BOX CUTTERS, PART 2

ABC News reports:

The U.S. military has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on armored vehicles in Iraq, but insurgents are adapting their tactics and using more sophisticated and deadlier devices.

Pentagon documents obtained by ABC News say new "explosively formed projectiles," or shaped charges, pose an "extremely serious threat" to U.S. troops....

The documents show how these particular shaped charges -- which were pioneered by the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group -- are constructed from a six-to-nine-inch steel pipe filled with explosives. One end of the pipe is sealed, and a curved copper or steel plate is fitted to the other end, forming a weapon that amounts to a giant bullet....

The force from the explosives can send the projectile more than a mile per second, penetrating armor up to four inches thick at a range of more than 100 yards....

"Basically you are taking about a molten jet of metal coming in one side of the vehicle, going straight through everything in its path in the vehicle," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.com, a Virginia-based defense, space and intelligence policy group....

So, let's see: While we've been spending $7 or $8 billion a year on a high-tech fantasy called missile defense, in the real world our soldiers are literally being torn limb from limb by explosives jammed into a steel pipe -- and we're saying, "Sorry, this is just too advanced for us to defend against!"

Box-cutters. It's box-cutters all over again. Why can't the clowns running this administration defend Americans from what actually poses a threat? Why did the insurgency in Iraq, and all the tactics insurgency implies, catch these guys flatfooted? Why does it still seem to be catching them flatfooted, after more than two years?