THE JOHN KERRY CANCELED WEAPONS SYSTEM OF THE DAY
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Thrilling tales of America’s fighting men and women in action using stuff Senator Kerry didn't want them to have!<font size=3>
From Mark Steyn, 2/28/04.
Go to steynonline.com and click on the links to see the documentation.)
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“We are continuing a defense buildup that is consuming our resources with weapons systems that we don’t need and can’t use.”
~ John Kerry, campaigning for the US Senate in 1984.<font size=3> Scroll down the page for more useless inventions he's got no time for!
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7) THE AV-8B HARRIER JET<font size=3>
The Persian Gulf, 1991: The US Marine Corps’ AV-8B Harriers were the most forward deployed tactical strike aircraft in theater.
The Indian Ocean, ten years later :
USS PELELIU - Harrier pilots with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) flew bombing missions on Taliban and al-Qaida command and control targets in Southern Afghanistan for the first time in support of Operation Enduring Freedom... The fighter attack jets launched from the ship's 820-foot-long flight deck armed with 500-pound MK-82 bombs and returned four hours later without them.
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But to John Kerry the distinctive vertical take-off and landing fighter is just another useless weapons system he'd have canceled.
6) THE PATRIOT MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM<font size=3>
Kuwait, March 2003: The PAC-3 system, with its revolutionary hit-to-kill technology, is used in combat for the first time against incoming Iraqi missiles. It does its job, protecting all coalition forces and shooting down the enemy's best shots:
“Just to the right of the 110-vehicle convoy, a Patriot anti-missile battery answered, with the sparkling contrails of two missiles clearly visible as they soared toward an impact point nearly six miles away," reported a National Journal correspondent embedded with the V Corps Forward Tactical Command Post. "Within minutes, the Patriot battery reported a successful intercept and confirmed that the [Iraqi missile] would have hit the ground less than a third of a mile in front of the convoy." According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, soldiers of the 159th Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), gave Patriot soldiers a "standing ovation" when they downed an Iraqi missile heading for the Screaming Eagle’s Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters....
"Those of us who spent last week in the Kuwaiti desert are here to tell you ballistic-missile defense works, providing civilians and troops alike with a marvelous shield against nasty dangers," reported the American Enterprise. "American antiballistic-missile technology was demonstrated to be the defensive bulwark of our future."
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But, if John Kerry had had his way, there would have been no Patriot missile defense or any other kind. In the decade before September 11th, he voted against missile defense just under 20 times.
5) THE M1 ABRAMS TANK<font size=3>
April 2003: President Bush thanks tank workers in Lima, Ohio for their contribution to victory in Iraq:
"When our soldiers and Marines needed you most, when the pressure was on, you came through and America is grateful."
With its ability to fight at night and fire at speed, the M1 Abrams tank proved vital in the first Gulf War:
The Abrams' thermal sights were unhampered by the clouds of thick black smoke over the battlefield that were the result of burning Kuwaiti oil wells. In fact many Gunners relied on their "night" sights in full daylight. Such was not the case with the sights in the Iraqi tanks, which were being hit from units they could not even see. Concerns about the M1A1's range were eliminated by a massive resupply operation that will be studied for years as a model of tactical efficiency.
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Today, the Abrams tank is widely regarded as the most lethal tank in the world, but to John Kerry it was just another example of wasteful defense expenditure.
4) THE AEGIS AIR DEFENSE CRUISER
1775: Shots from Bunker Hill help launch a war for freedom. 2003: Missiles from the USS Bunker Hill the USS Bunker Hill help launch a new war for freedom, thanks to a useless, unnecessary cruiser John Kerry wanted to cancel:<font size=3>
Bunker Hill was part of the USS Constellation (CV 64) Carrier Strike Group (CSG). The Aegis cruiser was one of the first warships to conduct Tomahawk strikes against leadership targets in Iraq. The ship launched a total of 31 missiles during the war. Its embarked Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) helicopter detachment (the Wolfpack from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 45) supported the rescue of U.N. workers being forcibly removed from oil platforms in the northern Arabian Gulf, and provided medical evacuations from the Iraqi city of Umm Qasr.
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3) THE B-2 STEALTH BOMBER
Missouri, 2003: US pilots launch the first wave of attacks on Baghdad in a useless, unnecessary plane John Kerry wanted to cancel:<font size=3>
These B-2s have been flying nonstop, 36-hour missions from Whiteman to Iraq since the bombing began. Pilots and their planes have so far come out unscathed and have hit more than 200 high-profile targets in and around Baghdad, such as airfields.
On the first night of "shock and awe" alone, six sorties leveled 92 targets. "B-2 is shock and awe, right into Baghdad," said one airman at Whiteman.
The B-2s can travel at subsonic speed and slip into enemy airspace virtually undetected. They can deliver nuclear and conventional weapons, such as precision munitions... At one point during their bombing operations within the past week, the planes veered away from their set course at the last minute to take out Iraqi surface-to-surface missiles in order to reduce the threat to coalition forces on the ground. What makes the B-2 great is that it combines all of the capabilities of the U.S. bomber force -- B-52s, B-1s and B-2s -- which all have the capability for providing long-range precision and non-precision weapons delivery against targets.But the B-2 has a stealth aspect like no other aircraft and can strike targets other planes simply cannot. "We can go in, use that stealth capability to exploit weaknesses in the air defense systems of any country that we might be forced to attack, and open the door for the rest of the forces to come in," said "GQ." "So we take the great capabilities of other bombers and add the stealth to it, and it's a fabulous weapons system."
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John Kerry voted to cut or scrap this program on eight different occasions, in order to fund more pressing government activities:
BRIAN WILSON: Let's shift just a moment to the talk around town and the hot topic is a package of reforms to help solve the problems in our urban areas, Los Angeles primarily among them... But the question comes, where do we find the money? I mean, even the programs they're talking about -- we're talking 2, 3, 3.5 billion dollars and these are just tough times. Where do we get that money?
SENATOR KERRY: These are not such tough times that we do not have that money available now... The truth is the B-2 bomber is a source of funding with respect to this kind of priority.<font size=3>
Fox Morning News, May 14th 1992
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2) THE TOMAHAWK MISSILE
At the dawn of the 21st century, one of the calling cards of the US military is a wasteful missile program only John Kerry had the moral courage to call for cutting in half:
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The idea that going to war carries a near-certain risk that thousands of your own soldiers will die; the idea that mass civilian casualties on the enemy's side are inevitable, or that whole societies must inevitably be obliterated in targeting their leaderships; the idea that wars are massive, all-or-nothing undertakings between entire peoples that cannot be entered into lightly or with limited commitment: all would tumble - in the strategic thinking of America's military planners, if not always in reality - in the era that began with the San Clemente test. It reached its fullest expression on Wednesday night in Baghdad, when around 40 Tomahawks, fired from battleships in the Persian Gulf, rained down on "leadership targets".
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1) THE APACHE HELICOPTER
March 2003: The 101st Airborne launch a night attack against Iraqi forces using a useless, unnecessary helicopter John Kerry wanted to cancel.
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The much-vaunted "Screaming Eagles" entered combat action late yesterday with a series of Apache strikes "in the vicinity" of the city, about 80km southwest of Baghdad, the 101st's Aviation Brigade commander, Colonel Greg Gass, told AFP...
Gass said the crack Medina Division of Iraq's Republican Guard was known to be near Karbala, but did not say the attack was aimed specifically at its troops or armour, nor did he give details of the targets destroyed... The Apaches, with their Hellfire missile capabilities, are regarded as the best helicopters for taking out heavy armour, especially tanks. |
