It Could Happen Here - How Are Kurdistan’s Freedom Guerrillas Shooting Down Drones?

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Mia and James discuss the recent release of videos showing the HPG shooting down Turkish drones, as well as the arrival of MANPADS in Myanmar.  https://gerilla.tv//newroz-piroz-be-20_mart_2024_696b1e257.html  https://www.ciedcoe.org/index.php/reports/technical-reports/197-0011-20161222-report-improvised-batteries-for-manpads-v2/file See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

It's a show where I but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, James, just introducing this podcast. I'm recording this the day after we recorded the episode. So today is Thursday, the 21st of March. I wanted to just update a couple of things and correct a couple of things. So I've just listened through the episode. So I'm going to do that now. Firstly, I think I said Igla a couple of times when I meant Strela. It's a Strela portable surface-to-air missiles that have been refitted with new batteries in the Syrian Civil

War specifically. And I've included a link to a document new batteries in the syrian civil war specifically and i've included a link to a document about that in the show notes um so apologies for getting those two things confused they're both i guess former soviet service to air missile systems uh the other things i wanted to mention are that a few like throughout this episode we've used man pads right uh that's kind of the colloquial term or the the official term really uh for person portable anti-aircraft systems like it obviously doesn't mean that you have to be a man to use one certainly like the fact that the hpg are using them and that the kurdish freedom movement are using them obviously women can use them non-binary folks can use them too everyone can use them and finally i just wanted to mention that there have been some suggestions that the uh

the thing that was used to shoot down the bay ragtars was like loitering munition which is something that is often called a suicide drone in this case it's not a loitering munition that impacts something on the ground but impacts something on the air there's an iranian system uh that does that but apparently it's possible to replicate that with a large number that impacts something on the ground but impacts something on the air there's an Iranian system that does that but apparently it's possible to replicate that with a large number of off-the-shelf or sort of commercially available pieces so maybe that's what's going on and this episode was a little bit speculative and we still don't have lots of hard answers but we hope you'll enjoy it because it it represents a change in the relationship between the state and people who are

not the state and that's why it's important okay hope you enjoy hello podcast fans welcome back to the podcast i'm joined today by my friend mia hi mia hello and we are talking about of course uh surface to air missiles a topic that i'm sure is at the top of mind for all of you as you drive to work this morning why are we talking about surface toto-air missiles today? Well, today is Wednesday, the 20th of March. And today, I'm sure maybe some of you would have seen, most of you probably will not as you go about your daily lives, that the KCK, the KCK is the group, the Kurdistan Communities Union, the joint group um the Kurdistan communities union the joint group between the various groups in the different parts of Kurdistan right so you have the PKK you have the um in Syria PKK in Turkey right the PJAK in Iran and the KSK like brings all these groups together do they is there a name

do they is there like an Iraqi branch that's the one that i don't know you have the yebishe the um the azidi group right yeah but it's really kurdish one i i think everyone i will reconsider my statement the people who i have become aware of who are in iraq who who are who i know about journalistically are uh kck people okay uh little little bit of uh smoke mirrors for you there but yeah the people the people who i who i know who are in uh in the kurdistan autonomous region uh are kck so i think that i think most of the the sort of people within the the greater like Kurdish freedom movement, the Apochi people, the KCK within Iraq,

it is in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. So like Iraq in a technical sense, but only really in a technical sense. Like when you go to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, you don't even do Iraqi immigration. You do Kurdistan immigration, which is nice because it's a lot easier. I was there in October of 2023. And since February of 2023, the KCK have announced they have shut down 13 Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, which you and I would call drones.

And we're not talking about drones like your friend friend has a drone and and they use it to film you at the beach drones we're talking about like bayraktar drones which are it's an aircraft right like if you saw one you would be like oh there goes a plane yeah it's like it's like the turkish version of the predator drones yes uses yeah yeah it's uh it's yeah it's a very similar thing it's a very popular drone system, actually. They've sold Bayraktars to, I think, dozens of countries. Yeah. I mean, most...

