Posted on 06/10/2011 12:47:11 PM PDT by Steve Peacock
Training of Pakistani intelligence and military personnel in the use of electronic surveillance and analysis equipment potentially could take place on U.S. soil, according to an Army planning document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located.
The document asserted that the Army at this point only is conducting a market survey of firms capable of providing such training; however, the “sources sought” notice equally made clear that a follow-on Foreign Military Sales procurement of services would allow the training to take place either outside of the country—Pakistan, specifically—or domestically.
The notice referred to Arizona, Florida, and Maryland as possible training locations without explicitly identifying facilities or military bases. Presumably, though, one such possibility is the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, whose contracting center is coordinating what formally is known as the Market Survey for Ground Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (GISR) System (Solicitation #MARKET-SURVEY-5101-1).
The GISR system was developed by DRS Technologies, a Parsippany, N.J.-based subsidiary of Finnmeccanica SpA— a company for which the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance owns, according to the corporate website, 30.2% of the share capital.
Though the notice did not identify the name of the GISR system that DRS developed, nor did it refer to a specific, previous contract to develop that system, the document offered the following description:
"The system provides rapid detection and localization of a wide-range of threat signals, monitors signals of interest, and supports real-time analysis to provide mission-critical intelligence to the warfighter. The system consists of a combination of 3 or more subsystems each consisting of; a manpackable direction finding (DF) and homing VHF/UHF receiver, a handheld computer, DF and communications antennas, handheld radio for communications and internetworking, a video transmitting air to ground microwave communications system, a vehicular mounting kit for on the move operations, and a sophisticated signals analysis node hosted on a laptop computer and connected via radio."
Separately, the U.S. government in recent years awarded DRS contracts valued in the billions for a multitude of technology and training programs, many which the company carried out or supplied in combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, one of its employees—former U.S. Marine Javier de la Garza—was killed while working for DRS as a communications technician in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan.
Send. Those. Barbarians Home. No updating their means of killing us. SHHEEEEEESH!
For real?!?
Pakistan needs to be made a weapons and Islam free zone.
Thanks for posting. I sent my Congressmen an email opposing the training of these Islamic monkeys.
Sickening.
“Training of Pakistani intelligence and military personnel in the use of electronic surveillance and analysis equipment potentially could take place on U.S. soil, according to an Army planning document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located.”
From The Onion, right?
One might think so, understandably.
“Thanks for posting. I sent my Congressmen an email opposing the training of these Islamic monkeys.”
You’re welcome — I’m glad to hear someone is writing their congressman in response. As potentially frustrating and unfruitful as that may be sometimes — considering that we all have received useless form letters from congressional staffers in response to our concerns — sometimes it is our only hope.
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