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No New S-300 Air-Defense System To Syria Says Russia — But Maybe Old Ones
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, Russia's Foreign Minister declared that Moscow would not sell any new surface-to-air missiles to Syria, although there is a catch. He said old contracts are being honored. Could old contracts just be code for an already signed, but undisclosed deal for the S-300? Lavarov certainly left the door open: '...when questioned in particular about the S-300, his reply was not clear if the "earlier contracts" were for the S-300 or something else.' With Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu going to the Black Sea town of Sochi early next week for talks with President Vladimir Putin, it seems they may have something to talk about."
Just like genocide!
They make MILITARY news sites for this sort of thing.
Hey, much love on my part for modern weapons tech, but on Slashdot this is clutter.
Any techies who are interested know how to keep track of such events.
Anyone interested also knows any missile systems sold to Syria can be countered by standoff weapons launched from outside Syrian airspace in most cases. Extended range JDAMs and Spice kits mean expensive anti-aircraft missiles would have to be used against small, relatively inexpensive, "smart bombs".
Those can also be used to destroy Syrian aircraft in their shelters as well as SAM sites.
http://defense-update.com/20130505_israeli-standoff-attack-capability-against-terrorists.html
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I may have read to much H.P. Lovecraft and Charlie Stross, but when I first read the headline, my initial reading was that Russia would be given shoggoths to Syria. That would have been interesting. It will be interesting to see if any deal does go through, and the fact that Syria wants these is interesting given that the rebels have had little access to aircraft. Syria probably wants it to help prevent intervention in the ongoing civil war.
Usually the Israelis are pretty defiant but they have been unusually spooked
Unusual? How quickly we forget the cold war. Nations are standing back and watching Syria because in my youth Syria was to the east what Israel was to the west, nobody wants to be seen to be militarily supporting one side or the other since that risks dragging everyone into a much broader conflict. Both sides of the old "east/west"political divide want to contain the fighting within the borders of Syria much more than they want to their "dog" to win. This is why Israeli strikes on Syria and arms supplies to either side in Syria spook everyone.
UN voting patterns on subjects concerning Syria and Israel still more or less follows the patterns established during the cold war. Saddam was politically simple by comparison, he was our loose cannon and the old "red team" of nations didn't mind us taking him out, Gadaffi was dead the minute the revolt erupted, he had no powerful friends left, much less an influential voting block in the UN watching his back.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
S-300 is an intrinsically defensive weapon system...
Just like a shield is a defensive device, it is meant to be use together with an offensive one.
An advanced surface-to-air missile system can be used to protect a military nuclear facility, just like the one Syria had until it was taken out by Israel. Just think about what have happened would happen if Syria had continue the development of nuclear weapons at the time, and they fall under the wrong hands, which is quite possible given the current situation.
imagine a beowulf cluster of them
rewriting history since 2109
One wonders what could possibly go wrong regarding Syria.
Turkey claims evidence of Syrian chemical weapons use
UN accuses Syrian rebels of chemical weapons use
An Al-Qaeda Alliance in Syria Demands Response From U.S.
Al Qaeda's track record with chemical weapons
Even if there are chemical weapons laying around, they would still need to get them somewhere where they could be used. They would probably need help for that. Is any available?
US teen accused of seeking to join al Qaeda-linked Syrian group
Danish jihadist killed while fighting for Muhajireen Brigade in Syria
Iran recruiting volunteer troops for Syria
Hezbollah Steps Up in Syria as Israel Tries to Ease Tension
US Congressman: Hezbollah agents in US worse than al-Qaida
Peter King warns: Hezbollah agents in U.S.
Border porous for obvious reason
Official: Book of suicide bombers found in Arizona desert
. . .the book is published in Iran and contains biographies of Islamic suicide bombers and other Islamic militants who died while carrying out their attacks. . .
Yes indeed, what could possibly go wrong?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ny-times-scrubs-mention-of-cia-arming-syrian-rebels/5302360
I'd recommend against adding racism to your obvious ignorance, however. Even though that feeling is dependent on the possibility that you have a sense of human dignity, which is certainly slim.
Might this not be an opportune time for the US to stop living up to its image overseas as a big, blundering, international bully and just let the locals fend for themselves?
With a millions of Islamic loonies on their doorstep, and their own disasters in Afghanistan and Chechnya to remind them, one would think that the Russians would have better sense than to keep exacerbating and encouraging Middle-Eastern instability.
No, I suppose both powers' energy and defense industries are more important than anybody else's self-determination.
Economic and political pragmatism trumps idealism every time.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
But.... this is Charlie's beach!
