What do Russian attack helicopters say about Syrian strategy?

Contributor:  Xander Ross

Posted:  06/21/2012  12:00:00 AM EDT  The cargo ship supposedly transporting attack helicopters to Syria has returned to Russia.

MV Alaed had no option but to turn back after its insurance was withdrawn by The Standard Club in London.

The withdrawal was made as the ship reached 50 miles off Scotland’s north coast, preventing it from sailing until it could secure new cover.

Foreign Secretary William Hague discouraged anyone from attempting to provide arms to the Syrian government during the civil crisis.

“We’ve had discussions with Russia about that specifically and I’m pleased that the ship that was reported to be carrying arms to Syria has now turned back apparently towards Russia.”

Riad al Assad, commander of the Free Syrian Army, tweeted mockingly that Russia is acting like the Soviet Union during the cold war: “Breaking news #Syria Russian cargo vessel carrying arms and attack helicopters has started its journey back to the USSR”.

The attack helicopters being mentioned could be a variant of the Mil Mi-35, the export version of the Mi-24. The Brazilian air force has recently bought twelve Mi-35’s as part of its modernisation programme.

The Brazilian government uses the Mi-35 for a number of roles; air policing, border security and counter-narcotics operations.

If it is true that the Syrian government are trying to get hold of Attack Helicopters it reveals a lot about how they view the conflict panning out over the coming weeks.

One Mi-35 costs roughly $25 million (£15.9 million). So the procurement of several of these helicopters is no small investment by the Syrian government. It suggests that the current strategy being used is not entirely effective and that the Free Syrian army are using insurgent tactics that have been successful in other conflicts. From this, it could be inferred that the Syrian government is preparing for a protracted war.

The Great Identity Crisis

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

A moral crisis tends to go hand in hand with an identity crisis. It’s when you don’t know who you are that you’re most likely to take refuge in a political or ethical identity that provides you with the comfort of a false sense of superiority. When all other identities fall apart, you can always rely on being the better man, the better nation and the empty space with the moral high ground.

Societies that go multicultural tend to experience identity drift and take refuge in a self-definition based on values. Who are Americans? As generations of presidents on the left and right have told us, they are people who believe in American values. What are American values? They’re the values that Americans are told they need to believe in, in order to be Americans. Like tolerance, immigration, free trade, and respecting the right of anyone to be a member of the Communist Party or the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a time of crisis, nations and peoples have to choose to survive. But what is survival? Proponents of a values-based identity have argued that survival means the survival of our values. If we take Measure X against an enemy, whether it’s outlawing the Communist Party or waterboarding Islamic terrorists, then we have “killed our values” and we are no longer Americans. It doesn’t matter then whether an act saves millions of American lives, if it means we destroy our values, then we have killed the only worthwhile thing about us.

Battleship Earth

Does the Pentagon have the right weapons to fight off an alien invasion?

BY CARA PARKS AND JOSHUA E. KEATING | MAY 30, 2012

As summer blockbuster season kicks into high gear, big-budget action movies like The Avengers, Battleship, and Prometheus remind us that there’s one thing that unites Americans: Our shared fear of an alien attack. They also remind us that when the invading space fleet arrives, humanity is not going to surrender without a fight to our intergalactic invaders. Instead, we will band together to fight off their incredibly advanced weaponry with our … well, with what, exactly? Are we really ready to battle our would-be alien overlords?

Luckily, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, as well as some of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, are dreaming up the weapons of the future today. With the help of everything from lasers on jets to hypersonic planes to invisibility cloaks, we just might be able to make the battle for Earth a fair fight. You may think we’re joking, but why else would NASA be uploading The Avengers to the International Space Station if not as a training manual? Here’s a look at some of the most space-worthy inventions being cooked up now.

HIGH ENERGY LIQUID LASER AREA DEFENSE SYSTEM (HELLADS)

The official title sounds rather subdued, but don’t be fooled — this is an awesome laser beam. Currently in development at DARPA, these advanced lasers are being pursued because of their ability to “harness the speed and power of light to counter multiple threats.” Weapons-grade lasers are actually a reality now, but are too big to be of use in an actual fight. DARPA, however, hopes to unveil a 150-kilowatt weapon that’s light enough to attach to a fighter jet. Those will come in handy when the first sally of flying saucers emerges from the mothership.

Darpa

HYPERSONIC AIRCRAFT

As students of the battle of Yavin can attest, sometimes the fate of the universe comes down to a few hotshot fliers. But it’s not just piloting skill that will be needed to take down our interspace combatants. We’ll need some pretty high-tech jets to repel an alien fleet, and the Falcon HTV-2 sounds just about perfect. Take a moment to appreciate these statistics from DARPA:

The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets)

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, all politics may not be sexual, but all sex is political.

BY KARIM SADJADPOUR | MAY/JUNE 2012

In the early years of the Iranian Revolution, an obscure cleric named Ayatollah Gilani became a sensation on state television by contemplating bizarre hypotheticals at the intersection of Islamic law and sexuality. One of his most outlandish scenarios — still mocked by Iranians three decades later — went like this:

Imagine you are a young man sleeping in your bedroom. In the bedroom directly below, your aunt lies asleep. Now imagine that an earthquake happens that collapses your floor, causing you to fall directly on top of her. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you’re both nude, and you’re erect, and you land with such perfect precision on top of her that you unintentionally achieve intercourse. Is the child of such an encounter halalzadeh (legitimate) or haramzadeh (a bastard)?