are to be used in war".
At one point they lost 2 snipers because they were made to patrol town, with "protection", which means that he was surrounded by "support" personnel (some dozen guys or so). The guy said it too. "Snipers don't have firepower, we're being used like in the movies, and that is not what snipers are for, we're slow, deliberate and precise. But we do not have *firepower*, no sir, we deliver precise, surgical kills against crucial targets. We're not being employed to the best of our abilities, we're being employed as if we were in some hollywood movie set."
Many of them are quitting everyday and going "professional" or "contractor". Everyone here blames them, I frankly, cannot. Where would you rather be, fighting for the government under their inept, incompetent and totally demented leadership, or fighting for yourself, and choosing your contracts/battles. You're still spilling blood for money, or, if civilian and pro war, you're a coward asking others to spill blood in your stead. At the very least, mercs have some liberty and choice, and they aren't wasted like our military types are.
My personal opinion is that they're being flung to the wind and allowed to be killed so they can make room for the mexican "army amnesty program"
So don't worry about google earth, its not the culprit, IDIOTS IN THE LEADERSHIP POSITIONS ARE THE CULPRIT! I hear it from less ignorant grunts and former marines all the time. They don't go back anymore, they quit and out they stay. One took my advice as did several buddies, and they've been looking at Blackwater USA. Personally, I don't care if they go there or not, but fighting for the government just is not SANE anymore, not as a profession. The commanding officers are largely movie watcher types, and the snipers are just the first to notice this (being as to how people of remarkable talent, such as snipers and sharpshooters are being wasted on patrol and overwatch duties).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
But last time I checked, Google was not the ONLY place to get satellite imagery, its just a public one. Can't we track the IP addresses from Iraq that are accessing Google images? I would hope that a military force as formidable as the US armed forces would have a way to hide targets, and protect them. I didn't read the article, but from what I can tell otherwise, those same targets are subject to Iraqi people reporting them to 'insurgents' as well. There are probably a dozen ways to find targets inside US bases. Shutting down Google in any way will not prevent them from being visible targets to the 'insurgents'.
This story seems a lame attempt to drum up business for the warmongers? I thought the real problem was IEDs?
On a side note, do they have that much Internet access in Iraq? or is it maybe some other country that is doing this? Not really sure on that one.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
In other news, scientists have found convincing evidence that geographical and geopolitical maps can be used by terrorists to pinpoint vulnerable locations and possible targets and to coordinate terrorist troop movements. They propose the BAM [Banish All Maps] Act in order to prevent terrorists' orientation.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The military should be using Google Earth to find weak points in their bases so they can FIX THEM.
You think if google earth didn't exist people wouldn't get this information? Well when they do you're going to be fscked and unprepared... It's like a real world analog for security through obscurity.
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
Maybe the army should use Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within their bases... and make them, oh I don't know, not vulnerable. Or better yet walk around you bases and figure out whats vulnerable in real time! I mean if Google Earth has data thats more than a year old and terrorists have used it to pinpoint vulnerable targets then doesn't that mean that the targets have been vulnerable for more than a year.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
... that people will pay money to have the lens cap on over certain areas. Some satellite imagers do that... "we publish the pictures unless you pay us not to..."
Who here belives Google Earth displays or even has access to anything other than what they are permitted to by the military? So why is an intelligence officer moaning about something he knows won't change?
If the "bad guys" belive the maps are up to date then they are the maps they will use. I think this is an attempt by the "good guys" to direct enemy mortar fire into an empty padock. Now since the proffesional bad guys aren't stupid, any doubt about the currency of the images reduces Google Earth to the informational status of an old street map.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
...terrorists use maps to plan attacks. More at 11.
make lots of decoys. Hey it works with ducks.
What?
Step 1: If practical, all US military bases in Iraq suddenly get very fuzzy on Google Earth. Or better yet, they get photoshopped to try and screw the insurgients into planning their attack with the wrong data.
Step 2: If step 1 is not practical, just fuzz out all of Iraq. I believe they do something similiar with Israel and GPS and space photos - GPS is less accurate and public images are no better than 2M resolution, IIRC.
[The part referenced by my subject line ends here]
Step 3: Just admit that Iraq is the next Vietnam, and save a bunch of lives on both sides by leaving ASAP. The the hated government we're propping up is as useless and corrupt as the South Vietnamese government was. As in Vietnam, we've got a determined insurgiency that's being supported by outside forces (We're looking at YOU, Iran and Syria). As if to rub salt in the wound, this time they (Iran & Syria) finance their support using our own oil money. Once again, the enemy is proving that all our technology is fracking useless against them. Once again, we're spending outselves into a fiscal black hole.
And once again, we're discovering that our government lied to start this war (nit: Yeah, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was just the excuse to escalate), and frankly has been systematically lying ever since. Greeted as liberators - insurgiency in it's death throes - Don't need more troops - Pay for itself in oil exports - We don't torture - Undercounting civilian deaths - Yada yada yada. We even get our own version of Vietnamization ("We stand down as they stand up"), and we all know how well that went last time. Then again, Iraqi-ization is going nowhere because the Iraqi army will never, ever stand up (i.e. don't want to anger the insurgients that will control Iraq when we leave).
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. So the question is... How long until we leave with our tail between our legs this time? And after Bush is impeached (?), will Cheney pardon him?
You'll be seeing Google Control maybe?
No google box can hold more than 10 characters? A google entry may not have a pistol stock, or selective fire modes, flash hiders or high caliber ammunition or a muffler (sound suppressor) or it is an Assault Google.
Oh yeah, rock and roll, DO IT COURTS!! Burn google, for being a Machine Google. Now we won't just have senseless gun control, we'll have GOOGLE CONTROL!
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
More likely some (terrorist/insurgent/freedom fighter/pissed off local Iraqi dude) wanted to get a promotion, so he told his boss he was using the enemy's tools against him and that was how he got the great shot with his crappy mortar.
"Hey boss, I accessed a state of the art targeting system owned by the enemy to destroy the great Satan!"
"Good work, you'll get a promotion now, and no less than...4 people right under you."
Mean while the other terrorists he works with keep missing their targets and are pissed because they know this guy just got off a lucky shot. As if that wasn't bad enough, they've got a consultant from the regional Mosque doing metrics on efficiency of the local union mortar guys and will probably get laid off soon for lack of performance.
I've seen a thousand times before...
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Google is obviously in talks with the involved parties here.
It's just that they don't want to go public with all the details.
That honestly sounds good enough to me. The important part is that they're aware of the problem, not that they inform grumpy Google journalists of every little thing they're discussing internally. I think they don't deserve the negative spin on this in that article.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It's such a shame there are so many idiots and that a good percentage of them work in the media. Google doesn't have a fleet of satellites buzzing overhead watching our every move. They buy existing satellite and aerial imagery from commercial sources. These sources are US and non-US based. Google made deals on bulk purchases of the *existing* data and make it cheaper, but they didn't create it.
Also, the same clueless people assume this is all satellite imagery. The "good stuff" is actually lower level aerial photos shot from airplanes. Yep, someone flew right over the tops of those places and were paid to do so.
So, like most of the other "secrets" Google is blamed for revealing these pictures were already out there and available.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone in charge of security for those bases ever looked on Google Earth to see just what was visible? If investigators found printouts that showed vulnerable locations then those same vulnerabilities would have been visible to the security people. By seeing what was freely available to the outside world they could have taken precautions to reduce the risk.
Unless the attacks came just hours after new imagery was posted on Google Earth, then the security people screwed up royally.
...the insurgents refer to their attacks as Google Bombings.
"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
The people who use them are.
If everything that could possibly be used to cause bodily harm got banned, there'd hardly be anything left. This is why banning gels and liquids on airplanes is so rediculously stupid (not to mention an overreaction to a scientifically infeasable plot).
this is just the changing face of war, deal with it.
This is horrible... this is the worst thing since the communists starting using our city maps to locate our government buildings. I say we put a ban on all maps for good. God bless the United States!
that no one on Slashdot is capable of a non-retarded comment about *anything* regarding the Iraq War.
I saw this story about 2 days ago. It wasn't very impressive to me at the time, and still isn't. For one thing, all we know of the insurgent's use of Google Earth is that a suspected terrorist shelter had printouts and coordinates written on it. Someone assumes this means terrorists are using Google Earth to plan attacks. Maybe so, but what are they going to do? Plot in the coordinates in a cruise missile? What piece of equipment do terrorists have that use coordinates? So, the terrorists' mortor fire is becoming more accurate; after 4 years of shelling the same targets, wouldn't one expect as much? And, yes, the maps on Google Earth are a few years old. Many of the buildings where I live, even entire apartment complexes, were not built yet in the Google Earth photos.
Maps, whether Google Earth's or not, are useful for planning attacks in other ways. Maps can communicate where to meet, where to plant bombs, where convoys will travel, etc. But, Google probably does not have the only maps of Iraq that Iraqis can get. What are we supposed to do? Ban all maps from civilians?
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
I agree with you, and I would think a charge of treason would be unreasonable. But it would not suprise me that some military hot-head in this 'time of war' would attempt to shut down a service which offered by a US company that specifically aids and provides information to people in an enemy country during war (if it were World War II, you think a US/UK map manufacturer wouldn't get in trouble for selling maps of the country & it's bases to Germany)?
I don't agree with it, but perhaps if someone in the Government did have the gall to accuse Google of such a thing (which I see as conceivable given that they attacked a country because a small number hijacked a plane - and then suggested the whole country had made a 'declaration of war'), then it would serve to highlight how feeble the grounds for this 'war' actually are. Perhaps the Supreme Court might actually come to the conclusion that no official declaration of war was ever issued. It would be good to have some official body actually say it, rather than have this unreliable inflammatory drivel spouted by politicians for CNN in the record books.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
Yes.
They could add arrows: "This way to the Secret Bunker."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Terrorists use maps to navigate! Could map-makers be doing more to prevent this?
I say take out the vote as it is today. If you vote pro war in any issue, politician or not, you're INSTA DRAFTED.
I want to see how many "needless" or "unexplained/for someone's freedom" wars we would have then.
I'm not a leftist/socialist by any measure, but I find that drafts should be "voluntary" since a draft is slavery, and the worst form of it (its a socialist term for CONSCRIPTION!) so you should volunteer for it the moment you vote for any war or reduction in liberty. Or, if you don't support it (by not wanting to be the one to catch a bullet or trip wire bomb on the front lines) then don't join up by wanting war, and others to fight it.
This would be a most libertarian solution, since the only ones sent to the front lines in an invasion would be the idiots that voted for it. Be they NeoCon Dick Cheney, or anyone else.
Oh and a special treat would be to also autodraft the families of said politicians!
Aggression wars are aok... they should be committed ONLY by those who voted for them. The regular army should guard borders, and national guard should stay at home. They were meant to "protect from enemies foreign". And that is what they should do.
NOTE: Yes they do let you out, if your service is up. Many do not reenlist, but go merc. Good for them.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Then jump in the car and drive to those locations and see how much they have changed in the last few years of being stale. I bet not much. BTW, how often does the courthouse change?
My courthouse hasn't been in a city that's been in a constant state of war for the past 4 years.
Between the initial invasion and the on-going fighting, I bet a lot changes fairly quickly.
The phrase "collateral damage" refers to unintended casualties (esp. civilians) resulting from a military operation. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the British soldiers are the intended targets--there's nothing collateral about them being killed.
so civilians can't be pro-war?
That's pretty much what he's saying - that unless you're prepared to go and fight yourself, and prove it by joining up and thus putting yourself in a position where you can fight, then you have no right to be pro-war and demand of others something you're not willing to do yourself.
It seems a reasonable position to me - kind of like the old "if you don't vote, you lose the right to complain about the government" line. If you won't fight, you lose the right to demand that others fight on your behalf.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The fundamental flaw in your logic is that you think that all wars are voluntary. While the recent Iraq War was certainly a voluntary war, many others have not been. You can ask Poland, England, France, China, etc. about several wars that they didn't vote for but that still came to them.
Don't let your hatred of the Bush Administration cloud your views. You, like many people, are unable to separate people from events from ideas. It wasn't just George Bush or Saddam Hussein who started the Iraqi War, nor was it 9/11 or Iraq ignoring UN mandates. You are trying to blame people or events instead of challenging ideas. Hence, you have no understanding of the underlying conflict, albeit in 2003 or now (which are completely different things).
