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A sniper with Canada’s elite special forces in Iraq has shattered the world record for the longest confirmed kill shot in military history at a staggering distance of 3,540 metres.
The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed Thursday that a member of Joint Task Force 2 made the record-breaking shot, killing an Islamic State insurgent during an operation in Iraq within the last month.
[...] The elite sniper was using a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle while firing from a high-rise during an operation that took place within the last month in Iraq. It took under 10 seconds to hit the target.
[...] The military source said the JTF2 operation fell within the strictures of the government’s advise and assist mission.
[...] The kill was independently verified by video camera and other data, The Globe and Mail has learned.
[...] The skill of the JTF2 sniper in taking down an insurgent at 3,540 metres required math skills, great eyesight, precision of ammunition and firearms, and superb training.
Not our typical fare but the physics involved in making that shot are crazy.
Source: The Globe and Mail
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @04:57AM (16 children)
Let's be clear here. This isn't a war.
The regime was changed years and years ago.
There's no one who can surrender for the disparate opposing forces.
This is an Imperialist occupation with no purpose except to keep feeding the military-related industries in the aggressor countries.
Re-read Part Two, Chapter IX of Nineteen Eighty-Four. [adelaide.edu.au]
In particular, Chapter III of Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Book" and how Orwell describes perpetual war and its goals (Oligarchy and Fascism).
suspected terrorists
...and for USAians, your founding document reads
Notice that it does not say "no US citizen".
It does not say "no person within the USA".
It says "NO PERSON".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by MostCynical on Friday June 23 2017, @05:37AM
you already have warantless and no-reasonable-doubt searches at "borders" (within 100 miles of a border, isn't it?), with civil forfeiture still possible in many states, you haven't really got much support for the constuitution. Who cares about towel-heads and darkies?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @09:14AM
That's cute that thing about the life and liberty, I might use that as a punchline one day. We're in the weird twilight zone set in motion by GW Bush and Alberto Gonzales, who came up with the brilliant idea that anyone who had *never been granted rights* in the first place was not being deprived them when they were locked in Guantanamo without due process for... well, ever.
Since that is the normal, pushing the boundary is execution by drone. Execution my mother of all bombs. Shooting down other countries airplanes. Bombing them whenever, dude. On a macro scale, the rule of law is disintegrating in slow motion. Billionaires playing their 3D chess games.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 23 2017, @10:51AM (11 children)
You'd prefer we just let them sort it out, I suppose? You're totally good with entire villages of noncombatants getting wiped out? Chemical weapons being used on civilian populations?
You're a real asshole, man.
If they were just trying to hit legal targets using legal weapons, fine, let them sort it out. They're fucking well not though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @02:07PM (1 child)
Yes. We should get out and give them the space to figure things out for themselves. It's an opportunity they deserve to have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 23 2017, @05:37PM
I'd agree if actual war crimes (rather than the bullshit we get accused of) weren't taking place. I give not a shit how many of each other they kill, so long as they keep it to lawful combatants as much as possible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @03:34PM (5 children)
Napalm (Vietnam, Korea, Germany, France)
White-phosphorous ("mild" napalm). (Syria, Fallujah)
Radiation (Japan)
MK77 (napalm rebadged). (Iraq)
Oh yeah, which country sold chemical weapons to Saddam?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 23 2017, @05:28PM (4 children)
Irrelevant, one and all. Napalm, MK77, and WP are not chemical weapons. Radiation had no treaty banning its use.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Sabriel on Sunday June 25 2017, @02:21AM (3 children)
"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." - George Orwell, 1984.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 25 2017, @10:20AM (2 children)
Let's put it more simply then: fire is not poison gas and is in fact a legal weapon for warfare.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Sabriel on Monday June 26 2017, @11:45AM (1 child)
That's not what I was referring to.
1. AC claimed the US was hypocritically engaging in a continuation of Imperialist behaviour/policy, and mentioned a chapter from the book "1984".
2. You posted in support of US actions so as to prevent the use of chemical weapons on civilian population (to prevent "asshole" behaviour).
3. AC responded that the US has a history of performing such deeds, citing weapons and places used/supplied.
4. You responded that those (napalm, MK77, WP) are not chemical weapons.
5. I used a quote from "1984" to point out that any government declaring that chemical weapons are not "chemical weapons" is a sign of corruption.
6. You responded that fire is not poison gas and is a legal weapon for warfare.
Sure, "fire" is not "poison gas". It is however a lay term for the rapid exothermic oxidation of materials (i.e. a form of chemical reaction) that can produce significant quantities of poisonous and/or toxic gasses (see particularly: burning napalm, burning MK77, burning WP). So despite what those trying to cloak themselves in the semantics of the Chemical Weapons Convention would like us to ignore, something can be declared "legal" but still be the act of an "asshole".
It's this kind of wilful blindness that enables the kind of hypocritical behavior that the original AC is complaining about. And those chickens come home to roost. So whether future historians determine what the US is doing in Syria is actually on the level or not, can we at least own our past failures and learn from them, rather than continue to pretend our ideologies and processes are infallible until we're FUBAR?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 27 2017, @11:37AM
There is no willful blindness, slappy. Tardboy above was chicken-little-ing about "International Law". Which makes the argument about that, not about ethics. Poison gas is banned but fire and explosives are quite legal. Stop trying to change the playing field just because your side is losing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @05:01PM
Haha NOW you try and play the high road? Of course you do, gotta spin that MIC into a positive somehow!
Hey look everybody, TMB is letting everyone know how stupid he really is! We're in the middle east to protect some innocent villagers, hoorah. Someone might want to let the military know, so far they have a pretty bad record of collateral damage *ahem* I mean murder of innocent civilians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @06:41PM (1 child)
Before USA.gov bombed, invaded, and occupied that place (based on Dubya's and Cheney's lies, BTW), Iraq was a stable state.
You may not have approved of the government there, but it was a sovereign nation with the right to work out its own problems.
...then along come Reactionaries (of your ilk) who have the twisted belief that the USA, with its clear moral superiority *cough*, should make decisions (regime change) for every place on the planet.
Not only did that violate every precept of international law (acts founded in mendacity; violating national borders; militarily going after a head of state; a war of aggression to plunder natural resources), it put the place in a condition that was worse than it had been in terms of civil stability and life expectancy.
The morality of USA.gov here was extremely low, if not an all-time low.
...and the existence of Daesh is 100 percent the result of USA.gov actions, going back to the Cold War occupation of an adjacent nation by the Soviets and USA.gov's arming of a proxy in the region.
...and, if USA.gov was actually serious about bringing the place to a condition of passivity, wouldn't the full effort to accomplish that have been made 15 years ago or 10 years ago or 5 years ago?
This activity is not about the wellbeing of the people there.
It's strictly about corporate profits and macho bravado.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 23 2017, @08:20PM
International Law™, eh? If it covers us, it covers them, sweety, and we if the US did not enforce International Law™, there would be no International Law™. Who do you think is going to enforce it? China? Russia? There are only three nations on the planet actually capable of enforcing anything and we're the only ones who will.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @11:45AM (1 child)
Implicitly, "person" means "person covered by this document". You know, consent of the governed and all that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @06:44PM
There are people, in your limited scope, who are not allowed to vote and choose the gov't:
Too young; recent immigrant; imprisoned people; formerly imprisoned people (in some states).
They are still covered by the Constitution.
Additionally, I'm pretty sure that agents of USA.gov crossing into Canada or Mexico to subject residents of those place to USA law by force was not what The Founding Fathers had in mind.
Extrapolate to those agents crossing oceans.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]