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Most satellites have essentially no situational awareness, because being taken apart by little aliens in shiny green spacesuits (or by advanced remanufacturing robots) is just not part of the threat model. So it tends to be very hard for ground control to distinguish between a random equipment failure and a failure caused by deliberate modification of the spacecraft.

This mission probably isn't what the X-37 is for, since it's a low earth orbit vehicle, not geosynchronous.

We do? Since when? You mean subs can go past 20,000 and not crush like eggs? We can't even retrieve the cables, we just lay new ones....

There's no need to go that deep, if your sub is stealthy enough to work undetected in water of a more reasonable depth. Operation Ivy Bells is an example from long enough ago that's it's public knowledge. I suspect the US would still be keeping even that secret, but Russia put the wiretap device on display in a public museum (the old KGB headquarters), so the cat was pretty much out of the bag.

"Refusal to be prepared for that sort of thing is the fault of US military leadership."

Troll, eh?

Sending soft-skinned light truck HMMWVs into urban combat works badly. They cannot surmount roadblocks and do not effectively protect their crews. (US forces at Mogadish had to be rescued by Pakistani M113 and M48s, because the US armor was left in CONUS!) Uparmoring HMMWVs for Iraq was reactive to tactics that had been used against soft trucks for DECADES.

http://www.specialoperations.com/Operations/Restore_Hope/97-0364.pdf

As for soft-skinned supply convoys (OK in open desert, not OK when channelized in cities) we had protective solutions in the form of the famous Viet Nam war gun trucks. We have them again, but they had to be fabbed locally (again) because of the collective post-Viet Nam brain dump. Good thing the enlisted folks and contractors had their act together.

VN "Iron Butterfly" truck w.box style body:
http://134.198.33.115/sims12.htm

OIF homebrew version:
http://news.webshots.com/photo/1124605382054144800oTBMQt

Livermore high-dollar version:
https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2005/NR-05-07-07.html

VN truck King Cobra (scroll down)
http://134.198.33.115/agee1.htm

Looks familiar!
http://www.cmvmag.co.uk/cgi-bin/news.cgi?article=040103

MRAP armored truck:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/xml/news/2007/05/marine_mrap_070523/070253mrap_story.JPG

BTW, Israel has figured out how to carry troops into combat under far more armor than the US uses. The Israelis use recycled Russian tank hulls as the basis for the Achzarit. Might be time for us to do the same thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ly0fk1Pro

You may want to brush up your terrorism history. During the cold war many European countries had to deal with Communist terror organizations such as the RAF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Fraction . Just type in any Western EU country into the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base at http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp and see for yourself. Those terrorist organizations were often indirectly sponsored by the Soviets and always Anti-American.

Nevertheless the largest attack against US forces was actually carried out in Beirut by Hizbollah against US marines after which Reagan immediately "cut and run" from Lebanon.

Then there was the especially despicable hijacking of the Achille Lauro http://www.specialoperations.com/Images_Folder/lib rary2/achille.html.

Of course all the terror Gaddafi sponsored should not be forgotten either. Lockerbie claiming the most victims http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 but it was the bombing of a Berlin discotheque that claimed the lives of GIs that prompted Reagan to bomb Tripolis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Berlin_discotheq ue_bombing.

Terror incidents have been a constant backdrop throughout the cold war. Yet somehow the West managed to win this war without losing its soul. According to you this should have been impossible.

But the real security comes with a Marine standing guard. If you can get passed that guy, the biggest problem is already solved.

Then you're in trouble (scroll to near the bottom where they just drive through the main gate). The red team Red Cell were notorious in the eighties for getting into any base they set their sights on, in fact they were so successful that it played no small part in being shut down, they were just too much of an embarassement.

In fact, human security guards are notoriously unreliable, they'll get a few, but also let quite a few through. So I'm not sure that's necessarily the "biggest problem." It's a problem, but a combination of guard relying on technology that he's been assured is "foolproof" when in fact it is not, doesn't make for much in the way of security.

That'll be Achille Lauro.

The FBI had sent a robot vehicle with a telephone to Weaver, which he refused to answer, and was later criticized for it. But besides the telephone, the robot was armed with a shotgun, pointed directly at the door.
http://www.specialoperations.com/Domestic/FBI/Ops. htm

As part of their efforts to make contact with the Weavers, the FBI sent a robot with a telephone to the cabin. But the robot also had a shotgun pointed at the door, so the Weavers feared that reaching for the phone could result in death or injury.
http://land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/weaver.shtml

Wrong. There is at least one precendent.

In 1994 a group of Algerian terrorists hijacked an Air France plane with the intent of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. They were forced to land in Marseilles where the French Special Forces stormed the plane and killed all the bad guys. No passenger was seriously injured.

Here's an article about the incident.

M1911 Marine MEU (SOC)?

I can see the attraction.

With a light.
Ho-ly moly.
Clean and mean.

That last one has the interesting quote of a quote, "In the February 1999 American Rifleman, the author of "America's 9mm's", James P. Cowgill states, "One reason for the change to a 9mm service pistol was the increasing number of women in the military. They have statistically smaller hands and were often issued revolvers as opposed to the larger M1911A1".

The USMC's site for it.

A few years ago my girlfriend told me that her next-door apartment neighbor liked to play loud, bassy rap music. She had politely complained to him on a couple of occasions, but he tended to resume his behavior after a while, and she was ready to get the landlord involved.

I decided to try a psyop instead, so I brought my CD of Pulse Demon by Merzbow, stayed at my gf's apartment for a couple of days, and waited.

Her neighbor began pumping his stereo pretty loud, and I gave it a few minutes before I ran my "test." I pointed my gf's speakers to the wall and started Merzbow on very low volume, and slowly cranked it until there would be no mistaking the unholy scream of industrial noise on the other side of the wall. Then we closed the bedroom door and turned up the TV to mask the noise (we didn't want to terrorize ourselves too!).

We waited a full half hour before the guy finally came to the door, and although he was miffed, he seemed more confused than angry. He didn't know what it was. I apologized sweetly and explained that I was showing my gf how to use a shortwave radio a bit too loudly, and oh-by-the-way, could he turn his stereo down too? He said sorry, and left with the same quizzical look he brought with him.

I left my Merzbow CD with her, just in case, and her neighbor rarely played his stereo very loud after that. Apparently the guy moved out a couple of months later. We have Merzbow to thank for his service.

--

If you really think that the SAS will never be used to assassinate civilians you should read that

• Operation Flavius
• MURDER ON THE ROCK
• http://www.irishnews.com/k_a rchive/040398/nnews15.html

Where the SAS shot unarmed supposed IRA operatives in Spain, but for that matter unarmed civilian, without even trying to arrest them. (And got away with it...)