Google Earth and "Collateral Damage" 541
netbuzz writes "British news reports say insurgents are using Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within bases in Iraq. Could Google be doing more to prevent this? Should they be doing more? They certainly could explain more."
Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read this: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then something IS wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm one of the AA guys. You know, those who in a war would get to jam a SA missile down someone's tailpipe or put a helluva lot of 30mm holes in a helicopter or low flying plane. Specialized troops too, with specialized (big) guns, lots of electronics and radar dishes, specialized training, etc, not your average infantry grunt.
But guess what? We had assault rifles too, and we were trained to use them too. We also did our own guard duty (in a visible guard tower, too), patrols, etc.
Not only that, but it was pretty much assumed and understood that in a pinch we could and would have to fulfill other roles too. We had our own light machineguns, our own rocket launchers in case we have to deal with a mess of tanks, we were trained to chuck a grenade, storm a hill, or dig a foxhole and defend that hill.
Wars aren't neatly organized affairs, and you don't always have exactly what you need in exactly the right place. And sometimes having exactly what you need of everything in every place is a waste of manpower and material. For example, you don't dig in two brigades of infantry around your big guns brigade, just so the big guns guys can be so ultra-specialized that they never have to touch an assault rifle. It's easier to just put them somewhere where normally they won't be assaulted, but if shit hits the fan and they do, they'll have to fight like everyone else. You also don't give them a company of infantry for guard duty, they get to post their own guards.
Also war isn't so neatly organized as to always have a designated target in advance. I know I wouldn't expect a designated airplane to surgically shoot and then go home, so I'm not sure why these guys would absolutely need a strategic target designated in advance. Most of war is dealing with unplanned stuff. Some guys appear from where you didn't expect. You shoot them. If you're a sniper or designated marksman, you do your best to put a hole in someone while the other guys pin them down. And add your own suppression factor, because the fear of a sniper ranks up there with fear of heavy machineguns in a fight, when it comes to keeping people with their head down.
So if you're telling me that US snipers are so ultra-specialized that they absolutely can't function as anything else, and can't possibly shoot anyone other than as strategic target designated in advance, then methinks the USA badly needs to rethink their training and logistics. But I doubt that the US military is _that_ inept, or that indeed officers coming from a military academy and various training courses would use Hollywood action movies to learn tactics from. It's a bit like saying that programmers use Hollywood movies to learn how to use a command line.
Being sent together with a squad of other soldiers, also isn't the end of the world like you make it sound. It's not being sent with a group of civilians, it's normal military procedure anywhere in the world. The designated marksmen, SAW guys, anti-tank guys, etc, actually train for that. Sure, a sniper rifle or designated marksman rifle isn't raw firepower, but it's not there as raw firepower in the first place. That's what the other soldiers around you are for. They'll do the spraying lead job. You do yours.
Now I'm as anti-war as it gets, and, yes, I'm against the war in Iraq. I could understand ideological or humanitarian reasons against it. But "waah, they're making me work together with a squad, like in Hollywood movies!" is just awful mis-understanding of basic military tactics.
Also, it seems to me like the apex of hypocrisy, if someone is indeed against war for oil and influence, to advocate instead being a hired assassin for some equally corrupt dictator or cocaine baron. At least the army does have some democratic checks (just vote against the guy sending them there), just taking money from the highest bidder doesn't have any
Wow, I guess SOF IS for uninformed guys (Score:3, Informative)
The "Assault Rifle" concept wasn't invented in Vietnam, it was invented in WW2 over here in Germany. The existing doctrine was that, yes, you need big real-man's rifles and machineguns most of the time, or pistols and SMGs for when it gets close and personal. Then someone noticed that most fighting, yes, happens under 300m. A place where pistols and SMGs are too short ranged, and those powerful real-man's weapons are too unw
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite frankly, if anyone's living in Hollywood dream world, it's you. I'd suggest enlisting in the Army to figure out how stuff really works. I'm guessing there'll be a rude awakening.
