I would like to know why we are going to go ahead and bring those new
F-22 Raptors on line.

I know they are "way cool" because they cruise at over Mach 1 and can reach 1,800 mph + on full after-burner.

The ultimate "Top Sock" himself... I mean, "Top Gun".... would like to fly one, wouldn't he?

I mean, I think he got over his TANG-level fear of flying when he got limousined out to the aircraft carrier to declare "Mission Accomplished", didn't he?

But here's the question:

How is the F22 Raptor going to counter-act three guys with AK47's and an IED?

How is a nation that is already hemorrhaging money going to afford an airplane that costs $250 million for each one?

Doesn't the US currently enjoy air superiority over every nation on this earth?

By the way, if you just gotta hear that "Top Gun" theme song before you go to sleep tonight, log on to http://www.f22fighter.com/

After you've gotten your "rush" at that web site, answer this question:

What might we do in this nation, and in this world, with $250 million?
or $500 million? or $750 million?

What needs doing that isn't being done right now
for which we could put those funds to good use?

It's a weapon of mass collatoral damage of course!!!

Whilst I am a fan of the Raptor (the ME262, the P51 Mustang, anyway you get my drift) your question is a valid one. The money is perhaps better spent securing unsecured nuclear material from the former Soviet Union.

I see very little evidence that Bush is interested in the welfare of people in general. The greater the threat of terrorsism, the more the poorly informed will flock to him out of fear.

Will he seek to repeal the two term limit? If so, given the rigging of the last election, America will anoint "Kim-il-Bush" in 2008!

Yes, I would not be surprised to see such a move (permanent presidency?) by Bush, but actually it will take its form in a different costume... The BushWorld crew are OODA-looping the Democrats! So that permanent presidency will take the form of a revolving door presidency to be held by future puppets... current candidates being fitted for strings include Jeb Bush and Ahnold Schwarzenegger.

What could $250 million buy in humanitarian aid? in improved education? in body armor and improved armor for Hummers?

How, if this Bush "mandate" comes from evangelical Christians interested in moral issues, is the expenditure of $250 million on a single weapon of war consistent with Jesus' message in the Sermon on the Mount?

I agree the F22 is a technological marvel, aeronautic work of art, etc.

I'm out of work, and my share of the Iraq war is over $2,000 and climbing, and my share of the deficit is $25,000, and my share of the F22's on order for the next two years is about $100.

The new Ford GT is a great sports car too, but at $185,000 and up, I'll be driving something else.

I agree. Whilst I love technology, I should not have to be forced to pay for it when it is not in the absolute interest of the whole nation.

If it is funded through deficits, every world citizen will end up paying through higher domestic interest rates!

It will probably do the neocons who have heavy investments in the defence industry some good though.

Please do what you can to get Bush's bum kicked out of the Oval Office!!!

The only really good reason to go ahead and develop super advanced planes like the Raptor and Typhoon, is continiuing develop the capacity for new technological breakthroughs, which is not always easy or clear, it was a millitary order for a new calculating machine, that was the direct course of the development and invention of the first transistor in the Bell labs all those years ago.

TODAY IN IRAQ, MANY INNOCENT LIVES ARE BEING ENDED IN A CRUEL BRUTAL MANNER BECAUSE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE PUT ISSUES BEFORE THE MISTAKE OF THE IRAQ WAR. ISSUES THAT HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

Because our "friends" the French will sell the new Rafale and Eurofighter to anyone with the bucks to buy them, including our potential enemies.

Both those planes are the technological equivalent of the F-22 and F-35, so there IS a need to bring these and other new planes on line to replace aging airframes that still make up the bulk of our fleet.

Could just destroy the French!

Sorry I was thinking like W

If we were not at war and China/Saudi did not own us it might
make sense. But when W changes social security you will see
people not getting a check. You can not take money out of a hemoraging
system and expect it not to go under.

Yes we need to be elite with our military, but as Al Qaeda showed us
they are using thug/street basic tactics to destroy us

I found this interesting

I don't understand why we need to spend more than 6 times the next highest military budget. I can see twice or maybe even three times, but are we really that fearful of a nation in times of relative peace in the world?

Yes we have terrorism and an insurgency in Iraq and then there is the Sudan, but 6 times?

Please tell me these numbers are wrong.

It is like a heroin addict, you need more and more to get the same high.

I say be the best have the best, and maintain your edge. We do need to pick up loose nukes in Russia, and consider bombing anyone with nukes that is close to having the ability to use them on us. If they had them, would they use them? If your answer is a sure yes, THEN NUKE THEM BEFORE THEY CAN REACH YOU! Its that simple. No soldiers, no Americans in beheadings, just a one shot deal. WWIII started on 911, and I want a win.

