whoooooaaaa.....SAM missiles mounted in Metro DC neighborhood...

[diamond14]

ANOTHER bush* masssive military boondoggle...congratulations war-profiteers raytheon ! everyone in the Metro DC area is now considered 'collateral damage' to the bushites.....Welcome to OUR Nation's Capital...bring your kids....

http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/118595/index.php


Missile System Intalled Near Bethesda Neighborhoods

by Pat Elder


Suburban AMRAAM SAM missile launcher with 50 pound warhead called "reassuring" by military spokesman.




-snips-

Apparently, an armed missile launcher was installed on the grounds of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, located a few hundred yards from a residential neighborhood. The Naval Surface Warfare Center is located right outside of the Beltway, between the Clara Barton Parkway and Macarthur Boulevard. The missiles don’t make me feel any safer. In fact, I feel like I live in a target area now.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) missile launcher was installed during the first week of December. It is visible from Clara Barton Parkway. The missile system is part of Operation Noble Eagle, under the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The weapon has six square tubes and is pointed in the direction of my house. Perhaps the President was really looking out for me. I guess if those terrorists try to bomb my house in Bethesda, we have a plan!

The missile battery is the SAM (surface to air missile) version of the U.S. AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range, Air-to-Air missile). The system is used by several western European nations. The U.S. Marines are developing their own version, called CLAWS. This system will have AMRAAMs fired from a launcher mounted on a hummer. Perhaps I would be better able to defend my family from that terrorist attack if the government would allow me to mount a missile battery on my minivan but I’m not going to take the time to even ask them. They have access to my FBI file!

According to the "Bethesda Gazette," Captain Charles D. Behrle, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, sent an e-mail to Warfare Center workers saying not much information is available. "The new systems in the Washington, D.C. area are in support of Homeland Defense as a part of Operation Noble Eagle," he wrote in the e-mail. "Operation Noble Eagle is a multi-layered Air Defense System under operational command of NORAD. It consists of aircraft, radar, ground-based air defense systems and communications equipment. Due to potential terrorist threats, details of the mission may not be discussed to prevent inadvertent disclosure of operational information to a potential enemy."


The ground launched AMRAAM has a range of about twelve miles, and can hit targets up to 13,000 feet. The 350-pound AMRAAM SAM costs more than a half million dollars each. The twelve-foot long AMRAAM has a fifty-pound warhead, and is designed to knock down anything in the unfriendly skies above my house. The missile launchers are positioned in close proximity to the Potomac River, along the flight patterns of DC-bound commercial airliners.

[whistle]

1. Are the same the same SAMs Bush wants to install throughout...

...Canada as the U.S.'s first line of defense from ICBMs?

[diamond14]

5. it's the reTHUGlican MISSILE war-profiteering BOONDOGGLE again PHOTO

yes, reTHUGlicans do this TIME AND TIME again....each time, the whole expensive disaster waste of taxpayers money turns to rusting environmental disasters....reaguns was TOPS on national-treasury-busting boondoggles...total waste of OUR money....stealing social security and medicare for another war-profiteering THEFT....


The Nike Ajax was the world's first operational, guided, surface-to-air missile. Armed with two conventional warheads, it was deployed in large numbers across the United States in the mid-to-late 1950s to counter what was believed to be a serious threat posed by Soviet strategic bombers (this "bomber gap" subsequently turned out to be illusory). Concerned that Nike Ajax would be incapable of halting a massive Soviet bomber attack, Army officials developed and deployed the longer range nuclear-armed Nike Hercules at 145 locations. An estimated 3,000 warheads (with yields of 2, 20, and 30 kilotons) were built for this system, which was operational in the United States from 1958 until 1979. A third missile, the Nike Zeus, evolved from its predecessors to address the threat posed by Soviet ICBMs. Although never deployed, the Nike Zeus was tested as an antiballistic missile and as an antisatellite weapon (both missions envisioned the use of nuclear warheads). It evolved into the Spartan missile, which was deployed briefly as part of the Safeguard ABM system in North Dakota in 1975.

Credit: U.S. Army

[Oreo]

12. No... these are anti-aircraft

The anti-IBM's are silo based and much much bigger I think.