See them all over. Yeah. 31 countries that they've exported the Bayraktar to. So they're very widely used. They're kind of the sort of drone of choice for people who are just buying on the open market, right? Qatar uses them. Ukraine uses them a lot. But even countries like i'm looking here burkina faso has

has uh byroctas so what's notable about this is they've also shut down akinjis akinjis are like the newer byrocta variant they're they make a slightly different noise i've spent some time in places that are being attacked by drones over the last year, and it's a highly unpleasant experience. But people who are used to this, which I am, I guess, thankfully not, will tell you that they can tell the difference by the noise that these drones make. But there was the Akinchi, for instance, I believe it was an Akinchi that did some of the attacks. And I was unfortunate enough to be nearby

when I was in Rojava in October. So what's notable about this is like the KCK, obviously like they're a non-state actor, right? Because there is not a Kurdish state. There is a Kurdish nation, one might argue, but it's split between four states, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. And so them being able to shoot down drones is quite remarkable. Yeah, none of the non-state actors really in the last 20 years have been able to do this.

Everyone talks about how advanced ISIS's capabilities were for a non-state actor, and they were but they couldn't do it like it's wild no like houthis have shut down some reaper drones yeah but but they're but they're a state like that's the thing like they have huge swaths of the regular yemeni military are just like yeah and they're supplied by other state actors right like very clearly so it's a little different what yeah it's this is relatively remarkable right that they've been able to shoot down like and not just it's not just like oh we got lucky uh we got we got lucky and dropped a single drone isis had if i remember correctly isis had some Igla manpads, like the old Russian manpads.

The thing with those, and we're going to talk about this a little bit later, they have a battery and that battery will run out. Some of them are just being sold on the black market without batteries, from what I've seen. from what i've seen some folks in that we've seen in the civil war in syria have worked out how to somehow make that battery work with with or make another battery or make another electronic system for them they don't have like a lockout right they don't have a like we've detected that you know like like your iphone will sometimes get mad if you're using a third-party charger yeah yeah yeah right so tim apple has was not involved in the design of the nk38 igla uh most most of pity uh and so he wasn't able to engineer a third party lockout um but those have been repurposed but yeah we did not see the islamic state of iraq and al-sham dropping

u.s drones in fact the reason like the thing that allowed there were two things that allowed the defeat of uh like the so-called islamic state right one the heroism of the people who fought against them uh be they like iraqi kurdish you know a lot of people fought against the 15 000 kurds died fighting isis but also the fact that the u.s had complete air dominance and could just fucking obliterate things from the sky whenever it wanted to it did it did a lot it did a lot of obliterating things from the sky right and so the ability to shoot down drones is something that like it has been very hard for for non-state actors and it's not like like it's not like the the kck has a state sponsor right yeah yeah also so like

like for example like hezbollah has shot down to although these weren't actually they shot down to hermes like israeli hermes drone so those are just those are surveillance uh things but the thing is like hezbollah did this by getting surface air missiles like getting surface air rockets from iran yeah sure yeah that's like that's like you know the way that you can do this is if either like iran the u.s i guess technically china and or and or russia like hand you them but if but if none of those four countries are willing to play ball or i mean i guess technically the uk i guess or like france could send you one. But it's really, really... I don't think any non-state actor

who wasn't being just directly armed by one of those states has pulled it off. No. The other non-state actor who I've seen with man pads very recently are the Karen, the Karen National Liberal, the KNLA. The KNLA have been putting out these pictures. This is a this in Myanmar.

Yes, this is in Myanmar for so for folks who haven't listened to our previous Myanmar episodes, go and listen to them. But yeah, there's some of the work I'm proudest of. But these KNLA guys have these photos have come out that then they're not not posed photos, right?'s very clearly they wanted these photos to come out and it shows them with these man pad system i'm actually not sure if it's a strela or a chinese i think it's called the hn5 in chinese it's essentially the same thing but they have the grip stock for them but they don't have the coolant ball and the battery at the front so like they're what they have is a fancy looking

