Re: We need submarines and a new generation of fighter to take on the Al Qaeda Navy and Air Force

In article <e34cf2f6-955f-4a2a-8315-925ff41ff155@
26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, PopUlist349@xxxxxxxxxxx says...
A submarine to fight al-Qaida?s navy

I noted back a while ago that after the fall of the USSR, certain
people in the US seemed to be casting around for reasons to continue to
supply Lockheed and the like with vast sums of money they have no
intention of actually earning, either by the validity of the argument of
the necessity of their wares, or even their quality.
The Pentagon is poised to spend BILLIONS on new Lockheed designed
fighter aircraft that every responsible analyst says the US doesn't
need, and shouldn't buy, especially at Lockheed's asking price. Also,
Lockheed agreed to a price with the Pentagon and US government, and then
got the specifications for what equipment had to be on the F-22 Raptor
dropped so they could make yet MORE profit.
It's insanity, but it's the kind of insanity that Bushites like
and honestly believe they can get away with forever.


By Robert Scheer
truthdig
April 1, 2008

A TRILLION DOLLARS here, a trillion dollars there, and soon you?re
talking real money. But when it comes to reporting on what the Bush
war legacy has cost American taxpayers, the media have been shockingly
indifferent to the highest run-up in military spending since World War
II. Even the devastating defense spending audit released Monday (March
31) by the Government Accountability Office documenting the enormous
waste in every single U.S. advanced weapons system failed to provoke
the outrage it, and five equally scathing previous annual audits,
deserved.

This is not about the waste of taxpayer dollars ? already pushing a
trillion ? in funding the Iraq war, which, while reprehensible enough,
pales in comparison to the big-ticket military systems purchased in
the wake of 9/11. In the horror of that moment, the floodgates were
lifted and the peace dividend promised with the end of the Cold War
was washed away by a doubling of spending on ultra-complex military
equipment originally designed to defeat a Soviet enemy that no longer
exists, equipment that has no plausible connection with fighting
stateless terrorists. Example: the $81-billion submarine pushed by
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presumably to fight al-Qaida?s navy.

I've heard some very intelligent arguments favoring the use of
diesel subs over the past decade or so.
1) They are superior for coastal warfare, as they can "bottom"
(sit right on the bottom) of the ocean, as opposed to nuclear subs which
must "hover" to keep cool water flowing through their reactors.
2) They are VASTLY cheaper to build, and thus to purchase.
3) Since they are cheaper, more can be bought while still paying
less than would be necessary to spend for expensive nuclear subs
designed to meet threats that can already be handled with the ones
already in service.
Etc, etc, etc. It seems that they aren't wanted for all the
reasons they should be, however.
The paranoid Pentagon doesn't want them because they don't
represent leading edge technology (someone ought to tell them that
getting what you need DOES represent leading edge thinking... perhaps
creating a culture there that appreciates efficiency over technological
impressiveness).
The admirals don't want them because command of a technologically
advanced diesel requiring fewer crewmen, etc, is not as prestigious in
their minds as command of a nuclear behemoth, even if it can't do what's
needed.
And of course, and not to be forgotten because this is probably
the main reason; they won't make as much profit for the "defense" (LOL)
contractors.


Ignored Scandal

That?s the huge scandal the media and politicians from both parties
have studiously avoided. But as the GAO?s authoritative audit details,
the costs are astronomical. The explosion of spending on expensive
weaponry after 9/11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of
that day. The high-tech planes and ships commissioned for trillions of
dollars to defeat an enemy with no navy, air force or army, and using
$3 knives as its weapons arsenal, were gifts to the military-
industrial complex that will go on giving for decades to come.

The Iraq war may end someday, but rest assured that major weapons
systems, once commissioned, have a life-support system unmatched in
any other sector of public spending. Rarely does the plug get pulled
on even the most irrelevant and expensive war toy. Not while both
Democratic and Republican politicians feed at the same trough, and
when so much is at stake in the way of jobs and profit.


Oddly enough, *** Cheney seemed to be going on a bit of an
extreme thrift bender back when he was Secretary of Defense under
president Bush the elder.
He cancelled a number of systems that it seemed at the time he
should not have, such as the "AMRAAM II" air to air missile.
After having thought about this, I have considered the possibility
that if the current fleet of US fighter aircraft was armed with the best
medium range air to air missile in the World, the argument for having to
purchase the F-22 Raptor, the Joint Strike Fighter, and other ridiculous
aircraft would be severely minimized.
Was the AMRAAM II cancelled so the arguments to justify the
already-on-paper F-22 purchase later, to enrich Lockheed even further?
If so, that could rightly be called not only an act of greed, but actual
treason.

