It sounds like having a dam is riskier than the alternative of not having a dam. Why not try draining the resouvoir and dismantling the dam?
Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
191–200 of 255 posts
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#192Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
What could possibly go wrong?
Various forms of shaped charges and explosives could be used to open the sluice gates but that would leave them permanently opened. The main fear here is that if the dam reaches its design head, the water will tunnel underneath and around the dam through the water soluble rocks. The dam can't exceed the design head because of the spillway that is visible to the south east of the dam. So explosives could well be used…
We should use nano-thermite like we did on that other inside job ;-)
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not most, all. Again, the concept that "war is hell" doesn't seem to hit home for some people.
It's hell because of stuff like this. What doesn't seem to hit home for some people is that maybe your country isn't always "the good guys", and seriously considering a plan like this (beyond investigating what would happen so you can make the right decision when things start happening quickly) is precisely what makes you the bad guy.
The crux of your argument seems to rest on what "seriously considered" means. Not saying the US is the "good guys" here, but they're doing their due diligence, not trying to inflict the most damage purely out of rage or spite.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do I think you'll find 1M people in America who support Obama's administration? Um, yes... He was elected by about half the population, after all. I can easily find 1M people who still prefer to have him as President. Heck, right now with our current frontrunners, there's people who'd like to have another 4 or 8 years of Obama rather than Trump or Hillary. Now with Mosul, we're talking about 1M people. That's far, fa…
FYI, he meant if there were 1M people in a random geographic area with a dam that was going to collapse, would all of those 1M people be Obama supporters? The answer is no, there would be a mix.
Ok, sorry if I misunderstood, I thought he was one of these anti-Obama people trying to claim that Obama was that unpopular.
Anyway, sure, if 1M Americans were threatened by a failing dam, and Obama refused to fix the dam and instead took actions to prevent fixing it or worse, somehow aggravate the situation, then no, I doubt many of those 1M would be supporters of his. However, Obama is also not a religious leader. Throw fundamentalist religion in there and that changes the equation entirely. Just look at all the Americans who resolutely believe that climate change is a "hoax", or worse, that evolution is (and that the earth is 6000 years old), because their religious leaders tell them this. That's likely what's going on in ISIS-land. So we could try my leafleting campaign to educate the populace there as to the reality and direness of their situation, but I kinda doubt they'd believe it. Not only do you have a bunch of religious leaders telling them otherwise, but there's also a human tendency to circle wagons around their own people/leaders (no matter how awful) and fight against any outsiders.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do I think you'll find 1M people in America who support Obama's administration? Um, yes... He was elected by about half the population, after all. I can easily find 1M people who still prefer to have him as President. Heck, right now with our current frontrunners, there's people who'd like to have another 4 or 8 years of Obama rather than Trump or Hillary. Now with Mosul, we're talking about 1M people. That's far, fa…
Commenters are required to post civilly and substantively, or not at all. It's bad enough that you are uncivil to your fellow users, and worse that you start religious flamewars. But blaming a million people for their own prospective drowning because you say they're Isis supporters (a ridiculous claim about a group known to terrorize the populations it rules over), and therefore have it coming to them, is far outside…
Nice that you don't allow different opinions around here. Maybe you should make a FAQ listing which opinions are OK and which aren't.
And "religious flamewars"? All I did was point out the reality of religion.
My post was civil enough, I called his comment stupid because I misunderstood it. Another poster, far more helpful than yourself, pointed out my error to me.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
They may or may not have the government they want , but they certainly have the government they deserve . Every nation of people does. If you're not willing to stand up and fight when a tiny number of people is oppressing you, then why do you deserve anything better? Who else is supposed to liberate you? Do you think that you're entitled to having a bunch of foreigners come risk their lives to liberate you from your…
At some point, a government will have an insurmountable military advantage, against which any resistance by its population is futile.
That makes no sense at all. The only way governments have "insurmountable advantage" is if they have more firepower and people willing to use that firepower than people willing to oppose them (plus their firepower). Governments do not (yet) have armies of robotic soldiers willing to do their bidding without question; this isn't the Clone Wars or droid wars or whatever. Governments need armies to do their military will, and those armies are composed of the People. This is why governments generally don't succeed at oppressing their own people; they can't get their military to go along with it. Now, of course, if the government is oppressing some other people (i.e., they invaded a foreign country), or they're oppressing some hated/demonized minority, that's another matter. The French and Polish didn't have much say in being oppressed by Nazi Germany, nor did the Jews/Gypsies/Roma there. However, the German people were not oppressed by the Nazis: they willingly elected them, and happily went along with their rule (except for some small minority of resistance forces).
I challenge you to show me any example of a government which was absolutely hated by its people and somehow managed to hold onto power. I don't think there is any. Every government gets popular support from somewhere, or else they wouldn't have an army to maintain their rule with. With occupations, it comes from the occupying nation. With places like Saddam's Iraq, it came from one powerful portion of the population that happily stomped on the other portions. With places like North Korea, it comes from a population that's been brainwashed into thinking the Dear Leader is basically a demigod.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#198Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not necessarily a faulty design. It simply requires maintenance that's not happening just like you car engine needs oil and you need to keep swapping that oil out after a while. ex: A spent fuel pool is actually really simple and 'safe' just add water and keep cool. That does not mean you can walk away and not touch one for a year and expect everything to be ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool
Yes, but it's not "fail-safe". Building a massive dam above a million person flood plain, that requires continuous aggressive maintenance seems short sighted at best.
Dictatorships are not known for wise decisions.
Re: Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people
#200Are there any articles about how/why the sluice gates are seized? Is it sediment blocking them? Or did something mechanical break? I would like to hear from an engineer. I know that the US Corps of Engineers has probably been to it during the various wars. I know the overall problem is the porous rock and whole dam collapsing (which is horrible for the locals), I am just curious what the best way to relieve the press…
Software engineer here (chuckle). I spent a lot of time in Iraq, some of that time guarding infrastructure. The thing about most of that stuff -- and my guess in this case -- is that the machinery is rusted. The door may be physically jammed by silt or something, as well, but I would put my money on the machinery to open the doors being rusted or otherwise destroyed/removed by looters. This is the case with the vast majority of stuff like that in Iraq: If you weren't standing next to it with a machine gun, someone would carry off the parts to sell for scrap. Or at least nobody would come by to oil the parts and make sure they function properly. The thing with rusting machinery also is something of a cultural/religious phenomena, i.e. "it is the will of Allah" that this equipment is rusting, and therefore I should not perform maintenance on it. The Iraqi Army was hard to train for a number of reasons, but particularly in equipment maintenance for this reason. "Clean your weapon" ... "But it is the will of Allah that it is rusting" ...