doesn't appear to my eyes to be uh like fully functional like in terms of tracking and shooting down an airplane although i have seen footage uh from friends of hunter aircraft deploying like flares over current state and then like turning around and leaving so uh perhaps there's something i'm missing here like like it's entirely possible that like when they decided for these photos to come out they they're in a certain fashion and like those guys have engineered an entire arms industry of their own using reddit and aliexpress like i if anybody can make something work they can make something work i uh i have great faith in their ingenuity and as i said like it's people in syria have previously made systems like this work they're not they don't have that lockout so it's

quite possible that they did but i've not seen a video of anyone in myanmar shooting down uh and any kind of aircraft yet, right? The Russian aircraft. They have shot down aircraft. Allegedly someone shot one down with a grenade launcher, a single shot grenade launcher. Yeah, I saw that video. Yeah, it's one of the most jadly things anyone's ever done uh it's uh it's some like modern warfare or whatever whatever the computer game is called uh battlefield that's what it's called uh yeah talking of uh talking of uh chadly and exciting stuff then this might be an advert for like being a prison guard or

something exciting that we have to to introduce now okay don't don't be a prison guard. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after

a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real inspiring stories from the people, you know, follow and admire join me every week for post run high. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to post run high on the I heart radio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled

with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second you get your podcast. hinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real

people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. All right, and we're back. I hope you found gainful employment elsewhere outside of the carceral system and uh we're talking about surface-to-air missiles particularly these 13 surface-to-air missiles or 13 drones that the uh the kck have shut down right one thing i thought

that was noticeable is that they did say missiles they are people were able to provide the missile system necessary that so like there's a theory that i've seen that um that they were able to to crash a drone of their own into into a bayraktar like a um kind of i guess like a suicide I don't like the word suicide drone because it's not the drone that's dying like normally when people talk about suicide drones they're killing people yeah but like a ramming drone yeah yeah yeah like a like a it's like robot wars but they said missile in their press release so So, you know, if we take that on the face of it, that suggests that they shot them down.

Certainly, there is good video evidence of these. Mia and I just reviewed the video. Incredible soundtrack. We'll link to it in the show notes. In the videos, you very clearly see, oh, it's a drone. drone oh it's a huge explosion that uh that gravity is now having its effect on this drone like it is plummeting to earth yeah like it's it's definitely not a like we fired a machine gun in the air and it hit it somehow or

something like it's right it got hit by an explosive yeah that's remarkable yeah one of the uh there was a shooting down of an aircraft in myanmar it wasn't one of their migs i forgot what it might have been it was a two-seater training plane i can't remember quite what it was but that was shot down supposedly by small arms fire uh or maybe like a generally the like the air defense of most non-state armed groups has been dushkas right like a um it's the thing that you've seen in the back of a pickup truck uh going like bang bang bang bang bang bang with a big sort of spade grip it's a classic uh like technical gun but this isn't that like this is something very different something they're they're exploding when these drones get hit they're exploding

and they've all been in i think oh yeah all of them are in areas of the what we call the kurdistan autonomous region of iraq right um so some of them are in zap which is near to hawk but towards um north of there uh some of them in the kandil mountains which is part of the zagros mountain range again uh it's it's in the north of that kurdistan autonomous region and i think some of them are in it i think it's gare it's pronounced but they're not in like i think obviously when a lot of people think about the kurdistan freedom movement and think about rojava this isn't there the u.s did shoot down a bayraktar or an akinchi over Rojava while I was there,

but they only shot it down because it flew over their base. They continued to let the Bayraktars bomb civilian infrastructure all over the ANES. So these are not there. So perhaps whatever they're using, it's very interesting, right? Maybe it's not something they can take there or maybe it's not you know like it's not they're not able to get it out of the mountains it's too much of a risk no it's it's interesting i mean for a number of reasons well yeah partially that they're not using it in syria partially they're also they don't seem to be using them in turkey either no it's interesting when they take

off it's not that like subtle right it's a big a big aircraft so they'll get some warning when they take off and that will allow them i guess to prepare their munitions but yeah they don't seem to be using it um they seem to be using it in like in this this area whether they're very strong right whether these mountains are extremely fortified. They've been fighting Turkey there a lot in recent days and weeks. You can always, I mean, obviously, you're going to see some somewhat traumatic combat footage, but guerrilla TV always has like updates on these things.

