RE:F22One day we're going to find out that our F15's, F16's & F18's are no longer able to defend us.

[ddeclue]

The administration plans to phase out F22's as a cost saving measure.

One day we're going to find ourselves up against missiles and aircraft that our 35 to 40 year old fighter plane designs are not going to be able to handle. The first F15 was designed in the late 60's and first flew in 1972. The F16 was designed in the early 70's and first flew in 1976. Our first F18's flew in the late 70's in fly offs.

On top of the age of the technology, many of our existing aircraft in inventory have been used far more in the last seven years than intended by Pentagon planners when they were originally purchased due to extensive CAP's (combat air patrols) over U.S. cities immediately after 9/11 and then due to the necessary invasion of Afghanistan and the unnecessary optional war in Iraq. A few years back there was an F15C model aircraft that spontaneously destructed in flight due to fatigue cracking resulting in a safety stand down while planes were checked and fixed.

We don't need to be building the same volume of aircraft as we did during the cold war but we need to start replacing our obsolete and aged 1970's vintage fighters designed in the late 1960's with at least a reasonable number of F-22's designed in the late 1980's - Russian Mig designs that represent a real threat to our technological superiority have been coming on line since the 1990's and we need to take the matter seriously or one day we may find ourselves in the situation we faced at the beginning of World War II where our aircraft was technologically inferior to those flown by the Germans and Japanese.

Doug De Clue
Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech
FAA Licensed Private Pilot

[Ian David]

1. Maybe we already have a secret fleet of something better at the Skunkworks. n/t

[ddeclue]

2. I doubt it... the F35 is slated to be the aircraft after the F22

but these systems often take decades to bring on line. I really doubt there will be F35's flying operationally before 2013.

[Statistical]

80. WHAT?

Such a good initial post and then this nonsense.

F-22 & F-35 have completely different roles.

An F-35 would get ripped apart by an F-22.

F-22 is an air superiority fighter. It clears the skies on enemy fighters. In that role the F-35 is a chump.

Climb rate - F22 wins
Top speed - F22 wins
Supercruise - F22 wins (maximum speed w/o after burner)
Radar signature - F22 wins
Radar pkg - F22 wins
Manuverability - F22 wins

Its internal stores ensure a drag co-efficent that can NEVER be matched by the F35.

The F-35 is a multi-role fighter and can fulfill a wide variety or roles:
* ground support
* fighter bomber
* SAM killer
* combat air patrol
* strike fighter

however as a pure air dominance platform the F22 is a magnitude beyond anything the F35 can bring to the table.

[gcomeau]

3. Hence the F35s -nt

[TheWraith]

17. The F-35s are crap, and vastly inferior to the F-22.

I'd much rather kill the F-35 than the F-22.

[gcomeau]

34. Based on what evaluative criteria?

The F-22 is the superior air to air fighter... but the F-35 has it beat in air to ground. Which of those two things do we need to do more? When was the last time we had to go air to air in a serious way? We've had F-22's in service for like 5 years now... 5 years in which the U.S. has been constantly engaged the entire time in two wars. How many combat missions have they flown?

It's all well and good to have the shiniest coolest toys to play with, but give at least some minimal thought to the strategic demands of the environment you're operating in. Unless the U.S. ends up at war with China and Russia or something it has all the air to air capability it needs and then some.

[Statistical]

100. That is why we are keeping both

130-150 F-22 for air superiority and national strategic defense (bomber eater).

The F-35 fleet will eventually be 400+ for everything else.

Nothing massive in Gates announcement.

Instead of 190 F-22 built through FY2011 we will have 130-150 built through FY2009.

[TheWraith]

121. When it comes to air to ground, our existing warbirds are more than adequate.

Integrated air defense systems can be taken out with a combination of cruise missile strikes, electronic warfare aircraft, and a rugged bird like the Warthog on low-level Wild Weasel missions. We don't need to completely redesign an aircraft to add stealth close-air-support capability. All we really need is a small force of F-22s for insurance against any airborne threats, and the rest of our existing fleet, possibly with a few internal avionics upgrades.

Besides which, on an objective basis the F-22 has better stealth capabilities than the F-35, so if you really needed to penetrate an air defense system you can do that better with an F-22 loaded with AGM-88 HARMs.

[DainBramaged]

161. Different mission than the F22

You've got F16's and F18's that need to be replaced. The F35 fills those ground attack missions nicely.

[TheWraith]

211. Upgrade the avionics.

The older birds can be retrofit with newer parts, avionics, and other gear. The main reason for replacing them would be to have a new airframe, one with low-visibility improvements. That's nice, sure, but looking at the price difference between retrofitting Falcons and Hornets versus building all new F-35s, I personally don't see the value.

