[politics] Neo Nazi's trying to sell Air to Air missle on WhatsApp?!

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The second most odd thing being sold recently, after those bottles of used gamer girl bath water.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

But it wasn't antifa; and unless the way that would stop antifa works with neo-nazis, you better stop daydreaming about it and bring up some solutions to reality.

Am confused. Looks like you're addressing intentions that aren't there. What was it you thought I was trying to imply? Maybe my wording was badly thought out. It often is.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Its a strange dichotomy that these people were simultaneously canny enough to get their hands on ordnance like this, but also dumb enough to try and sell it over WhatsApp. I feel there are more secure places to sell your illegal missiles dudes

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Its a strange dichotomy that these people were simultaneously canny enough to get their hands on ordnance like this, but also dumb enough to try and sell it over WhatsApp. I feel there are more secure places to sell your illegal missiles dudes

Which is the legitimate problem.

You can't sneak into a military site with falsified documents, manufacture any kind of tally list that will fool people long enough to know that a missile should be moved off-site or there always has been one less to begin with, sneak the thing off of a base... and then be this stupid... it doesn't add up.

At best, the base they got it from is so woefully staffed that we're lucky that the people who did steal from them are as stupid as the base staff.

At worst... they have sympathizers in that military's rank who think so much for their cause that they are willing to risk whatever punishment their military will do to them in order to give such a substantial weapon to their true Front Line.

Now we get to play the uber fun game of which idea is scarier.

 

[Frezzato]

How did they get an air to air missile and who would want to illegally buy that? I presume you'd need an aircraft to make use of it and those are hard to hide. Or would somebody just strip it for spare parts or something?

You'd be surprised what people can do with tech.

This isn't an exact, apples-to-apples comparison, but people are quite ingenious at making things work, especially Libyan rebels:
DIY Weapons of the Libyan Rebels [https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/06/diy-weapons-of-the-libyan-rebels/100086/] (2011).


I'm super relieved it wasn't a MANPAD. Also, the weapons the nazis were caught with; I've never seen a more varied, random collection of weapons. Bolt actions and Steyr TMP pistols? The randomness of the weapons is somewhat telling. Not sure what to think of it.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Is it a Soviet or Eastern Bloc missile, because that explain how they easily got it. When the Soviet Union basically disintegrated along with the Eastern Bloc a lot of the weapons were lost during that clusterfuck of a transition.

 

[Trunkage]

The second most odd thing being sold recently, after those bottles of used gamer girl bath water.

That's a nope from me

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Its a strange dichotomy that these people were simultaneously canny enough to get their hands on ordnance like this, but also dumb enough to try and sell it over WhatsApp. I feel there are more secure places to sell your illegal missiles dudes

Which is the legitimate problem.

You can't sneak into a military site with falsified documents, manufacture any kind of tally list that will fool people long enough to know that a missile should be moved off-site or there always has been one less to begin with, sneak the thing off of a base... and then be this stupid... it doesn't add up.

At best, the base they got it from is so woefully staffed that we're lucky that the people who did steal from them are as stupid as the base staff.

At worst... they have sympathizers in that military's rank who think so much for their cause that they are willing to risk whatever punishment their military will do to them in order to give such a substantial weapon to their true Front Line.

Now we get to play the uber fun game of which idea is scarier.

You'd be surprised by the amount of incompetence militaries have.

There's an interesting John Oliver video about the US military's nuclear weapons and the amount of times we've accidentally misplaced missiles or left them unguarded, or almost detonated them. I doubt the US military is significantly more incompetent than any other military, and I doubt that the military is any more careful with conventional weapons as it is with nuclear ones.


Since this missile came from Qatar I really wouldn't be surprised if some base personnel were just bribed into letting the missile be "misplaced."

 

[stroopwafel]

That scene almost looks surreal. What previous poster mentioned sounds like a good theory; it are probably the criminal networks that states use to covertly support one warlord over the other to deny involvement. They seem like the only ones capable to not only procure but also smuggle a missile, and it's not that far fetched neo nazi's might have a liaison in such a network. But once you have it what are you going to do with it right? Sell through WhatsApp. xD

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Is it a Soviet or Eastern Bloc missile, because that explain how they easily got it. When the Soviet Union basically disintegrated along with the Eastern Bloc a lot of the weapons were lost during that clusterfuck of a transition.

Nope. French-made missile intended for a French-made plane.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The second most odd thing being sold recently, after those bottles of used gamer girl bath water.

That's a nope from me

Doesn't matter, she sold out really fast apparently lol.

 

[stroopwafel]

Is it a Soviet or Eastern Bloc missile, because that explain how they easily got it. When the Soviet Union basically disintegrated along with the Eastern Bloc a lot of the weapons were lost during that clusterfuck of a transition.

Nope. French-made missile intended for a French-made plane.

Yeah, French anti-tank missiles have also been found on a pro-Haftar base in Libya(country has been embroiled in conflict between this general and current leader Sarraj) that France has denied as it would breach the UN arms embargo. They said they only provided 'diplomatic support' but this is hard to believe as they also carried out airstrikes for Haftar. LNA/Haftar occupies almost all of Libya now despite never having had any kind of 'official' military support.

But yeah, it's not hard to believe that one of these missiles have been siphoned off to a lucrative smuggle network.

 

[Agema]

How did they get an air to air missile and who would want to illegally buy that? I presume you'd need an aircraft to make use of it and those are hard to hide. Or would somebody just strip it for spare parts or something?

I'm sure with a bit of technical know-how you could strip out the explosive and rig it as an improvised device.