The death of al Zarqawi didn't stop terrorism in Iraq because he was just a person. The crushing of the city of Fallujah didn't stop terrorism in Iraq because it was just an event. Genocide or democide, an idea, very well could stop terrorism (an idea) in Iraq. There are other possibilities that may occur and hopefully we don't need to see genocide or democide implemented (such as in Cambodia) nor politicide (such as in Vietnam after 1975).
We are currently fighting a war like we are playing a game of football. Each side is scoring 'goals' and claiming to be winning. Instead, a comprehensive campaign should be run. The Allies didn't win WWII because they killed more people than the Axis Powers (in fact, they killed fewer). They won because they were able to implement an effective campaign against the Axis Powers.
No. They are being encouraged to resign so that their services will be available to convert individuals with lots of money into individuals with lots of mone and even more power.
I didn't realize there was one government body that controlled the internet. Nor did I realize that the military could retroactively shoot down satellites that have taken pictures of the Earth for years. Nor that it would suddenly be legal, under treaties most countries capable of shooting down satellites have signed, to start shooting down all satellites that "fly over" a warzone.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Then what qualifies as a non aggressive war. Pushing an enemy anywhere past there border is a war of aggression. Hell the retaking of any land you lost is a war of aggression. When the enemy was the aggressor however, sometimes pushing them to there border and stopping isn't enough. Sometimes you have to make a push for that figurative Berlin.
Your statement is biased in that it assumes all wars and all fights are unjust. Sorry sometimes diplomacy does not work. Not everyone can be reasoned with.
Now before you start screaming about how I'm an idiot for the Iraq war ect ect. No I do not support the Iraq war. I do not support the current MO and I do not support most of the current leadership.
"Protect from foreign enemy's". So if someone does lob a nuke that hits a major city our army should sit idly? They didn't cross our border. They haven't taken any of our land. What do we do at that point? In that case what is considered fighting defensively. Who has to pay and how do we make them pay for that. That is the problem with your so called solution. It relies to much on the point of view of the powers that be.
You know they had these cozy little camps in Siberia where the sent people who the government didn't like. The problem is, that gets you in trouble with all those icky humans rights things. Your solution is perfect though. ( no this will not be a strawman as I am not trying to take his argument and refute a different version of it) A vocal part of your population thinks we should get involved in a situation that could go out of control. INSTA DRAFT!!!! Toss said vocal population into the situation in just a way to make them easily killed. Vocal group is gone. Toss a few military leaders and some planners for being "incompetent". Claim that you sincerely regret the lives lost. Talk about how important good planning is, and how you always strive for a diplomatic solution. Guess what no humans right violations. When you get your soldiers killed no one cares.
Then again that situation could happen in ANY country with a draft.
Possibly ordering your own family to their deaths would cloud the judgment of most leaders. The could not be relied on at that point to make the the right decision based ont eh situation.
What if the politician family disagrees with him/her? What if there son/daughter is a total pacifist."Your fucked, your estranged father thinks this and were going to punish you since he doesn't give a fuck about you". yeah... slavery.
You mad
Also putting blurred images or red cover over areas only attracts people to find out what is there. Most places seen from satellite can be seen a lot better with proper binoculars!
Has nobody heard of WorldWind from NASA. They were publishing similar data way before Google got on board...
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
First release August 2004!
Perhaps NASA could be doing more to prevent...
Dave
The street map of Moscow used to be a state secret.
Didn't do much to secure the city from crime and bombs.
Strangely enough, Iraqies tend to know their own country and a military site is rather obvious.
WTF ! The enemy is using internet ?!
The simple solution would be to reorganize the base every year or so
Now I'm not a sniper and my service wasn't with the US army, but then it sounds to me like either that's hyperbole or the US is doing something else very wrong.
I'm one of the AA guys. You know, those who in a war would get to jam a SA missile down someone's tailpipe or put a helluva lot of 30mm holes in a helicopter or low flying plane. Specialized troops too, with specialized (big) guns, lots of electronics and radar dishes, specialized training, etc, not your average infantry grunt.
But guess what? We had assault rifles too, and we were trained to use them too. We also did our own guard duty (in a visible guard tower, too), patrols, etc.
Not only that, but it was pretty much assumed and understood that in a pinch we could and would have to fulfill other roles too. We had our own light machineguns, our own rocket launchers in case we have to deal with a mess of tanks, we were trained to chuck a grenade, storm a hill, or dig a foxhole and defend that hill.
Wars aren't neatly organized affairs, and you don't always have exactly what you need in exactly the right place. And sometimes having exactly what you need of everything in every place is a waste of manpower and material. For example, you don't dig in two brigades of infantry around your big guns brigade, just so the big guns guys can be so ultra-specialized that they never have to touch an assault rifle. It's easier to just put them somewhere where normally they won't be assaulted, but if shit hits the fan and they do, they'll have to fight like everyone else. You also don't give them a company of infantry for guard duty, they get to post their own guards.
Also war isn't so neatly organized as to always have a designated target in advance. I know I wouldn't expect a designated airplane to surgically shoot and then go home, so I'm not sure why these guys would absolutely need a strategic target designated in advance. Most of war is dealing with unplanned stuff. Some guys appear from where you didn't expect. You shoot them. If you're a sniper or designated marksman, you do your best to put a hole in someone while the other guys pin them down. And add your own suppression factor, because the fear of a sniper ranks up there with fear of heavy machineguns in a fight, when it comes to keeping people with their head down.
So if you're telling me that US snipers are so ultra-specialized that they absolutely can't function as anything else, and can't possibly shoot anyone other than as strategic target designated in advance, then methinks the USA badly needs to rethink their training and logistics. But I doubt that the US military is _that_ inept, or that indeed officers coming from a military academy and various training courses would use Hollywood action movies to learn tactics from. It's a bit like saying that programmers use Hollywood movies to learn how to use a command line.
Being sent together with a squad of other soldiers, also isn't the end of the world like you make it sound. It's not being sent with a group of civilians, it's normal military procedure anywhere in the world. The designated marksmen, SAW guys, anti-tank guys, etc, actually train for that. Sure, a sniper rifle or designated marksman rifle isn't raw firepower, but it's not there as raw firepower in the first place. That's what the other soldiers around you are for. They'll do the spraying lead job. You do yours.
Now I'm as anti-war as it gets, and, yes, I'm against the war in Iraq. I could understand ideological or humanitarian reasons against it. But "waah, they're making me work together with a squad, like in Hollywood movies!" is just awful mis-understanding of basic military tactics.
Also, it seems to me like the apex of hypocrisy, if someone is indeed against war for oil and influence, to advocate instead being a hired assassin for some equally corrupt dictator or cocaine baron. At least the army does have some democratic checks (just vote against the guy sending them there), just taking money from the highest bidder doesn't have any
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Oh come on, we all know it's about the oil right?
... but OIL OIL OIL MONEY MONEY MONEY
We know that it wasn't about Terrorists or WMD...
That leaves "Oil / money" and Regime change...
What reason was there for regime change?
Saddam was a dictator and I'm sure there were many reasons for him to be removed... but they were there before 911 and I'm not sure why WMD and Terrorism was used as an excuse to impliment regime change in Iraq. Why not make a huge stink about all his other crimes...
Why not track down the people who sold him the gas he gassed the Kurds with? We know iraq couldn't have made the gas itself... so where did it buy it from?
I know it's old hat
We call them 'insurgents' because that is the correct term that describes all the fighters in Iraq.
A resistance movement is seeking to oust a foreign occupying power to restore the previous ruling power. Now, it is true that Iraq has resistance movements trying to kick out Americans and restore the Baathist to power, but they do not actually make up all or even a majority of the fighters in Iraq. Shiite militias and Al-qaeda are not seeking to restore the Baathist.
Insurgent is a broader term. An insurgent on the other hand is someone who takes up arms against the current governments authority. That is a term that describes almost all of the fighters in Iraq. Iraq fighters are not just fighting occupation. They are fighting other militia groups, the government, and some times just indulging in good old fashion ethnic cleansing. Doing any of the above is defying the authority of the current government, hence they are insurgents.
As far as to why we don't call them freedom fighters, it is because Blair and Bush (and most Western folks for that matter) don't consider Baathist trying to restore an Arab fascist government, Shiites trying to ethnically cleanse the Sunnis, or Al-qaeda trying to create a theocratic state and ethnically cleanse Shiites on the side to really fall under any (western) definition of "freedom fighting".
If it makes you feel better, and I am sure it will because you are clearly suffering from a sever case of moral relativism, I imagine that if the Soviets had invaded the US or Britain, they would have called us insurgents and not freedom fighters also.
Anyone with the internet can sign up to Google Earth and by simply typing in the name of a location they can receive very detailed imagery down to identifying types of vehicles.
It seems they somehow missed something. Google photos are indeed very detailed, but using vehicle identification as a comparision is completely misleading. Anyone who has used it more than five minutes does know photos are months or years old.
We have never had proof that they have deliberately targeted any area of the camp using these images but presumably they are of great use to them.
In other words, this article is just a worthless rant...
We'll get those map-making sons of bitches yet!
Specifically, the way to combat this is to build facilities like Cheyenne Mountain -- they wouldn't sanely put Stargate Command anywhere else.
Short of that, all Google is doing is making it easier, and not significantly so. But Google also makes it easier to stalk people, it makes it easier to plan protests (peaceful or not), or to have secret societies which are completely untraceable and incredibly dangerous.
This is the price of freedom. Freedom makes it easier for everyone to do what they want, even if what they want isn't something you like. Freedom of speech means the freedom to say "Fuck you and everything you believe in." A free Internet means the freedom to use it for everything, including, say, a terrorist strike against a major ISP. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion, and at the very least, means the freedom to be a Satanist. Freedom means you're free to marry whoever you want, and to call it "marriage", even if you both have a penis; it also means other people are free to be openly disgusted by this.
The only freedom we don't have is the freedom to restrict our freedom. You are not free to make gay marriage a huge fucking "issue" and waste everyone's time on a no-brainer like that, when it doesn't even affect you in the first place. Or rather, you're free to talk about it as much as you like, but you are not free to legislate against it.
And leftist ideals are generally in line with freedom, sorry about that -- although I will admit that not all left-wing people support left-wing ideals -- "Think of the children" is not really a leftist ideal. But seriously, if you are a neo-conservative, that's fine, just admit you are not in favor of freedom -- or go home and re-examine your ideals and ask yourself why "some freedoms are better than others" is any less hypocritical than "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
So, back to the subject, such as it is: It's bad enough to suddenly switch from "We know they have WMDs!" to "Uh... looks like they don't, but... uhm... We're spreading freedom! That's it! That's why we invaded in the first place!"
But you do NOT get to say "We're spreading freedom!" unless you fully understand and support what freedom really means, even in the homeland.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
> We aren't at war, we've invaded some random country for no good reason.
You know, invading some random country is one of the two main causes of getting "at war". The other is being invaded by some random country.
Those who don't learn from history are condemmed to repeat it. We didn't declare war, they did. We decided to fight it over there instead of over here. Thanks for noticing.
The truth shall set you free!
You can just drive past and LOOK at the buildings.
Maybe we ought to ban eyeballs because they can be used to see where a military base is...
What a pointless article. In Lebanon and the occupied territories Hamas and Hizbolla used Google Maps among other things to plan their rocket attacks. During their incursions into S-Lebanon the Israelis captured Hizbollah command centers with entire walls covered in poster sized Google generated maps. Any number of other insurgent organizations world wide have been using Google's services for operational planning almost as long as it has been covering areas of interest to them so this is not exactly news, it's regurgitated **old news**. Insurgents are not stupid they will make use of any civilian service that gives them a tactical advantage. As always are two sides to this issue. On the one hand blaming Google for facilitating insurgent attacks is like blaming, say... Toyota for their cars being used in car bombings. On the other hand people can yell as loudly as they want about censorship but it's hard to blame the military for wanting to make it hard for people to drop mortar bombs into their fire-bases and zap their picket posts with RPG's.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
1) The Telegraph leans to the right. This report may be nothing more than a shill to shut down Google Earth.
George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and their supporters are just stupid enough to try something like this. It will do them exactly no good.
2) That said, it does seem reasonable that insurgents might be able to make use of Google Earth for some targeting information. Since the data is generally fairly stale, though, one wonders just how useful it would actually be.
Yes, I'm sure insurgents can use Google Earth to find a location they're interested in targeting. And I'm sure they'll find paper maps just as useful if the authorities shut down Google Earth. Or has Baghdad's street layout become a state secret?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
At least nothing came up in a search for "fake"--but I'm ignoring the anonymous cowards, so maybe they have the insights?
