Mofaz: Merkava 4 tank project goes on

[Resistance]

Globes Online

Israel Military Industries unveiled its 120 mm Kalanit shell for use in the Merkava Mark 4. The shell is designed to destroy bunkers and armored personnel carriers.

“The Merkava Mark 4 project has not been halted; it will continue,” Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz said today in a meeting with employees working in the plant at Tel Hashomer that manufactures the tank.

As part of the discussions of the 2004 budget, the Ministry of Finance planned to eliminate the Merkava Mark 4 project, claiming that Israel had no eastern front, after the end of the war in Iraq. The Ministry of Defense and the Israel Defense Forces opposed the decision, claiming that Israel needed the tanks, and the project should be continued in order to preserve its qualitative advantage.

Israel Military Industries today unveiled a new advanced 120 mm shell, called the Kalanit, for use in the Merkava. The shell is designed to destroy a wide variety of targets, such as fortified bunkers, infantry, anti-aircraft units, attack helicopters, and armored personnel carriers.

[bemildred]

1. Going to shoot attack helicopters with a 5" shell ...

Hmm ...

[ClaraLemlich]

2. Talk about a bloated defense budget?

:wtf:

[MikeGalos]

3. Nah

A bloated budget is one where you don't have threats on your borders and a history of invasions and wars every decade or so.

If you do meet those criteria, you have every reason to spend money on defense.

[ClaraLemlich]

4. Right

So, since that is equivalent to the Palestinian predicament, I presume you are for providing much more financial assistance for their defense.

Seems fair. Thanks.

[bemildred]

5. That is completely incorrect.

The Palestinians do not make threats on their borders and
have never invaded anyone, so they are able to get by with
rocks, bomb belts, and knock-off AK47s and do not need all
that money.

Edit: rocks is plural

[MikeGalos]

6. Since they've never invaded anybody

there should be no problem in building a fence to protect against that non-event and no problem in blowing up all those tunnels in Gaza. And, all those Palestinians who keep blowing up Israelis in pizza parlors must be tourists, right?

[bemildred]

7. A really impressive collection of non-sequiturs there.

My congratulations to you.

[MikeGalos]

8. And a totally contentless reply

unlike my post. I'd congratulate you, but I've seen it here often enough before that it's no longer that noteworthy.

[bemildred]

9. I was talking to Ms Lemlich.

You jumped in with a bunch of irrelevant crap.

[MikeGalos]

10. No

you were having a public discussion on bloated defense budgets.

But, thanks for playing. In the future, if you want to have a private discussion, perhaps you shouldn't use a public message board.

[bemildred]

12. No.

I was talking to Ms Lemlich.
And you jumped in with a bunch of irrelevant crap.

[JohnLocke]

26. Let me explain the concept of a message board.

Two words: public forum.

[bemildred]

28. Very illuminating, thank you. nt

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. I don't believe this is a private conversation

So, jumping in is sort of the way things work.

[bemildred]

13. Certainly, if you jump in with something germane.

On the other hand, irrelevant crap disrupts the train of thought.

[MikeGalos]

14. Hmmm

a discussion on bloated defense budgets is interrupted by a posting on bloated defense budgets.

Seems germane to me.

[bemildred]

15. Your post (#6, the relevant one) says zippo about defense budgets,

bloated or otherwise. But I must go now, it's clear it's not
going to be possible to have any intelligent conversation here.
Just insults and irrelevant babble.

[MikeGalos]

18. Yes but it wasn't the post objected to

and it was germane to the post IT replied to. If you object to my post 6, then you should look at your post 5 which it replied directly to...

[bemildred]

19. Do you really think you can tell me what post I objected to?

Surely Sir, even you are not such a fool.

[Muddleoftheroad]

16. Perhaps you should leave it to everyone to decide

What is relevant or irrelevant to the discussion.

[bemildred]

17. Then again, perhaps not.

There has to be a certain coherence to things, or
you don't get anywhere. As with this sub-thread, for instance.

[Muddleoftheroad]

22. You took us off track

And now have the audacity to complain about it.

[bemildred]

23. I fail to see how I could have taken myself off my track

by pointing out that a bunch of irrelevant crap introduced by
another poster was irrelevant crap. The fact that a subject
happens to be what YOU want to talk about does not make it
relevant to what I was talking about.

Audacity in the right place is a good thing, Sir.

"L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!" (Napoleon)

[JohnLocke]

25. Ah...a rebuttal would be nice.

[bemildred]

27. You have made no argument, Sir.

[ClaraLemlich]

20. That is completely incorrect.

The Palestinians deserve as much money for defense as do those with whom they must protect themselves.

[Muddleoftheroad]

21. Thankfully, that's not how it works

Otherwise, you would have to give everyone the same defense budget as the U.S. Costa Rica, here are your billions. Ethiopia, the same.

Then, because several nations are threatened by multiple enemies, those nations would have to increase their budgets, etc.

[bemildred]

24. That has a certain balance to it.

But I prefer the other approach, less guns and
more butter for both sides.