Center for a New American Security

Ex, In your article on the

Ex,

In your article on the fallout from Libya you wrote the following:

"The United States and other Western powers went into Libya claiming to establish a no-fly zone, which they immediately did. But it soon became clear that the United States and its allies were intent on using the pretense of these air operations to effect regime change in Libya. The ad hoc coalition of NATO allies and several Gulf states destroyed many more Libyan tanks and armored personnel carriers than they shot down Libyan aircraft, and a variety of means, including special operations forces, were employed to strengthen Libyan rebel forces and push Gadhafi from power."

You are mistaken as to the legal and operational basis for Operation Unified Protector to target Libyan ground forces and regime infrastructure. Those targets were engaged in the course of operations to enforce the mandate to use all necessary means to protect civilians, as expressed in UNSCR 1973. That language read:

4. Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory...

Operational level commanders and staff officers have been crystal clear that the interpretation of this language in the particular context and dynamics of the Libyan conflict was the main factor that shaped air to ground operations by OUP. That interpretation changed over the course of the conflict, but at no point were operations against Libyan ground maneuver forces based on a spurious interpretation of the no-fly zone language in the UNSCR.

Exum, it is not about just

Exum, it is not about just deer. I saw your Twitter about Tricon (Trijicon?), CQB, and deer.

In the 1980's there was a lot of interest in action style shooting. An example is 3-gun match.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJNqqCTX1Fs
Many of the optics that you are scratching your head about are represented and used in 3 gun.

Think of it this way. When the military went to COTS (commercial off the shelf) in the early 90's, the leaders in the commercial shooting industry provided the ideas with a R&D budget out of their own pocket. Those ideas in the commercial shooting world are born in places like 3 gun matches from people that like the sport and made it a business. It is not unusual to find military procurement walking the floor at the shooting and hunting trade shows.

The ideas have to come from somewhere and it is usually hunting, hitting steel, or punching paper that pays the employee's paychecks.
http://www.trijicon.com/na_en/company/unique_to_trijicon.php

It is like anything else in society, everyone wants more and they want it their way. Cars are fancier, our live styles are more alternative, the shooting sports have gone kinetic, and the baby boomers have larger numbers on their paychecks.

It gets a lot more interesting if the game is big enough to eat you. The guys that go to Africa need good optics.

Thank you for your support. It is really about being with friends like any other hobby or sport.

http://www.americanactionshooting.com/
http://www.sassnet.com/About-What-is-SASS-001A.php
http://www.ipsc.org/

Sorry for the off topic discussion, it is about education.

The Barrett

The Barrett  Company. 

"Barrett introduced the M82 in 1982 but did not make any significant sales until 1989. These first large sales were to Sweden. Soon afterward, the M82 was purchased by the United States armed forces, and it was deployed in the Gulf War. Today the company contracts with dozens of countries to supply sniper rifles."

The Barrett Rifle was first purchased by the US Marine Corps and fitted with a under-rated optics system by a guy named Pshak. Think he was a Gunny at the time who trained people like Anthony Sworfford, that retard from the movie Jarhead.  Pshak was head instructor at Quantico and trained all Marine Snipers STA Teams in the Saudi Triangle before Desert Storm. The first use of the weapons system in combat, was an epic failure. 

Ronnie, like John Unertl, was good friends with Pshak.. All the first purchases for this weapon's system by the Marine Corps occurred between two good friends.

Sales skyrocketed for Barrett after Desert Storm, by word of their contract and urban legends. Does the gun have a purpose and has it advanced?  Sure it has, but it's first combat use was a flop.  I wouldn't say they have had an easy road.

Visitor on August 5, 2012 -

Visitor on August 5, 2012 - 8:34pm

No easy road implied on any of the systems.

If we flashed back to the 1980's and look at the optics systems of the day there wasn't really too much on the market that would have supported the recoil of a 50 caliber rifle system because 50 cal was mostly used for crew based weapons. An M2 belt feed has a lot more mass/weight as compared to a shoulder fired rifle. There is a learning curve and your comments support that. There has been a learning curve for many of the optics (and other systems) that were adopted since Desert Storm. The age old way of testing optic's mechanical reliability is to mount the optic and fire thousands of rounds (for a 50 the scope's internals come apart a lot sooner), few manufacturers or government agencies if any were doing computer simulations in the 1980's on scope recoil. Many developments in the firearms world are empirical in nature. Only in the past ten years has there really been an effort to build an electro-mechanical "optics" shaker that simulates rifle recoil and that was driven by SOPMOD and the thermal / i2 systems which use shock sensitive focal plane arrays to "see" in a different spectrum.

We are still on the learning curve for the M16 rifle, adopted in the early 60's, after many years of controversy!

Thank you for your comments, what you say is true. You can say just as much about the M110 about its learning curve.

I have yet to find anything perfect in life, we can only hope to learn from our mistakes.

First you have to have a budget to make the mistake and that comes from sales. In the firearms industry, we have wars which produce a large sum of capital investment. After the war we try to ban everything that we develop because we do not what to have those things. It was the way after WW1, WW2, Vietnam, and Desert Storm.

We are getting ready to do it again and later on some one is going to start another war and the learning curve starts a new with a generation in denial.

HIS taking a bite out of

HIS taking a bite out of Blackwater. Too bad the US Attorney didn't have the sack to go after them for exporting and possession of silenced weapons. Each silencer would have carried a 100,000 USD fine and 10 year prison sentence. Eric Prince gets a slap on the wiener again. Then again this entire case was a paper tiger.

Now tell me, can Eric Prince, being the former CEO, now being a convicted Felon via selling guns to the King of Jordan, will he be able to vote in the next election? LOL.

http://www.examiner.com/article/former-iraq-war-defense-contractor-black...

When the Syrian president

When the Syrian president resigns or dies, I'm sure the Qatar Intelligence Sevices / Special Ops will raise their flag, just like they did on Muammar al-Gaddafi's house! Anyone want to put money on that?

If US troops in or not in

If US troops in or not in uniform, land is Damascus the same exact things that have occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan will occur in Syria. it will be worse though and likely start a war with Iran.