Anyway, it's obvious that if this is really a war (pretending that America was seriously threatened by the late Saddam and that a war was called for), and if you know how your enemy is acting, then this is an obvious case for seeding Google with fake intelligence to find out if the insurgents take the bait. It's called counterintelligence, even if you take "military intelligence" as an oxymoron. Actually, by doing it cleverly in narrow time windows and tracing the IPs for specific fake images, they could even get very specific data on the people who are supporting the insurgents.
On the other hand, pretending that Dubya's politically filtered appointees are more competent than the insurgents, then we could also out-think them to figure out where the true images will encourage the insurgents to attack, and plan for counterattacks at those targets. Of course the problems there are that the insurgents are rather cunning, quite determined, have wide popular support, and are quick to change their tactics.
The *REAL* problems of our situation in Iraq are *NOT* related to Google. The real problems are that Dubya's handlers regard themselves as being safe from paying any legal penalties for their perpetual and fanatical determination to ignore reality, while Dubya's incompetence compounds every mistake. If you haven't read The One Percent Doctrine , then you should read it just to see what happens when someone who is not as qualified as a college intern is frequently intervening at the highest levels of the decision-making processes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Libertarian much?
"The draft" is just slang for conscription. Attributing it to socialism only serves to make you look a bit crazy. Like if you were to claim to have invented the question mark, or that Lenin is hiding in your toilet trying to steal your butt secrets.
How is conscription the worst kind of slavery? It's not forever, you get paid, you are protected from harm by those in command of you, and in most (developed) countries if you have a good reason to not fight (ie religious), then you don't.
Emotive arguments usually work better if they even make the slightest bit of sense. But then you're a Libertarian, so sense is clearly not your forté.
"It wasn't just George Bush or Saddam Hussein who started the Iraqi War,.."
You are right. It was that whole cabal of neoconzionazis from PNAC who started it. They wrote up what they wanted to do once in power, complete with a "new pearl harbor" event to use as an excuse and inflame passions (how convenient it just magically happened for them), then went and followed their plans.
The data and pictures used by Google to render maps in Google Earth have been bought by Google. Pretty sure Military Departments can buy these too, and I wouldn't even be surprised if they had access to even more detailed maps and data.
____
nico
Nico-Live
The only way to be universally tolerated is if everyone thinks you aren't a competitor. In the past you might have avoided competition by expanding into areas that were uninhabited and keeping out of other people's way. The world is only so big though and it isn't possible to avoid competition any more.
So the only way to be liked by everyone would be if they thought you were such total wimps that they didn't have to worry about you. The best you can hope for is to be powerful and have *some* friends.
This is all just my personal opinion.
You've set out the case for the war in Afghanistan, which was a retaliation against a government which harboured and financed Al Qaeda. Motives for the (entirely separate) Iraq war range from non-existent WMD to freeing the people to daddy's unfinished business, but there was no link between terrorism and Iraq until after the fall of Saddam's government.
There are many ways insurgents could get hold of topographical data. The problem is that for satellite information to be useful you need it to accurately portray reality. What's to say that the British Commanders have always planned for out of date images to be taken of their bases? Surely if you know there will be pictures of your bases on the internet (but they will always be 6months+ old) then you will adopt a strategy to take advantage of it.
Mortars are not precision weapons and so any google earth intel would be fairly difficult to use to target a specific small area.
Even in the article it says they have no proof insurgents use Google Earth. Whatever the case, most soldiers seem to be getting killed by IEDs and small arms fire rather than random mortar attacks.
If Google Earth was almost real time, then they'd need to use a combination of age old military tactics... camo nets, fake buildings, underground areas, concrete buildings instead of tents etc
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
You do realize that Soldier of Fortune is a mag aimed at people who dream of being Soldiers of Fortune, but have never touched a rifle, and are most likely inept worker drones with violent dreams? Quoting Soldier of Fortune to talk military strategy is like quoting Weekly World News to discuss the finer details of Israelo-Palestinian peace talks.
Quite frankly, if anyone's living in Hollywood dream world, it's you. I'd suggest enlisting in the Army to figure out how stuff really works. I'm guessing there'll be a rude awakening.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It was shown that 9/11 terrorists trained on MS Flight Sim. But did ppl call for them to change it to prevent it? Nope. Which is the way it should be. Afterall, the terrorist are also using knives and forks for attack. Should we outlaw silverware/flatware?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We all know that banning Google Earth isn't enough. They the'll just use maps! We have to ban maps as well! So that we can all feel secure!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Cry me a fucking river. If it wasn't for google earth they would have taken a staggering 27 more seconds to find the exact same information. So google currently produces the most efficient program to look at a sat. picture, that doesn't mean they have anything to do with the fact that "terrorists" have access to information. Congratulations "terrorist", you found three year old satelite photography of a hummer, then bombed it. I am willing to bet that hummer was still in the exact same spot and google earth was responsible for that fact.
US is to blame: Interesting Google is to blame: Funny Maps have dual purposes: Insightful It's their fault they keep getting pwned : Flamebait US has never won a war : REDUNDANT Declare victory and get the hell out of there.
What's with all the anti-Libertarian nonsense?
It would have been sufficient to point out that he looked like a fool for the socialism bit, and even more still for his nonsense solution. Yet your argument is what? He's a Libertarian and Libertarians lack sense, so he's excused from class? A few bits of advice come to mind.
1) Refrain from attacking his character; it causes your argument to lose weight, since it shows you are obviously biased against his opinions from the get go.
2) If you are going to attack someone for holding certain opinions, make it clear why you do not agree with the opinions. ("You look crazy" is grossly insufficient)
It's not that I don't agree with you; it's that I don't like people making points that I agree with making themselves look foolish in the process, as that makes them just a little bit harder to be associated with. You don't like Libertarians. That's fine. Calling someone senseless because they're a Libertarian. That's.... senseless? Modded Insightful? Try Overrated.
Iraq war range from non-existent WMD to freeing
Those who fail to learn from history are condemmed to repeat it.
Can't blame George Bush for the inteligence given him by the Clinton Administration. Please review history. We knew about the WMD when Clinton was in office. Did you forget that they tossed out the inspectors? Just because we haven't found them by no means is proof they never existed. How long does it take when an attack is looming to move that stuff. I'll leave it up to you to find out how long they had between removal of the inspectors and the start of the war. They had plenty of time. While you are at it. Check out the plumbing supplies they tried to get.
We had plenty of reasons for concern. North Korea and Iran are also starting to take actions that are attracting notice.
The truth shall set you free!
I couldn't work out from your posting if you're currently serving in the US military or are ex-military? is this your perspective? Interested to hear about your personal (rather than magazine informed) experiences of this situation.
Some of the civilian maps were of such poor quality, that people used to joke that they are there "dlia zabluzdenia protivnika"- to confuse the enemy :)
Besides, I read that map companies sometimes make non-existing dead-end streets in their maps as a way to fingerprint them and to know it's their map if some other company steals and reprints it.
--Coder
Wait, who declared war? I must have missed that bit.
.evom ton seod gis eht
should google have done something more about that?
That's pretty much what he's saying - that unless you're prepared to go and fight yourself, and prove it by joining up and thus putting yourself in a position where you can fight, then you have no right to be pro-war and demand of others something you're not willing to do yourself.
Why stop with war? How about, if you're pro universal healthcare, you'd better be signing up for med school, or else you're a hypocrit. If you're not willing to become a doctor, you don't have the right to demand that doctors accept the payscale offered by the government healthcare agency. Or, even better, if you're pro-choice, you have to become an abortionist. If you think we need to do something about crime, you have to become a cop. If you want better public education, you have to become a teacher. Or maybe this whole line of reasoning is a stupid idea.
Newsflash--not everyone would make a good soldier, just like not everyone would make a good doctor, scientist, lawyer, mechanic, or whatever. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage makes it clear it's more efficient for people to do what they're best at. We have a volunteer army, and pretty much everyone signing up knows that in doing so, there is a chance they will be sent to war (possibly even a war they don't agree with). It's their choice to join, and they do so knowing that it's civilians that decide whether they'll be sent to war or not.
You can't seriously use this as a valid defence of the war. We all know that strategically important non-WMD weapons caches were not secured by coalition forces at the start of the war due to poor military planning, and in the ensuing power vacuum fell into the wrong hands. Assuming that the weapons did exist, and the same thing happened, we are now in the far more dangerous position of not knowing whether they existed or not, and if they did, who has them. We've essentially substituted a 'known known' for an 'unknown unknown'.
And coalition troops are already overstretched in Iraq (the least dangerous of the so-called 'axis of evil'), controlled by governments that have lost the confidence of their citizens in matters of war. The end result is that because of Iraq we will be unable to commit our forces to other conflicts for the foreseeable future.
Calling someone senseless because they're a Libertarian. That's.... senseless?
;)
That's Crass!
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I guess the devil is in the details, as usual. It could be that there was some detail that I don't know that made it horribly inapropriate, but judging from just the post I was answering to, it's not obvious.
:)
The way I understood it from the post I was answering to, they weren't sent alone with a bolt action rifle on patrol, but together with other soldiers, presumably with assault rifles. In which case it's basically just being given the role of designated marksman for that squad. Hardly an unusual role in any modern military doctrine, and certainly not a Hollywood invention, so I'm hard pressed as to why that would be inapropriate. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact even developped weapons especially for this role, and I don't think someone in the Kremlin was watching Rambo movies and went, "doh, that's what we were missing, we must develop the Dragunov right away."
Second, I'm not reading it as that they were necessarily sent on a patrol with a long-range bolt-action sniper rifle. Just that they sent snipers on patrols. It could just as well be with a semi-automatic designated marksman rifle. The general public would call both a "sniper rifle", because anything with a scope on it is automatically a "sniper rifle", but a designated marksman rifle is really more of a squad support weapon, like the SAW, only for a different role. It's actually designed for someone who goes around with a squad or platoon, not for the lone sniper surgically elliminating a strategic target from half a mile away.
But I don't have to tell you all that anyway. You folks at mech infantry are more qualified than I am when it comes to infantry weapons and tactics
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sure, no problem. And just to make things fair, anyone who votes not to go to war gets auto-drafted for a one-year stay in said third world nation. Help you gain a new perspective. Then we'll have a new vote a year later.
Oh, and in case you haven't noticed asshole, every person serving in the military today is a volunteer. Not a single one of them signed up without knowing for a fact that their nation was at war. We've already voted, and voted with our boots. You've just been too stoned to notice.
So if you voted against the war on Iraq, you have to go and be tortured by Saddam's goons, and have yourself and your family killed in his gas chambers.
"We didn't declare war, they did."
A fghanistan) before the USSR actually invaded. Many of those they armed are today's "terrorists".
A fghanistan).
So what about all the US (and other western countries) meddling in the middle east over the last 50 years. In 1953 the US and UK helped to overthrow the democratically elected governemnt of Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax which was threatening their oil interests.
Then you have the US arming insurgents in Afghanistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_
Then the US sold Iraq a load of chemical weapons that they used on their own people and on the Iranian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_
hmmm, I wonder why people in the middle east hate the west so much. If it had happened the other way round we'd feel justified in declarinig war.
i'm so sick and tired of hearing this crap.. don't ban google.. if you want to ban someone, ban the federal and state governments that actually approve of updating PUBLIC satellite data and imagery.. and of course governments and leaders that do the same thing in other countries.. google simply utilizes it..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I thought that the driving principle behind Google was "Don't be evil."
If helping our enemies attack our soldiers in the field doesn't qualify as evil, then I don't know what does.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Ah, right, I almost forgot about the '02 talks where they decided to hold the war in Iraq, narrowly beating out candidate cities like New Haven, CT and Boseman, MT. While these cities have lost a lot of economic opportunities from contractors and tourism, they can hopefully put together a better case for themselves in '08 at the talks.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
That's a comforting thought.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That'll be the Saudis who planned and executed 9/11. So who are we invading? Oh, hang on ...
Where is the hunt for Bin Ladin now?
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Hey! What about local.live.com that's even more detailed than google earth in birds eye mode! On second thoughts, they've probably never heard of it either...
Dateline U.K.Newsclown says "the sky is falling"
In this day of modern "journalism",who can believe anything they read or hear?
It's all just a sensationalized product to attract viewers to watch messages from sponsors.
News thats printed to fit,especially in the U.K.
Even so,like other posts pointed out,there are many other sources besides Google for this info.
Relying on the news media for anything but rare glimpses of what might be construed as possibly true is purely foolish.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I'm sure that Google Earth isn't the sole source for this type of information, only the highest profile. If they weren't using GE, they'd be using Rand McNally or freely available satellite data and folks would be griping about that.