[vicman]

4. How many F22's do we need?

This link explains it better than I could.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/06/gates-ends-f22-production/

Can you provide a link that disproves the statement in this article that these planes (MIGS) are never going to be built?

[ddeclue]

6. The Russians aren't really the threat. They will sell the planes to other companies

just as we sell arms to other countries as a way to raise money and employ people. The countries I would be most afraid of having these aircraft would be China and Iran.

I don't think we need 750 of these planes as originally intended but I think we need to account for existing aircraft attrition due to crashes plus a small number of others to account for F22 attrition due to accidents and for a planned retirement of our existing aircraft as they reach airframe service limits. If we built 20 planes a year until the we had replaced our existing inventory or until the F35's or something else better came along I think that would be fabulous. Even if we did that it would be about 5 billion a year counting spare parts, etc.

Doug D.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

158. transnational corporations - how true. they are the enemy.

especially if they get the latest generation jets.

Hell, that is no pipe dream. Look at fucking haliburton. It's a complete army for hire, air force included.

[Hugabear]

5. Maybe if we didn't attack a new country every few years, we wouldn't have to worry so much.

Sorry, I just don't see China, Russia, or any other country in the world preparing to attack the US. I do however see the US attacking some other country every several years, going back to after WWII.

[Bjorn Against]

7. Thank you, we spend far too much on war and not nearly enough on peace.

We can no longer afford to be an empire, and it is time to stop starting wars around the world.

[ddeclue]

9. Not accurate.

Vietnam yes and Iraq in 2003 yes but generally speaking we didn't go and arbitrarily attack countries that did nothing to us.

YES we should use diplomacy more and brute force less to solve problems but ultimately you can't just hold hands and sing kumbaya with everyone because there are people in this world who you just can't reason with and who are out to do harm to you no matter how much you want to do right by them.

Doug D.

[gratuitous]

19. We don't?

That'll be good news to the people of Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Iran, Libya, and Venezuela. It wasn't us, it was someone else rigging those dirty little wars that killed so many of your people. Please don't hold the good old U S and A, home of the Braves and land of the Freeps responsible for any of that.

Whew! That's a load off my mind.

Waging peace is a bit more than holding hands and singing kumbaya, and it's the ignorant and the warmongers who think otherwise.

[Hugabear]

24. You forgot to mention Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, Columbia, and the Sudan.

I'm sure there are some that we've left out.

[ddeclue]

28. Rewrite History Much?

Grenada and Panama were justifiable and defensive measures - we didn't start them.

Serbia and Somalia were cases of stopping genocide - do you think we should just stand by and let hundreds of thousands of people be slaughtered?

Columbia - we haven't declared war or invaded it since Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal.

The Sudan? I think going after OBL and al Qaeda there was justified in light of the embassy bombings.

[endarkenment]

57. Grenada and Panama attacked us?

Do tell.

[ddeclue]

61. Not the Continental U.S. but American citizens in their countries YES.

Perhaps you've just totally forgotten?

:eyes:

[northzax]

70. Grenada?

there were exactly zero US civilians killed or injured in Grenada during or after the coup. The invasion was about he building of Port Salines International Airport, which had long enough runways and enough fuel storage capability to allow international jumbo jet travel (as well as, in Reagan's view, an airbase for Soviet long range bombers. The airport was so crucial to Cuban military interests that Cubans on the Island were ordered to no interfere in case of a US action, two weeks prior to the invasion.

[endarkenment]

78. Next the OP will tell us about the slaughtered babies of Kuwait.

When committed to an all out no holds barred defense, facts are irrelevant, truth is fiction.

[ddeclue]

81. No I won't - the first Gulf War was about oil just as the current Iraq occupation is.

The Kuwaiti Royal family was hardly any better than Saddam Hussein - the main difference was that they were OUR SOB's. That said, Saddam did invade Kuwait, we didn't invade Iraq in the 1991 war, but NO it wasn't about babies or human rights, it was about cheap middle eastern oil.

[bvar22]

127. Oh yes.

I'm so glad we restored the KING to his rightful throne in Kuwait.
The USA, protecting Monarchs and Oligarchs throughout the World.

[wuushew]

82. No one in the international community agreed with the excuse given for Panama

Was all the ill will, property damage and needless death worth it?

You know similar incidents are resolved through diplomacy as when some dumb marine kills or rapes overseas.

Operation Just Cause was anything but. Do you feel the War on Drugs was actually a real war? Bush has decieved you.

[ddeclue]

90. The WOD is a pseudo war but not a winnable one.

Wars on abstract nouns are rarely winnable be they on poverty, drugs, cancer, or terrorism.

A military or police effort to take out a specific drug cartel may be winnable such as Pablo Escobar but ending drugs will ultimately require people to stop wanting to take them. I think the movie Traffic is very good on this point.

