Senate Revolution in the Muslim World

Found this on the 'tubes today:



The insurgents and article claim it's a scud being fired. I am not wholly sure as missile ID is not my thing, but itt's definitely a ballistic missile, and not a SAM as there's no associated radar vehicle in sight.

 

You can read Arabic?

 

No, but I can sure recognize a transporter-erector-launcher vehicle when I see one.



This is what a Scud rides around on; certainly looks like the vehicles in the video to me.

 

Yes, but how do you know the insurgents claim it's a Scud (regardless of whether it actually is one or not)?

 

Hang on, lemme grab up the link.

Edit: Here ya go.

http://www.albawaba.com/news/syria-...m_medium=buzz+manager&utm_campaign=G++English

Must have forgotten to post up the article link.

Also, NATO agrees:

Following Thursday’s confirmation by the[/SIZE]Secretary General of NATOthat Syria had fired Scud missiles, online activists have uploaded footage appearing to show President Assad's forces launching the ballistic weapons.

One video, posted on YouTube on Friday, purports to show the Scud missiles launched from Douma, a city 10km to the north of the capital Damascus.
There has been no confirmation from NATO of Friday's launches as yet.
Head OF NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was quoted by Reuters on Thursday as saying that Scud missiles were fired last week, in "acts of a desperate regime approaching collapse".
Fears are growing that Assad could use the ballistic missile system to deliver a chemical attack. The United States has repeatedly said that the Syrian army using chemical weapons against civilians is a ‘red line’, which would prompt military action against Assad.
Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that chemical weapons have been used in the 21-month old conflict.

 

Who actually took that video? I can't imagine it's the insurgents themselves, since what are the chances they'd have a cameraman at the exact point where the missiles are being set up to fire?

 

Yeah, because there's no way they could just follow the vehicles or anything.

 

Aren't ballistic missile launchers like, valuable assets to the Syrian military and would be guarded by soldiers and other vehicles? Oh heck whatever, I don't know.

 

Given the general lack of professionalism the syrian military has displayed in this conflict I doubt it.

Anyway. Those are pretty clearly TELs for some kind of ballistic missile, very likely Scuds as the Russians gave those away like supermarket samples during the Cold War. NATO agrees with the insurgents; I don't see why the doubt exactly?

 

Mm, I guess I'm not doubting that it's a Scud, just that it seems more likely to me that a Syrian government soldier took the video and somehow it ended up on Youtube than that some pro-rebel civilian somehow managed to sneak up on a military convoy to film the launch.

 

Except that there's no guards visible in the video. Not much to sneak up on. I agree that you could be right; it is kind of irrelevant who shot it, I suppose.

 

Oh, now I understand. At first, you only linked to the YouTube clip, which only has an Arabic description, and I thought you read it off there. I was blown away.

 

lol.

I can speak a little..reading it was something I never quite got, though.

 

My case is the opposite of yours. Because we use their script to write Persian, I can read it, but I don't understand what I'm reading. I did, however, spot the name "Scud" in the above video title.

I understand your difficulty with learning the script. The Greek/Latin writing system is superior IMO. The inclusion of vowels makes it more expressive, more versatile, and easier to learn and read.

 

Yeah. I almost always hear the first reaction to Arabic from English speakers is that it's very harsh-sounding. It depends on the speaker, though, in my experience anyway.

 

Arabic is written/read from right to left, correct? So when something is posted on say Youtube or some other English-speaking site, is it reversed in order?

 

Hmm. I'd say so yeah-it definitely is on Google Plus. Don't see why it'd be different for another Google entity.

 

I think it's their hard H that does it. Most people seem to think it's because of that notorious 'clearing your throat' Kh/Ch sound that also exists in Hebrew, Spanish and German, to name a few, but in my opinion the hard H is worse. Like you said, though: either way it depends on the speaker.