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't let your hatred of the Bush Administration cloud your views. You, like many people, are unable to separate people from events from ideas. It wasn't just George Bush or Saddam Hussein who started the Iraqi War, nor was it 9/11 or Iraq ignoring UN mandates. You are trying to blame people or events instead of challenging ideas. Hence, you have no understanding of the underlying conflict, albeit in 2003 or now (which are completely different things).
The death of al Zarqawi didn't stop terrorism in Iraq because he was just a person. The crushing of the city of Fallujah didn't stop terrorism in Iraq because it was just an event. Genocide or democide, an idea, very well could stop terrorism (an idea) in Iraq. There are other possibilities that may occur and hopefully we don't need to see genocide or democide implemented (such as in Cambodia) nor politicide (such as in Vietnam after 1975).
We are currently fighting a war like we are playing a game of football. Each side is scoring 'goals' and claiming to be winning. Instead, a comprehensive campaign should be run. The Allies didn't win WWII because they killed more people than the Axis Powers (in fact, they killed fewer). They won because they were able to implement an effective campaign against the Axis Powers.
"War" vs. "This War" (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. While I personally have been opposed to the Iraq War from day one (well, before that, actually), I also get really annoyed at seeing glib statements like "War is not the answer" on bumper stickers. You know what, if a foreign power were carrying out a full-scale invasion of the US, war would be the answer.
While there are bona fide pacifists in the world (and I respect that position), it seems to me that there are a lot more people out there who cannot separate the concept of war from whatever current war we are fighting. I'm not certain if there is such a thing as a truly "just" war, but it's clear that some wars have better justification than others, and barring a genuine pacifist philosophy, they have to be evaluated differently.
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So if you voted against the war on Iraq, you have to go and be tortured by Saddam's goons, and have yourself and your family killed in his gas chambers.
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What are you, 12? What about senior citizens? What about pregnant women? Some parts of our society are simply not fit to be soldiers, yet you're completely willing to silence their opinion because they'd be incapable of fighting.
> a draft is slavery, and the worst form of it
Again, please get some perspective. Calling the draft slavery is an insult to anyone who was, you know, actuall
You owe nothing to the feds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Draft IS slavery, in slavery someone who doesn't do that work expends your lifetime and production to enrich himself, in the Draft, someone who isn't involved in FIGHTING at all, is enriching himself by expending your lifetime and LIFE (sooner or later) the same way.
"The man whose choices are made for him is a slave."
"He who produces to have his product disposed of by others w
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:5, Insightful)
Why stop with war? How about, if you're pro universal healthcare, you'd better be signing up for med school, or else you're a hypocrit. If you're not willing to become a doctor, you don't have the right to demand that doctors accept the payscale offered by the government healthcare agency. Or, even better, if you're pro-choice, you have to become an abortionist. If you think we need to do something about crime, you have to become a cop. If you want better public education, you have to become a teacher. Or maybe this whole line of reasoning is a stupid idea.
Newsflash--not everyone would make a good soldier, just like not everyone would make a good doctor, scientist, lawyer, mechanic, or whatever. Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage [wikipedia.org] makes it clear it's more efficient for people to do what they're best at. We have a volunteer army, and pretty much everyone signing up knows that in doing so, there is a chance they will be sent to war (possibly even a war they don't agree with). It's their choice to join, and they do so knowing that it's civilians that decide whether they'll be sent to war or not.
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, if you are pro-life, you have to take care of a single mother's child. For the twenty years or so it takes to raise a child through college.
We have a volunteer army, and pretty much everyone signing up knows that in doing so, there is a chance they will be sent to war (possibly even a war they don't agree with). It's their choice to join, and they do so knowing that it's civilians that decide whether they'll be sent to war or not.
In this case, where people are using Google maps information to attack military installations, it seems that being a good soldier isn't what it used to be. It's not enough to be a good fighter, you need to be a good planner. The information Google gives out is available to everyone. Why don't the soldiers use it to plan their defense? They have a big advantage in that Google maps isn't updated that often, they could look at the images and plan how to booby trap the weak spots.
The military have had aerial reconnaissance at their disposal since the first balloons were invented. They have much better aerial imaging than Google gives out, they can see from which points their barracks may be attacked, where are the houses and alleys that can be used by eventual attackers.
