First—the international community doesn’t have enough
missiles to provide protection capable of stopping a
chemical attack from the Syrian government.
Schmitt and Gordon writes (Seniro nYT staff analysts and researches focusing on the middle east, December 23 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/world/middleeast/us-to-send-patriot-missiles-to-turkey-to-deter-syria.html?_r=0)
The recent Scud missile attacks mounted by forces loyal to Mr. Assad against
rebels in northern Syria have only added to Turkey’s
concerns. The Scud missiles fired at the rebels were
armed with conventional warheads, but the attacks showed that the
Assad government is prepared to use missiles as it struggles to slow
rebel gains.¶ NATO foreign ministers last week endorsed the decision to send Patriot batteries to Turkey. The details of how many
each nation would send were not worked out until this week, officials said.¶ In preparation for the deployment, allied officials had
that could be defended by
one or more Patriot batteries. But NATO nations do not
have enough batteries to cover all of the sites. With tensions building
conducted surveys of 10 potential sites, mostly in southeastern Turkey,
with Iran and North Korea defying the United States and its Asian allies bylaunching a long-range rocket, American officials did not
want to send more than a few Patriot batteries to Turkey, especially since it is not clear how long they will be needed.
B. Prisons are critical to Patriot missile productions.
Noah
Shachtman Prisoners Help Build Patriot Missiles, 3/8/11, http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/prisoners-help-build-patriot-missiles/, date access- 2/9/13
The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established
during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to
military electronics .One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts. “UNICOR/FPI
supplies numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot
Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile,” Unicor’s website explains. “We assemble and distribute the
Intermediate Frequency Processor (IFP) for the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and filters radiofrequency signals that guide the missile toward its target.”The missiles are then marketed worldwide
— sometimes by Washington’s top officials. Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pitched the Patriots to the Turkish government last year, a
diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reveals: “SecDef stressed that ‘nothing can compete with the PAC-3 when it comes to capabilities.’” Patriot assemblers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin
aren’t the only defense contractors relying on prison help. As Rohrlich notes, Unicor “inmates also make cable assemblies for the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15, the General
Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter, as well as electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder.”
C. Missile Construction Relies on Cheap Construction Only Retribution Switching
Away from a Retributive System Would Result in a Tradeoff in Which the US Can’t
Afford to Build Missiles
Justin
Rohrlich, 4/7/11, Why are Prisoners Building Patriot Missiles?, http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/defense-industrial-base-defense-
budgetdefense/3/7/2011/id/33198?page=full&refresh=1,Date access- 2/11/13
They are paid $0.23 an hour to start, and can work their way up to a maximum of $1.15 to
manufacture electronics that go into the propulsion, guidance, and targeting systems of Lockheed
Martin’s (LMT) PAC-3 guided missile, originally made famous in the first Persian Gulf conflict…..It echoed many
of the same points laid out by Preble and Hartung in a 2009 Washington Times op-ed, which argued, “The defense budget is not a jobs program, nor
should it be. Decisions on how many Humvees to buy, or how many bases to refurbish, should rest on
military necessity, not economic expedience subject to political chicanery. When military
procurement becomes nothing more than a series of thinly veiled pork- barrel projects, it risks exposing our troops to unnecessary risks, and ultimately
undermines our security.” Preble says, “When you talk about reductions in defense spending -- and I
encounter this almost daily -- you have a certain set of people with a vested interest in making the
argument that there is a unique defense industrial base that will be destroyed if any funding is cut;
that there will be structural damage, it will not rebuild, that it must be subsidized at extremely high
cost, ad infinitum, or it will disappear forever. It comes up in the context, oftentimes, when a
particular weapons system is nearing the end of its previously agreed-to production cycle.”…Preble says the
theory “never really sat well with me” and that “the global economy is such that US manufacturers have capitalized on our
comparative advantages, which are design and marketing -- the beginning of the process and the end
of it, which is the hard part. Everything in the middle is where we don’t have that advantage, which is
why things get made elsewhere.”….Regarding cost, the current Unicor “Electronic Capabilities”
brochure claims that the prison labor can reduce certain expenditures by as much as 40%. “These cost
savings have saved the Navy more than a million dollars,” says one statement [PDF].
