China Cracks Down On Terrorists... With Tiny Tiny Guns
July 15, 2008 - 9:25pm — bexI got these via a Boston.com article on the Olympics. Apparently, the Chinese military is doing all kinds of anti-terror drills prior to the Olympics. Not a bad idea, but a lot of critics claim its an unnecessary show-of-force just to intimidate those non-violent Tibetans, and make them stop walking around and asking for their country back. Some really good photos there, but this one is my favorite:
Clamped knees, elbow pads, and tiny, tiny guns.
dude... what's the goal here? Make the battle-hardened monks laugh hysterically until you run them over on your Segway? You had better hope that they don't thwart your plans by stepping up on a curb or something... The only thing more absurd would be backing up your police force with scary, autonomous, Anime robots.
whoops... spoke too soon...
ROFL nuff said
ROFL nuff said
what rick said...
A buddy of mine emailed the following:
I was involved in the security exercises leading up to the 1988 Seoul, Korea Olympics and they had some seriously hardcore preparations with some of the bravest, most well-trained special forces troops on planet earth . . . compared to that, the little Segway-riding paintball brigade is a bit comical, even without your commentary.
All Olympics require serious security preparation... but they usually do it behind the scenes to ensure that the focus of the Olympics is peaceful competition between countries. Instead, China decided to be ostentatious about their preparations... but it strikes westerners as more silly than scary. See the article for more photos...
Don't judge a book by 1/7th of its cover...
Looks like you homed in on two oddball photos out of fourteen. The other photos on boston.com look like they're working pretty hard. Maybe it's just a public relations dog-and-pony show, but remember that the purpose of a military is to be a credible threat.
Those "tiny guns" might shoot only rubber bullets for crowd control, or they might shoot real punch-a-hole-in-your-chest bullets, even if the firearms don't look frightening. Curbs might block a Segway, but they won't block bullets.
"...scary, autonomous, Anime robots..." almost sounds like a "they all look alike" kind of statement.
China has to walk a fine line here. On the one hand, they have the history of Tiananmen Square and the Tibetan protests pushing them to avoid looking like a nation of Dirty Harrys. On the other hand, they have a lot riding on these Olympics coming off without a hitch. Bureaucracies (arguably China is the world's largest bureaucracy) usually handle such dilemmas by behaving nonsensically.
"...it strikes westerners as more silly than scary..."
Only if you're one of those westerners who's oblivious to China's rising military and economic power.
not quite...
More than half of those photos looked pretty dang silly. Demonstrations of police cutting through metal bars? Synchronized attack formations with half the police facing the ground? Crowd control flame throwers? The firemen drills looked cool... other than that it just textbook Soviet-era military parades... you know, those things that scared people like 50 years ago... like an old "Frankenstein" movie.
So that makes 1 part cool, 7 parts silly, and 6 parts Stalin. Shake well, and serve on the internet...
"...scary, autonomous, Anime robots..." almost sounds like a "they all look alike" kind of statement.
Actually, its a statement about the big scary Anime robot in the background of the second photo... no word yet if its autonomous.
"Only if you're one of those westerners who's oblivious to China's rising military and economic power."
Oh, I'm quite aware of China's rising power, and I don't see it as necessarily bad... but I'm also well aware of Japan's current power, India's growing power, South East Asia's growing power, and the fundamentals of geopolitics. I wouldn't be surprised if Japan and Vietnam were checks against China's expansion, and it wouldn't take long for India to surpass China.
BTW, the Chinese are probably more worried about the Falun Gong and the Uighurs than the Tibetans. The Tibetans may protest, but the Uighurs have been known to blow things up... and the Uighurs are not likely to be impressed with this display. They probably find it sillier than I do.
Facing down a Segway
The first thing I though of when looking at that photo was the famous image of the lone democracy demonstrator facing down the tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Still, a tiny, silly-looking gun is a gun nevertheless, even when wielded by a guy who looks like he's desperate to find a restroom. Let's hope media attention and China's need for good PR will keep things on the cool side.
Speak of the devil...
Two weeks ago I said this:
BTW, the Chinese are probably more worried about the Falun Gong and the Uighurs than the Tibetans. The Tibetans may protest, but the Uighurs have been known to blow things up... and the Uighurs are not likely to be impressed with this display. They probably find it sillier than I do.
And today the Uighurs have killed 16 Chinese policemen...
I guess its time to step off the Segways and initiate plan B...
hahahahahahhahahaha
hahahahahahhahahaha
Post new comment