Slashdot Mirror
New Technology May Cut Risk of Giving Syrian Rebels Stinger Missiles
Hugh Pickens writes "PBS reports on a proposal of arming Syrian rebels with a force equalizer to make a decisive blow against Bashar al-Assad's ruling regime — an idea that has so far failed to take hold inside the Obama administration because of serious concerns about flooding a troubled region with dangerous weapons that someday might fall into the wrong hands. Could sophisticated weapons, such as anti-aircraft missile systems, be outfitted with mechanisms that would disable them if they fell into the wrong hands? According to military analyst Anthony Cordesman the U.S. could modify Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank weapons with batteries that cease functioning in a few weeks or months or the weapons could be built to require authentication codes before they are enabled to work. "I think it would be relatively decisive," says Cordesman. ... Another idea is to install GPS-disabling devices so that Stinger missiles only worked in a designated geographic area, such as only in Syria. Such weapons, it is believed, might tip the balance in favor of the rebels in the same way that Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, provided by the United States to the Afghan Mujahedeen, helped expel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Cordesman stressed that this type of weapon would have to be thoroughly tested to make sure the controls work and could not be undone. 'You could not transfer these types of weapons without these types of protections. You simply have no way to know where they would end up, how they would be transferred, what would happen to them.'"
Doesn't US military and government have better things to do, other than supporting prospective pro-Islam terrorists; in past Osama, and now Rebellions in Syria and Fettullah in Pennsylvania?
yes, like a replacement battery.
Unfortunately for the buyers, the parts will take 4 months to arrive, and do so in a crunched, twice-folded, resealed padded envelope (though because it wasn't an R4 cartridge, it went smoothly through HK customs).
At any rate, I thought the Obama administration made it clear the Syrian rebels were too secular (Turkish-backed) to be supported. Even if this "authorization code" scheme only needs a new battery to defeat it, they still won't get any material support from the US unless the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaida are backing the rebels.
Oh don't even try, the type of ignorant pillock who thinks that anyone foreign is everyone foreign (i.e. Osama Bin Laden was foreign, so all foreigners are terrorists) can't be reasoned with. They're lost causes beyond help so utterly caught up in their ignorant nationalistic mindset that all hope of anything of value coming from their mouth on a topic involving somewhere outside of their home country is long lost.
The armed incidents started in the border. A lot of the people fighting against Assad are not Syrian but foreigners. This is similar to what happened in Libya where the fighting started along the Algerian border. Sure they have co-opted some of the local population as they gain a foothold on the region but it is quite clear that this fight was neither started nor is being led by any sort of national movement.