Just think about what would happen if you did not believe the Jewish lies and propaganda.
Propaganda isn't necessarily false. Similarly, one could wonder how bad things could get if Israeli nukes got into the wrong hands due to a similar civil war. The problem with your complaint is that Syria is the country with the civil war not Israel.
"Government slaughter of civilians should be everyone's problem." So we get involved.
If we ship weapons over to the rebels then atrocities will be committed with them at some point and we will be painted as the bad guys (probably by you).
If we send troops over we'll get another Vietnam where we spend billions (trillions?) and end up with lots of dead Americans, lots of mistakes that get made by our troops that get international attention and we end up being painted as the bad guys (probably by you).
If we just yell at them and impose sanctions it won't actually do anything and we'll be painted as the bad guys (probably by you).
Getting involved is a no-win situation, partially because it's a fucking mess and partially because ANY mistakes that are made will be treated as if they were intentional murders of civilians, regardless of the truth of the situation. There is no way for us to win, the closest we can get is to not get involved.
S-300 is an intrinsically defensive weapon system...
What do you think Hezbollah are going to do under an umbrella of the most advanced missile family the made by the Soviets ... er, Tsar Putin's Imperial fiefdom ... er, Russia ? (note: the S-400 is just an improved S-400).
That's right mostincompetent, they are going to launch the tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and rockets on Israeli *citizens*, aggressively initiating yet another war whose modus operandi is *war crime* and whose sole intent is *war crime*. Don't be such a doofus.
Apartheid? against who? you are aware that there are 1 million Arab Israelis, including Muslims, yeah? These Palestinian Arabs get more rights in Israel than they do in the Palestinian Territory, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Gaza (hint: apart from Gaza I've been to all these places, so I *know* you are completely full of sh!t). How about you stop spreading the provably false propaganda. As soon as someone mentions apartheid in the context if Israel it simply proves: a) they don't know what South African apartheid really was like, and b) they don't have the foggiest clue about the substantial Arab minority that live in Israel with full rights and three Members of Knesset (since 1948). If Israel really was an apartheid state I'd condemn it too, but it simply isn't even close. So stop spreading falsehoods that some other no-nothing told you without either of you checking the facts.
The best idea is not to create them in the first place.
Propping up the House of Saud and their twisted Wahabbism seemed like a great plan at the time, but blowback's a real bitch ain't it?
Propping up countless dictators which inevitably leads to opposition from extreme religious groups, also not the best idea. If someone managed to do the same to the US, you better believe it would be the batshittiest of the batshit crazy fundies leading the charge, and the rest of the world would tsk tsk about you crazy fucking Americans and we'd all be quoting verses from the Bible as proof.
Yeah, you aren't bright enough to figure out that you fucking created the problem.
It's interesting that you bring up Yugoslavia. When Western troops got involved, they were generally pretty happy to let Croats and Bosniaks duke it out on Serbs, but for some reason not the other way around. So the siege of Sarajevo was treated as a war crime, but Operation Maslenica and Operation Storm were pretty much ignored. Ditto Kosovo, where NATO intervened on behalf of KLA (and US even went so far as to remove them from the list of terrorist organizations for the duration - usually it goes the other way, "freedom fighters" becoming "terrorists" later, this was a rare case of the other way around), but KFOR did nothing when de-facto independent after the war Kosovar communities started driving the few remaining Serbs out, burning down Orthodox churches etc.
So if Yugoslavia is your example of a successful humanitarian intervention, I very much hope that nothing of a kind takes place in Syria.
Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood are aligned. Turkey would very very much like for the US to intervene on the Turkish side (Turkey, the African Muslim Brotherhood nations like Egypt Libya etc, and the Syrian Al Qaeda called "Al Nusra"). So there is a possibility that this could be a "false flag" operation - in the same way that Al Nusra used chemical weapons on its own civilians in the last fortnight and accused Assad of doing this (hoping the US would leap in an help Al Qeada out, again).
In fact, The Muslim Brotherhood have cleverly worked out that they can use the power of the US to further their agenda as long as they claim to be moderate. See:
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/how-obama-lost-his-big-muslim-brotherhood-gamble/
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/the-united-states-has-become-a-tool-of-muslim-brotherhood-expansionism.html
The Muslim Brotherhood is very very smart/cunning. After seeing NATO intervene on the side of the Bosian Muslims and Albanian Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo respectively the MB realised it could manipulate the US into doing its dirty work. That is exactly what is happening, and the US goes along with this because it believes the MB is a counter to Al Qaeda. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is merely the "good cop" role while Al Qaeda plays "bad cop"- their methods differ (non-violence versus violence) but their goals are completely aligned: all nations subjected to the Muslim political order under Sharia.