Rehabilitation moves away from prison work programs.
Callahan writes (Nora, staff analyst and researcher for the November collaborative, “Workin' for the Man”
http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/03/0301.html)
UNICOR operates in federal prisons- a corporation that
offers common stock to all members of the U.S.
Department of Justice. Preferred or Class A stock is held by large banks and Wall Street Investment houses not unlike the U.S. Postal Service stock arrangements. Dividends are skimmed off without the scrutiny of Congress or GAO auditors.
Products made by UNICOR workers can be found just
about anywhere our military ventures. Pallet shelving, institutional beds, steel beams
and hardware produced by US federal prisoners can be found in Kuwait. Somolia and Mexico have both received UNICOR products.¶
Prison labor has little to do with rehabilitation, not when
sentences that span a man or woman's entire career are
rountinely meted out. Don't think that this isn't a consideration when increased length of sentences enhance
the profitability of these industries. A lower turnover rate is always a factor in the bottom line. It isn't just the federal government who have
jumped on this bandwagon-states are jumping on as well and here are just a few:
D is the internal link and impact- patriot missiles are
critical to stop a chemical weapons strike.
Morello writes (Chad, WP staff analyst, December 03, 2012http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-1203/world/35623328_1_syrian-president-bashar-al-assad-syrian-town-turkish-officials)
The intensifying violence in Syria raised alarm [for] on the
country’s northern border Monday, as Turkey scrambled military jets after Syrian planes bombed rebels fighting on the
frontier’s edge while panicked civilians crawled across a barbed-wire fence separating the two countries. The
incident in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn, though relatively minor, helps explain the
tension created in Turkey by the conflict in Syria, which has brought the fighting so close to Turkish farming
communities that residents routinely hear the sound of bombs exploding. It also underscored
Turkey’s eagerness to get Patriot missiles as a defensive
measure, fearing that the regime of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad might deploy missiles with chemical
warheads in a last-ditch effort to survive. The Patriot is a ground-based
defense system that fires missiles to intercept airborne threats, including aircraft and ballistic
missiles.People here worry that those missiles could spew poisonous fumes that would waft into Turkey, or even stray
into Turkish territory, as shells have several times. IHS Jane's analyst Ben Goodlad
says Syria has about 550 Scud missiles with a range of up
to 800 kilometers.
¶
¶
E) Impact Prob and Magnitude
Syria Chemical Strike is likely and will be Devastating
Jim
Walsh, Use Of Chemical Weapons Could Be Syria’s ‘Bloody Crescendo’, http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2012/12/11/chemical-weapons-syria-jim-walsh, Date access- 2/15/13
chemical and biological weapons expert Jonathan Tucker warned that the threat of
chemical weapons had “all but disappeared from the radar screen of senior U.S. government
policymakers, the news media, and the general public.” Recent reports that the embattled
government of Syria has begun preparations for the use of chemical weapons is a chilling and
unwelcome confirmation of Jonathan’s foresight. After two years of civil war and more than 40,000 deaths, events in Syria may be heading to a bloody crescendo. If Assad simply
suffers his just desserts, he will join a long line of Middle Eastern despots, who were deposed, executed and then forgotten. However, if he attacks Israel or U.S.