No, this whole affair is a straw man, it's another convenient excuse being invented to create one more way to restrict information in the internet.
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or maybe there's other reasons to vote for someone, and there's a reason there is civilian control of the military?
As an aside, is it ok to question people's patriotism now? Or is that only your political opponent who's patriotism you can question?
It isn't Google that should be doing more. (Score:3, Insightful)
Short of that, all Google is doing is making it easier, and not significantly so. But Google also makes it easier to stalk people, it makes it easier to plan protests (peaceful or not), or to have secret societies which are completely untraceable and incredibly dangerous.
This is the price of freedom. Freedom makes it easier for everyone to do what they want, even if w
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:5, Funny)
How many people have to die before we realise that the Ordinance Survey and London street mapping should be stopped. Fortunately those saintly graffiti artists are already working on censoring maps in public places.
Heh, we had that in Soviet Union (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, I read that map companies sometimes make non-existing dead-end streets in their maps as a way to fingerprint them and to know it's their map if some other company steals and reprints it.
--Coder
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:4, Interesting)
How do these terrorists communicate with each other? With SPEECH? OH FUCK! LET'S SHUT DOWN ALL THE SCHOOLS! LEARNING TO TALK MIGHT HELP THE TERRORISTS!
or
How do these terrorists get to their targets? By *WALKING*?!!?! Headline: Teaching children to walk may have terror implications.
The media should be PROSECUTED for even speculating on crap like this. Everyone is so stupid and ignorant that they can just pull up any thing unfamiliar and scary sounding and link it to terrorism. OH MY GOD, INCREDIBLY USEFUL TOOLS BENEFIT TERRORISTS TOO! Retards. CAMP STOVE FUEL "WHITE GAS" CAN MAKE A POWERFUL BOMB! *Camp stoves banned*
If I didn't love freedom of speech so much I'd say to take away their rights thereof. Instead we need to fight back with the correct information, because the public needs to know. But every time I do, I get put down, like Fox News knows more than I do. I try to explain that my IQ is higher than the ENTIRE Fox News ANCHOR TEAM *MULTIPLIED* TOGETHER, but they say, "Why aren't you on TV." *sigh* Which is why I'm filing a patent for a discreet, handheld device that can be used to sterlize and render barren any person in 10 seconds or less without their knowledge. Simply wave the device near their gonads and *click* press the red "Easy" button. In seconds you've assured a better future for the world.
Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't realize there was one government body that controlled the internet. Nor did I realize that the military could retroactively shoot down satellites that have taken pictures of the Earth for years. Nor that it would suddenly be legal, under treaties most countries capable of shooting down satellites have signed, to start shooting down all satellites that "fly over" a warzone.
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Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
On a somewhat related note, the Washington Post recently published an interesting Op-Ed [washingtonpost.com] written by Robert Kaiser, entitled "Topped By Hubris, Again". Or wait... perhaps they really do hate us because of our freedom.
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:5, Informative)
This works great in the Netherlands. Here's [google.nl] our Ministry of Defense and this [google.nl] is the air force headquarters. If you can't see it on Google Maps, you can't bomb it. </sarcasm>
There's more of this nonsense, but these two are close to home for me.
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Google News (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Google News (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Google News (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google News (Score:5, Insightful)
To this day, the U.S. military makes the same claims about Vietnam...
Re:Google News (Score:4, Informative)
I tend to agree that on a tactical and strategic level the war in Vietnam was successfully fought (not wisely fought, mind you, but even if we did manage to kill thousands of our own soldiers with dumb policies we still managed to get the job done on the battlefield in spite of ourselves). Now, the whole notion of limited war was dumb, and prevented the US from just cleaning up. Korea is a better example of what could have been achieved, but I'd hardly consider North Korea a great success story. And that brings up the bigger issue - if you want to get involved in foreign civil wars you're going to find that social change is a lot messier than just winning battles.
So, yes, in Vietnam the US probably didn't lose a single engagement, unless you count the decision to send troops in at all...
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Vietnam wasn't lost in the jungles of southeast asia, it was lost right here in America. We weren't defeated by the VC or the NVA, but by the communists in our own back yard.