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
Google shouldn't doing anything to prevent this. It all seems the people that made the question would like a law like "muslims can't use google earth" which is pretty terrible. If the military now knows they are using google earth they can just take advantage of that and predict the next attacks.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
On Jan 29th, 2002, Bush named 3 countries as the "Axis of Evil" - Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Of those three countries:
Who'd we invade again?
You do realize that Soldier of Fortune is a mag aimed at people who dream of being Soldiers of Fortune, but have never touched a rifle, and are most likely inept worker drones with violent dreams?
You mean the way Slashdot is a site aimed at people who dream of being IT geniuses but do not have the skills and are most likely inept floor sweepers with dreams of grandeur?
The US Government would not approve the spending on the GPS system unless it was made available to the general public. The military agreed but put in a clause allowing them to scramble the GPS system and if necessary turn off the civilian system altogether. This was why the GPS system is not used as a primary method of navigation by anyone with even half a brain. During Gulf War 1 (The Phantom Menace) the allied soldiers were so baffled by the military GPS units and found them to be totally inappropriate for their needs so a number of forces used civilian systems (infantry grunts can cope being 300m out in a desert and that's about 700m closer than they would be without the unit). I have a friend who works for NATO and they have a corporate subscription to the paid Google Earth service to provide graphics for briefings so I wonder if history is repeating itself in Gulf War 2 (The Clone of the Attacks) and US forces are actually using this technology themselves rather than trying to obtain the classified data that Military Intelligence (oxymoron) don't like people to have.
Be nice, sponsor me: http://jailbreak.ragabonds.org.uk
Actually, I'm entirely straight, so it's not my homosexual lover. And yes, a guy can be pro-abortion, even pro-women's rights, if there were any rights women still need to fight for.
But you just confirmed my point, which is: Yes I think it should be called marriage (if, indeed, we're going to have any kind of state-sanctioned "marriage" at all, even heterosexual ones). But I also think that's about the amount of time we should spend on it -- right there. We should not be wasting our time on "issues" like gay marriage, stem cells, abortion, or any of the other things the Right likes to direct attention to -- away from the real issues, including that bloated, corrupt, evil government.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Why should google take part of this insane conflict?
"We Google don't like insurgents, keep being killed by invasors" nah..
Google shall take no side at all, and it is for democracy.
Or, if you are pro-life, you have to take care of a single mother's child. For the twenty years or so it takes to raise a child through college.
We have a volunteer army, and pretty much everyone signing up knows that in doing so, there is a chance they will be sent to war (possibly even a war they don't agree with). It's their choice to join, and they do so knowing that it's civilians that decide whether they'll be sent to war or not.
In this case, where people are using Google maps information to attack military installations, it seems that being a good soldier isn't what it used to be. It's not enough to be a good fighter, you need to be a good planner. The information Google gives out is available to everyone. Why don't the soldiers use it to plan their defense? They have a big advantage in that Google maps isn't updated that often, they could look at the images and plan how to booby trap the weak spots.
The military have had aerial reconnaissance at their disposal since the first balloons were invented. They have much better aerial imaging than Google gives out, they can see from which points their barracks may be attacked, where are the houses and alleys that can be used by eventual attackers.
No, this whole affair is a straw man, it's another convenient excuse being invented to create one more way to restrict information in the internet.
Most, no, *all* of the current US Administration have never experienced war, even with conscription. Bush? Didn't Bush sit his time out in a Texas Air National Guard unit? Indeed, Dick Cheney did all he could *not* to go to Vietnam. Not a good example of giving your all for your country. If Kerry shows us nothing else, then having fought for your country means diddly-squat if you aren't on the right side. And I thought Republicans considered patriotism teh win? I mean, even the Canadia^H^H^HAustralians fought in 'Nam.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
it's not about shutting down the internet, it's about controlling what could be used against your country or any other country for that matter.
problem with the U.S. is they like to boast and revel and their greatness so they expose their stuff, see what we made, look at this.
I mean Come on,my first thought when i downloaded the NVIDIA 3d map of earth (before Google took it as it,s own) is My GOD it's easy to be a terrorist in year 2000, you can find blueprints of buildings, maps of the world from satellite, create bombs, nuclear devices.
your comment is as insightful as leaving a baby with a pair of scissors in the hope that he'll learn faster but totally ignoring the fact that he could maim himself seriously or even kill himself. Humanity as a whole is at that stage it's a baby and you cant leave them with anything that they could use the wrong way, Unfortunately for every good INTELLIGENT and RESPONSIBLE person out there there at least 5 other cretins to exactly the opposites.
You know your local police station needs new recruits and volunteers, but you still rely on them without volunteering your services. Why are you a cowardly chickenpolicehawk? Shortage of teachers? Anyone who believes in education paid for by the taxpayer must volunteer to fill those positions to teach or find themselves in the morally indefensible position of demanding what they refuse to undertake themselves. Those who oppose the war have zero moral standing unless they're willing to place themselves in front of our troops and act as human shields in Iraq, huh? I mean, stop the war, guys ... get out there and actually DO it.
What in the world is "chickenhawk" if not questioning someone's integrity and patriotism? Can we do that now? Or is that only the other side that can't questions someone's patriotism?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
So shall we get rid of them in order to protect our civilian population at home. After all more people are kill by them than are military personell by insergent attacks using Google photos.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
(i) why are the images of places in the US unavailable or way out of date, while they seem to have up-to-the minute images of the other side of the world, and
(ii) whose side is Google on?
Which raises a question of whose satellite took the images of bases over there and let Google have them "unedited". Someone is fast asleep at the wheel and costing the lives of brave men and women who have little choice on where they are.
There is a fine line between censorship and espionage. Clearly, making detailed aerial photos of strategic targets to the enemy is the latter, and google should be taking steps to make sure it does not expose our military assets like this.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Please don't assist the US propaganda by going along with their newspeak. Insurgents? The US are the insurgents - look up the meaning of insurgent. What the US call "insurgents" are people from the local area overthrowing an occupying force, not insurgents.
Rand McNally once put out a map of Ohio that had a small wetspot of a town in Northwest Ohio named Beatosu. Now being a former trucker, I have seen MANY weird named excuses for towns. Sometime in the dim bye and bye some collection of drunks and fools put up a collection of shacks somewhere and cast about for a name for it. However in 'Beatosu's case it's different. Very different. The place does not exist. At all! Nothing! The maker of McNally's map for Ohio was a Michigan State guy. There was a game against Ohio State at the time, so that draftsman decided to Beat OSU in his own way. So now it is on the map, perhaps forever.
Incidentally, beat up Google for censoring the poor Chinese, but not for making maps. The Soviets actually DID make maps before WWII in order to confuse the Germans....and they did confuse them...a little. Failing to get info from Google Earth will only drive the bad guys to get it from the Russian Glonass system for the European Galileo system. No problem! Only now Nobody will have a warning of what is maybe commin.
"British news reports..."
We all know where this is going.
Readership stats inflation....no disclosure. Sensational nonsense....people get maps regardless of the Internet. Believe it or not maps didn't come from Google (or they'd undoubtedly have a patent). I'm told they've been around for at least 15-20 years, from the times of Caesar and Shakespeare (how's that for flawed information?).
The CIA director himself told Shrub Jr, and everyone else back in 2002 that tHERE WERE NO weapons of mass distractions in Iraq.
If 5 people in other countries and the leader of Iraq claim that Iraq has WMD and some guy in the USA said they don't have WMD, would you base your belief in just one person?
There were serious doubts if they did or did not exist. We took no chances. To believe just one person would be foolish.
If the police raid a drug house and 5 neighbors say they have automatic weapons and the evidence clerk tells you they have no weapons, would you send 2 officers to secure the place with just battons and handcuffs?
We acted on the side of caution and prudence just like the swat team would do on the drug house. Remember, they sanitized places the inspectors were headed and often detained them when they wanted to see something. When that was too much trouble, they had the inspectors leave. A destination 30 minutes away often took 5 hours to get there. Think they were hiding something? Do you think because the inspectors found nothing that nothing was ever there? I still have reasonable doubts.
The truth shall set you free!
..that this _is_ just an attack on Google? Yes, it is somewhat plausible that insurgents could be or are using Google Earth to pinpoint attacks on coalition forces in Iraq, but that doesn't mean it's true. Hasn't anyone considered the fact that this is their _home_? I don't know about you, but if someone invaded _my_ city, I wouldn't need Google Earth to blow them up.
Blerg.
I'm sorry but can you remove that slant for me?
If you want to talk about persecution, don't just chase after one religion, go after them all.
The problem isn't what happened 70, 80, 90 or even 40 years ago, its about what is happening today. We can't go back in time to fix the past, but we can learn from our mistakes and prevent them in the future.
The majority of our problems have nothing to do with Muslims, but how we have used/abused the middle east to keep certain empires in power or to leverage the weeknesses and extreme cultures of some of these people to create false "values" of our own ideology.
If i took what you said as truth Iraq isn't a war about "Freedom" and "removing Sadamm" its a 100 year war of religion. I would then have even further sincere doubts about you and our administration.
Infact i don't for one second NOT believe you as that *IS* the problem. Bush didn't take us to war to free Iraq'is, spread democracy or protect our shores. He went there because as you explain it so elequently he believes its an empire that can't co exist with our culture. sic
That is the only sane answer.
Ha,ha,ha!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most of the images locally for Google Earth are in some cases years old. Curious if they actually think they're bombing something that isn't THERE anymore. :-D
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Americas multi-billion dollar satellite system versus a bunch of insurgents using outdated map images. Come on people! Lat time I checked Google Earth doesn't offer up any real time imagery, and if it did do you think it would be free. In corporate America they like to think, that if you put fear into the minds of the public, then the free products they seduced them with, become a marketable product of value. Look at airlines offering up "easy pass" for boarding. "Avoid the long lines of security checks, and pay a couple hundred dollars more to bypass all of that". What makes you think that an insurgent backed by terrorist funding won't pay to bypass the security checks. Silly government agenda.
Not true, the "coalition" has lost many battles. Why do you think they had to retake Faluja a year ago? This leads me onto the biggest difference between Vietnam and Iraq. The 60s war was a war of first in many regards. One of these was media coverage. In WW2, news from the front took ages and was highly filtered. In Vietnam, radio and TV allowed images to be sent home to the viewing public in a matter of hours.
This created a problem. War is hell and this uncensored media stop ultimately led to the end of the war. These images are iconic and I'm sure we all are familiar with most of them. This time around the government had to avoid that sort of thing. This is where embedded reporters come in. These guys travel with the troops and if they report anything untoward, they are immediately sent home with little or no oversight from those in charge of propaganda. They know this and numerous ones who haven't toed the line have come forward as whistle blowers.
This is why you think that the US has won all engagements in Iraq and it is also the biggest difference between the Vietnam conflict. It is only the independent media reporters that travel on their own at great risk to their lives that provide any useful reporting. These people are every bit as much heros as those who put their lives on the line for their fellow countrymen in order to report the truth.
How about, if you're pro universal healthcare, you'd better be signing up for med school, or else you're a hypocrit. If you're not willing to become a doctor, you don't have the right to demand that doctors accept the payscale offered by the government healthcare agency.
Huh? Universal healthcare does not mean you must use the government provided healthcare. It just means that the government provides a base level of service to everyone. In the same vein, no doctor is ever forced to accept the government payscale.
Can't blame George Bush for the inteligence given him by the Clinton Administration.
No, but we can and do blame him for acting on it the way he did. Clinton only launched a few missles and did not put us in a 4+ year, $350-billion quagmire. Please review history.
methinks that black spots on a map would do more harm then good. Using black spots is like saying "HERE TERRORISTS!!! BOMB HERE!! YOU WILL REALLY SCREW US OVER IF YOU BOMB HERE!!!!". That would just make it easier for them to identify good targets...
Personally I think they should simply photoshop such areas to look like the surround area (ie get someone to photoshop area 51 to just look like the surrounding, barren, desert)
So I suppose you supported WWII veteran and Distinguished Flying Cross recipient George H. W. Bush in 92? And Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient Bob Dole in 96?
Or maybe there's other reasons to vote for someone, and there's a reason there is civilian control of the military?
As an aside, is it ok to question people's patriotism now? Or is that only your political opponent who's patriotism you can question?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Note, Saddam claimed all weapons were destroyed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasio
No. I'm suggesting that you set protective devices in the weak spots of your perimeter. Identify the access points which people could use to enter, and put security cameras in the alleys leading there. Look which houses have roofs that could be used for climbing, put barbed wire and cameras over the walls at such spots. Set mines only inside your compound, where "regular" folks would have no business breaking in.