* * *

You'd be surprised by the amount of incompetence militaries have.

I totally wouldn't.

But they don't even need to be incompetent, as such, just baseline adequate. Stuff "falling off the back of a lorry" is hardly rare for a start. You imagine a military warehouse with god knows how much sitting in boxes, I seriously doubt a few corrupt servicemen would need to be criminal masterminds to liberate one. Nobody would probably even notice for months or years, and it'd probably be dismissed as a logistical error. Misappropriation of military equipment - including arms - is as old and well established as the military.

 

[Thaluikhain]

How did they get an air to air missile and who would want to illegally buy that? I presume you'd need an aircraft to make use of it and those are hard to hide. Or would somebody just strip it for spare parts or something?

You'd be surprised what people can do with tech.

This isn't an exact, apples-to-apples comparison, but people are quite ingenious at making things work, especially Libyan rebels:
DIY Weapons of the Libyan Rebels [https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/06/diy-weapons-of-the-libyan-rebels/100086/] (2011).

Not really. Sure, they can stick rocket pods on things, but you need the radar system to go with the missile, or there's no point.

As an aside, people have been doing those (Libyan) kinds of things for ages, during the Falklands the Argentinians set up a rocket pod on a child's slide in a playground, Tony Stein in WW2 got a Medal of Honor for fighting he did with a machine gun he'd taken from a wrecked plane and modified.

 

[stroopwafel]

Misappropriation of military equipment - including arms - is as old and well established as the military.

Small arms, maybe, espescially after a period of disorder(like in the Balkans). But a French air-to-air missile definitely doesn't go unaccounted for b/c of some lack of oversight or corruption. Most definitely this ended up in the wrong hands b/c of proxy conflict where state actors need to hide some plausible deniability.

 

[Agema]

Small arms, maybe, espescially after a period of disorder(like in the Balkans). But a French air-to-air missile definitely doesn't go unaccounted for b/c of some lack of oversight or corruption. Most definitely this ended up in the wrong hands b/c of proxy conflict where state actors need to hide some plausible deniability.

From a Western military, much less likely. But I can totally believe people can half inch a sizeable missile from many of the world's armed forces.

 

[SupahEwok]

The 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, and Sicilian Mafia are all significant players in Italian politics, to the point of owning Prime Ministers. All those cities are northern Italy, which is 'Ndrangheta. They were probably middle men to the Neo-Nazis, or at least involved in some way, even up to leaking or making up that WhatsApp stuff to get them caught if the Neo-Nazis had circumvented the 'Ndrangheta when obtaining the missile.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Not really. Sure, they can stick rocket pods on things, but you need the radar system to go with the missile, or there's no point.

As an aside, people have been doing those (Libyan) kinds of things for ages, during the Falklands the Argentinians set up a rocket pod on a child's slide in a playground, Tony Stein in WW2 got a Medal of Honor for fighting he did with a machine gun he'd taken from a wrecked plane and modified.

Hell, the LTTE managed to build their own air force out of ultra-light aircraft and commercially-available prop monoplanes and passenger helicopters.


Yes, they were seriously dropping grenades from ultra-light aircraft. Among their greatest achievements is disrupting the 2007 Cricket World Cup broadcast [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1550067/Tamil-Tigers-black-out-Colombo-for-cricket-World-Cup-final.html] by bombing fuel storage sites outside the city of Colombo.

 

[Frezzato]

Not really. Sure, they can stick rocket pods on things, but you need the radar system to go with the missile, or there's no point.

As an aside, people have been doing those (Libyan) kinds of things for ages, during the Falklands the Argentinians set up a rocket pod on a child's slide in a playground, Tony Stein in WW2 got a Medal of Honor for fighting he did with a machine gun he'd taken from a wrecked plane and modified.

In retrospect, that's not the real issue.

I think focusing on the fact it was specifically an air-to-air missile, something that needs a specific jet or weapons platform, is distracting from the fact that it was something so physically large.

An unusually large weapon was moved from country to country unnoticed or via bribery, incompetence, or specific intent.
That's the real problem here. That's what disturbs me.

.

I think Obsidian Jones said it best:

Its a strange dichotomy that these people were simultaneously canny enough to get their hands on ordnance like this, but also dumb enough to try and sell it over WhatsApp. I feel there are more secure places to sell your illegal missiles dudes

Which is the legitimate problem.

You can't sneak into a military site with falsified documents, manufacture any kind of tally list that will fool people long enough to know that a missile should be moved off-site or there always has been one less to begin with, sneak the thing off of a base... and then be this stupid... it doesn't add up.

At best, the base they got it from is so woefully staffed that we're lucky that the people who did steal from them are as stupid as the base staff.

At worst... they have sympathizers in that military's rank who think so much for their cause that they are willing to risk whatever punishment their military will do to them in order to give such a substantial weapon to their true Front Line.

Now we get to play the uber fun game of which idea is scarier.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

An unusually large weapon was moved from country to country unnoticed or via bribery, incompetence, or specific intent.
That's the real problem here. That's what disturbs me.

Pfft, that's nothing. NATO lost six nuclear warheads during the Cold War that were never recovered or accounted for. Up to fifty Soviet warheads disappeared in the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Bloc. If I remember right, a leading theory in the case of Iran's and NK's nuclear programs is they were kickstarted by reverse engineering illegally-trafficked Soviet nukes.

Nuclear materials, all the way from power plant waste to weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, are still hot black market items. Pun intended. Nuclear materials go missing constantly with no leads; as far as I know, there's never been an arrest made for the plutonium theft from two years ago in San Antonio.