So that's the sort of thing that you like to keep up to date with. But yeah, they're not using them there. They're not using them. They're very close to turkey right but yeah not not quite in and turkish soldiers do occupy some areas inside uh the iraqi uh kurdistan autonomous region so like a it's kind of all uh and turkey seems to be kind of trying to ramp up its operations against the Kurdistan Freedom Movement inside the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. But this is a significant impediment to that, right? It's also very interesting that, like, we have not heard shit about this from Turkey. No, yeah.

Well, and I think part of this is, you know, like, I think in some sense that's an indication of how serious this is. is you know like i i think in some sense that's an indication of how serious this is because i mean this has been you know the law of the 21st century is that if you are a state actor you have unlimited air superiority over any non-state group you're bombing and you can you know especially like especially if you're like the u.s you can send bombers or drones into like any country you want and you can bomb them yeah and that has been true that and this this has been the basis of u.s military power it's also been the basis of a lot of like you know the turkey obviously doesn't have the same air doctrine as the u.s does but like that's been the basis of a lot of turkish operations that they like they're the people who have air power and because they

have air power because they have drones and because you can't shoot back at them they can do whatever the fuck they want yeah like i've been in the situation where you are completely powerless and very afraid because at some point something could fall out the night sky and kill you and there's fuck all you can do about it and yeah yeah that has been the the way of the world like you say for this entire century, right? It's what we've seen in Myanmar. Uh, the pro-democracy forces are gaining ground every day. They're doing an incredible job, but like, I've also talked to people whose

whole unit has been wiped out and they've hidden under the dead bodies of their friends because there's a plane or a helicopter circling around, um, and it's the one area where they've really struggled to to defend themselves right it's yeah i'm writing a book about anarchists at war uh eventually i will publish that book but this is the thing that defines like the benefit like the state even when the state like loses its monopoly on legitimate violence it still has a monopoly on airborne violence and uh the questioning that monopoly like is is is incredibly dangerous for the state's ability to uh for the state i guess in general like for for its continued ability to to crush movements be they liberatory or be they otherwise

right and we can yeah i mean this is something i i think is really interesting this is something that's been a fear of i mean everyone from like western intelligence people through like i mean you can see people in like hollywood freaking out about this like like rebel group gets access to a man pad is like one of the most common like spy show plots yeah and yeah it's like it's something that you know you can you can you can listen to like the u.s military talking about this is this is something that they're really concerned about yeah they won't like it's there where it's where they draw the line with the groups who are quote-unquote allies right who'll be quite like the u.s will tell you that the sdf are their allies in the fight against isis but they're willing to let their allies die

rather than give them man pads right like i've seen this i have i've seen the funerals you know because the and the u.s but i've also driven right past the fucking u.s base and i know that there are plenty of plenty of plenty of anti-aircraft systems there because they shot down a turkish drone while i was there but they're not willing willing to give them to even the people who they'll fight side by side with, because their fear of having manpads get into what they would maybe term the wrong hands is, yeah, it's like the one area where they have, I guess, complete domination, right? They've given them to Ukraine, of course. But despite repeated allegations, there is no evidence that Ukraine has sold surface-to-air systems anywhere.

And they obviously won't give them to Myanmar, right? So if this is what it appears to be, then it's a really massive change. Talking of a massive change, you could make a massive change to your financial situation by purchasing gold. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their

journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game.

If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs

and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again,

a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly

of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to the leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. We're back. the sort of man pad getting to non-state actors has talked about is that usually the way that it's like usually the u.s line on it is like we like we can't let anyone get these because they're going to use it to shoot down civilian airliners yes yeah and now to be fair people do accidentally shoot down like militaries accidentally shoot down civilian airliners all the time yeah that's a very common thing but i i think i think that's that's a smokescreen right because like even like the actual thing that if you're if you're a militant group usually the thing that you want to be doing if you have one

of these weapons is is shooting down the things the people who are bombing you yeah and i think there's a really interesting sort of like psychological thing going on here where this is this is the sort of propaganda thing that that you know to get to get like you random person to be terrified of like you know the kurds having surface-to-air missiles is they use like they use people's like fear of getting blown up in an airplane it's like no no like look at like you know evidence suggests that what is actually what actually happens that these is that they shoot down drones. Yeah, yes, exactly. And not like the other thing, which is somewhat remarkable,