Actually, it was lost the day we joined up on the side of the French colonial puppet government in the south, rather than the popular revolution led by our former ally in WW2, Ho Chi Minh. The problem there was that the French were threatening to pull out of NATO if we didn't support their presence in Vietnam in the 50's, and that we failed to understand that Ho Chi Minh was essentially a nationalist first and only a communist of convenience. The US was urging the French to grant Vietnam independence after
Re:Google News (Score:5, Insightful)
Two points (Score:5, Insightful)
2) That said, it does seem reasonable that insurgents might be able to make use of Google Earth for some targeting information. Since the data is generally fairly stale, though, one wonders just how useful it would actually be.
Re:Two points (Score:5, Insightful)
Then jump in the car and drive to those locations and see how much they have changed in the last few years of being stale. I bet not much. BTW, how often does the courthouse change?
I guess most things would be static for several years past staleness of the photos. I'm not sure that military bases change the internal design much. I doubt they move the mess hall or sleeping tents around every 3 months. (they might, I don't know. But more importantly, hills hiding your point of attack from the view of guardsmen or some other obsticles like rivers with the only bridge 5 miles down stream and you have a good change of finding a place to launch an attack with somewhat acurate results and a decent change of getting away. I guess patrols with aircraft and a no-go zone could eliminate that for some locations.
Re:Two points (Score:5, Insightful)
Grid references, so the enemy is using GPS guided missiles now?
This is nothing more than a google bash.
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I wonder if for the war effort, Google could be convinced to photoshop in a few bases and relocate a few by a couple blocks. A 4 mile away rocket attack may miss the compound entirely.
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Re:Two points (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Two points (Score:5, Insightful)
Go read up on the ideology of those mortal enemies a bit. Their "grievances" go back well before the liberation of Iraq or any actions of President Bush 2.0. In one of his statements immediately 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden talks about the sword reaching the US "after 80 years", referring to the breakup of the Ottomon Empire after WW1, at a time when the US was barely world power. Ayman al-Zawahiri (Al Qaeda's second-in-command, more or less) frames the Israeli/Palestinian dispute in terms of the "Al Andalus tragedy", the end of Moslem rule in southern Spain -- in 14-freaking-92. And while that's probably not a majority outlook, neither is it an isolated one. If Americans thought like this, the first thing we would have done upon perfecting the atomic bomb would have been to drop one on Buckingham Palace to get back at the British for burning the White House during the War of 1812. That's one basic problem: an inability to "get over it." Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we A-bomb'ed them, yet sixty years later we're the closest of allies. Germany conquered France, now those two nations are the core of the EU. Yet in the Middle East they're still upset about the Crusades.
This isn't a problem that started with Bush, nor will it end once he's gone. It's a war that's been going on, at a lower level of intensity, for quite a while -- the recent phase having begun in 1979. 9/11 was merely the first time something happened where people couldn't ignore it, and the Middle East military operations under Bush just the first time the US has attempted (whether you agree with how he's conducted it or not) to actually do something about it. It's going to continue, whether we try to influence the outcome or not, and the US will be a target. We're just too big to be ignored, given how ubiquitous our worldwide economic and cultural presence is.
Nor is this an exclusively a US, or even Western, problem. Or do you maintain that it's Bush's fault that Moslems are killing Buddhists in Thailand, Hindus in India, and animists in Darfur, whilst threatening to murder British authors [wikipedia.org], Danish cartoonists [wikipedia.org], and Dutch parliamentarians [wikipedia.org], and succeed in murdering a Dutch film-maker [wikipedia.org]?
Now, as to the original article about Google's maps and the idea of restricting them somehow, that seems pretty useless. Anything on Goggle Maps/Earth is derived from sources [google.com] which are publically (or at least commercially) available, anyway.
Re:Two points (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to break it to you but they were not iraqis.
"And when they blew up two of our embassies in Africa"
They were not iraqis either.
"And they hit the USS Cole with a missile named Studied Indifference?"
Still not the iraqis. Oh and it wasn't a missile either, it was a boat.
I know facts are kind of annoying but you should still try to place one or two in your post.
