Today’s news brought the surprise announcement that the Senate had voted to eliminate any more purchases for the F-22 fighter aircraft. You may not be too familiar with this fighter because, while it was designed in the 1980’s it has never been used in any of our wars. It is a relic of the cold war – a time when the U.S. thought it might someday be engaged in a shootout with either Russia or China. Now, with both Russia and China looking more like U.S. business partners, its certainly hard to justify purchasing anymore of these F-22s for which we have never found any use at all. But is it really possible the Senate actually made a decision based upon common sense and not the influence of lobbyists for the defense industry? It’s hard to believe, I know. But never fear, Congress hasn’t completely lost its mind, the House has decided to stay the course. They want to put money in the budget to buy enough spare parts for the never-used F-22 for twelve more planes. I wonder – are they actually contemplating building twelve plabnes from spare parts? Or do they just want to be sure they have enough spare parts to last the next 100 years – just in case. I can almost hear a sigh of relief from Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the plane. Defense contractor welfare is still alive.
Speaking of defense contractor welfare, I wonder how we are using the USS George H W Bush, which was recently launched? Another cold war relic that was just completed, this baby netted Northrop Grumman a cool $6,200,000,000. Not bad for a ship that is unlikely to ever face a Russian or Chinese armada. The irony of this defense contractor welfare state we have created, through a host of lobbyists and oh-too-willing senators and representatives, is that we spend enormous amounts of money on things we never use and then we spend nothing on things our soldiers desperately need. Remember the Iraq invasion and how Cheney said our troops would have the finest equipment and blah, blah, blah? Within a couple of months, our soldiers were scrounging in dumps for armor they could attach to their Humvees because they were driving these things into the middle of spontaneous battles with no protection at all. And our coddled defense contractors didn’t have a thing on their shelves that help. Did our lobbyist/senator/representative coalition give a hoot? I doubt they were even aware of the problem – let’s face it, there’s not a lot of money to be made in manufacturing armor for Humvees anyway. So who cares?
Now the contractors are saying they have the perfect solution for the tragic loss of the F-22 from our dubious arsenal. How about an new plane, the F-35? Yeah, that’s the ticket! Interestingly and coincidentally, this baby is also built by Lockheed Martin. All we need now is a potential, or at least plausible enemy, in order to get the old production line rolling. Maybe we could get the Russians or the Chinese to do something provocative – like in the good old days when there were any number of reasons to justify a bloated defense budget. You would think that Putin could help out here, wouldn’t you? Just for old times sake. All he would have to do would be to just glare at President Obama. That’s all – he wouldn’t have to say a word – that should be worth at least a $500 billion contract for three or four F-35s, wouldn’t it? I can hear the production line humming already.
There’s just one thing. The F-35 is already obsolete technology – let alone the fact that we don’t have a plausible enemy to use it against. Today’s aircraft technology has leap-frogged its way to a new generation of pilot-less planes. We don’t really need fighter pilots anymore. The Predator, flown in Afganistan and Pakistan, but piloted remotely from Nevada, shows us the way of the future. Pilot-less fighter planes can be made that can perform maneuvers that no human could tolerate, and they can go into extremely risky situations with no chance of losing of losing a pilot’s life. They can be made faster, smaller, cheaper, and better than manned fighters. Manned fighters are as obsolete as sailing ships and observation balloons. I know fighter pilots hate this, let alone the bloated defense industry, but further manned-fighter production is nothing more than welfare for defense contractors.
Wouldn’t it just make more sense to take all the money we waste on useless systems built by our defense contractors and use it for national health care? I mean, if we are going to have our lobbyist/senator/representative coalition create trickle-down welfare projects, why can’t they just fund welfare that actually provides for our welfare directly? Wouldn’t that just be more efficient? The problem is that we ordinary citizens don’t have a way to shovel money to the lobbyists to prime the pump, as it were. So, while we wait and watch our elected people in Congress agonize over the cost of health, those same senators and congressmen divert money to defense contractors to be used on profoundly useless systems- like the F-22 or the F-35. If this wasn’t the way our government functions it would be a crime.
So, is today’s news a signal that the world has changed? Has sense and honesty finally come to Washington? Hardly. The old boy network doesn’t die that easily. The F-22 might die, but I’ll bet we’ll sooner see funding for the F-35 than we do for health care. And don’t be surprised if there is new funding for a whole new class of “nukula” aircraft carriers while they are at it, the first of which will be called the USS George W Bush.
I suppose the Navy will just call it The Big W.
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