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Under Pressure Insurgents Up “Massacre” Campaign
The Syrian opposition is currently promoting a "massacre" that allegedly happened in the village Bayda near Banias at the Mediterranean coast. The Hariri/Sunni aligned Daily Start headlines it as Images of Sabra and Shatila in Banias where up to 3,500 Palestinians were killed by rightwing Phalange hordes under Israeli supervision.
The number of those killed in Bayda is dubious and even the propagandized numbers are much smaller than the Sbara and Shatila ones.. The insurgent supporters claim "50", "more than 100" and "hundreds" were killed. The exiting evidence does not support that:
Amateur video showed the bodies of at least seven men and boys lying in pools of blood on the pavement in front of a house as women wept around them.
Why does the video only show seven men when "hundreds" are supposed to have died?
There is also context missing in the English agencies reports. The German news agency DPA reported this:
Activists said troops attacked al-Bayda after a bus carrying pro-regime militants, known as Shabiha, was attacked, killing at least seven and wounding more than 30.
We know that the opposition calls any civilians that support the Syrian government "Shabiha".
The current evidence then is this. A bus full of presumably government supporters was attacked and seven were killed and 30 wounded. Government troops then raided a nearby village to find the perpetrators. Seven men were killed in that village, probably by the government troops.
The might have been an ugly revenge killing by the government troops or they might have fought and killed the perpetrators guilty of the earlier incident. But this was, at least according to the available evidence, not a "massacre" or a willful mass killing of women and children like in the Sabra and Shatila camps.
We can assume that there will be more propaganda "masscre" reports as part of yet another campaign to press the U.S. into an open war on Syria. The more the insurgency is under pressure and in retreat, the louder this and other campaigns will become.
neretva’43 (75)
Not sure Syria do need S-300, which is strategic air defense complex. Syria already have very capable systems Buk and Patszir-M. What further the country need is to integrate the old with the new one into integrated multilayer air defense system.
I have doubts. One must not forget that there is little in between short and mid range AD systems (which are quite similar in capabilities anyway) and S-300 in terms of coverage. What a country like Syria (and many others) would need is a strange mix; considerably better coverage (like 80 – 100 km horizontal, 15-18 km vertical) and a regime with the simple, single (or few) systems all in one package but doing most of the CCC of S-300.
The problem with Pantsir and Buk Systems is that is comes down to the question what’s most important to you, this or that installation or small city or …
The Problem with S-300 is that, as you correctly imply, it’s rather complex a system and way beyond the de-facto (as opposed to blah blah) capabilities of many militaries.
Concerning the integration of old and new layer will, possibly with very, very rare exceptions, stay a nice but practically infeasable concept for most countries. And, to look a little more generally, a modern everything interwoven with everything concept might not even desirable nor practical for many countries. zusa will learn that soon enough having basically all their infrastructure core exposed to the enemy; gone are the times where nobody could attack their space-based (another zusa big mouthery. Actually it’s orbit-based but that, of course, sounds less “supreme” and “superior”) global communication structure.
Just look at the Russians, at a low, pragmatic level. Their barracks often enough are really that, barracks and, except for some special forces, their soldiers gear looks old-style and outlandish compared to zusa. Yet they are to be feared much more than the american burger eating “oops-my-iphone-based personal climate control system fails, I’m helpless and lost” troops who for a reason replace soldiership with video game like bestiality.
And how should Syria (or many other countries) implement such americanisms? They are miles away from any control of the loop; they have to buy everything, from the fiber to the electronics to the software, i.e. they’d be completely dependent and wouldn’t even know which of their equipment might betray or worse turn against them.
Nope. Military also means “to do with what vou’ve got and what you master”. If you happen to hobby shoot bow and arrow and are good at it (and have easy access and control of the material) then fighting with bow and arrows will be so much more deadly than say, a DSR 1 lapua sniper rifle. The same holds true for a country (or a militia. just ask Hezbollah).
And more than anything highly skilled and technical crew which will be serving the system, whiteout educated crew it is just worthless no matter what technology is behind them.
I fully agree. And I go another step.
Just look at Iran. Man, were they bleeding when zusa didn’t send technicians and spare parts anymore.
Put in another way: Today the Iran forces are very heavy weight opponents. No country other than zusa, Russia and China could even dare to try something against them. And if they did it would cost them very dearly.
Simple reason: Yes the Iran S-300 will only be something like “S-250” or “S-270”. But they will create way more damage with those than many other countries will with seen-in-brochure, liked, ordered, payed, delivered S-300 or whatnot.
Because they sweated tears, brains, and nerves to understand ridiculously old zusa and Russian equipment, to master the production of spare-parts in the beginning and later of simple complete systems, aso.
Today they know their self-made weapons inside out; often enough simple repairs will be made even by simple technicians in the field. They know everything, from the material up to electronics and software of their increasingly techy stuff.
As a sidenote: That’s (one very important reason amongst other reasons) why they are right in saying that israel isn’t a matching opponent for Iran; they’d crush them swiftly anytime.
In summary, all Syria really needs are 1 or 2 S-300 Systems and, right you are, good training along. They wouldn’t even need to hit everytime. It would be enough to immensely drive up the risks and costs for israel, turkey and zusa/zato.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | May 5 2013 20:53 utc | 80
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