6 Billion proposed to equip airliners with missile defense systems
U.S. officials had once thought there was little chance that terrorists could get their hands on many of the portable surface-to-air missiles that can bring down a commercial jet liner. But now that calculation is out the window, with officials at a recent secret White House meeting reporting that thousands of them have gone missing in Libya.
“Matching up a terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile, that’s our worst nightmare,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-California, a member of the Senate’s Commerce, Energy and Transportation Committee. The nightmare has been made real with the discovery in Libya that an estimated 20,000 portable, heat-seeking missiles have gone missing from unguarded Army weapons warehouses.
The missiles, four to six-feet long and Russian-made, can weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They lock on to the heat generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a combatant’s shoulder, and are accurate and deadly at a range of more than two miles. Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya six months ago. He took pictures of pickup truckloads of the missiles being carted off during another trip just a few weeks ago.
“I myself could have removed several hundred if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want,” said Bouckaert, HRW’s emergencies director. “Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles.”
Gosh, couldn’t have seen this one coming from a million miles away….was the ATF in charge of this operation?
Q: Now that we have created another terrorist state in the name of Democracy, who shall be held accountable?
A: No one is held accountable for anything anymore.
Terrorist??
They’re not terrorist, they are Arab Spring Freedom Fighters.
Just ask Hillary!
They should have seen it coming, especially since liberals made up a story like this on the eve of Bush’s reelection, weapons cache being looted in Iraq.
“who shall be held accountable”.
We know who SHOULD be held accountable, and it ain’t George Bush!!
Having an Adam Curry moment.
Terrorist hijack planes.
Terrorist use planes as weapons.
Now terrorist use weapons to shoot down planes.
Air travel isn’t safe anymore?
Trains Good, Planes Bad!!
The Defense Industry: Our motto is, we sell you the bombs, then we’ll sell you the anti weapon system to protect you’re stupid ass from the shit we build.
BWAAHAHAHA…we are the smartest motherfuckers on earth!!
Is the whole world full of idiots in command? We know who is building a nuclear reactor and we spy on them, watch their every move etc., and yet the stupidity involved in this crisis is amazing.
“Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya six months ago.”
Who did he warn and why didn’t they take any effective action? Where is Wikileaks when we need them? Aaaaaaaaaa!
This is how Pentagon shifts weapons and money to CIA without authorization of Congress or their constituents. The CIA then shepherds the weapons (like a “Good Shepherd”) to rebels du jour (terrorists of tomorrow.)
Pentagon looks away from the money till or from the weapons locker, tells CIA to come on over some time, and then pretends to Congress like they just don’t know who could have stolen the goods, that they don’t have manpower or time to do the accounting.
Hey if a junior clerk at the grocery store keeps coming up low on the till, what are you gonna do? There’s nothing you CAN do as the manager in charge.
Oh wait yes you can do something
Somebody go tell the Pentagon management to do something
Start with the Pentagon management in the White House
His title begins with Commander in Chief
Any beginning manager would know what to do.
I guess there just aren’t any of those in our federal executive branch. No worries then.
Oh wait, Congress is hoping you don’t know that it’s their job to oversee the Executive Branch.
Somebody please go disabuse them of that notion, please
@Skeptic
You said “Who did he warn and why didn’t they take any effective action? ”
Answer: INSIDE JOB
Who? See my previous post.
#4, it’s even easier to shoot a rocket at a train or a cruise ship.
I doubt if most of these weapons will ever show up. On the other hand the odds are excellent that a few of them will and we’re going to be very sorry when they do.
Whenever the US Army loses track of giant foreign weapons caches, I am reminded of the scene where the foreign weapons cache that the Israeli military captured was good-shepherded to the Soviet-fighting, freedom-fighting Mujahideen in Afghanistan with a little help from the CIA.
It’s really just too bad Osama Bin Laden and Ali Mohamed were some of the Muj supporters that received plenty of money and weapons and weapons training on how to repel foreign occupiers. Nobody could have predicted that.
Question: Stingers, what are they good for?
Answer: Shooting down Hinds in the hills when a foreign army is occupying.
Next question: Who wants to occupy Libya now?
Good Luck.
So the NYPD are in the pockets of Wall Street. Who do you protect? Wall Street!!! Who do you serve? Wall Street!!!
This debacle is no different. We got f*cktards running things. How did it come to this? Just about every country on Earth is run by imbiciles.
As I was clicking submit, I saw imbeciles spelled wrong but it was too late. I feel like a moran.
#6 “Is the whole world full of idiots in command?” That’s a rhetorical question right?
First, Obama and Holder require the ATF department to hand over hundreds (possibly thousands) of automatic weapons to the Mexican drug lords (Operation Fast and Furious).
Now his “Days, not Weeks” military action results in thousands of Surface to Air Missiles being placed in the hands of Islamist extremists.
Way to go, Barry!
Good job Obama! Way to help out the terrorists! McCain said we should have used more force to finish the job sooner and control this kind of thing. With no boots on the ground to speak of. This is bound to happen.
I’d like to see the over/under bet on how many airliners will be shot down in the next 5 years:
My bid number is 2.
Go!!!!!
And who is to blame? We all are as it is the way we arrange the board. Can’t have a world wide foreign occupying military based economy exercising our will as we do and not accept the collateral damage of a few weapons getting loose out into the populous.
BTW—why no truck bombs running into airplanes on the runways of the world? Don’t even need explosives.
fud, Fud, FUD!!!!!!!!
And to whatever reserve FUD is left over==will it allow us to focus, as in really focus, on loose nukes?
((To the brain damaged out there: focus means get rid of. Could take a few decades with USA and Russia leading off in new arms reductions. Save just a few for Pakistan, India, Korea, Iran and so forth until economic sanctions bring them into final alignment.))
You know how to focus don’t you Rick? Just think real hard and cross your eyes.
Ha, ha.
I will conquer the world one baby at a time. Shoulder fired missiles are for media distraction idiots (U.S Congress, President) who have no concept of world domination. I however have already implemented the “plan”, 20 years West and it’s over.
Tick …
Tick …
Tick …
Re#15, “#6 “Is the whole world full of idiots in command?” That’s a rhetorical question right?”
It was so rhetorical my rhetinas ache.
(please don’t ask me if that was a joke)
Maybe Col. Ghadddafi was saving them for a rainy day. That guy always out thinks us.
You gotta love all the Tuesday morning quarterbacking that goes on in this blog.
# 18 I would suggest you should join the military and help out.
its been done already.
The 1978 Air Rhodesia Viscount Shootdown is the first example of a civilian airliner shot down by a man-portable surface to air missile. The pilot of the aircraft managed to make a controlled crash landing, however ten of the survivors were killed by ZIPRA guerrillas.
Air Rhodesia Flight 827 was also shot down in February 1979 by ZIPRA guerillas armed with a Strela 2 missile. All 59 passengers and crew were killed.
1993 Transair Georgian Airline shootdowns involved two separate aircraft shot down a day apart in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia, killing 108 people.[20]
1998 Lionair Flight LN 602 shootdown: On October 7, 1998, the Tamil Tigers shot down an aircraft off the coast of Sri Lanka.
2002 Mombasa airliner attack: On November 28, 2002, two shoulder-launched Strela 2 (SA-7) surface-to-air missiles were fired at a chartered Boeing 757 airliner as it took off from Moi International Airport. The missiles missed the aircraft which continued safely to Tel Aviv, carrying 271 vacationers from Mombasa back to Israel. In the photos, the missle systems were painted in light blue, the color used in the Soviet military for training material (a training SA-7 round would not have the guidance system).
2003 Baghdad DHL shootdown incident: On 22 November 2003, an Airbus A300B4-203F cargo plane, operating on behalf of DHL was hit by an SA-7 missile, which resulted in the loss of its hydraulic systems. The crew later landed the crippled aircraft safely by using only differential engine thrust by adjusting the individual throttle controls of each engine.
2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash: On March 23, 2007, a TransAVIAexport Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 airplane crashed in outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 2007 Battle of Mogadishu. Witnesses claim that a surface-to-air missile was fired immediately prior to the accident. However, Somali officials deny that the aircraft was shot down.
Someone had better warn the drones!
So much for half baked leftist plots of “the way the world is and the way it should be”
I guess that the crew is going to blame bush for this too
You are all a bunch of hypocrites, sane, rational, but hypocrites none the less.
I bet right now some of you are envious that some camel jockey with sand in his jockeys is hefting a SAM on his shoulder and you don’t have one! ‘Cause Uncle Sam keep a watch on the door of the toy store.
Well, its not like in the ‘States. They don’t have a second amendment in Libya.
But I>nobody is going to fuck with somebody carrying a SAM. We’re talking I>nobody…
If some mother fucker thinks that the Libyans are ever going to get suckered again by some lying sack of shit with braid on his shoulder and a snazzy-looking uniform, he’s going to get a face full of rocket-propelled iron and it go BOOM!
Look at Switzerland.
EVERY ONE of these fuckers has a military grade automatic weapon and two years of training in how to use it and unarmed combat to boot. Both boys AND girls. (Think on that next time you see a Swiss hooker. She doesn’t particularly like her job, but its better than a short-lived attempt at a life of crime, emphasis on short-lived.)
I agree with #16…
Way to go, Barry!
#24 You have a point but a lot of us were saying this is stupid as soon as we knew what the plan was.
I thought every congress critter that voted to give shrub the right to go to war any time he wanted should have be removed from office.
I never saw any reason to think that Iraq had any weapons that justified us sending in troops and taking over the country.
It was obvious we didn’t have a plan for victory in a Iraq.
It was obvious that we sat on our hands and threw away any hope of a smooth transition and a graceful out in Afghanistan.
I’ll throw in a few more. It is obvious that the more money wasted on Greece the worse the pain is going to be when it does default and you have to be nuts if you think it has the economy to actually pay off those loans.
Many states in the US and the Fed Gov are going to in some manner default on promises made relating to pensions, health care etc. When there is no money and taxes and regulations have killed the local economy and no one left stupid enough to lend you money all that is left is inflation.
That will pretty much wipe out everybody’s savings and make doing transactions a super pain. The good news is we will no longer be dependent on foreign energy supplies so the greens will be happy!
Look on the bright side.
This makes TSA inspections entirely pointless.
It’ll be a f__king turkey shoot.