And every time Google maps updates the images, try to find how to make small but significant changes to the layout of your installations.
Yes, Yes it is.
First there is the saying that Slashdotters are smarter then the average person, which is false, it may have been when most of the UserIDs were Under 100,000 but now user IDs in the Millions or Ten Millions. Slashdot because of its popularity has relegated itself to being average for the average person.
Second. With a site being haled as a spot of tech geniuses people will use it and post at it just so they can think they are some sort of tech genius and not like the rest of us, average techs.
Third. As Linus stated like everyone else I am the Best Programmer in the world. We all feel like we are one the best techs because we are able to do our jobs where it seems impossible.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No, it just means you have to pay for the "government-provided" healthcare, whether you use it or not. In practice that means it wouldn't be cost-effective to go anywhere else (and pay twice).
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
So 2 year old satellite images offer more intelligence to the enemy then the billion dollar intelligence we have here, so we're just supposed to shut it down? I don't know, how about rotate the positions of the tents maybe, from where they have ALWAYS been for two years? 20 years ago we were in a cold war with a comperable super power, now we're supposed to get up in arms because a few dust farmers killed one guy using Google Maps? Next.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
Note, Saddam claimed all weapons were destroyed.
You mean the ones that never existed? The ones our inspectors could not find the remains of? Were they destroyed or dismanteled and stashed for later re-assembly. Maybe they never really existed.
requested more time to complete their report on whether Iraq had complied with its obligation to disarm
There were reasons to belive they existed and were stashed someplace. The destruction was never verified.
The truth shall set you free!
Can't blame George Bush for the inteligence given him by the Clinton Administration.
ah, clinton. is there anything you guys won't pin on him? hurricanes?
Did you forget that they tossed out the inspectors?
they never tossed out inspectors. in 98 clinton pulled the inspectors out to bomb. in 03 bush pulled the inspectors out to invade.
Just because we haven't found them by no means is proof they never existed. How long does it take when an attack is looming to move that stuff.
yeah, with all the satellites we had trained on the area it woulda been a cinch to move the thousands of liters and pounds of crap the administration asserted were there.
i find your sig line to be strangely ironic.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
My interpretation of "freedom" is closely derived from the dictionary definition -- being unconstrained. I'm assuming that's about what we mean when we say we are spreading "freedom" to the world. I mean, short of that, it's a misleading sales pitch -- you tell your poor Iraqi that with American Freedom, she doesn't have to wear a Burkha, she can do whatever she wants, no one will stone her... Then the other shoe falls: "As long as you believe." Or, "You can do anything you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else... except that, that's wrong."
I refuse to answer your comment more directly, because either I'm misreading this, or you're fundamentally wrong:
I reject the notion that God is a historical fact, much less that it's a historical fact that He wrote moral and ethical limitations for a Constitution.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It's us or them.
With modern technology, say neutron bombs, conveyor belts, the US and UK could make the Holocaust look like child's play and remove this growing menace.
Or them hordes will be here before you know it. Or at least their poison spraying drones.
I don't think google has any obligation. The real question is:
Why are satellite images publicly available of a base in a warzone in the first place? Where is google getting them from? I'm about 99% against censorship, but I don't see why they couldn't take down (temporarily) sections of the map. I don't think they should just remove them, but if someone asked (not forced), it wouldn't be a big deal.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
I don't assume there's unrestricted freedom in the US. I do, however, have a goal of freedom as unrestricted as possible.
And I was under the impression that you have it backwards -- we have every right the state doesn't take away, it's not that the state has to explicitly list every right that it grants us. For instance, I have the right to wear boxers on Tuesday, not because the Government grants me that right, but because there's no law against it. Regarding gay marriage, why would you care enough to make a law against it?
And while I actually support capitalism, you are dead wrong about socialism. But we have never seen communism done right. Keep in mind, it's not a system of government, it's an economic system -- communism might work if you actually had a democracy governing it. (And China doesn't count.) Also keep in mind -- the kind of government that we see in control of communist states (China, Soviet Russia, etc) would fail just as much if it was a capitalist society (you mention California... I wonder...)
And no, I don't feel strongly about gay marriage. I think it should be a non-issue, and I find it absolutely retarded of you to keep making an issue out of it. Let's talk about real issues, like economics, education, that mess in Iraq...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
In practice that means it wouldn't be cost-effective to go anywhere else (and pay twice).
a #Private_sector
Tell that to people in Canada (among other places), where there is a private healthcare sector.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canad
You haven't addressed the actual issue: Your facts are wrong.
The issue isn't whether or not Saddam is to be believed. You said he claimed to have WMDs. The facts on record are otherwise: He specifically claimed to have met the UN resolution.
There were reasons to belive they existed and were stashed someplace.
That's true, but they weren't reasons to start a fucking useless war over.
*Bush Snr, in comparison with that snit of a son, is a paragon of virtue. At the time, he seemed a bit of a preppy idiot. In retrospect, he chose his war-policy wisely. Action in WW2 may well have tempered his policy. And for the better.
While they (and I use the 'they' widely, from the Administration down to it's lackeys) call the rest of us cowards and unpatriotic, even by implication, for not toeing *their* party line, the large majority of the neocons themselves stepped smartly around their call-up when they could have gone to war, done their duty.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
How about instead of pro-universal health care folks going to med school, let's have only them pay for it.
BTW, Canada's health care system is extremely slow. That same wikipedia article the parent linked to says average wait times across all specialties is 17.7 weeks.
What we really need in the USA, instead of favorable re-importation laws to reduce the price of drugs in the USA, is exportation laws which prevent the drug companies from recovering the cost of R&D solely from the American public. The drug companies in the USA charge us an arm and a leg for drugs which they export to other countries for far less money. In essence, the USA has to cover the bill for research and development of new drugs, and the entire world benefits from them. This is largely why the cost of health care in the USA is relatively high. Let's share that cost and then compare government run health care in other countries to the private sector run health care in the USA.
Google-maps satelite images are "second fresh". Any military force seriously complaing about damages caused by "second fresh" images risk being accused of being commanded by lazy irresponsible idiots or by "imagination less" commanders.
BTW Any change of policy by google will not "take away" images already colleted by "the other side".
Incopetence does kill.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
-- Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (1890 - 1977) American comedian and actor
... why they choose to censor satellite images of Washington DC, and not censor satellite images of their military bases. It's not as if they didn't control the vast majority of satellites out there. Google is just presenting content that was given to them. The ones that gave it out in the first place (NASA i.e. the US administration) shouldn't complain.
Google is a multinational company. Assuming they owe any alligence to the US is a mistake. If they can profit by assisting anti-US forces, they are certainly going to do exactly that.
Also, with a significant number of their employees in the US, it is currently fashionable to assume the US is wrong, especially in areas like that around San Francisco. Therefore, it is unlikely that such employees would want to be caught assisting US forces in any way. If it gets a few soldiers killed, isn't that what they are there for? If you have trouble following this, I suggest reading some more at www.dailykos.com.
Now assuming the US could suggest to Google (or any other commercial entity) that they might foresake a few profits so some soldiers aren't killed would seem perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, this would probably raise all sorts of questions about the motives of such a request. What is the Government hiding and all of that. So, no such request - however reasonable - is going to be made.
We are in a new age and we might as well get used to it. The people want their MTV and 500 movie channels. Soldiers and war aren't part of the MTV age. We have proven to the world that the US has no stomach for anything except quick raids - a protracted conflict is always going to be a disaster. When the military and administration fully internalize this, the shape of the military will change so that only "quick raids" are possible. It is the only reasonable solution at this point.
"Mines may be deployed here. Enter at own risk!"
There you go, your ass is officially covered from the legal or moral consequences.
Thank you. While I personally have been opposed to the Iraq War from day one (well, before that, actually), I also get really annoyed at seeing glib statements like "War is not the answer" on bumper stickers. You know what, if a foreign power were carrying out a full-scale invasion of the US, war would be the answer.
While there are bona fide pacifists in the world (and I respect that position), it seems to me that there are a lot more people out there who cannot separate the concept of war from whatever current war we are fighting. I'm not certain if there is such a thing as a truly "just" war, but it's clear that some wars have better justification than others, and barring a genuine pacifist philosophy, they have to be evaluated differently.
We are currently fighting a war like we are playing a game of football. Each side is scoring 'goals' and claiming to be winning. Instead, a comprehensive campaign should be run.
Only problem is that no one has identified who or what the "other team" is except some vauge clowd of evil. There is no possibility to win such a vauge thing. Even if you were to believe that the "war on terrorism" could be won, how would you ever know you won? Earth would have to have a gigantic "evil meter" on it to tell, it's impossible. Thus I dislike Bush because he has introduced another war so badly defined that failure is the only option. Count this one in with the lost war on drugs (if we were at war with drugs, does that mean drugs run this country now, I really don't remember winning that one - if so, my cocaine tax is in the mail). From a citizen morale standpoint Bush should have pointed out a winnable war.
There we have it. Proof that, no matter how hard we try, we still haven't managed to create a crassless society.
They already do this. Several friends of mine are into this. In fact, there are huge waiting lists, and they pay like $20,000. Some people I know actually flew to Taiwan, where it is apparently a simpler process.
"The military have had aerial reconnaissance at their disposal since the first balloons were invented. They have much better aerial imaging than Google gives out, they can see from which points their barracks may be attacked, where are the houses and alleys that can be used by eventual attackers."
That's not the point. The point is that the military would like every possible advantage over the enemy. Limiting the enemy's resources for battle planning would add to the advantage.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
All religions aren't equal. Some are bloodier than others. Nevertheless, fuck 'em.
Seems to show up at full resolution in Google Maps. Of course, uch of the grounds can be seen from the ground anyway. So I guess goolg is not censoring US images. Plus its not like no one knows where this is.
The problem is, that the insurgents don't attack at targets within compounds, they attack at people who are outside and vulnerable. They're insurgents, not idiots.
The maps I've seen on Google Earth of the bases I was at in Iraq were extremely inaccurate (outdated, likely). And base layouts for all but the largest bases change pretty regularly anyhow. Further, the only accurate mortar/rocket fire that is delivered seems to be from foreign (read: Persian) fighters, not Iraqis. You knew pretty quickly who was firing at you based on the accuracy (or wild inaccuracy) of the rounds. Almost all deaths/injuries that I saw from mortar rounds could have been chalked up to lucky shots.
"Before Google got on board? So the importance is the "giving it away" part? That looks like a deliberately deceptive post.
s trynews92401.html
Keyhole, the company Google bought, had their EarthViewer 3D application as far back as 2001. That app eventually became Google Earth.
http://www.eomonline.com/Common/industrynews/indu
Unless your only point was that NASA made it free first, but this discussion so far hasn't been about the cost of imagery, but the availability.
There are two issues here, not one.
Google has done an excellent job of making high resolution aerial photography readily available. Obviously they recognized the need for discretion over sensitive areas. The article does mention the "pixel-out" effect that can be used. For example, until a year or so ago, the roof of the white house was precisely erased and replaced with a solid white overlay. I assume this was done for national security, and has been deemed no longer needed. The same for Area 51, which use to be a very very grainy low resolution image overlaid at the location (not so any more). Clearly there are mechanisms in place to allow for obfuscation of small areas. I would think it was the job of the military to tell Google what areas it thinks are sensitive. Such areas could be replaced by out of date, but still interesting images of how the bases use to look.
The second issue in play is far more serious. Consider that Google has not launched a satellite into geosynchronous orbit as of yet. The image data it has is gathered from many third-party providers including state GIS services, and the NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas companies. Those companies sell the data in question as their business. Even if Google dismantled its Earth/Maps services, the data would still be available to moderately funded terrorist groups. Ultra-high res image data, infrastructure maps and 3D building data on almost every square foot of Massachusetts is available for free here: MassGIS. The military should be aware of this by now and should be taking action to minimize the threat. Google Maps is far less accurate than flying a spy plane over a base because the images are likely months out of date. Flying spy plane has been possible for decades. It would be much more difficult to determine where the lavatories are located and where the light armor is parked if those areas had some light tent's or shrouds around them. The cost to do that in a base is probably less than the cost of one of the heavy tanks it would protect.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
Everyone was mad when Google blanked out the top of the White House, the buildings around it, the grounds of the US Naval Observatory (where the Vice President lives), but now they are upset because Google is not hiding enough?