Your wish is my command - these numbers are wrong! Methinks using 18 month old figures from the Center For Defense Information might have something to do with it.

CDI has a bad habit of using the all encompassing USDoD budget as its baseline rather than making the effort to split out the non-defense items it contains. Do you think any of the defense budgets from the other countries shown include funding for education, foreign aid, energy, medical research, foreign nuclear weapons dismantling, other civilian research, space programs or the pork barrel projects ours do? That's a huge chunk of this total.

They also fail to take into consideration splitting out personnel and ancillary costs for retirees and supernumeries. Methinks you won't find those folded into the defense budgets of other countries. Scratch another big chunk.

CDI's biggest failure is to do comparative cost analysis. Do you think our military is the largest on that list? It's not! Do you think US$1 buys exactly the same goods and services in each of those countries? It doesn't! On a well thought out comparative equivalency basis is the US defense budget really the largest? I doubt it! It's certainly not six , or five, or four, or three, or even two times larger than many of the others on a comparative basis.

Most all of those countries on that list either have given up or never had the power to quickly surge a strong military force over long distances and maintain a reasonably efficient logistics operation to enable them to fight a protracted war. That's because, in many of those cases, they depend on the Americans to do it or refuse to get involved in foreign conflicts.

BTW, we're not involved in the Sudan (even though many of us think we should be) and probably won't get involved. If we did those inhabiting the far fringes of the lunatic left and ridiculous right would both scream bloody murder and bombard us with emotional rhetoric which our news media would pass off as fact thus affecting our political system again.

Does that help?

I wish it did. It still looks like a lot.

Well then rather than ask nothing but critical questions let's hear you make some constructive proposals for a change.

What/where should we cut? Should we stop paying our military so well? Should we stop providing medical care for all but our active duty military? Should we stop paying extra allowances to those stationed in areas with an exceptionally high cost of living? Should we stop paying stipends to military retirees until they've reached 30 years total service? Should we close down more reserve centers and/or bases making reservists travel much farther than they already do to do their drills? Should we stop making payments in lieu of taxes to school districts to educate the dependent children of our active military? Should we stop all funding for our intelligence efforts? Should we stop trying to keep 30, 40, 50 year old ships and aircraft in service because we can't yet replace them? Should we stop building replacements for the 30, 40, 50 year old ships and aircraft now in service? Should we start having our ships built in India or Pakistan? Should we start having our new aircraft built in China or Mexico? Should we just stop trying to defend our nation?

Exactly what/where do you propose we cut? It's your turn to tell us your well thought out plans for our national defense!

In speaking of the F22, I was simply asking two questions:

What can we do now that will shift some projected expenditures into an area, even within the sector of national defense, that will have a greater impact on the situations we face now... not ten years from now...?

Why have we moved our national defense budget and the development of weaponry into a mode in which we end with vastly more expensive weapons and less of them?

We won WWII in part because we were able to build vast quantities of simple weapons cheaply and quickly. For sure, the setting and circumstances have changed since then, but in this method we were able not only to develop useful weaponry but also to employ many and boost our economy.

My point is not to eliminate the F22, nor shut down the corporate structure that developed it and will build it.... We can't afford to do that, because our weaponry procurement process for the last two decades has surely moved us into a situation where we have only a limited number of facilities capable of doing this work.

But can we now slow down the projected deployment of a weapon such as an F22 and bring online only 20 of them instead of 30 of them until such time as we have stabilized the situation in terms of our military needs and projections?

Enemies lurk in the distance of time... but the moral, financial and military drain that we face today in Iraq must be closed quickly and efficiently so that we may be better prepared financially, militarily and morally to fight the wars of the future.

Our presence in Iraq, no matter how it gets depicted, is not a matter of national self-defense.

OK, your wish is my command!

How about we switch from an all volunteer force to mandatory service for all citizens? How about we cut benefits for military service and increase benefits for all citizens? That is the direction I would like to see us move in.

Right now our country is divided. There is no greater unifying force than service to one's country. We will always have those volunteers who make us great. Switching to mandatory service will not decrease our effectiveness as the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz defense department would have us believe.

I think some of the profit motive for defense industry companies would be diminished in favor of doing the right thing for your country. I think more people would ask common sense questions like "is this hammer really worth $200" I think doing mandatory service would make the marginal cost of our military go down without sacrificing strength.

But then again, mine is a tough liberal stand isn't it?

The problem is that people won't vote for this. They see it as a curtailment of their freedom. Plus, many of them are yellow at heart.

I realize that this is an aside from the F22 question... Sorry.

I agree that a strong military is a necessity. I am not sure that we can not take a more fiscally conservative approach and purchase the 30 F22s over a longer time frame.

No, Ingo, don't apologize... your remarks are not aside from any discussion about the F22... I merely used that vehicle to jump-start a dialogue on defense issues!

