[chessplayer]

“As we learned last year, you don’t necessarily need a billion-dollar guided missile destroyer to chase down and deal with a bunch of teenage pirates wielding AK-47s and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades),” Gates quipped.

Stupid bastard. We did`nt build them just to chase down teenage pirates. Where do these people come from?

[USNBandit]

Those cruisers we don't need are the backbone of the strategic missile defense with the land based missile program being scaled back.

The Administration says we don't need cruisers, and in the next breath will say since we have those same cruisers we don't need ground based missile defense. We don't need carriers, but we've jacked up the carrier deployment schedule because we seem to need those assets in theater.

[Leisler]

The sad thing is Blackwater could better, at one one hundredth the cost, handle the pirates then the Navy.

Now, the Navy has the money. I know that they have the officers, and men. It is just as a bureaucracy they can not wrap their head around it.

Take five tramp oil burner, throw ten go fasts and a couple of light choppers on each and then fend off the blizzard of requested officer and enlisted paper work for the great Somalia hunt.

But, no.