Friday, January 08, 2016

Obama Shipped Hellfire Missile To Cuba

by JASmius



In late 2014, as it happens, when The One was wooing the Castro brothers.

If you think this "misshipment" was "accidental," you need to do some rethinking:

A dummy U.S. Hellfire missile was "mistakenly" shipped from Europe to Cuba in 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The inert missile did not contain any explosives, the Journal reported, but there are concerns that Cuba could share the technology with potential U.S. adversaries like North Korea or Russia.

The Journal report was attributed to anonymous "people familiar with the matter." A U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity, confirmed its veracity to the Associated Press.

The Hellfire is a laser-guided, air-to-surface missile that can be deployed from an attack helicopter like the Apache and Super Cobra, the Kiowa scout helicopter, and an unmanned drones like the Predator and Reaper. It's been around for thirty years and been used to great effect in Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as in countless drone strikes in the "kinetic military action" against "non-Islamic" jihadists.  It was also canceled and scrapped last year by the Obama Regime.

Except for this one that got shipped to the Castros.  By "mistake," of course.  Maybe we're going to supply the CuComms with them now.  That'd probably make Lockheed-Martin happy.

However, liars to the end, the Obama Regime is giving the pretense of getting this "dummy" Hellfire back the old college try:

The U.S. official told the AP that Lockheed was authorized to export the dummy missile for a NATO training exercise. The official attributed the shipping error to Lockheed's freight forwarders, and said the U.S. was working with Lockheed to get the device back.

Oh, sure, throw FedEx or UPS or DHL or whomever under the bleeping bus.  Seriously, how does anybody ship a piece of classified military equipment - or ANYTHING, for that matter - to Cuba by mistake?  Is that even possible?  Since when were Cuban destinations in any freight forwarder's database?  And how pathetic is it that the best explanation for which we can hope is that the Cubans effortlessly stole it?

The official said the U.S. doesn't want any defense technology to remain in a proscribed country, whether that country can use it or not.

Well, then, it's a good thing that Communist Cuba is no longer a "proscribed" country, then, right?  I'm sure that's what Raul and Fidel will tell us.

The official said there is greater concern that Cuba could give more technically advanced countries access to the dummy.

Since when do the Castro boys do O's scheduling for overseas trips?

I'd lay odds on the chances of the Regime getting back the Hellfire, but even I can't count that high.

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