Methinks maybe if we cut back on the billions of dollars in unneeded pork barrel expenditures it would be a good start. We might even go so far as to only appropriate federal funds for items outlined in the Constitution as federal responsibilities, but IMHO that might be too radical an idea.

On a comparative cost analysis basis most of our new weapons systems are actually less expensive those being replaced. They need fewer units to do the same job, are cheaper to maintain, require less manpower and are better at getting the mission accomplished. Other than that I can't think of a single reason we would want them.

Okay, FlyDangler, I'll acquiesce... for the moment, at least.

Your comments on pork are right on... and, if in fact our "system" applies and adheres to the methods of analyses you put forth, I'm impressed.

Again, I wasn't picking on the F22... merely using it as a metaphor for the problem.

I don't think anyone in their right mind would argue against a prudent, cost-effective approach to national defense.

But we've got a lot of manpower and weaponry tied up in a situation in Iraq for which resolution isn't going to be found with a $250,000,000 airplane that flies at Mach III. Even from a strictly military perspective, shouldn't we change our approach, our tactics, our selection of weaponry? The larger debate has been on whether we have a valid mission in Iraq, but setting that aside for a moment, we've got ourselves into a situation where we're hemorrhaging blood and money and making little or no progress, and further aggression on our part seems only to make the matter worse.

What's the answer?

Besides all the whiz bang gadgetry in the pipeline we've got upgrades of old standbys, like the new, but well under Mach III F/A-18 variants (D, E & F models), Strykers, upgraded AC-130 gunships, Harrier II's, unmanned aerial vehicles and infantry weaponry like the SAW. There are also still in the R&D stage weapons that an infantryman can use to detect and kill someone standing behind cover and more as well as the much needed replacement for the 40+ year old CH-46 helo and naval vessels, both surface and subsurface, to fight the inshore shallow water wars.

Because the war on terrorism looks like it will be frequently fought in an urban setting new ways to use old equipment are being looked at, but there's a need for even more new stuff to prosecute these types of battles. Urban warfare is as nasty as it gets, mainly because there's going to be an attempt to minimize a significant number of civilian casualties. The oriental mindset doesn't worry about this overly much, but our occidental philosophy requires we do everything possible to accomplish this. We suffer lots of casualties 'cause we're trying not to kill or maim the innocents in the battle zone.

Guess I'll have to go and read up on the battle of Stalingrad.

all

I think the infamous 'black budget' will contain enough missing dollars to fund whatever the 'skunkworks' people in Area 51 need...

"Military waste under fire
$1 trillion missing -- Bush plan targets Pentagon accounting"
Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2003
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...18/MN251738.DTL

should open up some eyes on the subject. Also, with Chuck Spinney's retirement
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript245_full.html
we are going to truly miss one of the watchdogs on the real wastrals of defense ! BTW, that's the title of a new book out "Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security" by Winslow T. Wheeler. The other goodie on this subject is Tim Weiner's "Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget", which shows how the money is hidden from the public's view, albeit unconstitutionally, since the public has a right to know...it investigates how the national insecurity state keeps the final talley from even our representatives in Congress.

Methinks a whole bunch of that is actually CIA money hidden away within the DoD budget.

Watching the debates over Dod budgets on CSpan, it's always interesting how even the big fiscal hawks like Dave Obe (D-WI, probably mispelled) skirt around the mere mention of these funds.

Because it's a great pork-barrel project for people in Utah and other red states. If the plane was made by Boeing in Seattle, it would have been cancelled years ago!

Forgot to mention these important little items. For the first time in a major battle, guided artillery is being used in quantity. In addition to the now familiar JDAMs, or GPS guided bombs, there are now GPS guided artillary shells.

Space based positioning satellites, laser range finding, robotics and networked computing are now as much a part of infantry combat as the M-16. These all contribute to greatly lessening the unintended civilian casualties we've worked long and hard to avoid.

Also forgot to mention the new scramjet technology now being tested.

Noted today, in an article in the Globe or NY Times, some thiniking within the Pentagon that they will need to scale back on their spending (hmmm), and that they will consider dropping the "order" of some 250+ F-22 Raptors to around 120, this in addition to the cutback of one aircraft carrier and, no doubt, assorted other issues, materiel, etc., much of which will be debated for some time.

Noted today also is the fact that the US has increased its commitment to tsunami relief support by a factor of ten, from a "stin-ji" $35 million to $350 million. Given that the Bush administration has been advised that the nations affected by the tsunami/earthquake event are ripe for recruitment to al-Qaeda-type or -related groups, I guess we will test whether the soft hand of caring has more impact that the harsh hand of warfare.

Methinks that soft hand of caring can be the flip side of the harsh hand of warfare. Much of our war fighting resources also have a secondary disaster/humanitarian relief mission.