Re:Well stated. (Score:4, Informative)
You've set out the case for the war in Afghanistan, which was a retaliation against a government which harboured and financed Al Qaeda. Motives for the (entirely separate) Iraq war range from non-existent WMD to freeing the people to daddy's unfinished business, but there was no link between terrorism and Iraq until after the fall of Saddam's government.
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Those who fail to learn from history are condemmed to repeat it.
Can't blame George Bush for the inteligence given him by the Clinton Administration. Please review history. We knew about the WMD when Clinton was in office. Did you forget that they tossed out the inspectors? Just because we haven't found them by no means is proof they never existed. How long does it take when an attack is looming to move that stuff. I'll leave it up to you to find out how
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You can't seriously use this as a valid defence of the war. We all know that strategically important non-WMD weapons caches were not secured by coalition forces at the start of the war due to poor military planning, and in the ensuing power vacuum fell into the wrong hands. Assuming that the weapons did exist, and the same thing happened, we are now in the far
Re:Well stated. (Score:4, Informative)
On Jan 29th, 2002, Bush named 3 countries as the "Axis of Evil" [wikipedia.org] - Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Of those three countries:
Who'd we invade again?
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If 5 people in other countries and the leader of Iraq claim that Iraq has WMD and some guy in the USA said they don't have WMD, would you base your belief in just one person?
There were serious doubts if they did or did not exist. We took no chances. To believe just one person would be foolish.
If the police raid a drug house and 5 neighbors say they have automatic weapons and the e
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At war (Score:5, Funny)
You know, invading some random country is one of the two main causes of getting "at war". The other is being invaded by some random country.
Re:Two points (Score:5, Interesting)
However, buildings don't move, and the insurgency in iraq, while predominatly made of Iraqi nationals, is most certainly far more mobile than any previous insurgency in recent memory. Simply put the iraqi's have cars. If you're an insurgent in one town, you can look at google earth, plot out where you want to go, set up, position, coordinate based on GPS locations etc.. with other people in another. I was thinking loosely about this problem where I live. I live in one city (~70K people), but really I don't know my way around any of the smaller towns that surround us, nor do I know my way around the biggest city near me (which is toronto nearly 150Km away). But, moving from place A to B is fairly easy, at least when I'm not crawling through the jungles of borneo or riding my camel through the middle of the desert. The resistance in Iraq can use GE just the same as any of us can use google earth to figure out where we're going.
With respect to the article specifically. The parking lots of Iraq's military installations, now in use by the British, probably haven't moved too far, nor have the suitable places for housing since those photos were taken. Given how long the occupation has been going on, those bases haven't moved and I somehow doubt the british army has been able to magically conjure up new places within the bases to put their tents, and even if google pictures are a year or two old those things are likely not all that much different.
With Google Earth a resistance fighter can see their way around rooftops, so long as the buildings are still standing, target things that don't move, or things that are consistently moved to and from the same place (like vehicles), and generally get a feel for what the terrain they are going to operate in looks like, and the layout. The fact that google earth might be somewhat out of date is less of a problem, if your information is wrong, you get killed, but it was better than nothing. Whereas the US/UK/FR/PRC/RUS would demand up the day satellite info to ensure maximum survivability of their soldiers, resistance movements tend to be more willing to make sacrificies.
In a broader sense, I think militaries and goverments will have to adapt their organization around satellite imagery. Right now they're all used to thinking only other people with spy satellites can see these things. Sure everyone has maps, but maps are no where near as useful as a satellite photo, even a crappy one. This probably means a lot more things in semi portable or easy to construct bunkers like they use for jet fighters.
Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
What more could they explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
And say what, exactly? Terrorists also use cars, do we ask carmakers to explain? Google earth is just a very nice fancy map, do we ask cartographers to explain?
What a pointless article.
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Oh ya (Score:5, Insightful)
*Insurgents* (Score:3, Insightful)
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Look up some depictions of the Japanese in America in ww2.
Or even better, the german "Hun" in England in ww1.
