This always happens on mainstream news channels when they send a reporter to a war zone: every hand-held weapon is an 'assault rifle.' Every shoulder-fired weapons system is an 'RPG.' Every soldier has a machine gun. As a fervent student of modern military systems (and playing Call of Duty for hours and hours and hours on end), I've gotten a little frustrated and bemused with the 'establishment's' war reporting.
Enter Kevin Dawes (well, don't ACTUALLY enter him, or if you do, ask for permission first.)
From what I gather about the man, he's from San Diego, knows a fair bit about military hardware, is a wiseass of the highest order (this is a compliment) and by fair means or foul, made his way into Libya to document the situation on the ground. His conclusion, which seems to be shared by some of the Libyan resistance fighters he encounters, is that NATO is playing both sides of the conflict off of each other until someone secures the country's vital oil resources. I do not know if I necessarily believe this conclusion, but by virtue of him being on the ground he probably has more evidence for his opinions than I do for mine.
The real thing that stuck out for me, besides the fact that he somehow smuggled himself into Libya willingly, is his extensive knowledge and familiarity with weapons systems involved in the conflict. I watched a YouTube video of his where he is walking through a field looking for unexploded ordinance. He comes across a Grad rocket, part of a truck-borne rocket launch system. I was actually nervous when he bent down and touched the thing, and so was he.
"Good UXO (unexploded ordinance), Gooood UXO. Don't blow up!"
By the by, in Dawes' travels he comes across a bulldozer retrofitted with armor plate as a makeshift tank. He called it "Killdozer," and I don't think there's another bulldozer on earth I'd actually want to drive.
In this age of iReporting and individuals performing "guerrilla journalism" (I guess that's the proper term for that), it's nice to see the field of war reporting is getting some educated boots on the ground.
Here is Dawes' YouTube channel: His numbering system is a little confusing to me and I don't know the proper chronological order of his videos, but his account is priceless in documenting the conditions on the ground in a small section of the War in Libya.
I hope you find these videos as interesting and revealing as I did.
-J
PS: Kudos to Joshua Stanton at One Free Korea for first turning me on to this guy's videos.
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