Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

It's ready to deploy!

This might be funnier if it were not wasting billions of dollars.

I am mixed about the armor in Iraq. WTF are we at a point where this level of attacks on our logistics warrants consideration of armed transports of all sorts? I understand the USAF is now flying in supplies so we can avoid driving past the insurgents. WTF. Why make a bunch of armored transports if we will be thrown out of Iraq soon after the election anyway? Why is the military continuing to deploy troops in a manner that exposes unarmored vehicles to attack? Why stay in Iraq if we need armed transport to function? Why are we trying to impose a military solution on a political problem?

The bottom line is that armed transports will not solve the Iraq problem. Iraq is a political problem that requires a political solution. By focusing on armor (or lack thereof) the focus is taken off the politicians who need to get their act together. A better political leadership would have had the Syrians, Jordanians, Iranians and other Iraqi neighbors actively pursuing a political settlement. Mr Bush has decided to go it alone with the left and right Bowers missing from his hand.

Hey Brad. What did you do to your blog? Each line in an entry is follwed by lots and lots of white space. It's made your blog unreadable if you're using IE on a Mac.

Help!

Throw IE in the trash and switch to Safari. You won't see the white space. Besides, MS is no longer supporting IE updates for the Mac.

Likely under the radar, so to speak, in the US is the current Canadian debate on "joining" missile defence. Interestingly, the debate is essentially entirely political, and no one seems ever to ask its proponents if the thing even works. But then maybe that would be redundant, given the evidence. In the end, it all comes off sounding rather like a protection racket.

Agreed about the Canadian angle. No one questions that it is a boondoggle. Some Reformatories make insincere noises about defending the continent, but it's clear that no one actually believes it has much to do with that. It's all about how far Canada needs to bend to please the US government. How much appeasment is required to prevent the elephant from rolling over, so to speak.

The best part about this is that they cancelled some of the tests because of bad weather. As an aerospace engineer, I know about the complexities of testing, but this is really just getting funny. And can someone remind me who we're defending ourselves against again?

Yeah, but what about the armor for the residents?