Heard the congressional hearing excerpt on the radio this morning. Nothing on YouTube yet. If one of these brings down a passenger airliner in Europe. This looks to be the smoking gun for the White House deflection/outright lie that the ambassadors, security detail deaths were due to a video.
http://www.examiner.com/article/20-000-shoulder-to-air-missiles-missing-libya
Edit: regular RPGs? The excerpt of Dennis kucinich talking was specifically talking about sams so who knows.
I stayed up until 11 pm last night watching the hearings on CSPAN.
The Congressman asked how many shoulder fired missiles capable of bringing down an airliner were “out there”, “on the loose”, or whatever term he used.
The witness answered (with what seemed like a pregnant pause to gulp another lung full of air): “Ten to twenty…thousand.”
The way the question was answered just made your sphincter pucker in new and chilling ways.
Tens of thousands of MANPADS unaccounted for? Our foreign aid dollars well spent.
03 October 2012
“What is the role of government?” - Jim Lehrer
“The first role of government is to keep Americans safe.” - Barry Obama
:blink:
We’ve known these were in the wind for quite some time now. The second, more heavily fortified clandestine location in Benghazi that was revealed publicly by the DoS in yesterday’s hearings was the base of operations for DoS efforts to recover as many of them as possible.
This is a catastrophe waiting to happen. 
I hope Romney’s people are watching this…Another excellant example of how well Barry has done in the middle east…This would make a interesting topic of discussion during the next debate, seeing how’s it’s going to be on Foreign Policy…
Unbelievable.
10-20,000 sure is a vague number and WTF is a “shoulder-to-air” missile? Since Libya is a former military weapons client of the Soviet Union, and the author of the article is an idiot when it comes to math and Soviet-era weapons we can surmise that Kimberly is either talking about SA-7 Grails or RPGs. From the math, I think she is most likely talking about RPGs, as they are easier to stockpile in quantity, as apposed to the Grail, which is quite the opposite. Shoulder-fired SAM’s require regular upkeep. This is why none of those Stingers given to the mujahideen have ever been used; the propellant, seeker-head coolant, and batteries have long ago died, turned to goo, or lost their effectiveness. Any SA-7s sold to Libya during the Soviet Era would be in the same boat without regular depot level maintenance to keep them operational. Do you think the Libyans were capable of performing depot level maintenance on a SA-7? I doubt their military could keep a toaster running based on the capability of their air force. Not to mention that just 10,000 SA-7’s would fill a container ship and cost half a billions dollars (low-balling it at $50,000 per unit at 10,000 units) shows the article is just a bit on the factually deficient side. I’m pretty sure Kimberly didn’t do any fact checking with Jane’s (“Jane, who’s Jane?”) before she whipped up this fine piece of “journalism”.
I agree with this assessment. My only concern would be if Putin or China was selling more updated systems to Libya just prior to the revolution. It would only take a few dozen to create real problems.
Well, at least we now know why we had “retired” SEALs in Libya. News about the MANPADs and the mission to recover them leaked a few days after the attack, but was quickly shut down within the media.
And if we support the Syrian rebels, and what happens to their WMD’s? Gonna send in US troops to TRY and secure all of those?
Supporting the “new” Arabia AKA Muslim Brotherhood led middle east is is mine field full of “one mistake and the crazies get WMD’s” steps, and I think we’ve already missed the boat on quite a few things.
Now, apparently, we can sit on our hands and wait for the UN to take care of Iran since Biden never heard of a SCUD missile or a boat.
SAM’s or no SAM’s. Get close to an airport with an RPG and fire at the aircraft while on the runway and you can kill hundreds of passengers.
Not very difficult to do. You can also nail one as it is making a landing. With Europe’s open borders, it is a reality.
I think your fears are well grounded. According to this up to date SA-24 were in Khadafi forces’ hands. “As seen on TV” . ETA: Come comments are disputing the ID of these. However, they are not old soviet era SA-7
ETA2: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/who-sold-libya-its-super-missiles/
when I went to HS back in the NW I remember being on the hood canal bridge a few times when they would close it for the nuclear subs to pass through ! and they were right there !!! two other boats with them but I could for sure have hit them with a slingshot close !!
we used to dive the old bridge wreck that sunk in the 80s and can say when you are diving a submarine is actually kinda loud we swam up to the underside of the bridge and then along side popped up and sure enough there was the sub going past maybe couple hundred yards or so ?
I know they used to have some thing where they had to be on the surface ? heard they now go underwater ? dont know but a Lawyer (friends dad) of mine was going to write a book back in the 80s how terrorists went down to the bridge and blew one up.
Would make a good Grisham novel
Had we not supported “Al Qaeda” we would not have this worry - nor the events that have since transpired in Benghazi.
“Oh what a wicked web we weave when we practice to deceive…”