Sunday, June 24, 2007

Why Do We Have a "Defense Department"?







Why do we spend 3/4 of a trillion dollars a year
on "defense"? Who are the enemies? To quote Larry Gelbart's 70's sitcom M*A*S*H: " Have you ever seen a General in an unemployment line?" Why not? If you don't have a real enemy,


you must manufacture one - Al Qaeda. Are people stupid? Do we really believe in the bogey man in a cave (Bin Laden) as need to justify having a standing army and outrageous military spending?





General Dyanimics CEO: (thanks to Nico Haupt for research)






PA

Postal Workers Taking Part In Bio-Terror Drill
http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_175095900.html

AP) PHILADELPHIA Postal workers will be delivering in Philadelphia Sunday, but don’t look for bills and letters. The deliveries are part of a bio-terror drill.The exercise will test how well postal carriers can deliver simulated boxes of medication to the public in case of an emergency.Mail carriers will deliver 55,000 boxes to parts of Germantown, Fairmount and Mayfair. The boxes will not contain actual medication, just instructions that basically say, "This is a test."Postal officials said the boxes will list a phone number and Web site where people can get more information.The deliveries will be timed and the city’s emergency operations center will monitor the drill

War games with Russia, China likely
http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/24/stories/2007062451050900.htm

NEW DELHI: Senior Indian Army officers will meet their Russian and Chinese counterparts next month to plan for bilateral war games later this year, Army sources said.
This will be the first time that Indian soldiers will practice manoeuvres on Russian and Chinese soil.
"The planning conferences will be held in the expectation that the exercises will take place in September-October. They will be company-level exercises in all probability and the meetings will decide the final dates. The backdrop will be counter-terrorism," they said.
Interestingly, the Army’s joint exercises would be preceded by a bigger interaction between Russia and China along with three Central Asian countries with the same counter-terrorism backdrop.

China military, hardware for SCO exercise to arrive via Russia
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11656036&PageNum=0


MOSCOW, June 23 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s top military said on Saturday that Chinese military personnel, armaments and hardware would arrive to the area of the CSO Peace Mission 2007 military exercise only via Russia in bypassing Kazakhstan.
They will be delivered by trains and aircraft of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Ground Troops, Colonel General Vladimir Moltensky said.
The first group will arrive at the Chebarkul training range in the Chelyabinsk region on July 31, while the rest military will arrive between August 1 and 4, he said.
They will arrive earlier to hold several joint trainings with other participants in the manoeuvres from other countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the general explained.
He said up to six trains with personnel, armaments and hardware will head to Russia from China. Chinese military and armaments will arrive via the cities of Zabaikalsk, Novosibirsk and Omsk.
Forty-six Chinese military aircraft will be engaged in the exercise.
General Moltensky noted that after foreign military cross the Russian border, Russia will assume all expenses connected with their lodging, meals as well the manoeuvres themselves, in line with international practice.
Army General Alexei Maslov, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Troops, said about 2,000 Russian military and over 500 units of hardware will take part in the exercise.
Maslov said the Peace Mission 2007 exercise will be held from August 9 to 17 on Chinese and Russian territories. The first stage of the exercise, including political consultations, will take place in China. The second, main, stage will be held at the Chebarkul training range of the Volga-Urals military district. Over 5,000 military from all six SCO states will participate.

BAE Systems Information and Electronics, Nashua, N.H., is being awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for $15,332,183. This contract is to advance the state-of-the-art and scientific knowledge for large area, high-performance, high functionality Short Wavelength Infrared mercury-cadmium telluride hybrid Sensor Chip Assemblies. The High State technology development program will advance infrared sensor state-of-the-art for a new generation of future missile warning and missile defense spacebased system deployment. Solicitations began March 2007 and negotiations were complete June 2007. This work will be complete by June 2012. To date $850,000 has been obligated. Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is the contracting activity (FA9453-07-C-0181).
http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=3542






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