At what point does Google become a US agency? All they are doing is publishing commercially available, and usually obsolete, satellite pictures. Next thing they will complain about satellite pictures of US border crossings that make it easier for terrorists and other illegals (criminals or else) with an easier way to probe for weak spots in the border. Or what about federal penitentiaries? Why not blank out every school in the country to make it harder for child predators to reconnoiter?
They can't even bother with filtering net access within Iraq. They all have phones, whatever they can't reach from Iraq is just a phone call away to a friend in a neighbor country without such filtering.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Did you forget that they tossed out the inspectors? Just because we haven't found them by no means is proof they never existed. How long does it take when an attack is looming to move that stuff. If they had them, why the hell didn't they use them ? A foreign invader is attacking the country. What better time to use WMD ?
Mostly because the optimal solution to "win" the war in Iraq is to increase the number of troops to around 400,000. Furthermore, many of the people supporting the war are in positions where neither they nor their families would need to look at the military as a solution out of economic problems - whereas many people who think the war is a bad idea are forced into the military due to economic considerations.
Universal healthcare is not held back by an insufficient number of doctors, and the poor aren't forced by circumstance to risk their lives becoming doctors.
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
You changed the verbage and thus argued against something completely different the former post.
They said, and I agree with this, you should never ask someone else to do something that you WOULDN'T BE WILLING to do yourself. You shouldn't ask someone to die for a cause that you wouldn't die for yourself.
For example, you said if your pro-life, you have to have an abortion. No, you said it in a converse way which is incorrect. If you are willing to ask some one to not have an abortion under a circumstance, you have to be willing to not have an abortion under the same circumstance. A closer example, something that is extrenuating and thusly hopefully obvious: if you say you are against all abortions (well, all unnatural abortions because the typical female body is likely to have more natural abortions than births within a lifetime), if you then ask a mother-to-be who will die if she gives birth to not have an abortion to save herself, would you be willing to do the same if you were facing the same death prediction? Maybe, but probably not. Of course, unlike this example, many cases will fall in the realm of no true correct or true incorrect answer. Welcome to life.
Back to the point, it's a philosophy, one that agree with. Don't ask/have others do something that you yourself wouldn't do given an untethered opportunity or wouldn't ask a loved one to do. I say untethered, because some people have the desire but are held by obligations that might outweigh a specific situation (such as duty to family).
I rambled a little, but I hope I was clear, because it's such a clear and simple concept that is often presented in a obscured or round-about way and thustly is often missed.
--Dave Romig, Jr.
On either side. I know plenty of old vets who thouht it was bullshit that most of their buddies are screwed from that war, but that they had to call in every shot they took. snipers, grunts, etc. Then they get called home after "wiping out the majority of the bastards" during the mighty "Tet Offensive" (which, by the way, WE, the USA won.) That, as any grunt except John Kerry can tell you, was a won war, and then abanoned. Iraq isn't the same deal. In Vietnam we had a defined goal, in Iraq we don't. Back then we were fighting the Commies, and we KNEW who they were (China, Russia, Eastern Europe, Franklin Roosevelt, etc)... today we're fighting "terrorism" and we DONT know who they are.
Since WW2 we have not really had a WAR.. we've had "police action" undeclared wars of aggression with no real point, except to expend resoures and man power.
And for your remark, I had no issue with attacking if someone lobs a nuke, but HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY WILL LOB IT? I hang out with armed people, some cops, some not, some soldiers, some vets, some not. Not a ONE has ever shot me, despite the fact that the potential is there. I presume the same holds for wars of aggression.
The old adage holds true:
An armed society is a polite society. (I can assure you from experience that this holds true among those whom I consider my peers. Socialists do not count, since you folks keep saying "you don't trust yourselves with guns". Guess what? I don't trust you with guns either.)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
But from a different country than you. I'm from North Europe. Tip of the hat to you, let's hope we never need to keep the skies clean :-) !
> I say take out the vote as it is today. If you vote pro war in any issue, politician or not, you're INSTA DRAFTED.
What are you, 12? What about senior citizens? What about pregnant women? Some parts of our society are simply not fit to be soldiers, yet you're completely willing to silence their opinion because they'd be incapable of fighting.
> a draft is slavery, and the worst form of it
Again, please get some perspective. Calling the draft slavery is an insult to anyone who was, you know, actually a slave. While I certainly think the draft is a bad idea, the notion that you owe some debt to your country which is repaid by a brief period of military service is not entirely misguided.
> They were meant to "protect from enemies foreign". And that is what they should do.
Sometimes the best way to protect us from something is to seek it out and destroy it. The idea that armies should only be used in a "circle the wagons" style defense is sort of ridiculous.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Some issues prevented me from joining up, and couldn't be rectified, however a large majority of my friends are either WW2, Vietnam, Korea or Desert Storm vets. Some of my closer friends are quitting in droves (by quitting, it means they are NOT taking the 40k offered reenlistment bonus and they're going into anything but reenlistment). One was a genius, took the money, his guns, his yacht, and his girlfriend, and ran for the open sea. Again, can't see as I blame him, I would've left this place behind, but I can't think of a single place that isn't worse already (massively more surveillance in europe than here).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
sue google?
no, sue the owners of the satellites, and the agencies that launched them.
I just found that SOME of their stories are good, and I run them by my buddies to see what they say.
I'm quite aware of the slant in SOF, hence why I have other sources. The army didn't want me, and the marines didn't either. I didn't want airforce or standard navy, so I took what I learned and moved on.
I'm glad you attacked the source of that comment. I don't defend SOF, I merely mentioned their take on it. Did I mention the fact that i've lived abroad and NOT on army bases behind heavy guns and other "defenses" ?
You are correct, there is "know" and there is "believe" I didn't say I KNEW SOF to be right, I merely stated their take on it. What I know and what I strongly believe comes from my friends and the time I spend talking to them when we go fishing, hunting, etc. Knowing involves personal experience, believing comes from second and thirdhand experiences. We all choose to believe many things (for example that seat belts work, that bullets kill you instantly, that man walked on the moon, etc). We certainly do know if seat belts work, if we have an accident and survive it, we know if bullets kill instantly if we see it happen, and that man walks on the moon if we DO IT OURSELVES... otherwise its BELIEF. Videos and stories CAN be doctored.
Happy?
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Being required to invade a foreign nation, reservists maybe, but national guard?? Those are the Organized State Militia, (as opposed to every military aged male and female retired military being the Unorganized Militia At Large. I dont' recall state militias being lawfully REQUIRED to invade foreign nations at the behest of a nut at a podium. The army is his to play with, the national guard isn't, not that I know of. It may OPT to do so, but as I recall they weren't REQUIRED to do it.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I don't see how they could use google earth, when I look up my address the pix are at least 4 to 5 yrs old and I'm in the US. U mean to tell me they update pix on the other side of the fuckin world but not here?
I don't rely on police, they bother me and waste my time and money, I don't rely on "public" "coerced" Prussian, John Dewey's schooling system, I don't rely on anything, I don't oppose the war as much as the fact that I have at one time paid taxes that paid interest to the Federal Reserve for the loan the government goons used to pay for the ordering of my buddies who were taken to the military to go and kill some poor bastard's family and make him want to kill us (on a large scale of LOTS of poor bastards' families).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Shouldn't you attack his source of Gas? Saddam was helped to power along with his family by the CIA. Shouldn't you attack his enablers?
WE, Americans MADE Saddam able to do his work. So shut up and learn history chief.
Did saddam invade the USA?? Last I recall Kuwait is just as Despotic as Saudi, just a different set of nutjobs.
And if Saddam had all those GAS CHAMBERS, where the hell did they go and convict him and KILL HIM for what?? Defending himself against a plot to assassinate him?? That was PATHETIC... why didn't they burn him on the gas chambers you so proclaim he used!!!!
Surely those experts at the CIA and NSA could've had live footage, given that they made the Saddam we all know (and hate, yes I didn't like him either).
I've lived under despotism son, don't tell me that crap... its you who should experience that. Try living under the Shah, we put him in power too. How about Stalin? And that Chicano sack of crap whose troops use surplus American gear... over in Mexico? How about those freedom loving Saudis we just sold a couple dozen F16's to? Yeah, go live under their freedom, since pro war voters, in this war, support the Saudis (they're just a religious version of Saddam).
Here's an idea, find a candidate worth voting for or STOP voting, it only encourages the assholes to keep running! Kerry vs Bush was as bad as Gore vs Bush or Clinton vs Bush Sr. Who the hell do you vote for? Preserve your soul, avoid both of them, they're scum. Vote in the local elections.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
http://targetargentina.blogspot.com/
With Google pictures and description. Having the target well tagged helps reducing accidental damage.
Those who don't learn from history are condemmed to repeat it. We didn't declare war, they did. We decided to fight it over there instead of over here. Thanks for noticing.
"They" who? al-Qa'ida? So why did we invade Iraq?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Protecting your country is your duty. Going overseas to attack some country on whatever pretext is generally known as "adventuring".
Draft IS slavery, in slavery someone who doesn't do that work expends your lifetime and production to enrich himself, in the Draft, someone who isn't involved in FIGHTING at all, is enriching himself by expending your lifetime and LIFE (sooner or later) the same way.
"The man whose choices are made for him is a slave."
"He who produces to have his product disposed of by others without his consent is a slave." (I forgot who authored these, I think it was Thucydides, Socrates or Plato.)
If you don't believe that, spend some time in a communist country as a worker bee. Then come lecture me on the virtues of the draft.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Can't blame George Bush for the inteligence given him by the Clinton Administration.
We can blame him for cherry-picked evidence from the VP and forged documents that he submitted to the CIA (which were pretty bad forgeries).
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
So how's that different than the current setup with insurance? Your premiums and copays subsidize others who can't pay just as well, except you replace governmental inefficiencies with corporate inefficiencies and graft.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Perhaps I should have qualified my assertion somewhat: the private system cannot be cost-effective for the subsidized products, but it may be cost-effective in offering different products (higher quality, shorter wait, etc.) than those subsidized through the public system, as is the case in Canada and elsewhere. It is misleading to talk of "healthcare" as if it were one indivisible product; the public system offers some products, and the private system offers others. The private system cannot compete with the public system in the subsidized areas because it cannot do what the public sector does: force everyone to pay for its products whether they are wanted or not.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
What does blurring out portions of satellite photos buy you? Practically nothing. For every grenade lobbed over the wall into a millitary installation, ten car bombs hit police stations and markets. You don't need satellite photos to find them.
Insurgency and terrorism are predominantly a low tech game. No terrorist will go after a hard target when a soft one is available. And anyone who has visited California in October knows you only need about $200 and a trip to the hardware store to cripple the west coast with more damage than a 20 kiloton nuke could do. And shutting down Google Earth won't do a damn thing to stop it. Neither will anything else short of 24 hour curfews for everyone.
So let's give up our freedoms in order to prevent things that aren't going to happen. Then when the next attack occurs, we can at least take comfort in the fact that we forged our own chains.
Support SETI@home
Heh. Where shall I even begin, in that awful mess of uninformed judgment of weapons?
The "Assault Rifle" concept wasn't invented in Vietnam, it was invented in WW2 over here in Germany. The existing doctrine was that, yes, you need big real-man's rifles and machineguns most of the time, or pistols and SMGs for when it gets close and personal. Then someone noticed that most fighting, yes, happens under 300m. A place where pistols and SMGs are too short ranged, and those powerful real-man's weapons are too unwieldy. The world's first assault rifle was the Sturmgewehr 44. "Sturmgewehr" means _literally_ "Assault Rifle."
It was originally called "MP-43" to disguise it from Hitler who officially forbade researching anything except SMGs and big real-man's rifles. So they gave it a SMG designation instead.
The higher party officials got wind of it only when a test batch found its way to an SS unit, and troops started _begging_ and using political favours to try to get the new weapon. That already says something that the average big guns nut doesn't seem to understand: actual frontline troops _liked_ them, and preferred them to those good ol' real-man's weapons.
It has _nothing_ to do with political correctness. Nazi Germany was the least politically correct place on Earth. And soldiers on the brutal East Front didn't give a fuck about political correctness by now. They just wanted a weapon which would keep them alive.
Or have you ever heard of the AK-47? You must have. Well, that was an almost shameless copy of the StG-44. It's also useless beyond 300m, because of the low muzzle velocity. And it wasn't for lack of bigger, more macho weapons to copy, since they could have copied the much more powerful Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 instead. And you know what the USSR replaced it with? With the AK-74 in 5.45mm caliber.