[Fumesucker]

119. Right after people stop wanting to take the drug alcohol..

About seventy five percent of adult Americans drink alcoholic beverages..

The urge to alter consciousness is quite strong among humans and not everyone likes or can tolerate ethyl alcohol.

[ddeclue]

138. I don't believe that it can ever be TOTALLY eliminated...

however the drug TOBACCO has been declining in use for about 2 decades now and other drugs go in and out of favor based on what people believe about them. Heroin was the drug of the 70's, Cocaine the drug of the 80's, crack and meth the drug of the 90's and today. Designer synthetic drugs are probably the future.

Drug use can be minimized through honest (not "Reefer Madness") education about the consequences of drug use and by providing alternative experiences that don't involve drugs. Personally I'd rather get my high flying little airplanes around than doing drugs, drinking or tobacco any day of the week - unfortunately it's just as addictive and probably almost as expensive so I've had to go "cold turkey :)

[Fumesucker]

154. But the popularity of alcohol and reefer have remained fairly constant through all that..

And tobacco is still big business, I think it's about twenty percent of American adults now. And the fact of the matter is that nicotine is a rather unrewarding drug, you get pretty buzzed on it when you first start but habituation is very rapid and after that you basically have to indulge just to feel "normal" and keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay.

I don't think it's a sign of particularly good mental health to be well adjusted to a society as sick in so many ways as our own is right now.

If we were truly rational about the dangers of "drugs", pot would be legal and alcohol illegal. I don't expect rationality to enter into such decisions within my lifetime though.

[ddeclue]

164. I don't disagree but the solution to a screwed up society isn't to mask the symptoms with drugs

be they weed or Prozac or Paxil or what have you, it's just masking the symptoms, not finding the cure (i.e. that everybody should have rewarding fulfilling lives with real futures.)

What did Don Henley say about it in 2000 or so?

"We've got a whole new class of opiates
To blunt the stench of discontent
In these corporation nation-states
Where the loudest live to trample on the least
They say it's just the predatory nature of the beast" - Workin' It.

I think part of the solution is education, part of it is societal transformation so that the "discontent" DH was singing about goes away or at least is minimized to a very great extent.

Doug D.

[Every Man A King]

208. Doug No Clue n/t

[ddeclue]

25. Cambodia and Laos are part of Vietnam.

We didn't invade Chile.

We didn't invade Iran either unless you count going after our hostages there.

Nicaragua and El Salvador were illegal covert wars fought by Reagan against the will of Congress and people went to jail for it.

Libya was a retaliatory raid for the Lockerbee bombing and we have yet to invade Venezuela either and don't count on it happening under a President Obama.

Stop trying to rewrite history thank you very much.

:eyes:

[Hugabear]

26. I said "attacking" not "invading" other countries

And we have attacked quite a few countries over the past few decades. Most of whom posed no real threat to the US.

[ddeclue]

29. That's ridiculuous. Iraq and Vietnam are the only real unjustifiable uses of American force

since WWII.

[Hugabear]

39. How was Grenada justifiable?

Or Panama? What did Panama do that warranted a full-scale invasion and overthrow?

Or how about Libya. Seems to me that Clinton's approach - NOT ATTACKING - worked much better than Reagan's.

If using force in Serbia & Somalia was justified, then why shouldn't we have gone into Rwanda, or why shouldn't we go into Darfur?


And while you're at it, please list the # of times since WWII that the United States has been directly threatened by another country.

[ddeclue]

45. American citizens were threatened in Grenada

Panama was threatening U.S. troops stationed there.

Libya was responsible for bombing a US flagged airliner killing 300 Americans.

And lest you forget, Clinton attacked too - he attacked in Serbia, in Bosnia, in response to the embassy bombings, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia.

We probably should have gone into Rwanda and we probably should stop the genocide in Darfur but unfortunately our military is tied down in an optional war for empire and oil in Iraq thanks to Bush and Cheney.

The United States has been threatened numerous times as has its strategic interests abroad, more or less continuously up until the end of the Cold War and since then sporadically.

[endarkenment]

86. No they weren't. That is just total nonsense.

Panama wasn't threatening shit. We were demanding that their leader, Noriega, our former CIA stooge, step down and submit to our authority, and they refused out of some misguided notion that they were a sovereign nation. Embargoes are generally considered an act of war, and it is pretty clear that Panama was not embargoing the US. Instead, our canal forces were sent out into Panama proper to provoke reactions from the Panamanian military, under the ruse of 'defending the canal'. Generally the Panamanian forces refused to take the bait and ultimately George Bush (the less stupid but equally belligerent) was forced to use a couple of massively minor incidents as the cover for the long planed invasion.

I can't believe you are seriously defending this shit.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

111. You should know better than to believe Reagan-era propaganda

The U.S. media were totally dependent on the Reagan administration for information about Grenada, because no reporters were allowed onto the island. The U.S. media, including, to their everlasting shame, NPR, just threw up their hands and said, "We don't know anything!" Then they swallowed the official statements whole.