Mushrooming Over-Runs

Just how expensive and wasteful this is was marked in the GAO?s audit:
"Since 2000, the Department of Defense (DOD) has roughly doubled its
planned investment in new systems from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion
in 2007, but acquisition outcomes in terms of cost and schedule have
not improved." Pentagon cost over-runs, always a huge problem, have
mushroomed. As the GAO reported, "Total acquisition costs for major
defense programs in the fiscal year 2007 portfolio have increased 26
percent from first estimates, compared with 6 percent in 2000."

The most ridiculous thing I ever heard was some idiot recently on
a nightly news show arguing that the US ought to sell weapons (advanced
ones like F-15 Eagles, etc) even to it's enemies, and his reasoning was
twofold:
Firstly, they can buy advanced systems from other countries, so
why not market American ones to them so American war industrialists can
make the money instead of foreign ones, and...
Secondly, if they (enemy and potential enemy states) buy American
systems, US forces will have an advantage when it comes to fighting them
since they will have a better idea of what they'll be up against.
That guy shouldn't have been a DoD spokesman... he should have
been a lawyer. "But your honor! My client, the defendant, even though
guilty, should be let go. If he goes to jail, he will become even more
anti-social, and thus be ever more dangerous when he's out again!".


I know eyes glaze when government budgets are discussed, but keep in
mind that defense spending accounts for more than half of all the
federal government?s discretionary spending. In short, funding for all
the other stuff we argue about ? science research, education, Arabic
translators, insuring uninsured children ? is minor compared to the
waste on these military boondoggles that go unexamined.

Grade of Zero

Yet nothing else the federal government does involves such waste
because we are talking about weapons systems shrouded in secrecy and
protected from unwelcome scrutiny by the Teflon coating of "national
defense." Credit the GAO for providing a rare glimpse into the most
egregious waste of taxpayer dollars, concluding in its exhaustive, 205-
page report:

"Of the 72 programs GAO assessed this year, none of them had proceeded
through system development meeting the best-practice standards for
mature technologies, stable design, or mature production processes by
critical junctures of the program, each of which are essential for
achieving planned cost, schedule, and performance outcomes."

Sure, but the goal of most defense industry leaders is not to
maintain cost efficiency, but to laugh it off. They want to have hiccups
in the design, production, and procurement processes that give excuses
for why even more money must be spent.
When someone at the Pentagon finally got fed up with the idea that
the F-22 Raptor was going to cost 120 million instead of the 90 million
it was supposed to, and that Lockheed had gone behind Pentagon backs and
gotten the specs for what had to be on it dropped so it was a double
rip-off, they decided they'd wait and see about the F-22 Raptor and
purchase just the Joint Strike Fighter instead.
The JSF is a stealthy replacement for the F/A-18 Hornet and F-16
Falcon aircraft. It is this generations "light strike fighter", and was
designed like the aforementioned to be an adjunct to the more capable F-
22.
Lockheed responded by stating that much of the technology that had
been shoehorned into the light JSF was originally developed for the F-
22, and was simply scaled down for the JSF. Therefore, if the Pentagon
wasn't going to buy the F-22 Raptor, at least close to the quantities it
had promised to purchase, Lockheed couldn't sell them the JSF for the
price originally quoted.
By the way... remember the F-20 Tigershark that was a competitor
to the F/A-18 Hornet for a light fighter for the Navy? It didn't get
produced, but the design did get sold to South Korea, if I recall
correctly. I guess that's what happens when the Pentagon doesn't reward
the crooks well enough.
David Hackworth said just wait and see... Lockheed will have their
people lobbying congress and everyone who matters to be able to sell the
F-22 abroad, so it won't even be an advantage to US forces to have it,
which is the whole point in the first place, supposedly. He was probably
right too. He also said he thought America could do just fine without
Lockheed and many others. Then he died of a form of cancer common to
people who'd been exposed to Agent Orange, which was produced during the
Vietnam war by Monsanto, you may be interested to know.


That?s a grade of zero for every major weapons system. Let?s take just
one, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a program estimated to be worth
$300 billion in sales to its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, the
nation?s biggest defense contractor and most generous donor to
lobbyists and politicians? campaigns. The program to build what
Lockheed boasts is "the most complex fighter ever built" is also the
most expensive, with estimated acquisition costs having increased a
whopping $55 billion in just the last three years.

Taxpayer's Tab

Lockheed need not worry about future profits, because the procurement
schedule on this troubled plane has been stretched out to the year
2034. As the GAO says, "currently unproven processes and a lack of
flight testing could mean future changes to design and manufacturing
processes." Hey, no problem, Lockheed will just add that to the
taxpayer tab. Maybe by 2034, the plane will be ready to go take out
Osama bin Laden. Or not.

Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C./COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE
INC.

E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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