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Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

nytimes.com

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Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#481

Post by ssl-3 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #459
lysace wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing they allocated 10 days of airspace shutdown for taking out a single (edit: or a few) drone(s). I get the feeling this was a case of really wanting to test a new weapon combined with general organizational dysfunction for something unusual like this. On CNN, they talked about how a shutdown like this would be the first time something like this has happened since 9/11. Is that really correct?

How do we know it was a "single" drone, or that they knew for sure that it was?

Indeed.

So with this lack of information: Why 10 days? Why not 3, or 12, or some other number instead?

Or: Why must there be a number?

Is the officious equivalent of "We've got some shit to deal with, so El Paso's airspace is closed for now" insufficient?

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#482

Post by [deleted] »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #435
nkrisc wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charitably guessing that if they don't know how long they'll need to keep airspace closed then you give yourself plenty of time and rescind early if necessary, as opposed to continually issuing extensions which could cause confusion.

Or you say “until further notice”. Indeterminate end dates are not a new problem.

[deleted]

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#483

Post by infecto »

reactordev wrote: post #339
infecto wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Dude”, murdering a us citizen in Mexico is different than murdering an entire bus of people on US soil. You say it’s happening all the time but then say it’s .01%. Looked it up myself, maybe 40 to 300 people annually. Hard to discern how many of those are pure tourism vs visiting family. I suspect you have a greater risk visiting family, especially if it’s a border town. 13.5mm US citizens visit d Mexico in 2024 so…

I never said “In the US” guy

Why are you being so rude, dude?

Your right anything can happen but any large attack on US grounds or equally blowing up a plane on either side of the border is going to bring the full weight of the US on the cartels. It makes little sense. Cartels have for decades ingrained that into their organizations no matter how violent that may be.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#485

Post by usefulcat »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #364
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This admin is focused on the message of stopping the inflow of drugs to the US. There are probably some true believers, and there are probably some reactionary accelerationists. There’s also significant evidence of amateurism, misinformation, and incompetence. All of that coming together, I see this action coming out of meeting where - one party was convinced that this would solve the fentanyl epidemic - one party wa…

> one party was busy making “bets” on Kalshi This would arguably be much more severe -- and quite likely already happening -- than the whole "congress trading stocks" thing because most of those (besides the sports ones) tie very directly to government actions in a way that the economy or a large company in generally doesn't as predictably.

Yes and no. AIUI there's generally a lot less liquidity available in prediction markets, which limits the profitability.

Even if you have perfect clairvoyance, you still need someone to take the other side of the bet.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#486

Post by [deleted] »

ndiddy wrote: post #375
sva_ wrote: post #200

> Airline sources told Reuters the grounding of flights was believed to be tied to the Pentagon's use of counterdrone technology to address Mexican drug cartels' use of drones of the U.S.-Mexico border. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-halts-all-flights-texass...

Looks like they shot the drone down with a laser: > UPDATE (CNN): Source briefed by FAA tells me that military activity behind the El Paso flight ban included unmanned aircraft operations and laser countermeasure testing in airspace directly adjacent to civilian routes into El Paso International. Airspace restriction just lifted. https://x.com/petemuntean/status/2021586247827828812

[deleted]

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#487

Post by anigbrowl »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #445
mikkupikku wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of organized crime around the world manages to operate without cutting all the limbs off somebody then arranging them like flowers in a "vase" made out of the poor soul's ribcage. The cartels take violence far beyond what is pragmatically necessary. Their system of crime breeds excessive violence and insanity.

This stuff mostly followed after the zetas. It was a very deliberate strategy to compete in a hostile landscape that others eventually copied to survive.

It's notable that a lot of the Zetas came from a military special forces background, making it seem as if their extreme brutality was a strategic choice inculcated during their training.

https://ctc.westpoint.edu/a-profile-of-los-zetas-mexicos-sec...

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#488

Post by anigbrowl »

boringg wrote: post #302
antonymoose wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of dead Vietnamese. In any case that was a war against a hardened, experienced, determined enemy fighting for its freedom from any form of colonial occupation, both as a formal military and as an insurgent force in South Vietnam. I scarcely think the Mexican population would rise up in defense of the cartels here.

I think a lot of people would be cheering on the destruction of the cartels.

We were briefly greeted as liberators in Iraq too.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#489

Post by mmooss »

janalsncm wrote: post #390
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They would get crushed like a bug. Much as I despise them, I'm not so sure that would be the case. I seem to remember folks saying the same about the Taliban, and the cartels have a lot more money and high-tech kit, than the Taliban. Asymmetric warfare is a tough gig, on all sides.

I don’t think the technology matters nearly as much as the asymmetry. Iraq had better technology than the Taliban and their military didn’t last a week.

That conflates two very different things:

* A conventional military war, on a battlefield: Neither Saddam Hussein's military nor the cartels nor the Taliban would last long against the US.

* An unconventional insurgency: The Iraqis quickly turned to this approach and it worked very well for them, as it did for the Taliban. The Taliban won, and the Iraqi insurgency almost drove the US out of Iraq and was eventually co-opted.

The cartels of course would choose the latter. They, the Taliban, etc. are not suicidal.

Re: Officials Claim Drone Incursion Led to Shutdown of El Paso Airport

#490

Post by RupertSalt »

guerrilla wrote: post #376
morpheuskafka wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them just like 9/11 or the Iran hostage crisis. The US has been trying to extent the "foreign terrorist" label and casus belli to drug activities forever to justify military operations (ex. the "arrest" of Maduro was for drugs, not oil/Cuba/political stuff). That would be a massive self-own on the cartels part. (And if…

> A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.

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