the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Steve James wrote:

RobP3 wrote:Heard last night on BBC Newsnight
"Well the Russians are being aggressive. They have threatened to shoot down the missiles we may fire at them!"

To me the hilarity is that the Russians can shoot anything down but a passenger plane.

Sure, European union is an economic threat, but I don't think the EU wants Russia .

Prominent supporters of President Trump are expressing skepticism over his decision to launch airstrikes against Syria on Friday, slamming the move as overly aggressive and unnecessary.

Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham both questioned Trump's decision Friday to launch strikes in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack last weekend that the U.S. has attributed to the Assad regime.

Carlson noted that the move was inconsistent with the president's message during his 2016 campaign, and Ingraham said she found that intervention in other countries could be risky as shown in the Iraq War, according to The Daily Beast.

Michael Savage, a prominent conservative radio host and author, tweeted that "sad warmongers are hijacking our nation" in the wake of the strike.

Why convert it into an us and them issue. Who are the warmongers? Is this a civil war at FOX?

The Russians are saying that the Syrians' defenses intercepted 71 of the 105 missiles that the US fired.
A group that is very critical of Assad says they observed 65 missiles intercepted. Since that group is anti-Assad, their admission is against their own interests which tends to give support to the Russian claim that US missiles were intercepted.

Assad's people are claiming that the buildings that were hit were empty, and that's why there was no toxic cloud; there were no chemical weapons there. I think the US is saying there was no cloud because they didn't hit the storage tanks because they didn't want to harm civilians.

chud wrote:The Russians are saying that the Syrians' defenses intercepted 71 of the 105 missiles that the US fired.
A group that is very critical of Assad says they observed 65 missiles intercepted. Since that group is anti-Assad, their admission is against their own interests which tends to give support to the Russian claim that US missiles were intercepted.

Assad's people are claiming that the buildings that were hit were empty, and that's why there was no toxic cloud; there were no chemical weapons there. I think the US is saying there was no cloud because they didn't hit the storage tanks because they didn't want to harm civilians.

Here's some Russian reporting, which says it was 40 year old Syrian air defenses using partly Russian made S-125 and S-200 air defense systems that shot down 71 of 103 missiles. They weren't the newer S-300's because Russia agreed to NATO countries' requests not to sell Syria the newer.

Just an FYI, when Russia legally came into Syria by invitation in order to stabilize the govt and fight ISIS, which Russia saw as a serious threat to them, in part because they had identified 4000 Russian citizens who had been involved with jihad and later returned to their home countries, they set up S-400 air defense systems to protect their airfields and soldiers; as far as I know, they were never used in Syria.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEH_1mCS710

I think that this is mostly about the natural gas pipeline that Assad will not allow to cross his country. This pipeline would free Europe from any reliance on Russian natural gas.
The rebels fake a gas attack so that Europe and the US will stay in the region and eliminate Assad.
No one cares about the common folk on the ground. They're not what this is about.
When it comes to International conflicts, follow the money to find the truth.

chud wrote:The Russians are saying that the Syrians' defenses intercepted 71 of the 105 missiles that the US fired.
A group that is very critical of Assad says they observed 65 missiles intercepted. Since that group is anti-Assad, their admission is against their own interests which tends to give support to the Russian claim that US missiles were intercepted.

Assad's people are claiming that the buildings that were hit were empty, and that's why there was no toxic cloud; there were no chemical weapons there. I think the US is saying there was no cloud because they didn't hit the storage tanks because they didn't want to harm civilians.

That percentage seems high 71 out of 105 used. Undoubtedly some were intercepted just seems like a high number if true
there should be a lot of missile parts to show. Its in the Russians interest to inflate the number. Should be a lot of video or parts, 71 is a high number.

One should also account as far as what is being told that anti air craft/missile batt. didn't seem to be targeted directly which would normally be as part of an operation. For what ever reason it was done for didn't seem like the US had any good choices action or inaction

It dose send a massage.