it would be one thing to have got your hands on one or two, but to have been, to have shot down in a one year, well, just over one year from February the 13th, 2023, until March the 1st, 2024, they have shot down 15 UAVss like that that's a that's a decent number of man pad or maybe not man pads that's the other thing we kind of didn't mention right like uh bay can fly very high we were just sort of checking this out before the show and i think they can fly around 7 000 meters which would in theory put the outside 20 i got 20 000 25 000 feet 25 000 feet yeah which is about twice the uh like the the height previous generation man pads like things like stingers and igloos can uh can operate at i'm not sure if the uh the what the for for an igloo uh reach targets the maximum

altitude of 2500 meters so yeah that's a little under as high as these as these like attack drones can fly maybe they have to come lower to like launch their munitions or maybe they come lower to uh to search for people um because they're presumably looking for uh the kurdistan freedom movement has gorillas all over these mountains right here extremely well camouflaged and extremely adept at avoiding drone attacks because that is what they have been doing for for a long time so maybe that's how but also maybe maybe there's something that that we're not aware of or some kind of maybe it's not a man portable system at all maybe it's something that yeah it's like fixed in place well and that and that comes to i think one of the one of the really interesting questions here which is how on earth did they get these yeah like whatever system they're using you know normally

like the the only way like you know like hezbollah or the houthis get them from iran right but the iranians are absolutely like under no circumstances are they going i mean maybe if turkey declared war on iran there's like a 5% chance, maybe in like their darkest hour, they might try this. But like, there's no way. Yeah, like Iraq and Iran have repeatedly attempted to mobilize the Kurds against each other, right?

But yeah, I think that they would draw the line at handing over manpads. Yeah, and they're definitely not getting them from the US. No, and they're not using them in areas where they're with the US. And the u.s no and they're not using them in areas where they're with the u.s and the u.s yeah been very clear he's like like you know it's definitely not i don't think it's any other western country either like it doesn't make any sense like i mean maybe like based sweden smuggling manpads in or something but like i i really doubt it which leaves it really like up in the air i mean like maybe russia maybe somehow i don't know it's it's it's all very weird yeah and i mean like in recent months the asad regime which

is backed by russia has been an open conflict with the uh the sdf so i think I think it's very unlikely. The Assad regime has been fighting with and killing and dying with YPG and YPJ in Syria. So it seems very unlikely. Yeah, that's what's very strange. There seem to be a couple of different groups of people, right? The Karen have popped up with these previous generation, these Igla kind of manpads. The Kachin have shot down a lot of planes recently, and it's not entirely clear how. So the Kachin are another ethnic group in Myanmar, somewhat closer ties to the PRC. The United Wai State Army have manpads. They are the sort of closest tied to the PRC of the EROs in Myanmar.

I'm using a lot of acronyms here, aren't I? Yeah, this is the problem. We're talking about Kurdish groups and also talking about Kurds in Myanmar. It's really the two great acronym-like wars. Don't be overlooking the Spanish Civil War, the alphabet soup of conflicts. Yeah, this is a life I've chosen for myself. So yeah, the ethnic revolutionary organizations in myanmar uh the the closest to to china it's the united wire state army who have been at the fringes of the conflict but certainly not fully committed to fighting

against the junta in the same way that the karen the kachin the arakan army the pdf for the other groups that form up the the resistance in burma or myanmar um but there have definitely been more planes shot down in myanmar this year than in the in the the last few years so there's it perhaps there's some kind of source in the world for these uh surface to our missiles like there will come a point in in the human future these surface-to-air missiles. There will come a point in the human future when one of these is either reverse-engineered or someone just really... If someone had said to you 10 years ago that several people online,

some of whom I've spoken to, some of whom our friend Jake Hammer had spoken to, would be able to construct a gun that you could print from your computer, you'd have said you're barking right like uh and at some point in in the human future someone will work out how to use things they already have to make something that can shoot down aircraft but it yeah it's

baffling like there seems to be no obvious answer as to where what the source of these the um the last thing i would say is that there was a yakuza boss yeah yeah this guy legend he's just like yeah he it like this man's my man's done nothing wrong uh he was convicted of uh selling trying to sell man pads to the karen and i think to the kachin um i can't remember if it's definitely one of them of them with the Karen. And he was trying to do so. Very funny. He was calling them cake and ice cream. Incredibly good cipher. It's a hell of a, it's a banger of an indictment.

