No New S-300 Air-Defense System To Syria Says Russia — But Maybe Old Ones 188
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."
Re:Not your problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like genocide!
Re:Not your problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is news for nerds. You specifically add to the conversation by adding useful knowledge in the matter for non military nerds, and provide a source for additional information.
And get off my lawn.
Re:Not your problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not your problem (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not your problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not your problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [frontpagemag.com]
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/the-united-states-has-become-a-tool-of-muslim-brotherhood-expansionism.html [jihadwatch.org]
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).
Re:Not your problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Your earlier posts made it very clear and now you think readers are so stupid that they will think Syria is buying stuff to give away in the middle of a very bloody and senseless no holds barred civil war instead of fighting with it? .... Nobody throws away their ace in the middle of a war that means their certain execution even if they make it out the other end alive as losers.
Have you been living in a cave? The Israeli Air Force destroy a Russian-built, Iranian paid for and Syrian-supplied SA-17 Buk medium range surface-to-air missile complex that was being stored in Syria and transferred to Hezbollah. They destroyed it on the Lebanese border before it could cross. Everyone who has been following the facts of the war knows this. Why don't you?
You are deliberately skewing things to push your own unrelated barrow. This "kill all Muslims" shit is exactly the sort of divide Bin Laden was pushing for (before he died - for the benefit of the poor reasoning skills of another poster here). Also now the "missing WMD" - WTF? Moon landing hoax next?
You keep putting up this strawman despite me explicitly and repeatedly saying that I wish no harm to come to non-jihadi Muslims. The other Slashdotters can see that in all my previous posts. I don't know why you keep on with this strawman - I suppose when your understanding is so poor you think that the 50000 ballistic missiles and rockets that Iran supplied to Hezbollah are "old" (despite some of the designs only being a few years old, so they missiles were manufactured and supplied after the 2006 war), then you thought that they are too light to carry a nuclear warhead, and now you think that Syria is not supplying weapons to their ally Hezbollah despite the Israelis destroying a SA-17 battery about to move across the Lebanese border and other hits around Damascus on weapons storage facilities (guarded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, a lot of whom have been killed) where Russian-built, Iranian-funded, Syrian-supplied weapons are stored for Hezbollah and are now being transferred as the situation in Syria deteriorates.
The destruction of the SA-17 battery and the weapons depots before Hezbollah could get them is *why* Russia has said it would supply the an even more powerful S-300 Triumph battery. The Russians are hoping to tip the scales towards the Assad+Iran+Hezbollah side because they are "their" terrorists as opposed to the SLA which are "our" terrorists. It is all a mess. There is a precedent for the Russians supplying S-300s to belligerents. They installed a S-300 for years in Sukhumi, Abkhazia which is a breakaway region that is internationally recognized as a part of Georgia. The funny thing is the Russians give these very powerful weapons to separatists and then complain about events in Kosovo (not that the Russians are wrong on the last one, but it is still amusing to see their ruthlessness and utter hypocrisy).
So, back to previous posts. We know your statement about "old" missiles is utter bollox. Your claim that the missiles are too small has been debunked but you still haven't even come up with an estimate of the throw weight of the Iranian missiles that were supplied to Hezbollah since 2006. I know you want to always argue without checking references or facts (which is why you are always so wrong), but if using Google is too hard for you how about an estimate, eh? That way you will see that your second statement about the missiles was also woefully wrong, in addition to your false statement that the Syrians are not transferring very powerful weapons to Hezbollah. Wouldn't it be so much easier and more accurate if you started arguing based on research and facts instead? then you wouldn't look like such a fact-free muppet.