SW I agree with you in a sense that all this boils down to is money. It seems the Australians and the Americans are happy to spend it on protecting their military personnel but we are not happy to spend it on our own. So now all we are talking about is politics and if the politicians were honest and said this is the threat, we can counter it but we think it is too expensive then at least they would be making an honest statement. Instead we get misleading statements. For example, the Hercules was not believed to be under threat from small arms in 2002. Or, every Hercules going in to Afghanistan in 2002 had a DAS. Or, we would never put a Hercules into Afghanistan if it could not counter the threat believed to be there. I can tell you from my own experiences that these statements are false. Unless these points are made in public with implied accountability nothing will change. I am not squeamish when it comes to spending money, I think spending it on self- protection is a laudable aim. All I really want is some honesty here.