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TSN: Of course you weren't shocked, nor awed. Its "Shock and Awe." Just as with the Axis of Evil, the capital letters are Very important.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Really, anything short of firebombing the whole city wouldn't have left me particularly shocked. In fact, I'm almost shocked that's not what happened...
Registered: Mar 1999
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The BBC have got this one camera showing this street in Baghdad that they use all the time to 'check up on the situation'. I am looking forward to the next reality TV show that will undoubtably feature this street.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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But it never shows anything happening, which is why everyone keeps using the Aljazeera and Abudhabi TV feeds instead.
In fact, given the BBC have about 400 people in the Gulf, they're not getting a lot for their �10million budget. Sky News is way ahead in the war porn stakes.
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Can somebody explain why there is no blackout in Baghdad? Is it just to provide better illumination for the pictoresque photography? Or to help direct the bombers to their supposed military targets, instead of residential areas? Or did somebody just forget to flip the switch?
Or does Rumsfeld have this horrible secret microwave pulse weapon that keeps feeding power to the local grid no matter how desperately the engineers try to shut it down?
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poet: But it never shows anything happening, which is why everyone keeps using the Aljazeera and Abudhabi TV feeds instead.
Precisely!! It must be the one rooftop in the entire city from which nothing is visible!
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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Now let's have a look at the Baghdad skyline. Er, yes, well as you can see, it looks quite peaceful there, but believe us, it is total carnage. If we just switch to somebody else's camera... are, there we go.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Can somebody explain why there is no blackout in Baghdad? Is it just to provide better illumination for the pictoresque photography? Or to help direct the bombers to their supposed military targets, instead of residential areas? Or did somebody just forget to flip the switch?
Or does Rumsfeld have this horrible secret microwave pulse weapon that keeps feeding power to the local grid no matter how desperately the engineers try to shut it down?
Timo Saloniemi
This is intended. Part of the objective is to cause as few civilian casualties as possible, and to damage the actual Iraqi infrastructure as little as possible, to not cause a severe humanitarian crisis for Iraqi civilians. They are therefore deliberately not targeting such places as electric power plants, sewage treatment systems, or water facilities.
One water facility in the south of Iraq was apparently damaged, cutting off water to about 60% of the local population, but they expect the aid and repair crews to begin coming in in.. well, it was 36 hours, yesterday, IIRC.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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I think he was asking why Baghdad themselves hadn't turned off their lights. SOP when you're being bombed, IIRC.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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Yes, and the Iraqi regime couldn't care less about the people, they're probably grumpy the americanos haven't killed more civilians than they have already. They really should've started with blackouts by now, it is peculiar indeed.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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