The US should let Assad crush the rebels (yes, this is bad, because Iran is involved, but it is far far better than letting the Muslim Brotherhood get another country for their restored Caliphate plan).
UN voting patterns on subjects concerning Syria and Israel still more or less follows the patterns established during the cold war.
It does this because the Red-Green Alliance of the Cold War is still active. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has joined with 'Non-Aligned States' to form a voting bloc that supports either Islamist or ex-communist causes. Because it is one-vote-per-country democracy in the UN (that is, mob rule), this system invented in the Cold War still works to the advantage of Islamists and communists - that is why you see the voting patterns you do, even two decades after the collapse of the Soviet socialist system.
This system is slightly off topic, but explains this "Cold War" voting bloc very quickly. I hope it is enlightening to you (and shows you why the United Nations no longer works towards its founding purpose):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Mupoo1At8
Maybe they run MSVS (Modulnaya Sistema Vooruzhennyh Sil - Modular Armed Forces System). I hadn't tried it but it is somewhere in my collection. Full Disclosure and Disclaimer: It was on rutracker.org so I do not disclose any Russian state secrets not disclosed earlier.
actually with the way things are going islam is going to have a full on civil war between shite, and sunni muslims. Christianity did it is generally called the protestant reformation or european religious wars. and it was entirely ugly. Islam is going to have to do something similar in order to move forward. I would say give peace a chance but that is exactly what they do not want. they want to be right.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I hate to defend them but,
Assad, Hussien,Murbak, etc (Syria, Iraq, Egypt) where the only middle east countries where christians could actually live peacefully with muslims. It was precisely because they were violent oppressive regimes that they were able to tone down the violence between sunni and shite muslims to allow even basic freedoms for other religions.
Without those brutal dictators, those countries are becoming unlivable for non muslim's first, and then for the local non-dominate version of islam(sunni or shite).
We shouldn't get involved in Syria, because the whole region is going to spiral out of control.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I think you have the wrong end of the stick. The point of the S-300 surface-to-air missiles is to enable Hezbollah to act with much greater impunity from air attack when they launch the 50000 surface-to-surface *ballistic missiles* they have.
At the moment Hezbollah are deterred from launching the missiles at Israeli population centers because they know they would get a pounding from the Israeli Air Force as they did in 2006 (which is why Hezbollah have not attacked since).
With the top-of-the-range S-300 Hezbollah can both launch missile attacks and commit terrorism with less risk of the IDF responding (eg. for terrorist/jihadi attacks consider the the Hezbollah bombing of civilians in Burgas, Bulgaria; and all the other attacks they have carried out around the world, eg. Georgia, India, Cyprus [foiled], Thailand [where the attackers were caught, so there is no question what was going in], several times in Buenos Aires Argentina; and Europe has been warned it can be attacked anywhere at any time by Hezbollah).
However, even surface-to-air missiles can be dangerous in a surface-to-surface role. The US Navy has its fire-control electronics so that it can use its SAMs in an anti-ship role (eg. for causing sailor casualties and destroy delicate electronics). It would be wasteful of an S-300, but still possible to do some harm.
Only the British ever really managed to contain it with their moto of: 'Don't fight or we will kill you'. Remove the "evil" dictator who is supressing the groups and you soon find yourself with out of control groups willing to spend the next 1000 years fighting each other of patches of sand.
Think about why this is. Look at the Qur'an and hadiths. Mohammed had Muslims not under his direct control killed (burned them alive in the unauthorized mosque they built without his permission, he discovered it when they asked him to come and bless it). This set the example for all Muslims that sectarian warfare is not only ok, it is mandatory to fight against other apostates, which are other Muslims. That's why when people say if Islam ruled the world there would be peace. That is false, besides the violent jihad against non-Muslims, and the severe oppression of Muslims, there would also be endless sectarian warfare. This shows up in the bloody statistics of Muslims killed every day by Muslims of another sect and in the fighting of Sunni vs Shia in Syria:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Most of the West never knows or cares about the colossal amount of violence that wracks all of the Muslim World. It is the political ideology of *Islam* that is driving this constant violence. Islam is not a religion of peace as the ignorant or taqiyya-practicing liars tell you. Islam is an evil totalitarian ideology of oppression, exploitation and violence. It is against all the human rights we hold dear. Don't let the liars fool you. Oppose Islamicization of the West.