Overall, air defenses are only 30-percent effective, Philip Coyle, formerly the Pentagon's top weapons-tester, told The Daily Beast. Five out of seven American-made Patriot missiles apparently missed or malfunctioned when Saudi forces tried to intercept a barrage of high-flying ballistic missiles that Yemeni rebels fired at Riyadh in late March.

Air defenses are even less effective against cruise missiles, which typically fly at treetop level.

"Cruise missiles can 'hide' in the ground clutter that affects radars when they try to see very low," Coyle explained.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-pr ... -retaliate

71 out of 103 just seems like a high number...

Bill wrote:I think that this is mostly about the natural gas pipeline that Assad will not allow to cross his country. This pipeline would free Europe from any reliance on Russian natural gas.
The rebels fake a gas attack so that Europe and the US will stay in the region and eliminate Assad.
No one cares about the common folk on the ground. They're not what this is about.
When it comes to International conflicts, follow the money to find the truth.

Yes it seem this is the issue

71 out of 103 just seems like a high number...

It's bullshit. As is the claim that there was no damage done by the 32 missiles that weren't intercepted. This is a war; don't believe anyone. The enemy is not going to say that their defenses don't/didn't work and their resources were destroyed. The Pentagon is not going to say that it's armaments failed and that there was minimal or no success. Start there.

Of course, all the chemicals -if they were there-- could have been moved. Otoh, if we knew where these plants were, why weren't they destroyed earlier.

But, let's be "clear." There's a difference between acting out of sympathy, or morality, or profit. I don't doubt the administration's sympathy for the Syrian children; but, I'm sure there's no moral reason that this administration wouldn't bomb them too.

Also keep in mind that the Russians make a lot of money off of selling air defense systems worldwide. Inflating their efficiency helps preserve sales.

This is especially important as many countries world wide have gotten out of the air superiority business. The reality is that air superiority work is fairly equipment specific, meaning you can’t use those aircraft to do anything else, and really expensive. As a result, many countries now rely upon air defense systems to preserve access to their airspace.

And anything that makes the Russian systems look ineffective hurts sales.

I’m sure the pipeline problem is part of the Russian reason for being there.

However, the Russians have been a long term partner of the Assad regime going back decades. Additionally, to the degree the Russians like any group of people who aren’t Russians, they seem to like the Alawites. I’ve never gotten a good explanation of this when dealing with either group. They just seem to get along.

still no gas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKO_ikSF8yk&t=254s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... nkhQu-e0n0

two independent journalists stories corroborate.

Richly

Can they do that mistake again, that Iraq weapon of mass destruction thing?

Trick wrote:Can they do that mistake again, that Iraq weapon of mass destruction thing?

Oh, you mean those gas weapons developed in mobile labs that obviously didn't exist and no one thought never existed before the US invaded Iraq? The Bush administration was more creative, much better fantasy.

Bill wrote:I think that this is mostly about the natural gas pipeline that Assad will not allow to cross his country. This pipeline would free Europe from any reliance on Russian natural gas.
The rebels fake a gas attack so that Europe and the US will stay in the region and eliminate Assad.
No one cares about the common folk on the ground. They're not what this is about.
When it comes to International conflicts, follow the money to find the truth.

Probably the sad, sad truth. It's a despicable crime. The US is the worst terrorist state, the worst threat against world peace and against civilians. France and UK are not better. No Eu state is.

The "funny" thing is that the US just drive Russia to make better bonds with other communist states or former communist countries. I watched an interview with a high Chinese general who said that if Russia and China unite strongly against the US, it would be terrible for the West, eventually maybe a catastrophe for the whole world. He is probably correct. And that is close to happen.

The US probably knew Iraq was capable of developing "mass destruction" weaponry because they themself had supplied the expertise - "[T]he United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required. The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat... The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.[25]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... g_the_Iran–Iraq_war years earlier the CIA has had an similar role in Syria as they have had a little here and there around the world