OK, a correction is in order

Earlier tonight I posted a rant about the Russians providing GPS jammers to the Iraqis. Donald Sensing has provided me links to an essay he wrote and one that CPO Sparkey over a Sgt. Stryker wrote debunking the GPS jammer theory.

I went back and reread the original Fox News article that my essay was based on. This time I read it not for the content but for the little details that can change the story.

I found two of those little details that I had overlooked. First the formal complaining is being done by the STATE DEPARTMENT, not DoD. The guys over at State are not exactly paragons of defense knowledge (Powell a notable exception). The second little detail is that an unnamed DoD official merely said there was "concern at the highest levels" about this. To me, that's codespeak that says "shut up and ask a real question."

So, State is whining and DoD has already moved on beyond the issue. So the Russians were apparently only out to make a buck. But I'm still going to stand behind my indignation and I am still ashamed of having defended them in the past.

With these sales, they were, in my opinion, encouraging the Iraqi regime to believe that killing their own citizens was a legitimate tactic. Anything which even remotely encourages that belief is wrong. Whether the jammers work or not was not the basis for my being upset. It was the de facto encouragement of killing Iraqi citizens.

I was wrong about the details, but not about the principle. I stand corrected.

UPDATE: While doing some other research on the web, I came across this article which backs up what Mr. Sensing had to say. It also talks about some of the potential countermeasures that could possibly be used to defeat the "jammers" besides just INS. I'm going to go sit in the corner for forgetting that the military likes multiple levels of redundancy.