Re:*Insurgents* (Score:5, Insightful)
However in Iraq, the US and UK would like nothing better than to leave, but feel a responsibility to insure stability after the mess we caused (in one set of rhetoric), or to secure freedom for the people (in another set of rhetoric.) The insurgent forces are not fighting to remove a foreign dictatorship, or if they think they are they're doing a really bad job of it. What they're doing, at least as best as I can tell, is to insure that the new government is their groups government, or, at risk of sounding self important, to stick it to US because they don't like us and our policies on Israel and other various issues.
Obviously it's a much more complex issue, we are trying to impose our own idea of order, and put up people in power that we can at least stand. However, it seems to me, though I'm biased, that the basic differences are there and important.
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A lot of occupying forces would "like nothing better than to leave" - I'm sure that's how the USSR felt about Afghanistan - but that doesn't make them any less a force of occupation.
Words Have Meaning (Score:5, Insightful)
A resistance movement is seeking to oust a foreign occupying power to restore the previous ruling power. Now, it is true that Iraq has resistance movements trying to kick out Americans and restore the Baathist to power, but they do not actually make up all or even a majority of the fighters in Iraq. Shiite militias and Al-qaeda are not seeking to restore the Baathist.
Insurgent is a broader term. An insurgent on the other hand is someone who takes up arms against the current governments authority. That is a term that describes almost all of the fighters in Iraq. Iraq fighters are not just fighting occupation. They are fighting other militia groups, the government, and some times just indulging in good old fashion ethnic cleansing. Doing any of the above is defying the authority of the current government, hence they are insurgents.
As far as to why we don't call them freedom fighters, it is because Blair and Bush (and most Western folks for that matter) don't consider Baathist trying to restore an Arab fascist government, Shiites trying to ethnically cleanse the Sunnis, or Al-qaeda trying to create a theocratic state and ethnically cleanse Shiites on the side to really fall under any (western) definition of "freedom fighting".
If it makes you feel better, and I am sure it will because you are clearly suffering from a sever case of moral relativism, I imagine that if the Soviets had invaded the US or Britain, they would have called us insurgents and not freedom fighters also.
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Agreed. It's also far better than the alternative, "terrorists", which was clearly chosen for it's propagandistic factitious links to the events in New York City in order to manipulate peoples opinions. Every time I hear it mentioned, my hope for mankind diminishes slightly.
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*Feel free to insert your own opinion here. Personally, I think if a force invaded my country to replace my way of life, I might feel the need to fight back.
Re:*Insurgents* (Score:4, Insightful)
A good portion of the insurgents are not iraqi people. Notice i didn't say all. Blowing up the people you fighting for doesn't neccesarily make on thier side. The Iraqi citizens have also been given an out err a peacfull way of getting us out.
We have set up a government, elected by thier own people, charted a constitution by thier own people with the public voting and participating in the process. We have said publicly that we are leaving as soon as the new Iraq can defend itself reasonable and provide for the security of thier own people. We have ensured that there is a proccess for people to make changes to both the government and the laws. There is the out.
Now, here is why they are insurgents. We achived our goal of outing the dictator and gave Iraq back to it's people. The resistance don't want it. They refuse to stop fighting and allow us to leave. They refuse to take control of the government by the proccess put in place that represent the majority of the population. They blow up people who are doing nothing more then providing food and shelter for thier family (not even helping the "invaders") then they blow up a second device in an attempt ti kill anyone giving medical help to these inocent civilians that became wounded. They just want to kill people and blame it elswhere.
A resistance wouldn't do someting like this. the french resistance didn't go around blowing up wine shops with no german soldiers around and yell, "that will teach them germans!". They didn't goto weddings and blow up the reception knowing no one there has done anything besides get married. They didn't blow up churches just because they were a different religion then thiers (albiet a small difference). A resitance attacks military targets. Targets that have value to the oposing force. A resistance comunicates troop movement and level to others and aids those attempting to help the resitance.
What we have is a blood thirsty group of people who entire goal is to strike terror into the citizens by any means neccesary. They are killing because of some religous zealotry and a terrorist agenda. they are common criminals and nothing more. You don't kill inocent people to scare them. Thats what every evil powerr has done in war and they were labeled evil and it was deemed wrong. There is no valor in killing for fun or because you can and that what these insurgents are doing.
