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Leaked Documents Detail Al-Qaeda's Efforts To Fight Back Against Drones
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports, 'Al-Qaeda's leadership has assigned cells of engineers to find ways to shoot down, jam or remotely hijack U.S. drones ... In July 2010, a U.S. spy agency intercepted electronic communications indicating that senior al-Qaeda leaders had distributed a "strategy guide" to operatives around the world advising them how "to anticipate and defeat" unmanned aircraft. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that al-Qaeda was sponsoring simultaneous research projects to develop jammers to interfere with GPS signals and infrared tags that drone operators rely on to pinpoint missile targets. Other projects in the works included the development of observation balloons and small radio-controlled aircraft, or hobby planes, which insurgents apparently saw as having potential for monitoring the flight patterns of U.S. drones... Al-Qaeda has a long history of attracting trained engineers ... Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, holds a mechanical-engineering degree ... In 2010, the CIA noted in a secret report that al-Qaeda was placing special emphasis on the recruitment of technicians and that "the skills most in demand" included expertise in drones and missile technology.'"
Should we be prosecuting them?
Better pay, free food, "20% time" to work on individual plots to destroy Israel, and of course, 72 geeky virgins.
Designed to create the belief:
1 - Intelligence intercepts and interrogations are effective at getting information that "protects" "us".
2 - Drones are an effective weapon against "our" "enemies" and not principally dangerous to villagers and local civic functions.
But WHY do you believe ANY public information from an agency that has DECEIT in its charter?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Or that al-Qaeda is yet another big organization pushing for an increase in the H-1B visa quota.
Bad people have cells.
Good people have teams.
Useless people have focus groups.
Self-serving parasites have Six Sigma groups.
"I don't think that most US citizens are against intervention."
Reuters poll of from yesterday -- 56% oppose intervention in Syria, 19% support intervention.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-syria-crisis-usa-idUSBRE97T0NB20130903
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Drones are far from cheap. Wikipedia puts MQ-1 Predator unit cost (as of 2010) at $4.03 million. How is that cheap?
F-15 Eagle: $30 million
F-14 Tomcat (Top Gun): $38 million
F-18 Hornet: $41 million
F-22 Raptor: $139 million
That's how it's cheap. Throw in the fact that when you shoot down a drone, you don't lose a pilot that cost years of expensive training that could easily run into a fair fraction of a million dollars to replace, and drones are as cheap as dirt.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
We're supposed to be afraid of these douchebags? We're supposed to fear their engineering "prowess"? Is that what this is supposed to mean?
They make underpants bombs that won't even work under the best of circumstances. I grew up in the Cold War. I feared Russian engineering, because they actually could lob a *nuclear* tipped missile over the North Pole or from a submarine (they never solved the "launch from under water" thing, though). And the both the Bush and Obama administrations were calling these underpants bombs "sophisticated." Bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit. You know what's sophisticated? Over-the-horizon radar. ICBMs. Nuclear submarines. Tsar Bomba even if it was impractical.
What is not sophisticated: IEDs. ANFO bombs. Flying planes into buildings. These are not sophisticated. These can be pulled off by people of average intelligence and just enough insanity to believe in their bullshit cause.
"But they have a world-wide network of engineers!!!1111ONE@#$@#$R"
What a lot of crap. All the engineering in the world isn't going to help you if you can't implement your "master plan" and the only logistics that they seem capable of is ground fightin' and IEDs. Bring down drones? There are governments that have been throwing money at this problem and Iran got just *one* drone to show for all their work, and it's even disputable that they got it by jamming GPS (which is possible if you've got a loud enough transmitter and a crappy enough receiver). That's not much of a return on investment.
When all you have is a bunch of mentally-ill (because this kind of religious devotion is mental illness) engineers and suicidal foot-soldiers, you really don't have a lot of bright people. You have dolts. Dedicated, but not too bright. Because if they were bright... well... I'll leave you with this apropos quote:
--
BMO
To be fair, Bin Laden's original vision was at least partly to strike back at us for killing muslims almost kind of for fun and practice. Including children. When you start murdering children based on their nationality and religion that does tend to make people mad. How would you feel if some Muslim country started bombing buildings and indiscriminately killing thousands including innocent children in the US? You'd probably be pissed off. Maybe not enough to blow yourself up, but if you did you wouldn't be doing it because you were "psychotically violent". This idea of evil arabs who are just evil because they were born that way is laughable. These people have good reason to be mad and want revenge and every drone strike we make just increses that anger and desire for justice.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I think living in the middle east or in any muslim country tends to put you in their crosshairs. Can't you just shoot down the drowns with anti-aircraft guns or a shoulder fired missile?
No, because:
1. They fly awfully high.
2. Shoulder fired missiles like the Stinger are "heat seeking." The exhaust of drones are thermally attenuated through various means because of this..
3. You have to actually see them - either on radar or visually. Since AlQ doesn't have radar, they rely on sight only. The paint schemes on these drones make them really difficult to see visually.
4. If you can't see them visually or on radar, can you hear them? At the heights they fly at and the low noise engine...that's a big-fat No.
Drones aren't your dad's model aircraft.
--
BMO
I wonder how much better the US would be if it were to stop intelligence surveillance of terrorists completely as some people have been suggesting.
Who has been suggesting it? I think it would be a bad idea, but monitoring 300M+ "terrorist suspects" suggests that they should narrow it down a bit.
... They use bombs to target only random innocent people and that is so evil it's hard to comprehend, so getting targeted by drones even when hiding their cowardly asses behind their women and children is completely fair in every way.
Wait, let me get this right. You are saying since they kill innocent people it's okay for us to kill innocent people?
Be seeing you...