Boeing wins $3.48 billion U.S. missile defense contract

[Zorro]

Boeing Co beat out Lockheed Martin to retain its position as the prime contractor for the U.S. long-range missile shield, the Pentagon said on Friday.

The U.S. Defense Department said it was awarding Boeing a $3.48 billion, seven-year contract to develop, test, engineer and manufacture missile defense systems.

A team led by Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Co had vied with Boeing to expand and maintain the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, hub of layered antimissile protection.

Boeing partnered with Northrop Grumman Corp to retain the work.

More at: http://news.yahoo.com/boeing-wins-3-48-billion-u-missile-defense-020950294.html

[marasinghe]

1. what the carnival loses on the swings, the carnival makes on the roundabouts.

carnival of the dead

[Monk06]

2. Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing own the US. They didn't win anything.

Just part of business as usual until the US government is broke. No worries. The US defense industry is owned by the Saudis and Israel and their middleman BAE in the UK. The US taxpayer gets the debt and subsidies. The Saudis, Carlyle and BAE get the profits.

[ManiacJoe]

3. MD merged with Boeing back in the late 90s.

[Monk06]

28. I thought MD kept it's name in that merger. Anyway Boeing and Lockheed Martin

along with the rest of the defense industry, have turned the US into a single industry weapons manufacturing state. There will be no peace in the world until this beast is reigned in. I won't happen in my lifetime unfortunately.

[Blue_Tires]

43. I can't ever forgive those McDonnell clowns on the board for systematically tearing apart

one of the iconic aircraft makers of our history in Douglas Commercial

[freshwest]

36. Got that. And deficit? What deficit? Not for them.

[wordpix]

4. more Star Wars crap. "When will they ever learn?"

[Muskypundit]

5. I am perfectly ok with missle defense systems.

Because those are actually used for defense.

[trusty elf]

17. Like the Defense Department is used for defense?

I can't tell if you forget the or not.

[bahrbearian]

29. Do they stop box cutters?

Last edited Sat Dec 31, 2011, 04:50 PM - Edit history (1)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. do these missile shields actually work?

[Archae]

7. Not so far.

The only time one worked was when the target had a homing beacon.

Yeah, China or Kora is going to put those into it's missiles...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. then why are we wasting money on things that don't work?

[pnwmom]

9. Have you never heard of building something new? We succeeded in going to the moon,

and in building the space shuttle.

Plenty of nay-sayers thought we couldn't do those things, either.

[PuffedMica]

15. The United States has been working on missile defense since 1956

[/font]

Nike Zeus was the first in a long line of programs that would consume tax dollars until ended when costs became a public issue. Each time a new program would rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of the canceled program as defense contractors conspired with the military to keep the gravy train rolling.

The only identifiable ‘successes’ has been in strategic arms negotiations where the United States traded away invented capability (that we didn’t have) in exchange for Russian capability (that they didn’t intend to build).

The net result of Strategic Missile Defense has been to line the pockets of defense contractors for over 50 years.

[/font]

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Indeed.

[Rincewind]

10. Because,

if we keep working on them then someday, they will work. At least, that's the theory. And several weapons systems, such as tanks, and airplanes, were pretty much close to useless when first developed.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. well they had better get it right quickly for that amount of money

[They_Live]

31. So they can make money...

to make sure they can buy their candidate...
who will change the laws...
so they can make more money...
to make sure they can buy their candidate...
who will change the laws...
so they can make more money...
to make sure they can buy their candidate...
who will change the laws...
so they can make more money...
to make sure they can buy their candidate...
who will change the laws...
so they can make more money...

[freshwest]

37. Endless cycle...

[boppers]

32. Uh, no.

Bunch of successes, and a bunch of failures, but not "only time one worked..." See #12.

[FogerRox]

12. Mixed, you be the judge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense

[Islandlife]

22. They have been testing hese here in Hawaii with good success

Not perfect, but good enough as a last line of defense. Actually pretty amazing. Physics is on our side. We can make it almost perfect.

I don't know if it has to cost so much. Don't know how many lives it has to save to be justified. If it only serves as a deterrent to a percentage of future attacks then the numbers will be unquantifiable.

[Capn Sunshine]

13. It used to be a scam, but now...

It's still a scam. But at least we have the parts available in one place so that a soldier who is a really good shot might be able to hit an incoming missle.

