• PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Besides the stupidity of being unsourced, what exactly would it prove if Hamas’ weapons were manufactured in China? Shit could’ve passed through a dozen black market arms traffickers between the Chinese factories and Hamas. This is like saying “Hamas leadership’s smart devices were built in China.”

        • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          The drawdown in Afghanistan did too, since apparently American policy is to just leave shit and only destroy the important stuff like helos

          More than a few videos of the Taliban finding rooms full of M4s, M240s, etc

          • WayeeCool [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            The US seems to have only taken their helicopter gunships and left their Blackhawk transport helicopters rather than taking the time to load them onto cargo planes. I say this because there are videos floating around the internet of Taliban fighters finding lots of them sitting around abandoned US bases and outposts. There were also videos of them learning through trial and error how to fly Blackhawks, so they apparently left them in working condition instead of at least sabotaging them by ripping out key components.

            Didn’t see any Chinooks but iirc they have a lot more range than regular helicopters and with refueling can make the trip without being loaded into cargo planes. One of the reasons the US military is replacing their Blackhawks with the V-280 Valor is for that extended range compared to regular helicopters.

            • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              11 months ago

              I thought I remembered seeing accounts that the US ‘disabled’ them somehow

              If not then lmao, just leaving fucking helicopters for your enemy to take. Of course, they probably don’t have access to the fuel and tools needed to keep them up, but it also wouldn’t shock me if they just left all the tools and repair manuals behind in a (loosely) locked closet with a sign saying ‘Blackhawk maintenance equipment in here’ in English, Pashto, Dari, and Farsi

              • WayeeCool [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                11 months ago

                I thought I remembered seeing accounts that the US ‘disabled’ them somehow

                They didn’t even do that, at least in some instances. There were videos of Taliban fighters confirming they functioned along with finding documentation, tools, and supplies. I’m sure someone did the math and decided it wasn’t worth the cost to transport out all that stuff.

    • chungusamonugs [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      It agrees with the bias of the publisher. The point of stories like this is to put the concept out into the ether and engineer the narrative. The exact thing happened with the weather balloon. Even though retractions were published, ask most Americans and they will still tell you earnestly that it was a spy balloon.

  • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Biden literally just bypassed Congress to sell more weapons to Israel lol. The absolute nerve of them to get mad over other countries doing the exact same shit they’re currently doing.

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    I’m reminded of the struggle session from a few months back, when “North Korea is arming Hamas!” was trending and I expressed doubt because… how?

    The response was simply “you can get to Gaza from North Korea by land”. And… jesse-wtf

    • oregoncom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      North Korea has been openly supporting the Palestinian cause for decades. Also it’s not that hard to smuggle something to Egypt from NK and then to Gaza by tunnels. A state actor like NK can definitely do that.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        North Korea has been openly supporting the Palestinian cause for decades

        How much real material support is a small, semi-industrialized nation under heavy international sanction and a full panopticon of surveillance able to deliver to an open-air prison half a world away?

        Also it’s not that hard to smuggle something to Egypt from NK

        By what means? Is Kim sending supplies via FedEx? Are there big Maersk cargo ships loaded up with North Korean made small arms and explosives that Mossad just hasn’t noticed? Are they coming up through the earth in one of those drill machines that The Shredder uses in TMNT?

        A state actor like NK can definitely do that.

        A state actor like the folks in NK can definitely get supplies into neighboring Russia and China without much trouble. And it is not inconceivable to believe smugglers shipping arms through the extensive rail networks of these two countries can put NK made weapons into Turkey or Iran. But that’s a long journey and one replete with hazards. Not the least of which are people who will just take valuable military equipment for their own purposes.

        Far more likely, NK is simply a large exporter of military equipment that they’ve been mass producing since the Cold War. If NK-made weapons are getting to Palestine, that is only because they’re in wide circulation and of universal enough design to make them popular with people who need simple durable equipment, like any number of guerrilla insurgent groups and poorer paramilitary units across the Middle East and North Africa.

        The idea that Kim is direct delivering equipment all the way from NK to Palestine is romantic, but utterly impractical from a logistics perspective.