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Iraq's Mosul Dam Could Burst At Any Time (blastingnews.com)
MarkWhittington writes: The Mosul Dam, located near the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq, was started by Saddam Hussein in 1981 as a way to bolster his regime and provide power to the surrounding area. It was completed in 1986 and has since generated 3,420 gigawatt/hours per year. Unfortunately, the dam was built on an unstable foundation of gypsum and thus needs constant repairs to plug leaks and maintain its structural integrity. Even more unfortunately, such repair efforts have stopped since the Islamic State seized control of Mosul. The dam could burst at any time, as a consequence. The flood could kill a million people and render a million more homeless. Radio Free Europe reports that Italy's Trevi Group has been contracted to repair and maintain the dam, but it seems like there's a lot to catch up with. (Also at The Guardian and Mother Jones.)
Shouldn't that be "3,420 gigawatt*hour per year", or "3,420 gigawatt*hour/yr"?
Shachar
Why haven't they blown it already?
This story smells bad.
Step 1: seed news sites with stories of dam fragility
Step 2: send in CIA to blow up dam
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit?
Come hell or high water, this should be dealt with pretty dam fast.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Is it bad that my first thought was "well, that will make a dent in Daesh's foothold"?
Civilians aside, it seems poetic that ISIS will literally be washed from the lands by their own stupidity.
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Who cares?
Isis is a radical Sunni sect.
The dam was built on what's effectively ... drywall? How do you fix something like that?
I couldn't have described the US political climate any better. Best. Metaphor. Ever.
Much like bioaccumulated radiation or global warming. The Mosul Dam will not be seen for the gigacasualty risk it poses until people see the wall of water bearing down on them.
Seriously. If DAESH et al. are too retarded to stop fighting for long enough to fix this, they (and everyone else around them) deserves what they get. Sounds like a case of self-limiting stupidity to me, all around.
You mean to say,
"as a way to bolster the United States of America's regime"
or
"as a way to bolster Bush's regime"
Can we stop with the obvious propaganda machine here on /. ?
Cry me a river ... oh wait!
Shiites Militias are the major ground force fighting against ISIS , formed after invading Mousel.
Must have balls of steel.
I wouldn't go into Iraq to repair a dam no matter how much you paid me.
The chances of getting captured by ISIS make it not worth it at all.
That must be wrong. Deaths from nuclear weapons and power plant accidents, combined, haven't killed that many people. Dams are clean energy producers and have to be way safer than that evil nuclear stuff. The estimates must be off by a few orders of magnitude. Nothing else makes sense.
What the hell is "gigawatt/hours"?
GJ/s^2, energy per times squared, hmmm, a sort of acceleration of energy through time.
What, did Saddam Hussein invent a magical energy source and was he perhaps killed for that?
Questions, questions.
Good! That'll save tax dollars!
And that is all that matters to somebody from America, God's own country, where every public figure has to pretend they are devout Christians, is it? People like you are a disgrace. You may claim that American lives matter more to you than those of other nations, but I don't even think you mean that either - you are just a selfish little prick. Fortunately, as I know from experience, most Americans are decent people, whether they believe in God, gods or nothing.
Not so much cynical as ignorant, given that Isis isn't Shiite. If you're going to suggest what people should consider it would help if you gave the impression you had considered it at least a little yourself first.
Looks like Timothy just revealed his power level. I wondered where the rot set in during Gamergate and I guess Timothy at least must have jumped on the regressive left bandwagon some time ago.
What's next Timothy? Ad-blockers are problematic? Encryption supports rape culture? Video games caused ISIS? Do us all a favour and just get a job at the NSA or at Wired or whatever. We're tired of your iFascist crap.
They are sunni group following wahbisim interpretations which are officially adopted by Saudi Arabia. On the other hand , Iran backed forces (Shiaa militas) were the first to resist ISIS progress and defeated them in Tikrit,Anbar,Diyala. Read more on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Perhaps this will give the country the enema it so desperately needs...
since they aren't Christians... this will provide it. ;) And all the Christians have been expelled... :(
Does the religion of any of the ISIS fighters have any effect on your opposition to them?
If its so dangerous just drain the darn thing. I don't care how neglected it is there has to be some way to open up the valves and drain the reservoir even if it involves shape charges or blow torches. If push came to shove simply disconnect the generators and open up their channels all the way, it would take a long time but the reservoir would eventually drain.
We can argue the what if's and should we have gone into Iraq all day long. But the reality is much more a factual standing and the fact that Obama left a wide void
for ISIS to infiltrate some of Northern Iraq was not only predicted, but the effects are being felt. No matter how you feel about this, when you liberate a Country you have a certain obligation to see that all your blood and money spent does some real good for the people. You don't just pull out like with a cheap whore and say you've paid your money and leave.
Errrr....because the CIA doesn't want to be responsible for a million dead Iraqis?
They are already demonstrably responsible for 500,000 due to the pointless war they helped cause. Not sure why they would suddenly care now.
ISIS controls Mosul, so even if the Iraqi government took the dam back, the area is still a literal war zone. So, who provides security? Does ISIS have an interest in the dam remaining intact? If Mosul is downriver, I'd certainly think so, but ISIS is nuts.
shrug and cynically say, "inshallah".
Allahu Akbar!
Last time this happened, a guy built an ark and got two of each animal in the world to go on it.
Sure the large loss of life will be tragic, but perhaps this will wake the local people up to the threat of the Islamic State and give them reason to finally arm up and wipe those fuckers out.
That's right Muslims, when that damn breaks, IS will now be responsible for MILLIONS of your own religious brethren dying.