Everyone should read it. Takeshi, I forget what his last name was. But he was trying to sell them man pads. And what he was actually doing was being monitored by the DEA, but the man pads that he thought that he had access to were fictional. It was the feds who had conned him into thinking they had man pads. They did have some AT-4s. He met them in the Netherlands,

took an incredible selfie with a light anti-tank weapon um you can look it up leather jacket like i think he's got blue aviators on uh like my man's been arrested for having incredible trip um and it's very sad but uh yeah the manpads he thought he was selling were fictional but the fact that people were like yeah this seems reasonable uh like that people were like okay we're prepared to enter to deal with you they weren't like what are you on about suggests that maybe these things are uh entering the market people will always say that they came from afghanistan like after the u.s left um but i don't think the taliban would have any reason to sell them they're

getting bombed by pakistan right now like well yeah yeah it doesn't seem it doesn't make sense to me that that that they would sell them yeah and i one thing i should also mention is like every single time there is a war anywhere in the world there are a trillion rumors that come out that like oh there's like this guy is selling like x weapons or whatever and it's like 99 of them are false yeah yeah yeah you hear this all the time and it's never true yeah so that makes it really hard to sort out like where these things are coming from yeah exactly friend of the podcast uh victor boot is uh he's free again he's back maybe maybe he's gotten back on yeah maybe the god of war is uh is back baby

that would be incredible there would be an incredible narrative arc for victor boot uh but like as we said in that episode right like uh it's very easy to point like to victor boot as being this evil guy but in fact like we've sold a shit ton of weapons to people who turn out to be pretty pretty uncivil as the united states uh a lot more people working you know all the other places that have offices in san diego made a lot more money than he did selling weapons to people so we you know we ought to be uh you know pot calling the kettle back a bit there but clearly uh something is up with surface-to-air missiles i hope this makes your spring break flights more exciting. It just gives it a little edge as you take off. Don't fly in Turkey.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. Our tip is to not fly from, not land, I guess. I mean, like we said, the KCK ain't going to shoot down your civilian plane. They're nice people. I'll just say the KCK, in my experience, have been very nice, nice very forthcoming extremely communicative and responsive to press requests which like much more so than a lot of other state actors and I don't think you have any worries about them shooting down your aircraft but it's an interesting development that like yeah will fundamentally challenge the way that states are able to squash non-state armed groups going forward yeah and if if we if if we figure out where they got them from and that becomes public

i will you'll you'll see the next episode called we found out where the bad pads are from yeah yeah um i think in all likelihood it's in no one's interest to announce where these are from. And I don't think, you know, the ones in Myanmar, it's not inconceivable that they came either directly or indirectly from China.

Yeah. And certainly that would be the most feasible. But seeing them elsewhere, it's fascinating. Like, it's, you know, if somebody has, like, either reverse engineered these

or there's a large number of them available on the black market, like, that would be a sea change in the way conflict happens right like it you know israel right now is able to bomb palestine with complete impunity if non-state armed groups had access to man pads there that maybe wouldn't be the case but yeah it's a change it's a change in the way the world goes to war. I think it's always interesting. It's always interesting. Like for a podcast that was built on speculative fiction about future collapses, like this certainly is something that challenges the monopoly of the state. So yeah, it's something to keep an eye on. I will

attach in the notes, the guerrilla TV video of the Bayraktars being shut down. Please enjoy the soundtrack. Yeah, it's banger. Um, and we'll also include some links to those videos of the Karen, uh, national liberation army with their man pads. If you're a man pads understander, you know, you know where to find me. It's all over the internet. Uh, um, yeah, with that, I will leave you. Have a great weekend. Don't fly your Cessnas. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite

and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.

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