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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

#601

Post by starkparker »

c420 wrote: post #593
HillRat wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: DoD’s pushing back on the story, saying that Border Patrol and ICE were the agencies using high-energy weaponry to shoot down party balloons, much to the consternation of NORTHCOM.

Source?

https://apnews.com/article/faa-el-paso-texas-air-space-close...

> The Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser earlier this week, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to suddenly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

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

#602

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

phil21 wrote: post #591
w0de0 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one balloon, Michael. What could it cost, 10 dollars?

A large Mylar party balloon with helium? Yeah probably about that depending on where you are and the balloon type and size.

Yep. It seems like for this application you'd want a larger one, a few feet across, with a nice shiny metal foil coating for the radar to bounce off. So, not a $1 balloon.

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

#603

Post by edwcross »

kakacik wrote: post #599
ribosometronome wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panic, shut down the airport, and reveal their top secret methods of defense against actual attacks.

And imagine the mayhem with 20 balloons, or 100. Very easy in trigger happy situation, a child is all you need. But what do we know, maybe it was an evil terrorist party balloon. You see, the wall just needs to be a little higher to protect that beautiful country from all southern evils.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons

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

#604

Post by assaddayinh »

boringg wrote: post #308
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...

>. "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming." https://x.com/SecDuffy

Drug smuggling shaheeds close to the ground..

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

#605

Post by lelanthran »

kakacik wrote: post #599
ribosometronome wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panic, shut down the airport, and reveal their top secret methods of defense against actual attacks.

And imagine the mayhem with 20 balloons, or 100. Very easy in trigger happy situation, a child is all you need. But what do we know, maybe it was an evil terrorist party balloon. You see, the wall just needs to be a little higher to protect that beautiful country from all southern evils.

> And imagine the mayhem with 20 balloons, or 100. Very easy in trigger happy situation, a child is all you need.

Sounds like a great way for a drug-runner to proceed - release 1000 balloons across a very large area, and have only one of them carry their payload of drugs (or whatever).

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

#606

Post by myrmidon »

ethbr1 wrote: post #554
myrmidon wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most certainly not, but I don't see how that is relevant. The problem (from a victim/Dutch perspective) is that there is complete denial from the Russian side (despite heaps of evidence around the people involved, origin and transport of the launcher from Russian territory). Even if Russian judges and prosecutors are completely corrupt and biased, an actual investigation/trial is the least that would be expected here…

Because the thread was about how shooting down a civilian airliner has consequences, and the person I replied to insinuated it didn't because Malaysia was ill-equipped to push the issue militarily. Which isn't relevant if the people who shot it down had no idea if it was / wasn't Malaysian. Similar to how cartels likely wouldn't have the sophistication to nationally ID any aerial targets they choose to shoot.

Makes sense! Misunderstood the point you were trying to make.

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

#607

Post by morpheuskafka »

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.

I don't mean that many people actively support them (in the US, my understand is in some areas they do have local support in Mexico, but anyway), but rather that this is not the forefront of most peoples minds, nor would people necessarily support any conceivable action against them. Moreover, many would criticize efforts against them as "failed war on drugs" and see it primarily in that lens absent any clear attack on US civilians not involved in the trade.

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

#608

Post by ben_w »

gsck wrote: post #272
ben_w wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't say much either way. I'm from the UK, we had the ("real") IRA put a RPG-22 anti-tank rocket at the walls of MI6 HQ (the UK version of the CIA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_MI6_attack Dangerous things like these are not expensive, compared to even low budget small-time group.

I mean the RIRA is a splinter group of the PIRA which had massive funding from overseas, especially from the United States. PIRA was not a small-time group.

I definitely phrased my comment badly; but to your point, it depends on the era. Here's the House of Commons estimate in 2002, I don't know how different it would have been in 2000: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmni...

(Table 1): RIRA Estimated running costs (per year) "£500,00", Estimated fundraising capacity (per year) "£5 million".

I'm assuming that's a typo missing a zero (i.e. should be half a million), not a typo substituting comma for decimal (i.e. five hundred quid). Even with 24 years of inflation, that spend does not suggest a big group to me.

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

#609

Post by eesmith »

_heimdall wrote: post #578
eesmith wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US hasn't declared war since World War II. I suspect Mexicans would view it as another Pancho Villa Expedition, which was also event where neither side declared war.

We declared war on drugs and on terror, maybe AIDs and Covid as well? Though you're right, we haven't declared war on another state since WWII despite being in multiple wars over that time.

I assumed when you wrote "war being declared" you meant in Constitutional sense which reserves to Congress the power to declare war.

Not in the metaphorical "war on poverty" sort of way.

FWIW, examples in addition to Maduro are Aguinaldo (Philippines), Noriega (Panama), Hussein (Iraq), and Aristide (Haiti).

(Technically speaking, the US didn't recognize Philippine independence so didn't consider Aguinaldo to be its president, but instead a rightful cession from the Kingdom of Spain due to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish–American War, where the US had made a formal declaration of war.)

(Also, the US says Aristide's departure was voluntary.)

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

#610

Post by ben_w »

RupertSalt wrote: post #592
pjc50 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a war with Mexico would be a pretext for interning everyone of "Mexican" ethnicity, citizen or otherwise, as was done to Japanese nationals.

[flagged]

From what I've seen in the news, and also in history books, and also from anecdotes from the family of a previous (American dual national) partner, I don't agree that Americans as a whole see the international border as "a bright line" nor "a defining point of jurisdictional change".

Some Americans may, I don't know how many, but definitely not Americans as a collective.

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