Posted on 08/20/2014 4:36:31 PM PDT by Lorianne
In the United States, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), AR-15s and camouflage body armor all made an appearance on the streets of a suburb in the heartland, helping to give a tense situation the push needed to turn into a week of riots. American citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, feeling they were being occupied by a foreign army, rather than their friendly neighborhood cop on the beat.
MRAPs didn’t get a better rap overseas, either. In what’s still being called Iraq — at least for the sake of convenience — the U.S. Air Force has resumed bombing missions in the northern part of the “country.” The aim of the missions is stated as being the defense of a minority group known as the Yazidis, who practice a religion unique to themselves and are under threat by the Islamic State, a jihadi group that controls a large chunk of territory in Syria and Iraq.
The extremist cadre Islamic State — which has declared itself to be the new caliphate, representing God’s will on earth — has had an incredible string of military successes over the last few months. They’ve taken a lot of territory. They’ve slaughtered a lot of people, including civilians. They’ve imposed what they say is Islamic law — though many Islamic scholars would beg to disagree.
And Islamic State’s captured an enormous amount of U.S. weaponry, originally intended for the rebuilt Iraqi Army. You know — the one that collapsed in terror in front of the Islamic State, back when they were just ISIL? The ones who dropped their uniforms, and rifles and ran away?
They left behind the bigger equipment, too, including M1 Abrams tanks (about $6 million each), 52 M198 Howitzer cannons ($527,337), and MRAPs (about $1 million) similar to the ones in use in Ferguson.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
Do we have GPS tracking devices in our items?
Even construction outfits do that these days.
Should make targeting a snap.
All conveniently forgotten as this Rooters clown thinks he's found a clever new way to criticize the country.
We should gas the bastards and retake our equipment back.
Remember all the angst about neutron bomb talk in years past?
Would have come in handy with these ISIS insects.
The computer systems should have had a kill program. Just to shut it down. And how do they know how to use the tank? Manuals inside?
It is strictly a cost issue. It is cheaper to destroy them than to transport back to the US.
Remember Cash for Clunkers? Why not pour toxics into the engines and innards to destroy them? Cheaper than firing missiles and rockets to blow them apart. This government should have seen this coming; yet they allowed a fierce enemy to take our left-behind equipment.
Not really. The tactical GPS systems we use require a significant back-end support system that I highly doubt ISIS is utilizing. Hell, I'd be shocked if we even gave any of it to the Iraqis. Armored vehicles are one thing, our comms systems are quite another.
I meant GPS in our mobile systems that we could utilize to ID where it currently is.
I guess it’s possible, but I’m not sure.
No doubt. I can see how destruction could have been perceived by the Iraqi government as an insult, but given their cowardice and the fractured regime, these should have been destroyed beyond further use.
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