As WOPR says :

[Magoo48]

14. Even if it does "work" it's still a horrid waste of resources.

Cowering in the shadows of our assorted missiles, fondling our collective war machines...this does not inspire images of the Land of the free and the home of the brave.

[SHRED]

18. ...but spending on a public health system..."SOCIALISM"!!!!

[sarcasmo]

19. 3.8 billion for missle defense, zero dollars for social programs.

Long live the Empire.

[hughee99]

23. We're not spending ANY money on social programs?

Then what do the repukes keep bitching about?

[Gringostan]

20. Thank god

Thank god; I was worried we were going to waste that money on national health care or education…

[sarcasmo]

25. +1

[begin_within]

21. I guess I'm slow... What do we, as taxpayers, get for $3.48 billion?

Are there missiles on their way now or will there be in the future? And couldn't we just buy those missiles instead? Come to think of it, couldn't we have just bought Iraq instead of spending $3 trillion and losing 5,000+ American lives and countless Iraqi lives?

[Monty22001]

26. Yeah, slow

It's called Deterrence

[patrice]

30. Who's slow? It's also called Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

[Monty22001]

35. I guess locking your house invites robbers too.

[patrice]

38. That's an absurdity, unlike how threatening & insulting others causes them to react as an enemy.

VERY weak strawman argument = absurd.

[Monty22001]

40. Apparently you are an enemy then.

Oh well.

[patrice]

41. Deflection. We were talking about foreign policy based upon insults & threats. I'm sorry you

feel the need to try to turn the truth into a threat to yourself and then to intentionally use that as "justification" for calling someone else the enemy and, hence, obfuscate and deflect the point rather than dealing with the facts.

You just proved my entire case about Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

Thank you.

[Monty22001]

42. .

You probably have no clue on what you really want. Without this, we have to rely on MAD with rogue nations. Is that what you prefer? Or would you just get rid of all our weapons in hopes that they will do so as well?

Which is it? I know you'll just dodge and evade instead of answer, so what's the point. Surprise me maybe and explain.

[patrice]

44. "You probably . . . " think I'm dumb enough to go for this feint. Here's a surprise for you,

I will not honor your lack of respect with a response to bait-and-switch-to-ridicule and false either-this-or-that "choices".

No.

Now is the opportunity for the next lines in a highly predictable boiler-plate script, lines that play to lurking ditto-heads who either can't, or don't care to, recognize rationally dysfunctional rhetoric TTE "See, I told you so, ______________ can't _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ", when such an inference is NOT logically necessary, whether anyone wants to pretend it is or not.

There are other justifiable inferences to be made from rejection of such rhetorical bait, other inferences which I predict will be denied, because it appears that you may be like some who can't deal with free autonomous others on their own terms, hence "solutions" comprised of games, insults, and ultimately implied violence of one type or another.

In short, I'm not anyone's monkey and those who make that kind of mistake about other people should become aware of how ludicrous they appear to others.

[Monty22001]

45. As I expected

You dodged and didn't answer. Thank you.

[patrice]

24. The Machine War cometh: Drones -> anti-Drones/Missiles -> Missile-shield -> anti-Missile-shields ->?

[Monty22001]

34. That's humanity..

Yes, there are pro offense and pro defense.

What are you going to do, interupt it with love? Maybe. It's really hard to make things so darn cut and dry.

[patrice]

39. "That's humanity.." = "cut and dry." At least some humans are capable of creativity. Some ARE

freeing themselves and others, so they very possibly will not fit into your/others' closed/cut-and-dry definition of what humanity is.

[Yooperman]

27. One reason there isn't peace in the world.... The U.S. arms the world...

over a 3 billion contract for missiles... another 3.5 billion in new fighter jets to UAE....95% of the weapons used across the border in Mexico are shipped in from the U.S.....

I am pretty certain it is the U.S. best interest to not have peace in the world. Could you imagine the loss in jobs.... the reduction in the military...

I am now convinced we actually try to keep the fires burning so we can maintain our economy to some degree.

Vietnam was a great example... Johnson took care of his former state of Texas with huge military contracts for arms.

When will the madness end?

YM

[ProfessionalLeftist]

33. What a waste of freakin money

"Missile defense" never worked and it never will.