When friends on Facebook expressed anger that Donald Trump had not used the Defense Production Act to expedite production of N95 masks and ventilators, I would endear myself to them by linking to “The Navy spent $30B and 16 years to fight Iran with a littoral combat ship that doesn’t work” (Australian-designed high-speed ferry with some guns on the deck).
I think that I might have a new favorite article regarding military speed… “The 9/11 Trial: Why Is It Taking So Long?” (nytimes):
The trial of five men accused of plotting the attacks had been scheduled for early next year — almost 20 years after the hijackings. Now even that schedule won’t be met. Here are the reasons.
But they have yet to come to trial. The military’s legal proceedings at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have lurched from setback to setback, disappointing the families of the victims who have watched in frustration and dismay. Then over the summer, a military judge finally set a timetable toward a trial that envisioned a start date early next year.
Now, that schedule has suffered a one-two punch that promises more delay. First, the coronavirus crisis has cut off most access to Guantánamo Bay, complicating the work of the prosecutors, defense teams, judiciary and support staff who shuttle between the base and the mainland. Then the judge abruptly announced last month that he was retiring from the Air Force and would leave the case next week.
The crude court compound the Pentagon built at Guantánamo as a temporary outpost of the war on terrorism turned out to be expensive and inadequate.
Everyone but the men accused of the crime commute to Guantánamo from Washington, and points beyond for one- to three-week hearing sessions that have been plagued by flight delays, cancellations, mold-damaged offices and communications failures.
Judges have also canceled hearings because of hurricanes, health issues, higher court challenges and, recently, the coronavirus.
Maybe we can convince Joe Biden to promise to close Gitmo!
Biden/Harris will be defeated by Trump!
I would have been happy to bet on Hillary beating Trump. Now that Democrats have credited Trump with saving more than 2 million American lives with his dramatic government action, I am reluctant to bet on the party of comforting promises!
When I worked for the Department of Defense we never really had to actually invoke DPA (aka DPAS) when dealing with US industry. During the Iraq war when we had a critical requirement we would contact a supplier (with contract to follow) stating what we needed and when we needed it. If they didn’t want to do it, we’d say “Don’t make us invoke DPAS.” It was literally an “offer they couldn’t refuse.“
When faced with the choice of having US Marshals showing up at their plant to seize whatever we needed or to force them to make what we needed (for reasonable compensation), the vendor always came up with a delivery solution on their own terms that met our need.
So really, based on my experience this whole “invoke or not invoke DPA” episode was just more political/media grandstanding.
Off-topic, but breaking news: it looks like basically the entire town of Chelsea, MA is a lost social-distancing cause. 30% of a group of randomly tested residents walking down the street have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies:
https://www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus
“Still, it’s kind of sobering that 30 percent of a random group of 200 people that are showing no symptoms are, in fact, infected. It’s all the more reason for everyone to be practicing physical distancing.”
It doesn’t sound like that to me! It sounds like that game is over, at least in Chelsea. How far away from 1/3rd of the people in one’s town can one get, especially if one doesn’t know who they are?
A little farther down the article, one Dr. Dean Xerras from Mass. General Chelsea Healthcare Center says: “We need to get them isolated. We need to get masks delivered to the city. We need to launch more safe isolation sites. We need to be able to identify cases and then give people the things they need to prevent perpetuation of the spread.”
Really? If 1/3rd of the population of Chelsea is positive today, how many will be positive in a week? Once you get to 50%, randomly distributed, everyone has to be in solitary confinement! The population of Chelsea was estimated at 40,160 in 2018. So what are they going to do? Lock 40,000 people in isolation rooms when half of them are already infected?
Am I looking at this the wrong way?
You are correct. System is run by IQ challenged people. Looks like making reasonable decisions is not in a picture for most of them.
@Alex:
I don’t know whether I’m “correct” as the reporting in that story leaves a lot of questions. It doesn’t sound like a very rigorous study, the sample size is tiny compared to the population, maybe they tested people on a street in a hot spot, maybe the antibody tests have a lot of false positives, etc., etc. Even with all those caveats, the real point is that Chelsea has the 2nd highest population density in Massachusetts, with 40,000+ people packed into 2.21 square miles. As Wikipedia notes, it is the smallest city in MA by land area:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea%2C_Massachusetts
So if there is anywhere near 1/3rd of the population infected, social distancing has already failed. It is also a Sanctuary City and it is one of three majority Hispanic/Latino towns in MA. I wonder if so many of the people they screened decided to do the anonymous blood test on the street because they didn’t want to try going to a hospital? Did they announce the testing in advance? The article has no information about those questions.
If we want to talk about sowing confusion, this morning on Face the Nation the Governor of Massachusetts said:
“Everything associated with testing, ultimately has to be approved by the CDC and the FDA, as it should be,” he said. “The state shouldn’t be making their own decisions on that stuff.”
And yet in Chelsea, right next to Boston, the test administered by Mass. General wasn’t approved by the FDA (or the CDC, apparently). At least according to the article it was made by BioMedomics and approved by Mass. General, and “Researchers hope to establish new test sites in other cities, with plans to obtain the identities of participants so they can be informed of their results.”
So Baker says testing has to be CDC and FDA approved, Mass. General has gone out and done testing apparently without that imprimatur, and plans to expand it. I’m glad to see everyone is on the same page. Back to abnormal.
By the way, I’m pretty sure this is the same BioMedomics blood test being used in China, but not CDC and FDA approved. Or sort of approved. Or something.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8081031/US-labs-15-minute-coronavirus-test-used-China-FDA-allowed-it.html
The pentagon dreams up paper dragons. They create specifications for a ship/airplane/tank that can’t physically exist, and then go over budget while trying to engineer and build these magical war machines. What does that have to do with ramping up production on already working and proven commercial products?