How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly Weapons Inventors | Hacker News Reader

How War in Syria Turned Ordinary Engineers Into Deadly Weapons Inventors

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50 pointssk2code21 comments

This is no doubt interesting, but it's very obviously a PR piece written to subtly engender American support for arming Syrian Rebels. This chaotic conflict is making for very strange bedfellows of the United States and certain extremist groups.

There was a nearly identical article in The Atlantic a few months back, Edward Bernays would be proud!

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/02/diy-weapons-of-th...

Couldn't agree more. The Syrian rebels are a loosely associated group with several elements who are radical Islamist and Al Qaeda. This could have easily been titled "DIY Terrorism".

But is it really terrorism at this point? It's a civil war. Just because some groups that use terrorism to further their goals are participating doesn't make it any less of a war.

If the residents of New York City rebelled, and managed to take control of 2/3rds of the city, that would be a civil war (or at least I would classify it as such), even if Al Qaeda showed up to participate.

Yeah but you don't get to classify it, those in power do. And it'd likely be classified as terrorism.

Does the word "terrorism" have a solid definition, or is it "I'll know it when I see it"?

More like "I'll use the terrorism label when it's to my advantage"

> But is it really terrorism at this point? It's a civil war.

Civil war distinguishes context of conflict independent of methods, terrorism distinguishes methods of conflict indepedent of context; they aren't mutually exclusive categories.

But is it really terrorism at this point?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. History is written by the victors.

Language designed to engender support for one opinion or another; propaganda. That's all this crap is.

> One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. History is written by the victors.

So the Kurds in Northern Iraq that got gassed by Saddam were terrorists? The VC won in Vietnam. Were we the terrorists there? Chiang Kai-shek?

I'm not espousing this opinion, it's an (admittedly cynical) commentary on the use of the word terrorist in the media.

Equally inaccurately, though. Both "freedom fighters" and "terrorists" are marketing terms. "Rebel" is accurate since they're fighting the government; that's definitely a rebellion.

An easy way to determine if the US supports a group is to look at the language used to describe that group. Are they "freedom fighters" or "terrorists"?

France is fighting "terrorists" in Mali, not "freedom fighters". The US supports the Syrian "rebels", not the Syrian "terrorists".

Who exactly is the US? The government? Democrats? Republicans? Journalists?

All of those things. When they all agree on a terminology, the terminology can be said to be used by 'the US'.

They don't all agree.

> An easy way to determine if the US supports a group is to look at the language used to describe that group

You mean like "ally" or "enemy?"

There was one about the Libyan rebels too!

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/06/diy-weapons-of-th...

Hey if the formula works why change it.

I think its fine to say the piece is biased (even though you haven't given any evidence despite the fact that "its very obvious"). However, saying an article by the free press was written for a specific political purpose requires some backup.

I could accuse you of trying to engender support against the rebels, but that would be a distraction that moves the conversation nowhere.

Well since the word engineer originated to designate people who built machines of war, this is not terribly surprising.

(Reference, most French language dictionaries) Such as: http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/ing%C3%A9nieur...

> He points to a stack of metal objects in the corner, shaped like old-fashioned fire-alarm bells. They are what are known in military parlance as victim-operated improvised explosive devices—or, in plain English, land mines.

Uh, I hope they don't use those land mines. Years after the war end, those buried land mines would still killing people.

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