So when are you going to stand up and wipe out the extremists? Why are you needing to wait for millions of your own people to die before you come to that startling realization?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Leave Iraq now Ameri... Omg halp! America halp! Halp!
Right up there with 'I was only following orders' and 'My dog ate it' in the annals of stupid opening statements.
Reminds me of the scene in Schindler's List where the guy from Taken is trying to convince Ghandi that the homicidal maniac that runs the concentration camp is really an okay guy. Sure, he uses non-combatants for target practice and profits from slavery, but if you could just spend a little time with them, you'd see they were just like you.
Blah blah blah. Just STFU why don't you? You're giving me a headache...
Let's set the record straight:
I've been opposed to the war in Iraq since 2001. I always said it was a tragic waste of life and money. Don't piss and moan to me about insensitivity to the costs of war because I am far more conscious of them than most. There would be 10s of thousands of Iraqis, and 100s of Americans still here with us today if I was in charge.
Despite that, you're right when you say "I don't even think you mean that either": because I don't give a single shit about the loss of human lives just because they were born and sucked some oxygen in to their lungs. The same can be said of the cattle which goes in to my hamburger and quantitatively: the difference in intelligence between me and the average person isn't that far from the difference between the average person and a cow.
They don't speak the same language as me? Strike 1. They aren't the same religion as me? Strike 2. They have demonstrated a propensity for savage behavior and ignorance? Strike 3.
If I'm apathetic about the death of a random asshole in Europe or South America or Canada: Imagine how little an Iraqi means to me? Would I spend one American life to save 1,000,000 Iraqis? Depends on how much I liked the American!
If I had to put a numeric estimate on it: I'd say 1x American is worth roughly 250,000x Iraqis. I'm not willing to see Obama spend more than 4x Americans fixing this problem. Honestly I would probably laugh if he hit the fucking thing with a cruise missile...
Here's the difference between me and you: I would personally lay down my life to save those 250,000 if given the chance(and a 100% guarantee of a return on my investment). You? You might cry about it and change your Facebook photo, but you'd forget about it in a couple weeks because at the end of the day: Stalin was right.
Your faux-empathy rings hollow. I don't see you rappelling from helicopters to save Yazidis from being raped and enslaved. You might snivel about it on Slashdot but what have you actually done to intervene?
7,000,000,000 people on this planet vs 1x Asteroid: We could have effectively mitigated that existential threat(permanently) for the amount of money we've pissed away on the ingratitude of the Iraqi people. For the 6,999,000,000 people who's lives have been directly endangered as a consequence of Iraq's petty religious conflicts(and the remaining 3,000,000,000 or so people who haven't even been born yet) a nuclear holocaust in Iraq would have been a good value in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line is frivolous wastes of money have a direct cost in human lives. Every Iraqi owes the species ~6,999 human lives worth of apologies IMHO.
I see their stupidity as a dangerous and infectious existential threat to the species and would happily spend $1 to make $6,999 any day of the week. The fact that ~3% of those lives are actually worth saving is meaningless if you can rid the planet of so many worthless ones in a single fell swoop for such a small price!
Q: You know what's so fucking great about killing 1,000,000 Iraqis?
A: You cry about it once, but once your tears are dry: you can ignore the region that much more easily.
The fact that there isn't actually a nice round 7x10^9 humans sucking oxygen just further illustrates how meaningless 1x10^6 really is. A million dead Iraqis is a rounding error on a spreadsheet at the end of the day.
People with the attention spans of insects allow these sorts of petty stakes to distract them from the more important problems because they were born to be insignificant plebes and they have no perspective on problems grander than what is directly under their nose. If my death saves 1000 lives selected at random, that's an even trade. If I save 10,000 lives: 10 for 1 ROI! 100,000: 100 for 1. 250,000? 250 for 1! I know my worth: I'm worth 1/1,000 of a rounding error. You could kill 1,000 of me and based on my logic: it would be worthwhile as long as you took out 999,000
I was there in 2003 and they were saying that then. The workers work pretty hard at plugging the holes. Don't go swimming in the lake gives you a burning sensation. Looks good for taking a plunge when it is 110 outside, then oh shit my skin is burning.
will be the last resort of the U.S government, once they realize there's no other way to get the Iraqis and their government to do what the U.S wants. It will be even more horrible and vile than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Goddamn
I'm no fan of Obama, but I agree w/ him on this one. Also, I disagree w/ the Bush doctrine. It was okay to invade Iraq to verify the WMDs, which they then verified were not there, but beyond that, all that nation-building - toppling Saddam, holding elections, forcing Shias, Sunnis & Kurds to work together in a unity government, spending billions on reconstructing that country - none of that should have been done. When Bush stood on the USS Missouri w/ that 'Mission Accomplished' banner, he happened to be right. After that, he should have just pulled all US troops out (aside from those searching for the WMDs) and focused on fixing our own economy.
The result of the Iraqi constitution & elections was the declaration of a new Islamic state, from where Christians NOW started fleeing into SYRIA (this was well before ISIS was in the picture). It resulted in Iraq being handed over to Iran on a platter, thereby completing the Shia crescent of Teheran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. And US buying into the Sunni ambitions of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar to topple Assad is what resulted in the current civil war.
Trump is right on this one. We outsource everything else - we should outsource this war to Putin.
Incorrect choice of facts. When the flood hits Baghdad (and points between Mosul and Baghdad where there are Americans), casualties are likely. I'd guess several dozen, given the number of bridge guards etc, and people's propensity to underestimate the time they need to get away through a crowd of other people trying to get away.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Cruise missile redirect