Free Republic

Raytheon, the company that makes the Tomahawk missiles used in the air strikes on Syria by the United States, is rising in early stock trading Friday. Investors seem to be betting President Trump's decision to retaliate against Syria after the chemical attack on Syrian citizens earlier this week may mean the Pentagon will need more Tomahawks. The Department of Defense asked for $2 billion over five years to buy 4,000 Tomahawks for the U.S. Navy in its fiscal 2017 budget last February. Nearly five dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at military bases in Syria from U.S. warships in the...

Defense Spending: Two more weapons systems, including the Navy's premier attack missile, have been targeted for elimination by the administration years before their usefulness ends or replacements are ready. How ironic that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama used the Tomahawk missile he now seeks to scrap as his weapon of choice when on March 19, 2011, he launched Operation Odyssey Dawn and fired 112 Tomahawks at Libyan targets to enforce a U.N.-backed no fly-zone in support of Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi. Future presidents will not be able to carry such a big stick. Along with the Hellfire air-to-ground...

A Tomahawk missile costs $1.4 million. If you don't know that, you haven't paid attention to the debate over the Libya War. The war is America's first conflict initiated against the backdrop of $1 trillion deficits, and as such practically every strike is subject to the accountant's bean-counting. Our first fusillade of 160 cruise missiles, we are told, cost hundreds of millions of dollars alone. Even Indiana's Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican establishmentarian and internationalist of long standing, argues the cost of the war is too damn high. "Who has really budgeted for Libya at all?" he asks. Yes, by...