And again, if you're trying to tell me that the Kremlin leaders were the US kind of "politically correct", then that's _major_ revisionism. Even as women in the army goes, the Soviets used a lot in WW2, but after the war they were mostly in a hurry to get rid of them and return to a more paternal army structure. Women were always exempted from draft, and post-war mostly used by the army as propaganda pieces, as in "hey, looky, we're so egalitarian, we even let a few dress in uniforms once a month and do some mock drills." They certainly _didn't_ design their main infantry weapons around attracting women in any form or shape.
I know that the average gun nut looks only at caliber, so the 7.92mm StG-44 and 7.62mm AK-47 look like a macho real-man's weapon. Guess what? They're short, low-velocity cartridges. The 7.62x39mm AK-47 round is a _lot_ weaker than the 7.62x51mm NATO round. In fact, the NATO round is closer to the Soviet 7.62x53mm round used in medium machineguns and sniper rifles. (E.g., the SVD, a.k.a., Dragunov sniper rifle.) So even the politically-incorrect Soviets, yes, used much less macho ammo in their main infantry weapon. (The original German StG-44 used an even shorter cartridge, at 7.92x33mm. That's right, a whole 33mm case.)
The problem with big cartridges in rifles, like the NATO 7.62mm round or the German Mauser round the Germans initially experimented with, is _not_ semi-auto fire. Yes, your grandma can shoot them one at a time. Very astute of you. The problem is _automatic_ fire. When you shoot 10 of them per second, with a powerful round and without a bipod, your accuracy goes straight to hell. Shot one by one, yes, you can aim them, but in salvoes it shakes your gun all around. And blimey, even that good ol' powerful M-14, it got a bipod for the models that were kept capable of automatic fire. _That's_ why everyone moved to less powerful cartridges in their assault rifles.
And again, the Soviets too moved to a 5.45mm round instead, because of the flatter trajectory and actually having more stopping power. Both the NATO 5.56mm round and
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I still have reasonable doubts.
OK, fine, you still have reasonable doubts that Iraq might have had WMDs. Meanwhile, we know that North Korea has them, and Iran is busily attempting to acquire them (and for all we know, may already have chemical and/or biological weapons), and thanks to our debacle in Iraq we are no longer in a position to do very much about those threats. That's just great.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
There are several important differences between tax-funded universal health care and private insurance:
It is true that certain biological risk factors are not a matter of individual choice, and while I do not think that it is "society's" responsibility to make life "fair" (probably an impossible task), I do believe that there are ways to even the odds somewhat without aggression. One idea, for example, would be something like "pregnancy insurance", in which the parent(s) agree to pay a fixed amount over time and adhere to certain standards of behavior during the pregnancy in exchange for insurance against specific kinds of birth defects. Since the insurance is being granted against a future class-based risk there would be no problem with pre-existing conditions. The parent's risk of passing on a genetic defect would, however, be a factor in determining the premiums, in accordance with the higher risk of long-term medical costs; they would have to take that into consideration when making their choice, just as they must now.
As a side note, one should take into consideration that in the U.S. the insurance companies are both heavily regulated and strongly protected from the consequences of their own actions, particularly regarding their contracts with those they insure. Neither aspect makes for an efficient insurance system.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Well, that's the thing. The Australian government is the primary entity in Australia allowed to import prescription medications. (Through our PBS scheme). If you've invented a new drug that cures cancer, and you want the Australian government to subsidise it (so more people take it), you'd better come to the party on a good price for it.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
It is CONSTITUTIONAL slavery, its voluntary. Voluntary servitude. A free man, a truly free man is self sustaining, on his own property, not beholden to the lords and ladies and big corps for his food, clothes, medicine and basic needs.
Hang out with the Idahoans, and a few alpine types and learn how to survive. Then you find out that your cash spends better when you have less things demanded of you by lords and masters.
A nation of free holders IS possible, we almost had one, until the Founding Lawyers killed the Articles of Confederation and replaced them with the much more heavy handed Constitution.
And if you have read the right channels, you know there is another "Constitution" in the works, where any rights we ever had are "kaput".
Look around, the Clintonistas and the other CFR bunch proposed it in 1992. We are just lucky that the Constitutional Convention wasn't gone through with back then. Or we'd be seriously screwed. Tiannamen square screwed.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Perhaps if you had asked my view of Ollie North, who often columns on SOF, or of the fact that the SOF is wholeheartedly a believer in the authenticity of the war on drugs and war on terror.
:)
I'm in no way a SOF junkie, but it helps to see where the military is getting their rags. And its quite popular, and occasionally has some remarkably accurate seeming articles (verified by my buddies, older and younger).
"Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics." (unknown to me who said this one)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I was referring to adoption of said weapons by the USA. I don't recall the USA adopting the AK and I don't care about caliber that much.
.308 and 30.06, 300 WSM (overkill), etc. Are you NUTS, by the way? How can you be caliber crazy and claim shit like that to my face? Any idiot knows that a 50 BMG is for killing tanks and a 500 magnum's for killing elephants. Velocity, bullet profile, recoil, gun size, etc. What are you on man? Plus elephant cullings are done with 30 calibers, either on full auto or by well positioned marksmen.
.223 penetrates with more power than a .308 or a 6.8 mm.
:) I want to buy one for collector value. All the ones that I've ever heard of shot the RUSSIAN 7.62x54 rimmed (and I've seen two chambered in 30.06 by nutty gunsmiths with too much time on their hands. I could be off by a bit.
:) (if you're old enough to drink)
I just have seen much to make me believe that the AR round doesn't have much killing power beyond two hundred yards and fragmentation velocity is near the three thousand feet per second for the lightweight bullet and is lost beyond that hence why the marines moved to higher weights of bullets in their carbines, of course the heavier bullet was slower hence it lost much more of the fragmenting capacity at long range, being already slower than the original 5.56 (hey, at least once you pass 60 grains, you can't claim its a 22 anymore since the 22 LR has a tough time pushing a 60 grain bullet, to my knowledge)
I actually prefer accuracy over range (50 bmg) since i hunt occasionally, I found that a good head-shot on a calm deer is fantastic with any
Also, what makes you think I'm NOT familiar with the evolution of the SturmGewehr from its SMG to the FAL battle rifle (STG58 in Austria). If I recall, the guy who took over from John Browning took a real interest in the Assault Rifle idea, but gave up and made a full battle rifle.
Question for you:
If the carbine round is so lethal at five hundred then why are the snipers staying the hell away from it and why are police snipers using the three oh eight and the six eight and not the two two three? Can't tell me the
And if you MISSED it, SOF hardnuts who swear by it, tend to be AR boys. I am neither. And I deeply regret getting drawn into an argument with a bunch of trolls. Sure you googled the wiki for 'Assault Rifle' but I wonder how much of that you knew off bat.
Personally I wouldn't waste cash on either an AK74 or 47, they're both shit guns for mudholes.
Please, tell me which russian rifle shoots the 7.62x53
Auto fire is for people fighting at short range.
Prime example. Minutemen fired 4 shots per minute in the revolutionary war, and hit 100% at 200 yards on british officers. Americans in Vietnam hit once in 300 shots on the 50 yard range (read this sometime ago when researching historical accuracy of various guns). We're improving again today. But not at the range and accuracy of the minutemen. (who were using IRON SIGHTS!) I can guarantee that those musket balls would change your views on caliber, right quick. I've shot muskets that friends own. Remarkable guns. Not good for tactical stuff, and smoky as hell, but you can reload those even without a cartridge factory available... and damn can they splatter stuff, like any good shot, aim at the noggin, deer or terrorist, they still go down. If you're not wearing armor, it will do a lot worse number on you at the same range as an AR/M16.
Look, I'm not a caliber nut, so bugger off from that subject, i'm simply saying that the AR isn't worth its salt. If it was then the whole world would be using them, but as I recall, demand for FAL's is back up (check the recent DSA sales figures, government operators want them, and gov is paying a pretty penny for pretty guns). All the FAL's i've seen on sale are 308. When you show me why one would be rebarelled in 223, I'll buy you a beer
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I was being sarcastic, I repeat, SARCASTIC...
Sheesh. Sides, if he shot her, there were deeper factors than the Glock, I'm sure he would've used the knife if he had gone that far off the deep end (or also if he had the legitimate need to shoot her, such as if she was murdering their kids with a chainsaw, these days you never know, he might've been the good guy!!)
(tis a nutty world we live in, we sell Sarin gas to saddam, and then he's a bad guy for using it, for the EXACT PURPOSE HE BOUGHT IT FOR! Sarin isn't for defense, or hunting, or overthrowing tyrants, its exactly for what it is sold... GENOCIDE!)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Or just the usual circular reasoning bug?
I said, a draft is simply the worst because you're sent to likely DIE.
Work is not slavery, you can work for yourself.
Employment is slavery, but it is constitutional, if you READ the "anti slavery ammendment" (13) it reads that only "unwilling" or "coerced" servitude (involuntary) is banned. If you indenture yourself, tough tamales.
I don't see how that is hard to grasp.
Most kids aren't taught that they can skip on the draft, that the law doesn't REQUIRE they sign up for the draft (so long as they can stay clear of government free bees that demand exchanging that vow/signature).
That is it.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
This is the same paper which after 911 was advocating bombing ISP's with cruise missiles if they did not prevent encrypted messages from passing through their systems. NO - I am not making this up! I am suprised anyone pays money to listen to the drivel they publish.
Bomb the ISPs - Daily Telegraph
read the rest of it on the register or google it
Is his point about being prepared for the unexpected and the fog of war valid or not?
I might have thought the same thing but he used the term Assault Rifle instead of Assault Weapon which is what I would have expected of Senator Diane Feinstein. Actually, I should not expect any sort of consistency from her on the subject since obfuscation works in her favor.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Excellent post.
Look at the Iraqi sniper videos. Our troops are manning checkpoints and fixed positions with signs on them that say, "Shoot me! I'm a moron!" Or "Run a car full of explosives into me! I'm a moron!"
Even putting General Petreaus back in action isn't going to help, either - especially since they're putting General Odierno back in action (who is a real moron.)
William Lind is predicting the LOSS of the US army in Iraq if Bush attacks Iran. Not the DEFEAT - the LOSS...as in thousands of troops dead, headlong evacuation, and the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of equipment left behind. If Bush attacks Iran, the Iraqi Shia will cut our Kuwait supply lines. Thirty to ninety days later, no food, no water, and no ammo...despite any airlift ideas, it's impossible to supply that army from the air.
And Bush IS going to attack Iran - that's a virtual certainty now.
Used to read SOF all the time, BTW. Not lately, though.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"They won because they were able to implement an effective campaign against the Axis Powers."
And this is where your whole argument that we could "win" collapses.
Because, as William Lind points out in his analysis of "Fourth Generation War", today's conflicts are not state vs state, but state vs non-state actors. The non-state actors may have support from some states or another, but they're primarily movements based on ideologies. They are self-regenerating.
And ideologies cannot be defeated militarily without exterminating nearly everybody who believes in them. They can only be defeated, as Lind says, by gaining greater "credibility" than the opposing ideology.
And this is where Bush and the neocons are utter losers. Not that they really care about "ideology" since the neocons are essentially Trotskyites and Jacobins who believe only in greed and power. But their "ideology" fuels their "political" solutions which are solely military in nature, and thus doomed to defeat against any competing ideology using 4GW.
When the US attacks Iran, this fact will be demonstrated in the large - about twice as large as Vietnam and four to ten times larger than the debacle in iraq.
The result will be a United States bled dry economically, militarily and geopolitically.
The so-called "clash of civilizations" is basically bullshit - but the neocons will make it real - and the US will LOSE.
William Lind is predicting just for starters the possible LOSS of the US army in Iraq when Bush attacks Iran (which is virtual certainty at this point.) Not the DEFEAT - the LOSS of that army - meaning tens of thousands of dead US troops, headlong evacuation from the country, and the leaving behind of scores or hundreds of billions of dollars of US equipment. This will be caused by the Iraqi Shia militias joining with Iranian Revolutionary Guards infiltrators to cut US Kuwait supply lines. They may possibly be assisted by several divisions of Iranian troops - but I doubt that. I believe the Iranians will wait for the US to invade Khuzestan and then wage the same sort of asymetrical war the Iraqi insurgents are waging against the US and Hibzallah waged against Israel. Witin thirty to ninety days of cutting US supply lines, the US army in Iraq will be out of food, water, fuel and ammo. That's all done for the US in Iraq at that point.