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This is the point where I, again, mention that no news organization currently has any embedded reporters over there. They pay Iraqi stringers for information, which leads to controversies like the alleged b
A logical solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd be potting ordinary ISO containers in concrete (you get a nice bunker with a builtin anti-spall liner) if I were tasked with base defense, but the US isn't much on bunkers.
No use censoring this kind of data... (Score:4, Insightful)
And honestly, all this image censorship seems like a waste of time, because this kind of information could be discovered in such a large number of ways. Imagine just floating a balloon in the air with a camera atached and some GPS equipment? I guess the US could shoot every flying object out of the sky and then censor Google, but it's probably a lame solution... it's analogous (in my mind) to application security through obscurity.
I'd imagine the betters solution for the US is to 1) place their own tents over vulnerable points (if they like the security through obscurity solution) and to 2) cut back on those points of vulnerability. What the heck did we do during the cold war -- satellite weren't only a US technology....
Why no blackout? (Score:2)
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No sarcasm, btw. I'm sure they would. I mean, as long as we're talking about sensitive locations in Iraq, not just "We don't want anyone looking at potential targets in Poughkeepsie, so just blur out all of the eastern seaboard."
Google's Duty... (Score:5, Insightful)
is to ensure that terrorists, insurgents, and other undesireables, shall not have access to information that is freely and publicly available through other channels anyway.
Perhaps they should recruit all of the ISPs in the developed world to aid them in carrying out this grave responsibility. If will all just signed affidavits of government loyalty and agreed to undergo extensive background checking prior to using the Internet or any Net enabled tools, the problem would be solved.In all seriousness, when did Google become charged with being the Internet Police? Isn't combating "terrorism" someone else's job, already?
I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
The satellite photos Google uses are updated every few years at best. If the UK forces had left their tents in the same place for years, it's not Google they should have been worried about, it's their commanders. But I somehow doubt those tents were left intact for such a long time, so the Telegraph is dishing out a pile of BS here.
Time for physiological warfare (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is an article on the art of deception. I would love them to waste ammo and troups attacking the empty tents in the compound where all those inflatable tanks are.
http://www.psywarrior.com/DeceptionH.html [psywarrior.com]
Apply the business model... (Score:2)
Why is this story being reported? (Score:2)
Also, you can't disprove this.
What if... (Score:2)
Nintendo and iRobot are next! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess maybe I'm a little naive or something (Score:2)
maps (Score:2)
duh (Score:4, Insightful)
You think if google earth didn't exist people wouldn't get this information? Well when they do you're going to be fscked and unprepared... It's like a real world analog for security through obscurity.
If this is so effective.... (Score:2)
The first casualty of war.... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the "bad guys" belive the maps are up to date then they are the maps they will use. I think this is an attempt by the "good guys" to direct enemy mortar fire into an empty padock. Now since the proffesional bad guys aren't stupid, any doubt about the currency of the images reduces Google Earth to the informational status of an old street map.
Is the solution not obvious? (Score:3, Insightful)
Step 2: If step 1 is not practical, just fuzz out all of Iraq. I believe they do something similiar with Israel and GPS and space photos - GPS is less accurate and public images are no better than 2M resolution, IIRC.
[The part referenced by my subject line ends here]
Step 3: Just admit that Iraq is the next Vietnam, and save a bunch of lives on both sides by leaving ASAP. The the hated government [blogspot.com] we're propping up is as useless and corrupt [washingtonpost.com] as the South Vietnamese government was. As in Vietnam, we've got a determined insurgiency that's being supported by outside forces (We're looking at YOU, Iran and Syria). As if to rub salt in the wound, this time they (Iran & Syria) finance their support using our own oil money. Once again, the enemy is proving that all our technology is fracking useless against them. Once again, we're spending outselves into a fiscal black hole.
And once again, we're discovering that our government lied to start this war (nit: Yeah, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was just the excuse to escalate), and frankly has been systematically lying ever since. Greeted as liberators - insurgiency in it's death throes - Don't need more troops - Pay for itself in oil exports - We don't torture - Undercounting civilian deaths - Yada yada yada. We even get our own version of Vietnamization ("We stand down as they stand up"), and we all know how well that went last time. Then again, Iraqi-ization is going nowhere because the Iraqi army will never, ever stand up (i.e. don't want to anger the insurgients that will control Iraq when we leave).