targets, he could be remembered — according to this reasoning — as the man who stood up to the oppressors. NBC reported last week that the Syrian
military had loaded aerial bombs with the deadly nerve agent sarin. Syria has long been considered
the country with the most extensive chemical weapons program in the Middle East. The rationale for the program,
begun decades ago, was to provide a poor man’s answer to Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal. (Syria borders Israel, and the two fought major wars in 1967 and 1973.) The fear today
is that deadly weapons will be used against Syria’s own population. Will Syria kill thousands or even
tens of thousands of its own people with these horrific weapons? Towards what end? One possibility is that the Syrian government is
In 2010, my friend, the late
using the threat of sarin for bargaining purposes. Perhaps President Bashar Assad is hoping he can gain negotiating leverage and work out a deal or at least win a graceful exit. But even if one
discounts Assad’s public statements that he intends to stay in Syria and fight to the death, his departure would do nothing about the elite military corps left behind who are in in charge of the
Assad is
actually calling the shots at this point. The second and most likely reason for preparing chemical weapons is for use against advancing rebel forces, either as a
chemical program — a group that is largely drawn from the minority Alawite community that has governed Syria with a bloody fist. Indeed, it is not even clear that
way to gain military advantage or for the purpose of exacting final revenge before facing a violent demise. Unfortunately, the Syrian government might be able to convince itself — based on
Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons to suppress rebels in Iraq — that
it could employ a chemical arsenal to terrible effect and still
stay in power. A third unlikely but grim possibility is that facing certain death, Assad might seek to
frame his historical “legacy” by using his chemical arsenal against Israel or others in the region,
including U.S. troops. The logic here is simple but extreme: “If I’m going down, I’m taking as many as I
can with me.” If Assad simply suffers his just desserts, he will join a long line of Middle Eastern
despots, who were deposed, executed and then forgotten. However, if he attacks Israel or U.S.
targets, he could be remembered — according to this reasoning — as the man who stood up to the
oppressors. Of course, the idea is fundamentally reprehensible, but it is not illogical, and a desperate man facing a certain and painful end might just grasp at that last horrific straw.
Lack of Patriot Missiles Reason for Open Syrian Borders
Schmitt and Gordon writes (Seniro nYT staff analysts and researches focusing on the middle east, December 23 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/world/middleeast/us-to-send-patriot-missiles-to-turkey-to-deter-syria.html?_r=0)
In preparation for the deployment, allied officials had conducted surveys of 10 potential sites, mostly
in southeastern Turkey, that could be defended by one or more Patriot batteries. But NATO nations
do not have enough batteries to cover all of the sites.
SUB B EXTENSTIONSUS Prisoners Make Necessary Components for Missiles Including the Patriot Missile
Justin Rohrlich, 4/7/11, Why are Prisoners Building Patriot Missiles?, http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/defense-industrial-base-defensebudgetdefense/3/7/2011/id/33198?page=full&refresh=1,Date access- 2/11/13
Unicor, known as Federal Prison Industries until a 1977 re-branding, is a network of over 100 factories at 70 penitentiaries within
the US; a self-sustaining, self-funding company owned wholly by the government. Unicor’s mandate dictates that prison work programs not adversely affect private sector businesses. It
has always been fairly well known that prisoners make everything from street signs, park benches -- and yes, license plates -- to office furniture for federal agencies like the VA and DoD (this
the
Bureau of Prisons’ PAC-3 missile program has gone largely unnoticed -- until now. For the record, federal
prisoners are making more than missile components. Inmates also make cable assemblies for the
McDonnell Douglas/Boeing (BA) F-15, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, Bell/Textron’s
(TXT) Cobra helicopter, as well as electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting
Vehicle’s laser rangefinder. Despite repeated requests, Unicor would not disclose how many inmates are currently assigned to defense-related jobs, but public records
last example being to the continuing consternation of Representative Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, whose district is home to Steelcase (SCS), Herman Miller (MLHR), and Haworth), but
“Unicor supplies
numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced
Capability (PAC-3) missile. We assemble and distribute the Intermediate Frequency Processor (IFP) for
the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and filters radio-frequency signals that guide the missile toward
its target. “We are an important supplier of complex electrical harnesses that link initiators, primers
and detonators in the guided missile warheads, and connect infrared, radar and electro-optical sensor
data that provide essential threat discrimination in high-clutter environments. “Our RF cable
assemblies connect and control antenna mast groups that communicate with remote missile
launching stations. We supply grounding cables and shielding to protect antenna arrays from electromagnetic interference and pulses. In addition, Unicor produces and distributes testing and repair kits
that help to ensure that guided missiles and other critical ordnance are deployment ready.”
show Unicor electronics factories located at no fewer than 14 federal correctional institutions. Here’s how the work is described on Unicor’s website: