EckerNet.Com

Ok the big story of the week for me is regards the following newsclip: RAYTHEON WINS IRAQ AIRPORT RECONSTRUCTION CONTRACT: Raytheon won a contract worth as much as $49M to restore air-traffic management systems for seven Iraqi airports, the U.S. defense contractor said on Wednesday. The company will provide lighting, surveillance radars and meteorological equipment for Baghdad’s airport, as well as Basra and Mosul airfields and others. Work has already started and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, spokeswoman Janet Kopec said. The initial award is $10.5M, with options for as much as $38.9M more. Raytheon already provides air traffic systems to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. (Reuters) *groan* This comes dangerous close to violating my longstanding policy of not revealing my place of employment, however, I work for one of the companies competing with Raytheon for this contract.  And I was extremely hopefully that we would win it, because I was actually hoping I would get assigned to this project and sent over to Iraq.  Actual city didn’t matter, although I would have preferred Baghdad, with Basra a distant second.  Call me crazy (my boss did), call me suicidal (friends did) or just act surprised (my sister did), but I truly was looking forward to it.  Reasons are varied and ran the spectrum of wanting to take part in a historical moment to feeling I needed to contribute to the situation even if in a very small way. In any event, I found out we lost the contract and was very bummed.  It pretty much ruined my week.

However, one definite bonus regards my schooling for my Masters.  I have to complete a Capstone Project. However, the one I had decided on wasn’t going very well and I was actually a bit frustrated.  However, lately I’ve been putting lots of time in at work on a tool that I learned about in class.  It finally occurred to me to make that my Capstone and I got preliminary approval already.  If it weren’t for the Baghdad thing, I’d be on cloud nine right now. 

In galactic news, Oppurtunity joins Spirit on the surface of Mars.  Spirit is still having problems although it appears it can be fixed in a couple weeks.  In related news, activists everywhere declare a quagmire on Mars, and demand we withdraw our forces immediately from this unilateral action against Mars.

FrontPage Magazine analyzes the French opinion on the US, which essentially boils down to: France has a long history of anti-Americanism, which has now turned into an obsession. Everything negative occurring in the planet, or for that matter even in France, is the fault of the USA. Blame it on America has turned into a national sport. This seems fairly anti-climatic but it contains several interesting (read: humorous) comparisons within.  

Since the election is coming up, alot will be said about what Bush has/hasn’t done.  This article does a good job of summarizing some of that.  Bush has completed 46% of his campaign promises, and I can’t help but notice most of the ones listed as uncompleted are labeled with "Blocked in Congress".   All in all not bad considering he had 9/11 thrust upon him in the infancy of his presidency and has had to deal with the resulting situation.

Also, since the Democrats seem intent on hammering Bush on economics and the deficit, here’s an interesting study: EVERY Democrat Presidential Candidate’s Platform Would Raise, Not Lower, Federal Budget Deficits.  Which is essentially an intro to this policy paper: The Return of Fuzzy Math and Risky Schemes: How Presidential Hopefuls Would Deepen Deficits which analyzes each candidate individually.  Which doesn’t excuse Bush for doing the massive spending he is, but it shows the Dems aren’t any better.  

And because I know it will be brought up over and over, I’d like you all to remember EXACTLY what Bush said in his speech to the UN General Assembly in 2002 and his 2002 State of the Union and his 2003 State of the Union and his 2004 State of the Union.  Next time you say "Yeah but Bush said….." you might want to check if that is actually what he said, or just what people THINK (read: convinced) he said.

Ok that’s enough…I got stuff to do.

This is an interesting story to read.

A dozen former leaders of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party have handed in weapons caches in northern Iraq to curry favor with the U.S. military and claim a role in a new Iraqi leadership, the commander of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division said.

I thought it was all a quagmire??

“They’re coming to us, saying they want to be part of the new Iraq,” Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “It has slowly sunk in that Saddam isn’t coming back.”

I thought we were the great Satan. The infidels. Or perhaps you’re all just opportunistic asshats? In any case it’s good news.

However, in reading it all the way I noticed this towards the bottom

This week the 101st Airborne paid the black marketeer, whose name has not been released, an overdue $22,500 for 270 of the missiles he turned in during previous weeks. When the division halted reward payments because it ran short of cash, the man ceased delivering the weapons, Petraeus said.

….

The black marketeer does not say where he buys the surplus launchers in Iraq, and the division is more interested in simply getting the weapons off the open market than finding out who owned them � and perhaps halting future reward sales, Cate said.

Ok fair enough we’re buying weapons off people. This guy buys them cheap off the black market and then resells them to the US for a profit.

But is this really the path we want to take? Essentially we’re setting up a welfare system for arms dealers. And I’m betting the black market on weapons is essentially bottomless. So all he has to do is keep handing them over as long as we keep paying and he’s set.

“It’s more of a capitalist approach,” Cate said. “He’s not going to provide services until payment is provided.”

I’m all for capitalism, but what is he NOT handing over. Since we occasionally stop paying he’s got to have another source of income? Who else is he selling them to? And what is he selling?

I completely understand the desire to get any weapons you can off the black market. But this seems to be a rather inefficient use of our money. Cash that would probably be used better building a school or refurbishing a power plant than bankrolling an arms dealer.

“He was a regular turner-inner until we stiffed him,” Petraeus said during Thursday’s battle update briefing, a daily meeting of the division’s leadership.

So he’s not any ally. He’s just an opportunistic fence-sitter.

Not saying I have all the answers, and as I’m not on the ground, I won’t pretend to. I’m sure if I was getting shot at I might be tempted to look at the short term benefit of getting a grip-load of rocket launchers out of the hands of terrorists.

However, there seems to be a very large supply. After all this division alone cites “300 shoulder-fired missiles”, “270 AK-47 semiautomatic rifles”, “65 AK-47s, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and more than a dozen grenade rounds”, “seven AK-47s and 14 magazines” turned in by various people. With these numbers of weapons out there, is it likely that simply paying a marketeer to hand over whatever he feels like is going to make a dent in the supply?? Especially when there is certainly demand?

Perhaps it’s time to find a way to go after the source of his income.