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. So the question is... How long until we leave with our tail between our legs this time? And after Bush is impeached (?), will Cheney pardon him?
Disappointed journalist? (Score:4, Interesting)
Google is obviously in talks with the involved parties here.
It's just that they don't want to go public with all the details.
That honestly sounds good enough to me. The important part is that they're aware of the problem, not that they inform grumpy Google journalists of every little thing they're discussing internally. I think they don't deserve the negative spin on this in that article.
Google buys pictures, you can too (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the same clueless people assume this is all satellite imagery. The "good stuff" is actually lower level aerial photos shot from airplanes. Yep, someone flew right over the tops of those places and were paid to do so.
So, like most of the other "secrets" Google is blamed for revealing these pictures were already out there and available.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone in charge of security for those bases ever looked on Google Earth to see just what was visible? If investigators found printouts that showed vulnerable locations then those same vulnerabilities would have been visible to the security people. By seeing what was freely available to the outside world they could have taken precautions to reduce the risk.
Unless the attacks came just hours after new imagery was posted on Google Earth, then the security people screwed up royally.
Questionable Story (Score:4, Insightful)
Maps, whether Google Earth's or not, are useful for planning attacks in other ways. Maps can communicate where to meet, where to plant bombs, where convoys will travel, etc. But, Google probably does not have the only maps of Iraq that Iraqis can get. What are we supposed to do? Ban all maps from civilians?
Collateral Damage (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA were giving it away long before Google... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
First release August 2004!
Perhaps NASA could be doing more to prevent...
Dave
Typical /. insight--no mention of "fake" (Score:3, Interesting)
At least nothing came up in a search for "fake"--but I'm ignoring the anonymous cowards, so maybe they have the insights?
Anyway, it's obvious that if this is really a war (pretending that America was seriously threatened by the late Saddam and that a war was called for), and if you know how your enemy is acting, then this is an obvious case for seeding Google with fake intelligence to find out if the insurgents take the bait. It's called counterintelligence, even if you take "military intelligence" as an oxymoron. Actually, by doing it cleverly in narrow time windows and tracing the IPs for specific fake images, they could even get very specific data on the people who are supporting the insurgents.
On the other hand, pretending that Dubya's politically filtered appointees are more competent than the insurgents, then we could also out-think them to figure out where the true images will encourage the insurgents to attack, and plan for counterattacks at those targets. Of course the problems there are that the insurgents are rather cunning, quite determined, have wide popular support, and are quick to change their tactics.
The *REAL* problems of our situation in Iraq are *NOT* related to Google. The real problems are that Dubya's handlers regard themselves as being safe from paying any legal penalties for their perpetual and fanatical determination to ignore reality, while Dubya's incompetence compounds every mistake. If you haven't read The One Percent Doctrine , then you should read it just to see what happens when someone who is not as qualified as a college intern is frequently intervening at the highest levels of the decision-making processes.
Google doesn't produce, only buys pictures (Score:3, Informative)
What a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets ban maps! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Treason (Score:4, Insightful)
Could Google be doing more? (Score:5, Funny)
They could add arrows: "This way to the Secret Bunker." [beautifulbritain.co.uk]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Note: the above so-so photo link can't be reached directly from Slashdot (they checking that referring page is from their own site to block Google image search), so....
1) Copy the following to the clipboard " http://www.beautifulbritain.co.uk/images/OutAndAbo ut/sign_language/secret_bunker.jpg [beautifulbritain.co.uk] "
2) Click the URL of their main webpage http://www.beautifulbritain.co.uk/ [beautifulbritain.co.uk] then paste the clipboard into the URL filed of your browser (Note: if your current browser is IE, dock yourself 150 geek points).
Voila!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
After solobo gave up and we went in, we found they didnt' didn't destroy near as many tanks as we first thought. Good thing we didn't drop to a ground invasion before convincing him to step down.