Thursday, January 11th, 2007
Something to think about…
Oops, I did it again - went on a lengthy hiatus between posts. This time, however, I have no excuse. But I’m back.
And so Dear Leader, as expected, announced his "Surge!!!™" Option to solve the Iraqi mess that he created.
It’s not enough to note that apparent Basic Civics failure Tony Snow, in his press briefing before tonight’s speech, said "The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way." (h/t The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur via The News Blog)
It’s not enough to note that hours before Dear Leader had even mispronounced word one of his speech, an advance detachment from the 82nd Airborne was already arriving in Baghdad to start this "Surge™."
It’s not enough to note the saber-rattling vis a vis Iran and Syria in Dear Leader’s speech tonight. (Bonus, The General’s "map" is a tour de force of "It would be funny if it weren’t so true" a representation of the Malkinite mentality that premeates places like LGF, FreeRepublic, RedState, etc. etc. etc.).
No, there is one other factor we must consider in the analysis of the "Surge!!!™" Option - a story that received little attention in the over-hyped runup to Dear Leader’s Glorious Speech About How He Will Single-Handedly Save Iraq With One Hand Tied Behind His Back. File this under "GOP Screws The Troops: Case # 666-269-π."
NBC’s Lisa Myers reports of an Israeli-developed anti-RPG system code-named "Trophy." According to the report:
Trophy works by scanning all directions and automatically detecting when an RPG is launched. The system then fires an interceptor — traveling hundreds of miles a minute — that destroys the RPG safely away from the vehicle.
Given the heavy favoring of RPGs by Taliban ambushers in Afghanistan and Sunni and Shia insurgents in Iraq, you’d think that developing such a system would be among the DoD’s top priorities. In fact, the Office of Force Transformation agreed. The Rumsfeld-created in-house think-tank subjected Trophy to 30 tests, and reported that it was "more than 98% effective" in safely destroying incoming RPGS, according to Myers’ investigation. Yet look at all the dithering and stonewalling done by the Army itself in the article.
The excuses provided:
Trophy is "not ready" for field testing. Survey says…….. BZZZZZZT!!!!!!
That claim, however, is disputed by other Pentagon officials as well as internal documents obtained by NBC News. In an e-mail, a senior official writes: “Trophy is a system that is ready — today… We need to get this capability into the hands of our warfighters ASAP because: (1) It will save lives!”
Officials also tell NBC News that according to the Pentagon’s own method of measuring a weapons system’s readiness, Trophy is “between a 7 and an 8” out of a possible score of 9.
Israel itself has yet to integrate Trophy into it’s armored units. Sorry, but the computer says no…
To check out the Army’s claims, we went back to Israel. We found that the Israeli military has indeed begun to integrate and field Trophy on tanks, buying at least 100 systems.
"From the standpoint of providing 360-degree coverage, we have issues," [Maj. Gen. Jeffrey] Sorenson told the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 21, 2006. How about "no?"
What does [Israeli Brig. Gen Amir] Nir say? Will Trophy be able to engage targets from all directions? "Yeah, 360 degrees," he says.
Trophy does not have a means of automatically loading replacement ammo, possibly putting troops in harms way in order to manually reload. Nyet.
Col. Didi Ben Yoash, a reservist in the Israeli Defense Forces who works for Rafael, showed us one.
"Absolutely, this is an autoloader," he said.
Gen. Nir also confimed to NBC that "the full system provides you the ability to reload automatically."
Even a successful interception by Trophy increases the risks to troops. Seriously, you’re kidding, right?
What is the Israeli army’s view of how much additional risk there is to the troops?
"As far as we tested, it added at most 1 percent," says Nir. "Not a significant risk."
With all of the Army’s objections shredded, what then is the reason they are so dead set against deploying Trophy, to the point of forcing testers to borrow Israeli armor for tests (at great taxpayer expense) and threatening the careers of Navy engineers promoting Trophy?
Enter Raytheon. The defense contracting giant is developing an anti-RPG system from scratch (whereas Trophy rated 7 or 8 out of a possible 9 in readiness by the Pentagon’s own standards, the Raytheon system currently stands at a dismal 3). The system (currently) costs $160 billion to develop, and was originally projected to be ready in 2011, though Raytheon won’t say whether or not they’re on target to make the promised 2011 deployment date (I’d bet on the answer being NO).
Once again, when it comes to a GOP-run government, the profit margins of their special interest slush-fund buddies come first, second, third, fourth and fifth, while our troops come dead last. And yet, somehow only "libruls" hate the troops.
