#Libya: 110 Tomahawk Missiles Launched from US and UK Ships

From Daily Mail (3/19/2011):

Coalition troops fired more than 110 cruise missiles at Libyan targets in 'only the first phase' of a multiphase operation, a senior U.S. military official said on Saturday.

Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the U.S. military's Joint Staff, declined to discuss what the next phase of the operations would be. He said more than 20 sites had been targeted in coalition strikes so far.

Tomahawk missiles were first introduced by General Dynamics in 1970's, have been in service since 1983. They are now made by Raytheon and Boeing (McDonnell Douglas).

It's $569,000 a missile - so we've blown $62.59 million. Quite a firework.

Raytheon's stock symbol is RTN (on NYSE), Boeing's is BA (on NYSE).

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What Is Mubarak Thinking? Here's My Answer

I'll answer my own question in the last post, "What Is Mubarak Thinking?"

He's doing what he's doing - openly attacking the anti-government protesters and creating chaos and bloodshed - to bring about a radical, fundamentalist Islamic regime in Egypt.

A radical, fundamentalist Islamic organization may be the only force that could match violence with violence.

The US and its allies in Middle East could then say "See how bad those fundamental Islam fanatics are? [Let's conveniently forget Saudi Arabia.] We've lost Egypt to these Islamic terrorists! [Let's also forget that Egypt was not technically our colony that we owned.] We need to keep spending on "war on terror", and we have to be vigilant all over the world!"

The military-industrial complex must be fed. In order to justify the feeding, it needs an enemy. Where there's none, it has to create one.

Peaceful protesters, with Christians and Muslims, with women and children among them, just don't cut it as their "enemy". So Mubarak sets out to turn the peaceful uprising into a bloody one, to give an opening to the radical fundamentalists to become a stereotypical "enemy of the free world".

Mubarak must know his political life in Egypt is over. How then can he secure a good after-life? By doing what the military-industrial complex wants and creating a new enemy for the complex. In return, Mubarak will be rewarded with a comfortable exile somewhere in the West (or in Israel), hailed as a hero, albeit failed, who tried to defend his country against radical Islam.

Everyone will be happy. The majority of Congressional Republicans will be more than happy to continue the war on terror and keep the military spending up. So will the Neocons who have been steadily hijacking the tea party movement. Dems? They've been trigger-happy ever since their man, Barry, became the president.

Benny and the Inkjets at the Federal Reserve will be happy because they can keep printing. Fiscal and monetary restraint be damned in the face of radical Islamic threat! QE3 is all but assured, to be followed by QE4, 5, 6...

Everyone will be happy, except for the great majority of Egyptians.

I hope I'm wrong.

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