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June 18, 2009 3:28 PM
Just How Corrupt are the Military Appropriators?
It is hard to believe that Congress wants to keep spending billions of dollars on the F-22 Raptor, a fighter jet even the Pentagon does not want. But they do. It is beyond immoral that they would take the money to pay for it from a fund for environmental cleanup.
Read the story here. But dont' just weep. Call or write your member of Congress and tell them that you have very different priorities.
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Discussion
You've got to be kidding. The Pentagon "doesn't want" a semi-stealth next-generation jet fighter that enjoys significant superiority over every other model on the planet in the same way that a dedicated computer gamer "doesn't want" a cutting-edge light-speed computer that can play any game ever imagined in full graphical glory. The only way that the Pentagon could be made to not want the F-22 is if they were getting tired of having to explain to largely ignorant congressmen and committees the necessity of maintaining a cutting-edge military with a helluva lotta force-multipliers.
As to where they get the money, more power to them. They're stealing from an utter waste of taxpayer money to fund one of the government's explicit Constitutional obligations. You don't get much better than putting wasteful money to go use.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said in 2002 that the Raptor was unnecessary, and Secretary Bob Gates said so again (and again and again) in 2009. What it comes down to is that F-22 was developed as a Cold War weapon to defend against a Russian plane that was never really produced. We already have 187 of these bad boys and have never even needed to use them in combat missions in Iraq or Afghanistan, but we're certainly not letting that fact lull us into a sense of false complacency.
In fact, in preparation for the next war, we're building the very-stealthy fifth-generation F-35, which is planned for much larger production numbers than F-22 while being more versatile and cost-effective.
F-22 is an outstanding airplane, yes. Absolutely. But building additional ones wouldn't fill any legitimate defense role.
I think you're slightly misinformed about the various airplanes. The F-35 (the Joint Strike Fighter) is a modular airplane developed in conjunction with the Europeans that is inferior to the F-22. It is slower, has a lower takeoff weight, lower range, lower speed, slightly lower service ceiling, and less sophisticated radar and detection system; the only way it is superior is in the versatility of its loadout, making it more akin to a fighter-bomber than an air superiority platform. The F-35 compares more or less directly to the most advanced model of Russian MiG, the MiG-35 which still has superior speed and range to the JSF. However, as it is (or was, whichever the case may be) official US military policy to ensure that no other nation could eclipse us in military technology, there is no reason to revert to an inferior airplane to satisfy the selective budget hawks. Both Rumsfeld and Gates know this quite well but it's harder to fight ignorant senators to retain a necessary piece of military equipment than to just sigh and agree that the money could be better spent making sure all inmates in federal prison have cable TV.
The B-2 was developed as a Cold War weapon; the F-22 was developed as a next-generation fighter to replace Cold War Era fighters that were falling apart due to being very old with designs going back to the 80's or later. The K-35 aerial tanker is a 1950's design; the B-52 is just as old. Both need to be replaced with modern equivalents but the people who put the stamp of approval on the budget generally are incapable of understanding what the military actually needs and trying to explain it to them is largely fruitless. The Crusader was probably unneeded since the Paladin is quite modern enough to remain an effective design. However, the same cannot be said of our main strike fighters, especially the F-15 Eagle which is what the F-22 is slated to replace. The F-35 is not designed to fit into that slot; the slot it can fit into is either the F-14 Tomcat or the Harrier jump-jet. There is a real military need for it but most people don't even have enough of a clue to understand that need and some of those people are in Congress.
Rumsfeld and Gates did not say that fighting for funding F-22 is not worth the effort or that the money could be better spent making sure federal inmates have cable; what they said was that F-22 is not necessary.
I used the flippant example of giving inmates cable as a general reference to any type of useless federal spending. Obviously, neither defense secretary would have commented on the unnecessary ways that the government can imagine spending the money needed for an updated aircraft to replace one that is aging and outdated. This updated aircraft is the F-22; as I illustrated above, it is a direct replacement for the F-15 whereas the F-35 would replace things like the AV08 Harrier, the Hornet fighter/bomber, and the F-14 Tomcat multi-role fighter.
Wow. Okay. Your facts are right on target except for seeming to have misunderstood what I said, but that's okay. You can scroll up.
Regardless of semantics, what it comes down to is that either TWO Secretaries of Defense of the United States of America have access to facts that lead them to the conclusion that F-22 isn't necessary to the defense of the United States; or you know better than them.
They say F-22 isn't necessary; you say it is.
Who knows more about the strategy of defending our country? Me? Hell, no. You? I rather doubt it. And neither Rumsfeld not Gates is exactly known for throwing caution to the wind when considering how best to defend the U.S. of A.
One Secretary of Defense saying F-22 isn't necessary, maybe we could discount to politics or arguably policy. But BOTH of them? As conservative as both of them are, and certainly not exactly doves when it comes to defending the country?
Not necessarily. More, my point is that a next-generation aircraft to replace our aging fighter-interceptor is required. The F-22 qualifies. Fighter-interceptors in general may be increasingly unimportant since there is little need to dogfight over Iraq and Afganistan or in most brushfire conflicts but as a replacement for the F-15, the F-22 IS needed. If this was not the case, it would never have been developed and no models would have been ordered.
I still maintain, however, that you can't discount the fact that the defense secretaries were trying to defend military spending to a group which largely cares only about bringing home the pork for their state; conceding that an expensive new warplane isn't neccesary is vastly easier than trying to convince lavish spenders to spend on something that they don't care about. I'm contending, essentially, that the "F-22 isn't necessary" statement is more reflective of the audience than the general opinion of the speaker. After all, defense secretaries serve at the pleasure of the president but Congress must approve of them first.
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