THERE YOU GO AGAIN!!!
GETTING DOWN
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DO YOU BELIEVE PRESIDENT BUSH
Last night President Bush spoke to the nation on his plan TO MOVE FORWARD. Do you agree with his assessment of the situation in Iraq or not?
Will this help or will it just mean more American Troops being killed?
People a lot smarter than me seem to think it won't work. Some say there are not enough troops being added. Other say we need to get out.
REMEMBER THIS?
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Keith Olbermann lays out the lead up to the WAR in IRAQ and the aftermath.
WHY NO ANTI-RPG WEAPON
Israel field-tests effective anti-RPG weapon so why isn't the U.S. Army doing the same?
In September, NBC News first reported on a fierce debate within the Pentagon over an Israeli-made system that shoots rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) out of the sky. The Army seems intent on killing the system, but officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense believe it can save American lives.
Over the last three years, U.S. commanders in Iraq have issued a series of urgent pleas for a system to counter RPGs - a favorite weapon of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation (OFT) scoured the world for a solution and thought it found one in "Trophy," which was developed over the last decade in Israel.
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.
OFT subjected Trophy to 30 tests and found it is "more than 98 percent" effective at killing RPGs. Officials then made plans to battle-test the system on some Stryker fighting vehicles headed to Iraq this year.
But the U.S. Army blocked that testing. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News - and internal Army documents seem to confirm - that Army officials consider Trophy a threat to their crown jewel, the $160 billion Future Combat System (FCS). Under FCS, the Army is paying Raytheon Co. $70 million to build an RPG-defense system from scratch.
"The Army is opposed to deploying a system before we assure that it's safe, effective, suitable and supportable," said Col. Donald Kotchman. "Trophy is not there yet."
In letters to Congress since our first reports, the Army says that the best proof Trophy is not ready is that the "Israeli Defense Forces have yet to integrate and field Trophy."
Brig. Gen. Amir Nir leads that effort. We asked him about claims that Trophy has not been sufficiently tested and that it's not ready to be deployed.
"It's the most mature, and it can do the job," he said. "We cannot afford waiting for the next generation."
Can Trophy handle attacks from every direction?
What does Nir say? Will Trophy be able to engage targets from all directions? "Yeah, 360 degrees," he says.
Can Trophy reload automatically? We went to Trophy's manufacturer, Rafael, to see if there is an autoloader.
"Absolutely, this is an autoloader," he said.
What's the risk to troops when Trophy intercepts an RPG?
"As far as we tested, it added at most 1 percent," says Nir. "Not a significant risk."
The Army did give us two statements, one saying, in part: "The U.S. Army is dedicated to ensuring our soldiers deploy with the best force protection capability" and is working on a system to counter RPGs.
When will that system, being built by Raytheon, be ready?
The Army previously told us it could get it to the troops in four years, by 2011, but now declines to say whether it still is on course to meet that deadline.
-- Lisa Myers & the NBC News Investigative Unit
This resistance needs to be investigated. Our troops are dying while the Pentagon is trying to protect a big time contractor.
THE K STREET PROJECT
Are you as surprised as I am to hear that former (R-PA) Sen. Rick Santorum will soon become a lobbyist.
Now, Pennsylvania voters tossed him out of office in part because of his role heading up the GOP effort to plug Republican lobbyists up with serious corporate cash, a chunk of which went to Republican campaign coffers. The "K Street Project," it was called. Named after the street on which it appears Santorum will soon be working. -- http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
I'M TOTALLY SURPRISED.
WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
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Keith Olbermann picks the three worst persons in the world.
PRETTY GOOD JOKES
PAPER CUTS
BOOKS YOU WILL NEVER FIND IN A BOOKSTORE
How To Get a Tan With a Flashlight
How To Get Back From Boston
How To Give a King a Really Hard Time
How To Give People Your Best Regards
How To Give Yourself a Complete Physical Without Getting Undressed
How To Kill a Rat With an Oboe
How To Kill Your Nephew
How To Lease Out the Space Inside Your Nose
How To Organize a Tupperware Gang-Bang
How To Seem Intelligent
Posted by thebscorner at January 11, 2007 05:47 AM
