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In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

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81–90 of 114 posts

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#81
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« what you want to read into it » I wanted to provide a counter point, or rather, a more balanced and self-conscious vision. As to your definition of what "third world" meant, that's not how I remember it (but I grew up in West Germany, and the GDR may have defined terms differently). The "third world", according to the Western definition, definitely were those countries that were poor (and also perceived as primitiv…

It's quite literally the "western definition" of Third World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World Do you think the Soviets would have called the US aligned countries " First World"? ;) The more 'correct' term for that modern/popular meaning of 3rd world is 'developing countries' (or in German "Entwicklungslaender"). But tbh, I have no idea when, how and why the transition from 'politically unaligned country' to…

The Soviet didn't use this numerical terminology usually, but rather a categorical/ideological distinct classifications:

- Socialist Countries (only the developed ones)

- Developed Capitalist Countries

- Developing Countries(Развивающиеся страны). (with a secondary subdivision for countries in a "non-capitalist path of development", a.k.a. non developed socialist countries)

In more ideologically charged contexts, the Developed Capitalist Countries could be called the Imperialist Camp.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#82

Lots of shady missile deals went down in West Asia/North Africa in the 60/70s. Somewhat related: Israel was collaborating with Iran on missile projects but allegedly planned to deceive them by providing outdated missiles while using Iranian funds to develop superior versions for themselves [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Flower

I read from somewhere that Italy, Libya and some South America country were developing missile programs together, too. Probably from a book about Fiat I think.

The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was part of a century long power struggle between France and Italy over influence of Libya. Italy had a good relationship with Gaddafi, to the detriment of French influence. Europeans and the US understood the motivation behind France's push to intervene and were reticent to get involved (because of the internecine spat, not out of concern for Libya), but France got the UK on their side by appealing to anger over the Lockerbie bombing. Combined with France making it explicitly clear they were demanding it be a NATO operation (France had only just recently joined NATO and were expecting a quid pro quo), the rest of NATO acquiesced, under protest by Italy, of course.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#83
post #53
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been enjoying the Firefox translate, but for some reason sometimes it doesn't show the option to engage it, and I have to fall back to running things through duck.ai Too shy to file a formal bug or let the cloud know what I'm OSINTing :-)

>for some reason sometimes it doesn't show the option to engage it The language detection definitely isn't 100%. On desktop there's always "Translate page" in the hamburger menu. On Android it's in the 3 dot menu, hidden behind "More".

>On desktop there's always "Translate page" in the hamburger menu.

Thanks, maybe I didn't look hard enough last time.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#84
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A more honest phrasing: “Bull was assassinated by Mossad to stop his work.” > action by Bull that 'caused' a reaction by Mossad" I object to the total abdication of responsibility for the “reaction”.

Murder. He was murdered. Let’s stop using nice words for it. It wasn’t a president.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#85
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read from somewhere that Italy, Libya and some South America country were developing missile programs together, too. Probably from a book about Fiat I think.

The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was part of a century long power struggle between France and Italy over influence of Libya. Italy had a good relationship with Gaddafi, to the detriment of French influence. Europeans and the US understood the motivation behind France's push to intervene and were reticent to get involved (because of the internecine spat, not out of concern for Libya), but France got the UK on their…

I've always found it so interesting that the history of France's colonial imperialism in Africa and Asia seems so underappreciated in comparison to how absolutely detrimental it has been to the world.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#86

If you want an interesting related story that's so incredible people wouldn't believe if it was a film plot, look up Otrag. Not the Wikipedia page, that only tells a fraction of the full story. There's a documentary floating around somewhere about their work in Zaire under Mobutu before they started building ballistic missiles for Gaddafi.

Both cases remind me of Project Harp ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP ). After the project was shut down by the US and Canada, the engineer behind it (Gerald Bull) decided to work for Saddam Hussein to build a "Babylon Cannon" which then caused Mossad to 'intervene' in 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull I wonder how many similar but unknown cases there are involving former Soviet scientists a…

the fact you all dropping one operation after another, and the top HN story now about Ai just being better at remembering... kinda explains why Tata, and it's reboot, grok, went Mecha Hitler.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#87
post #35

[flagged]

What is going on with your account? Years of barely posting, and now lots of poor English highly controversial posts. Is this a sock puppet account?

It was probably compromised by credential stuffing.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#88
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was part of a century long power struggle between France and Italy over influence of Libya. Italy had a good relationship with Gaddafi, to the detriment of French influence. Europeans and the US understood the motivation behind France's push to intervene and were reticent to get involved (because of the internecine spat, not out of concern for Libya), but France got the UK on their…

I've always found it so interesting that the history of France's colonial imperialism in Africa and Asia seems so underappreciated in comparison to how absolutely detrimental it has been to the world.

Yeah. I first learned about France's ongoing imperialist ambitions in Africa reading the famous book on the Rwandan genocide, and ever since then French military involvement in seemingly random places in Africa stands out. I don't think any European country (except maybe Russia), or even the US, has maintained such a broad, cohesive, continuous imperial policy. Maybe it's well known to French people, and Europeans who follow politics, but I think for the rest of the world it's completely hidden.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#89
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found it so interesting that the history of France's colonial imperialism in Africa and Asia seems so underappreciated in comparison to how absolutely detrimental it has been to the world.

Yeah. I first learned about France's ongoing imperialist ambitions in Africa reading the famous book on the Rwandan genocide, and ever since then French military involvement in seemingly random places in Africa stands out. I don't think any European country (except maybe Russia), or even the US, has maintained such a broad, cohesive, continuous imperial policy. Maybe it's well known to French people, and Europeans wh…

France's actions in Africa were horrendous, but let's also not forget Asia. The Vietnam War was born out of the French Indochina War and France used anticommunist rhetoric to gain US support for its war against the Viet Minh.

While it would be unfair to say that America's actions in Vietnam were the fault of the French, there was certainly French encouragement if not outright manipulation.

Re: In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

#90
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I first learned about France's ongoing imperialist ambitions in Africa reading the famous book on the Rwandan genocide, and ever since then French military involvement in seemingly random places in Africa stands out. I don't think any European country (except maybe Russia), or even the US, has maintained such a broad, cohesive, continuous imperial policy. Maybe it's well known to French people, and Europeans wh…

France's actions in Africa were horrendous, but let's also not forget Asia. The Vietnam War was born out of the French Indochina War and France used anticommunist rhetoric to gain US support for its war against the Viet Minh. While it would be unfair to say that America's actions in Vietnam were the fault of the French, there was certainly French encouragement if not outright manipulation.

Somebody here on HN told me once that France is the stupidest colonial power, because even though they had the most powerful army and one of the most powerful navies in Europe for a long time, they haven't been able to utilize them optimally, and have only lost more than they gained in their colonial ventures.

I tend to agree. Even now the French can't maintain a cohesive relationship with their client states, which is why they've lost influence severely in the Sahel. They just didn't know when to be cohesive and how to be extractive.

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