{"id":3828,"date":"2003-03-24T09:10:06","date_gmt":"2003-03-24T14:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3828"},"modified":"2003-03-24T09:10:06","modified_gmt":"2003-03-24T14:10:06","slug":"cruise_missiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/24\/cruise_missiles.html","title":{"rendered":"Cruise missiles?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The term &#8220;cruise missile&#8221; always seems oxymoronic.  A cruise is supposed to be leisurely, relaxed, something managed by Capt. Steubing to induce romance, love, exciting and new &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A missle, on the other hand, is always hurrying, always focused, and anything but relaxing or leisurely.<\/p>\n<p>Which is apropos of little but this report in the Guardian about British troops finding <a title=\"Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Troops find hidden Iraqi cruise missiles\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/military\/story\/0,11816,920653,00.html\">Russian-made cruise missiles<\/a> in a bunker complex outside Basra.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">But the most disturbing find was two Russian-made Harith cruise missiles, each six metres (20ft) long, and nine warheads hidden in two enormous, reinforced-concrete bunkers. <br \/>\nAnother missile, as yet unidentified, was found still in its crate. <br \/>\nThe scale and possible implications of the weapons find took British forces by surprise and raised fresh questions about the extent of the Iraqi war machine and the ability of weapons inspectors to cope with the task of scouring such a vast country for prohibited ordnance. <br \/>\nThe discovery of the missiles &#8211; which were stamped with the year 2002 &#8211; came as British troops from the Black Watch regiment fought to secure the area around Iraqi&#8217;s second city, Basra, in preparation for the capture of the city.<\/p>\n<p>Unless these are the shortest-range cruise missiles on record, it&#8217;s another sign of Stuff Inspectors Didn&#8217;t Find &#8212; even though it was in a large military complex outside of the second largest city in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>These things were stamped with the year 2002?  Hmmm.  Any comments from the Russians on that?<\/p>\n<p>Of course, some boxes of rocket-propelled grenades from a British firm were also found there (although one suspects that cruise missiles are monitored more closely by their manufacturing country than RPGs).<\/p>\n<p>An amusing aspect of the story is that the RPGs were manufactured by Wallop (&#8220;No Need to Say What Our Products Pack!&#8221;) Industries.  I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s more or less amusing that the company is not named for its product line, but for its home in Middle Wallop, Hampshire.<\/p>\n<p>Less amusing:  &#8220;One unit from the Black Watch came under attack from rocket-propelled grenades four times yesterday morning, but there were no casualties.&#8221;  It would be quite unamusing, I&#8217;m sure, to the folks of Hampshire if some of their RPGs were being fired at their own troops &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><small>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/volokh.blogspot.com\/2003_03_23_volokh_archive.html#200035500\">Volokh<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The term &#8220;cruise missile&#8221; always seems oxymoronic. A cruise is supposed to be leisurely, relaxed, something managed by Capt. Steubing to induce romance, love, exciting and new &#8230; A missle,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133234,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/09\/the-respect-demanding-president.html","url_meta":{"origin":3828,"position":0},"title":"The Respect-Demanding President","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 9-Apr-17 1:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So here's the problem with having a President whose lifelong MO is \"Show me respect or else I'll fricking bury you\": when he runs up against other heads of state who, through temperament or political necessity, take the same attitude.So you have Assad saying (as Graham so delicately put it)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11556,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/03\/because_massive_impersona.html","url_meta":{"origin":3828,"position":1},"title":"Because massive, impersonal retaliation always works, right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 3-Aug-07 2:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After all, the terrorists of the world have clearly been cowed by cruise missiles launched against them, by military strikes, and even by full-scale invasions.\u00a0 Yes, Tom Tancredo is on...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Elections 2008&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3299,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/12\/27\/scary.html","url_meta":{"origin":3828,"position":2},"title":"Scary","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 27-Dec-02 10:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"If there's one thing scarier than a lunatic totalitarian state full of starving peasants and a huge army, it's the same state with nukes. The Amazing Karnak predicts a cruise...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Geopolitical Brouhaha&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3985,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/04\/eggs_in_one_bas.html","url_meta":{"origin":3828,"position":3},"title":"Eggs in one basket","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Mar-03 11:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Has Kim Jong Il offered Saddam Hussein asylum? Maybe. Maybe not. If he has, maybe he could give the Iraqi leader a personal tour of one of his nuclear weapons...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Geopolitical Brouhaha&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38656,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/06\/the-priorities-of-choosing-war.html","url_meta":{"origin":3828,"position":4},"title":"The Priorities of Choosing War","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Sep-13 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, as Dwight Eisenhower put it (http:\/\/wist.info\/eisenhower-dwight\/5696\/):'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.'That includes lobbing a few multi-million dollar cruise missiles.That doesn't mean\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28480,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/09\/a-few-cruise-photos.html","url_meta":{"origin":3828,"position":5},"title":"A few cruise photos","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Jul-12 12:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some photos from our Alaska cruise, just complete (the pic below of Margie and Kay reading is from us sitting here at SEATAC). Alas, the Google+ interface for my table is a bit limited (can't figure out how to label the individual photos, limited preview on my part, and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}