So let me explain what the hard H is. They have two H-sounds. One is a normal H which looks like this ه , and sounds like the H we're used to in English which is just an empty breathing sound. The other is a harder H that looks like this ح and comes from closing the throat slightly while making said empty breathing sound. I don't think there exists an equivalent to it in any other language. Another sound they have that I find a little harsh is what I can only describe as a sort of harder K that comes more from the throat. It's commonly transliterated to Latin with a Q. Like the name Qatar. You make a K by sticking the tongue to the roof, so to speak, of your mouth, and you make this Q sound by doing the same a little further back. But overall, I think it's a pleasant language to listen to and it can sound very smooth coming from the right speaker. I honestly think that Hebrew can sound more harsh than Arabic at times, depending on the dialect of Arabic one compares to.

A language that I would very much like to learn to speak is Turkish. I don't understand it, but I think it sounds delightful, and from what I've been told it apparently has very simple grammar.

 

You know, I don't think I've ever heard anybody speak Turkish. The only time I've ever even been in Turkey was a stopover on my way home from Afghanistan at Incirlik AFB, where I ordered a hamburger that gave me food poisoning. Sigh...nine months of happily eating bread baked in mud ovens with no ill effects, one hamburger at a US Air Force base and violent vomiting for the next day or so

Thanks for the information on Arabic-always wondered why Qatar is pronounced more like 'Cutter'. I think how rapidly alot of Arabic speakers talk throw people for a loop-it can be tough for the uninitiated to really make out individual words.

Getting back to the issue at hand:

How did we know?

The article of course brings up invasion. I find this annoyingly short-sighted; the standard US response outside of the last administration has been the Air Force- Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton were all more than happy to authorize air strikes, as has President Obama; the only ground forces I can imagine going (and are likely already there TBH) are Special Forces to allow ground control of aircraft. Libya and Yugoslavia have more than shown that the Air Force is plenty capable of demolishing a ground-based opponent, particularly in combination with ground teams of twelve soldiers or less-the standard setup in Afghanistan during the invasion was literally three SF soldiers acting as ground-air controllers attached to large Northern Alliance forces. Total actual soldiers was about three hundred, not 75,000.

 

You know, I don't think I've ever heard anybody speak Turkish. The only time I've ever even been in Turkey was a stopover on my way home from Afghanistan at Incirlik AFB, where I ordered a hamburger that gave me food poisoning. Sigh...nine months of happily eating bread baked in mud ovens with no ill effects, one hamburger at a US Air Force base and violent vomiting for the next day or so

Thanks for the information on Arabic-always wondered why Qatar is pronounced more like 'Cutter'. I think how rapidly alot of Arabic speakers talk throw people for a loop-it can be tough for the uninitiated to really make out individual words.

Getting back to the issue at hand:

How did we know?

The article of course brings up invasion. I find this annoyingly short-sighted; the standard US response outside of the last administration has been the Air Force- Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton were all more than happy to authorize air strikes, as has President Obama; the only ground forces I can imagine going (and are likely already there TBH) are Special Forces to allow ground control of aircraft. Libya and Yugoslavia have more than shown that the Air Force is plenty capable of demolishing a ground-based opponent, particularly in combination with ground teams of twelve soldiers or less-the standard setup in Afghanistan during the invasion was literally three SF soldiers acting as ground-air controllers attached to large Northern Alliance forces. Total actual soldiers was about three hundred, not 75,000.

 

Well.

Secret State Department cable concludes chemical weapons used in Syria

Not much to say at this point beyond that detection of chemical weapons before use is difficult, and apparently it's going to take a mass casualty event for us to get militarily involved.

Edit: A summary of the probable toxin:

 

Horrible. Just absolutely horrible, and of course anything we do at this point is going to be stymied by Russia and China.

To awkwardly side track this to Libya for a brief moment, evidently one of Hilary Clinton's last acts as Sect. of State is going to be testifying before Congress on Libya on Jan. 23.

 

What will it take for us to act?

Hopefully we're just confident the rebels can win soon and without direct military help... but I'd rather we just act now and end this bloody conflict asap. Obama did say his "line in the sand" was Assad using chemical weapons...

 

I'm sure we'll do something after France and the UK decide to. The thing with lines in the sand is you can smooth the sand out again and get rid of the line.