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.'"
We don't want these guys using this stuff against our own troops once our gov't betrays them (isn't that Uncle Sam's standard MO?).
Oh yeah, because this sort of technology worked so well in Fast and Furious when Mexican drug lords used American assault weapons against us after the batterries in the GPS tracking system meant to locate them failed. I am not very convinced this sort of technology would be very difficult to override. The comparison of the Syrian rebels to the Afghan Mujahedeen, aka Taliban, who we are still fighting now, demonstrates an unfornate grasp of history by the people behind this idea. It's still not clear if the Syrian rebels should get military aid from us period -- they are still not a cohesive group, and elements of the rebellion still engage in things like torture and attacks on civilian targets.
The rebels in this case are committing attrocities left and right, they're flying the flag of Al Queda, they're not our friends, and they're not the enemy of our enemy in a way that makes it valuable to help them out. We have no business being in any of these rebellions from Libya all through the middle east.
That's just insanity and screw you main stream media and leftists and democrats for not screaming bloody murder about it.
Like the previous poster I replied to, you also need to learn what you're talking about.
The MB was not the ones responsible for the attack on our ambassador.
Nor did "we put them in power" or "give them two countries".
Nor do those countries have "very substantial arsenals".
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I think he means more like abusing and executing POWs. Plus a little using snipers against civilians, that sort of thing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/world/middleeast/united-nations-warns-syrian-rebels-over-atrocities.html?_r=0
A shadowy jihadi group believed to have ties to al Qaeda fought alongside rebels who seized a government missile defense base in Syria on Friday
Being aided by people [possibly] linked to al Qaeda makes you al Qaeda now? What I read from this is that they're linked by a common enemy, I won't lower myself to uttering the cliché. Do you honestly believe that US politicians gave a crap about the Koreans, the Vietnamese, and the Afghans during the cold war? Every country - mine included - has accepted the help of some pretty awful people to further their agenda.
The world has to get over this idea of al Qaeda being a group of uber-terrorists with laser beams coming out of their eyes*. They're a bunch of people who have got lucky a handful of times and the thing about suicide bombers is that the good ones can't repeat their work, and the shit ones tend to fuck up, get scared, or get caught.
If you want to live your life scared of these people, fine, do so. However, keep in mind that they don't hate you because of your freedom, it's for a range of reasons - some valid (stop fucking around in their affairs), but mostly invalid.
* With apologies to Bill Bailey
I hate it when I'm facing an enemy helicopter and the DRM on my game decides to quit, leaving me staring at an error message.
I REALLY hate it when I'm facing an enemy helicopter and the DRM on my rocket launcher decides to quit, leaving me staring at an enemy helicopter.