[Nikepallas]

2. OMG!!!! Maybe this is the story that BUSHCO wants to cover up!?

They have been pushing Terror threats lately in the news and THIS might be something they were trying to cover up and not want anyone knowing about.

[RobertSeattle]

3. I sure hope that site is well protected

What is to prevent the "terrorists" attack that site and stealing the missiles?

It's kind of like when after 9/11 we had National Guard troops with loaded M-16s inside airports. All a well trained terrorists had to do was take the M-16 away from the soldier and then you have a terrorist will a fairly powerful weapon INSIDE the airport.

[Nikepallas]

4. Look at the photo. It is in plain sight. Doubt it is.

[jean]

7. what the hell are they thinking? Couldn't people take pot shots at that

thing from the highway?

[cornermouse]

6. There goes the neighborhood.

Looks like the value of their property just took a nosedive. I don't suppose they could sue for reimbursement of the real value of their property?

[diamond14]

9. wonder if any Democratic Congressional Reps are in the path of missiles

it's totally INSANE to deploy missiles in a heavily populated civilian neighborhood....oopsss...I forgot...that's what these same idiots did in Baghdad....and amazingly, in America, there's little outrage....

[Padraig18]

8. Ummm, Metro DC was a target long before those missiles.

At least you now know that there's some way to possibly defend against an inbound missile.

:eyes:

[diamond14]

11. here's the ONLY inbound missile mess every tried, and it failed PHOTO

ANOTHER huge waste of taxpayers money...huge waste....stupid things DON'T work...and this is just ANOTHER give-away from bush* to war-profiteers....the money would be better spent developing alternative fuels to OIL....


An aerial view of the Stanley R. Mickelson Safeguard complex in Nekoma, North Dakota, the only operational antiballistic missile system ever deployed by the United States. The pyramid-shaped building is the missile site radar, used to track incoming missiles and guide Spartan and Sprint missiles to their targets. A separate long-range detection radar was located further north at Concrete, North Dakota. The missile field in the foreground contains reinforced underground launchers for thirty Spartan and sixteen Sprint missiles (an additional fifty or so Sprint missiles were deployed at four remote launch sites). The complex was deactivated in 1976 after being operational for less than four months.


===============================================

antiballistic missile


an¡¤ti¡¤bal¡¤lis¡¤tic mis¡¤sile < ¨¤nt¨© bə l¨ªstikm¨ªss¡¯l, ¨¤ntee bə l¨ªstik m¨ªss¡¯l > (plural an¡¤tibal¡¤lis¡¤tic mis¡¤siles)


noun

powered defense weapon: a missile used to prevent a ballistic missile from reaching its target by destroying it in flight

[Padraig18]

13. Patriot missiles don't work?

Gee, someone better tell Raytheon and the DoD that.

hint: It's highly unlikely that terrorist groups would use a ballistic missile to attack DC.

:eyes:

[diamond14]

15. the TERRORISTS used papercutters, and the DOD is just EMBARRASSED

so they are giving BILLIONS MORE to their bloody-handed war-profiteers and the people who love WARS....

[Padraig18]

16. Apples and oranges.

You'd rather NOT be protected from a missile attack? Is that your position?

[diamond14]

18. IMO, military boondoggles do NOT protect against 'paper-cutters'

bush* labors under a fatal ILLUSION that bombing, torturing, killing innocent civilians is making us safe.....

this same ILLUSION was used to build up a massive missile defense system against the COMMUNISTS, when in reality, there was NOTHING to be afraid of...it was simply the previous THEFT of American Taxpayer Money for the blood-soaked war-profiteers....

[Padraig18]

19. I see.

The Russians didn't have operational ballistic missiles with MIRV-ed nuclear war heads? Thanks for clearing that up and setting me straight on my history of the Cold War.

:eyes:

[robcon]

10. I grew up next to Nike missile silos

Less than a mile from my house in the Bronx there was an array of Nike missiles on an island in Long Island Sound. Provided a few jobs, but other than that, it was a scary way to go.

These SAMs seem to be 'hidden in plain sight' which is even scarier.

[Radical Activist]

14. We accused Iraq of placing military targets in residential neighborhoods

Now we do the same. Hypocrisy has become routine at the White House.

[Zenlitened]

17. It's an awfully powerful symbol, isn't it?

Just sitting there in plain sight as the cars go by, it seems designed to say: "Be afraid." :(