Al-Sadr can field an estimated 60,000 militia alone - and he's already said he would do so if Iran is attacked. And he isn't even pro-Iranian - he's an Iraqi nationalist. The REAL large Iraqi militias include the Badr Brigade who were trained and supported by Iran for years.
Add a few score thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards infiltrators - probably quite a few are already in country - and the US military will be unable to move against Iran at all. It will be too busy defending its supply lines in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Iran will be dropping missiles on the nicely identified and GPS-coordinated (by Iranian spies and Iraqi insurgents) US military bases in Iraq. Unless the US can knock out virtually every Iranian missile system in the first 48 hours of airstrikes on Iran - and they won't, as the 1991 war on Saddam proved, movable missiles are hard to knock out - the US military bases will take serious damage in Iraq - and probably also in Kuwait and the UAE. Not enough damage to knock them out, probably - these bases are huge in Iraq - but enough to cause serious US casualties. One hit on a dining hall...remember the Iraqi insurgent attack on a US dining hall?
Many strategists are calling the US attack on Iraq the "biggest strategic mistake in US history."
You ain't seen nothing yet.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Who'd we invade again?
It seems that this point hasn't been lost on many of the world's leaders. The US now has a widely-recognized history of attacking defenseless countries, while negotiating with those that have (or appear to have) serious weaponry. This is putting pressure on many governments to at least have the appearance of a "WMD" arsenal. The US government, and especially the current administration, has done a lot to encourage the rest of the world to arm themselves against an American attack.
After all, to most of the world, the American invasion of Iraq makes no sense at all. There was no visible provocation of any sort. All the charges of the US government were pretty much shown to be just PR (i.e., lies). Given such history, who in the world is safe? Well, North Korea and Iran seem to be safe, for the time being at least. So we should all emulate their strategy, right?
As an American, I find all this a bit unnerving. But I don't have any idea what I could do to change it. Voting didn't help. I guess I'll just have to face the fact that my government has become the Bad Guy to much of the rest of the world. But to put it in perspective, I guess this isn't an unusual situation for most of humanity. It's just that Americans are no longer an unusual case of people who can mostly support their own government's behavior.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Setting aside whether those quotes make valid points or not, my issue was with your use of the word "only" which seems sort of... out of place. You seemed to be saying that you've never heard the phrase "Blame America first" or accusations that certain people aren't "supporting the troops" and the like. That you've never heard anybody questioning Democrats' patriotism is, at least, a sign that you're not listening to "pundits" like Coulter and Savage. I'm just suggesting that the overblown "you hate America" rhetoric is not the exclusive territory of "Bush haters."
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Perhaps we should catch insurgents and collar them with a tracking gps and then release them. Then keep tabs on them with google earth... might be nice to have a destruct button, too.
It's getting pretty messy now.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
You're most likely right, I'm sure there's people on the right saying stuff like that. I just don't really ever listen or pay attention to blow hards like Coulter or Savage. I was mainly thinking of actual people in power, and the users comment that the administration or neocons or some other evil entity has been questioning people's patriotism when all I've seen is people questioning the administration's.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Wait, who declared war? I must have missed that bit.
The latest declaration was delivered in New York on 9/11. Sorry you missed it. The rest of us noticed the declaration loud and clear and was covered by all the news media. This time we answered the call instead of ignoring it like the first time the World Trade Center was bombed but didn't collapse.
The truth shall set you free!
No link? Here are a few to check out.
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http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://sta
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cou
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0324-09.h
http://regimeofterror.com/
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/cold/photos_prov
You are welcome.
The truth shall set you free!
Please review history.
I have. When they are ignored they try and try again. 9/11 was not the first attack. They failed to bring the building down with the basement bomb the first time. Are you honestly saying forget 9/11 and let them try again and again? You are kidding, right?
Clinton only launched a few missles and did not put us in a 4+ year, $350-billion quagmire.
Good point. It did nothing to prevent 9/11. Nobody said dealing with the threat to our security would be simple and cheap. Would you rather put down the terrorists or sit and wait for the next attack. Sit and wait for them to develop nukes? Pick one. If you don't pick one, one will be chosen for you. I'm wondering how long we are going to sit and wait on Iran and North Korea while they work on nukes.
GW Bush picked one. We may dissagree on if he picked the right one. But not picking one leaves you with the other.
The truth shall set you free!
Sucked in. You could always get the f*ck out of their country and there wouldn't be a problem. :-)
Besides, this thing goes both ways - you can't blame the other side for working hard to think of these things before you did, and like a lot military propaganda this sort of scaremongering is only trying to villify the winner of this round of the battle for that exact reason.
Google Earth either needs to block certain areas or show the whole globe IMO, and this level of surveillance either can hardly be considered useful in a military context, so...
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
And who declared war? Al Quaeda? I didn't know they were the diplomatic branch of the Iraqi government. Or are you talking about something else and I completely missed the point?
.evom ton seod gis eht
Over 95% of the images on Google Earth are years out of date and pulled from publicly available image collections. While I was stationed at LSA Anaconda (aka, Balad Air Base, Iraq) I pulled up the post several times. The images were always a year or two old and showed none of the facility hardening, t-walls, or other improvements to the post safety levels that the insurgents could use against us. And I doubt that's changed, since they haven't even updated the Minneapolis images to show the completed Light Rail system.
GP never claimed a link between Sadam[sic] and Bin Laden. He was commenting on Muslim extremists in general, and his comments are worth a read.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Actually, the problem is that the USAF should have treated all commercial imaging satellites as potential enemy intellegence assets and taken them out or to have reached an agreement with the companies to keep them out of the theatre of operations.
Historically speaking, someone who went around town taking photos of defense contractor buildings and subsequently mailing the images to the enemy would most likely have been executed within a few months of being caught. This wasn't so much for taking pictures as for sending sensitive information to the enemy - which is part of the definition of treason - giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
With the advent of media sat many years ago (the first private 1m resolution eye in the sky) there were new concerns and problems to be dealt with in the intellegence community. Reporting on what could be observed goes both to a public for their amusement and to the enemy for their planning and usually translates into allied lives lost and failed missions. It's sort of like the notion of some reporter calling up bin laden 2 hours before a raid to capture/kill him and asking him to comment on the upcoming raid - and apparently assuming that his tip-off of the raid would have no effect on the outcome - otherwise that would be a treasonous act.
The reason why it would be google rather than the satellite owner or for that matter, the satellite manufacturer is simply that google is the one who sent the information to the enemy. That's why in world war II, it wasn't the camera maker or kodak, the film maker who was prosecuted for treason, it was the one(s) that took the photos and sent them to the enemy.
On the gov. intellegence side, there has been a failing to realize that just because one obtained sensitive information without violating the law, doesn't mean it cannot be classified as secret nor should it be possible to disseminate it without legal consequence.
Another example of this type of thinking was back when newt gingrich and friends were recorded in a cellphone discussion of medicare and such by democrat operatives who subsequently gave it over to democrat politicians who release it to the media. The applicable law, which was never applied dated back to the 1930s telecommunications act which made it a felony to release any private information gleaned from listening to radio transmissions. Instead of enforcing a workable law, the response to ignore the existing law and prosecution of those who violated it and to push for trying to prevent new radios from being able to receive it and to get new technologies that made it 'impossible' to capture future private conversations. Subesquent problems have surfaced with overpriced radio communications equipment for police and fire and city services along with a serious interoperability problems that rears its ugly head in any serious emergency.
The Middle East used to be the world's cultural and scientific center. The Muslim/Arab fall from preeminence still stings to this day, and who is the new preeminent nation? For the time being, it's the United States.
Why wouldn't they want to bomb us into the stone age? We're everything that they wish they still were.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Lots of comments from people saying that Google can't or shouldn't be censoring their imagery. In case you weren't aware, they already are.
Here's a Google Earth KMZ file that will show you the US Naval Observatory, in Washington, DC. Zoom in on it and you'll notice that all the territory within a set radius of the observatory has been pixellated out of the otherwise clear image.
Why? Because the Vice President lives at the Naval Observatory.
There are other obscured sites in DC and other places too; I'll leave finding them as an exercise for the reader. But the point is that they are already hiding some sensitive locations from users, so it's not unreasonable for people to ask what the criteria are, or why military bases shouldn't be included.
Read my blog.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Wow, did you actually call US troops, who are making great sacrifices for their country and honor, morons?
And do I have it right in that you're telling them what to do in a combat situation, while sitting behind your disgusting, bacteria infested keyboard stuffing your face with nachos?
You're an idiot.
Your statement strongly implies that Iraq and 9/11 are related. They are not.
Yes, I called them morons - because any sentient entity who joins a military and allows someone else to put them im harms way on the basis of intelligence they don't know for purposes they don't know based on motivations they don't know is a moron.
And I say that having done just that in Vietnam in 1967.
Anybody who "sacrifices" for their country is a moron by definition.
BTW the way I hate nachos.
Moron.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Wow, thanks chief, I needed that clarification.
:)
So mass troop concentrations deserve wiping out with Weapons of Mass Destructions, so long as the people being massacred are not our allies (but are being supplied by the same people as our friends, i.e. US
Gotcha chief.
Just wanted to make sure the hypocrisy ran all the way around. Thanks for clearing that up chief. Its only Genocide when THEY do it without us telling them to!! Got it, thanks!
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
No link? Here are a few to check out.
Shall we consider the source of those links? Rush Limbaugh's website? C'mon. If this information is legit, where are the links from, say, CNN, or BBC, or even Fox News? Digging stuff up from fringe sources is... well, digging.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Shall we consider the source of those links? Rush Limbaugh's website?
3 256,00.html
Not a Rush site;
Published on Thursday, March 24, 2005 by the Agence France-Presse
Insurgents Control Raided 'Qaeda-Baath' Training Camp in Iraq
Not a Rush site;
TIME magazine recently posted an interview with native Iraqi Abu Mohammed reflecting on a number of things related to Saddam Hussein's death including the effect that Hussein and his Baath regime had on the country of Iraq and Hussein's followers joining up with Abu Musab al Zarqawi after Hussein had been captured.
Not a Rush Site;
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,157
How about atacking the content instead of just shooting the messinger. Only one link is from the Rush Limbaugh website. None of the other sites are from there. I did a Google search. There is a lot of discrediting going on just because of who the messenger is in one link and the facts are ignored.
There is lots of evidence of the jet in the training camp in Iraq and there is still denial of any relationship between the terrorists and Iraq. Please find any evidence that location was not a training camp.
If this information is legit, where are the links from, say, CNN, or BBC, or even Fox News?
Did you follow the link to the Time article? Slow down on descrediting the whole affair without checking the content first. I can tell you scanned the list of links without checking any of them and then making a sweeping judgement based on the location of one of the links. Your hate of Rush is obvious.
Again, care to comment on any of the content instead of tha messenger?
The truth shall set you free!
Your statement strongly implies that Iraq and 9/11 are related. They are not.
Care to provide any evidence? The is a forum to discuss the facts. Without any evidence, I take your comment as an opinion.
I have my own opinion. I have valid reasons for it and I have been kind enough to share why I have that opinion. Included in the links is this tidbit including pictures.
Photos Prove Connection Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda Terrorists
March 14, 2003
About 20 minutes before show time, we posted satellite imagery of Salman Pak - home of the terrorist training center in Iraq we've been telling you about. I want to thank Gary Napier and his whole staff from Space Imaging, Inc. for these images from their IKONOS satellite. It's not in geo synchronous orbit, so they can move it to map, measure and monitor anywhere on earth.
The third of the three shots zeros in on what looks like a Boeing 727 fuselage to me. Everyone says it's a 707, but its wings would be farther forward if that were the case. So it's probably a 727, or at least a tri-jet. One of the stories I read this week and put into Rush's Saddam Stack of Stuff in researching all this, cited Aviation Week and Space Technology's article on this facility. This confirms the existence of that fuselage; it's right where the Iraqi defectors said it was.
What do you base your opinion on no connection upon? Blinders?
The truth shall set you free!
Widely accepted facts do not require evidence. For instance, you wouldn't ask someone to prove the Earth rotates around the Sun. However, if you insist...
r t#Findings
The 9/11 Commission: "In addition, while meetings between al-Qaeda representatives and Iraqi government officials had taken place, the panel had no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had assisted al-Qaeda in preparing for or carrying out the 9/11 attacks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Commission_Repo
I went through all of your comments on this thread and do not see one link. I also fail to see how your two paragraphs link Iraq to 9/11. Furthermore, "DIA's postwar exploitation of the facility found "no information from Salman Pak that links al-Qa'ida with the former regime."" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Pak_facility
Your source is Rush Limbaugh? What a joke.