For instance let's look at the naval assets the USA is moving into the southern region of Asia so recently devastated by quake and tsunami. From my own experience as hospital administrator aboard USS Peleliu (LHA-5) from 1984 to 1986 I know a bit about what these ships are designed and outfitted for, and capable of providing.

The carrier battle group arrives there today or tomorrow and will be able to deliver and help ferry needed supplies to hard to reach areas with its helos and STOL aircraft, search from the sky for survivors and bodies, make and deliver up to a million gallons per day of safe drinking water, provide enough emergency electrical power for a small city if they can get any ships pierside and provide lots of young strong willing bodies as well as some heavy equipment to work cleaning up the rubble.

When the amphibious group and embarked Marines arrives in a few days it will be able to do all that, plus set up, supply and maintain facilities ashore to house, feed and care for up to 100,000 refugees, provide top notch medical care from the 500 bed hospital aboard the Bonhomme Richard, supply heavy equipment and trained personnel and supplies for recovery and construction ashore, make available landing craft (including three or four LCAC high speed hovercraft) to get people and supplies to and rescue stranded refugees from isolated areas, and much more. Our amphibious ships always carry tremendous loadouts of these types of supplies IOT be ready on short notice to deploy to disaster areas. The maritime prepositioning ships from Diego Garcia will add even more to our ability to provide relief to these areas.

For a long time our ships have been designed, equipped and their crews trained to provide these type services. It's doubtful anyone ever envisioned a catastrophe on the scale we're talking about here, but I'm confident people will be amazed when they see these forces in action on this type of mission.

Flydangler, your point is well taken and informative, but why do we need F-22’s to fight terrorists, and if these type high tech weapons are not for fighting terror then who are we arming against.

The basic reason you need things like the F-22 is because there are more threats and potential threats out there than simply al Qaeda. You always must plan for what capabilities you anticipate needing in the future.

Already, other nations have fielded aircraft that outclass our current crop of F-15s and F-16s (which were designed during the Vietnam war). It takes a long time to take an aircraft from the drawing board to fully operational capability. Hence, you can't wait until you're already embroiled in a conflict (and losing it) to decide "gee, I think maybe we need a better fighter."

Besides, the F-22 and F-35 will have air-ground capability that we do use in the war on terror.

Could be that 'twould be nice to have something to go up against whoever the French indiscriminately sell the Rafale and Eurofighter to. The last note random_dana wrote is an important consideration IMHO, and methinks he might be in a better pposition to judge than you or me.

flydangler, randomdana

Looks like Wolfowitz is just cutting back temporarily on the number of F22s in the procurement pipeline from 277 down to 180. InsideDefense.com reported on this Dec 23rd according to my newspaper, which states that Lockheed-Martin gets $716 million in two contracts related to the F/A-22 Raptor project...in the works since the '80's, the most expensive fighter program in history at $72 billion.

I don't know why the government just doesn't call these companies "quasi-governmental agencies" and puts them under greater scrutiny ? They wouldn't survive without sales to the government and can't really be called "private" companies. This would allow greater accountability, which is the real problem here.

The days of the $640 toilet seat aren't exactly behind us. And guys, I agree for the need for the Raptor, so don't come down on me too hard. We've sold so many of our older planes, like the F-15s to other countries that now they are potential problems if hostilities ever commence. And these are friendly nations.

How is a navy going to counter 3 guys with an AK's and an IED!
Lets dismantle the navy.


The answer to your question is simple there will be future wars and we need to prepare for those future wars. Not all of our wars are going to be in Iraq against people using IED's and AK's. If we cut the F22's 10, 20 years from now we might wish we hadnt.

A liberal’s opinion;

Something to consider, send in the John Deere and Caterpillar tractors, well drilling equipment, fertilizer and seed. While we keep the cash flow up, ( important for the righties to have a solid cash flow ) the indigent people of these poorest nations in the region can grow what they need to keep their stomachs full. This alone will change the dynamics of the geo-political crises and bring these people around to a mindset that is more compatible with the US’s. Not to many people are going to bite the hand that feeds them. At the same time these people can save their autonomy, and care for themselves and their needs with the agricultural bounty they can reap.
Should we teach them to fight or grow food, if they grow enough they can trade with their neighbors, they will be spreading the good will around the region.

Methinks they'll transport the Marines to the area over sea lanes we've kept clear and then help provide the air cover and, when needed, naval gunfire support. 'Twould appear the rest of the world economies depend on our keeping those sea lanes open too, eh?Does preparing for those future wars include not being able to quickly move the necessary sea based assets into the theater? IOT use them F-22's it might take the sea based Marines and naval air assets like the F-35 variants to seize shore based air facilities, eh?



Pax per potens!