About Me
- Name: Nick W.
- Location: Wisconsin, United States
Libertarian observations from within the Ivory Tower by an archivist, librarian and researcher.
Email me at
libertarian_librarian@hotmail.com
Worth a visit or two
- Andrew Sullivan
- The Ornery American
- Iraq the Model
- Dennis the Peasant
- Tim Blair
- James Lileks
- Views from the other side of the aisle
- Views from the XX side of genetics
Archives
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- August 2008
A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. ~Shelby Foote
Monday, February 20, 2006
The Joint IED Neutralizer
Or JIN (big hat tip to Mojo for sending me the link below), is a new piece of military equipment whose sole purpose is to find, and destroy, improvised explosive devices, or IED's. IED's are easily the single greatest cause of injuries and fatalities amongst our armed servicemen and women in Iraq, accounting for roughly 2/3rds of all injuries and deaths.
So, you'd figure that a piece of equipment designed to eliminate IED's would be on the fast-track to use in Iraq, right? Not so much. In preliminary tests, the prototype JIN destroyed 90% of all IED's, yet despite this there are no JINs being rushed to Iraq as the cumbersome military bureaucracy grinds through its paces. The company that builds them says they could easily produce 50 of the little remote-controlled vehicles a month, and at ~$200,000 they are cheap-- at least by military standards.
I hope they ratchet these bad boys up, and do so quickly-- one of my nephew Nick's main jobs in Iraq is finding and eliminating IEDs. My question is this: why has there been little to no coverage of this on the nightly news or in the NY Times? You know, the places that went on and on and on about the horror of insufficient body armor in Iraq-- despite the fact that a goodly portion of the troops don't want 70 pounds of body armor as it tends to make them sitting ducks.
It would make Rumsfield and Bush look bad-- how have the MSM missed this? At any rate, if you aren't too tired of emailing or calling your elected representatives about UAE security for our ports, do take the time to drop them a note asking them to start pushing to get JINs over to Iraq asap.
So, you'd figure that a piece of equipment designed to eliminate IED's would be on the fast-track to use in Iraq, right? Not so much. In preliminary tests, the prototype JIN destroyed 90% of all IED's, yet despite this there are no JINs being rushed to Iraq as the cumbersome military bureaucracy grinds through its paces. The company that builds them says they could easily produce 50 of the little remote-controlled vehicles a month, and at ~$200,000 they are cheap-- at least by military standards.
I hope they ratchet these bad boys up, and do so quickly-- one of my nephew Nick's main jobs in Iraq is finding and eliminating IEDs. My question is this: why has there been little to no coverage of this on the nightly news or in the NY Times? You know, the places that went on and on and on about the horror of insufficient body armor in Iraq-- despite the fact that a goodly portion of the troops don't want 70 pounds of body armor as it tends to make them sitting ducks.
It would make Rumsfield and Bush look bad-- how have the MSM missed this? At any rate, if you aren't too tired of emailing or calling your elected representatives about UAE security for our ports, do take the time to drop them a note asking them to start pushing to get JINs over to Iraq asap.
Labels: Politics, Sciency Stuff