I was living in Minnesota and listening to Canada's As It Happens newscast. They did something that NPR could easily have done but didn't--they PHONED people on Grenada. (As you may know, the Caribbean islands are on the same direct-dial system as the U.S. and Canada.)

They phoned some Canadians and Brits living on the island, all of whom said that foreigners were in no danger. They even phoned the president of the American medical school, who dismissed the idea that he or his students were in danger. He said that the coup leader had called him and assured him that the rebels had nothing against the medical school and welcomed it as a source of foreign exchange. The coup leader had even given him a private phone number to call if any renegade rebels bothered them.

He also poo-poohed the notion that the runway was a secret Cuban military project. Everyone knew about it, his students even went swimming off the unfinished runway, and it was common knowledge that the purpose was to improve the tourist industry, since at that time, the island could receive only smaller aircraft.

In a later interview, while still on the island, he said that the major danger to his students was fire from the American troops.

Of course, after a couple of hours on a U.S. military transport, everyone changed their tune. A couple of students (I wonder if they were paid or just told to act dramatic) kissed the ground when they landed in the U.S.

The corporate media and NPR (almost the same thing) just ate it up.

A couple years later, I heard a talk by a sociologist who had been doing research in the Caribbean for decades and had friends on Grenada and other islands. His view was that Maurice Bishop, the original revolutionary who was overthrown in the coup, was a threat because he was trying to create a local food processing industry so that the Grenadians would not be in the absurd position of growing citrus fruits and spices but having to buy imported juices, jams, and spice powders in the stores. One of the first things the U.S. troops did after securing the island was to padlock the small food processing factories that the government had set up. They also padlocked the youth centers on the grounds that they were sources of "Communist indoctrination."

The U.S. military engineers then completed the runway. Resort developers moved in, and for the first time, some beaches became off-limits to Grenadians.

You may recall the Time magazine pictures of white-lettered graffiti saying "God bless America" and "Thank you President Reagan." This sociologist saw them all over the island (they were still up), and so he asked his friends who had painted them. No one knew; the grafitti had just appeared overnight. Finally, he found someone who had gotten up in the middle of the night to pee and had seen some white men jump out of a van, spray the graffiti, and move on.

Incidentally, after the invasion of Panama, similar graffiti appeared there: "God bless America" and "Thank you President Bush." Things that make you go "Hmm."

If you want more information about this, read Jonathan Kwitny's (Kwitny was a Wall Street Journal reporter, so hardly a leftist) Endless Enemies. It's probably out of print, but I bet your library has a copy.

[guardian]

195. All I know

is that from recent trips to Grenada, the people there are effusively grateful to the USA for stopping the Cubans. From taxi drivers, to bartenders, to street vendors, I've heard stories of how the Cubans had imposed martial law and were shooting civilians just going out to buy food.

They still say "God bless America". This wasn't some old sign, but rather, regular people telling me this first hand after 20 years.

[HamdenRice]

205. What utter bullshit. My ex wife was from Grenada, and I went there a few years after the "war"

We stayed with my ex-wife's uncle, who was a very prominent local businessman, of the class you would not expect to be in favor of a local socialist.

The one thing that Grenada's were unanimous about: They all loved Maurice Bishop.

Most people forget that although Grenada was a middle income country, it had come under the bizarre dictatorship of the infamous Eric Gairy, a conservative nutcase who believed in voodoo and murder to control the country.

As Wiki summarizes Gairy's reign:

Gairy was considered a dictator by most and mentally unstable due to his belief in UFOs and his speeches on UFOs at the United Nations. Gairy began lobbying the UN in 1977 to create an agency or department to start research on UFO and extraterrestrial life. The result of this was the UN's seminal resolution (33/426) on extraterrestrial life in 1978.

<end quote>

Of course, Gairy was much beloved by the CIA. He was "our bastard" in the southern Caribbean. Bishop ended the Gairy dictatorship.

Bishop tried to have open friendly relationships with the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States. He was often seen on US television begging the Reagan administration to have normal relations with his country.

But Reagan had an overall neo-colonial project to put all the Latin American and Caribbean countries back into Nixon era dictatorships firmly under the control of the US. The airport, the food processing -- all the other stuff was incidental to the ideological project of simply taking over and controlling, or maintaining right wing elite control of, countries like Grenada, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. You can't understand Grenada without understanding things like the murder of Bishop Romero, the massacre of peasants in Guatemala, the contra atrocities, the mining of Nicaragua's waters, and so on.

The brief period during which Grenadans were afraid was after Bernard Coard overthrew Maurice Bishop, and many Grenadas believe that Coard, Bishop and the rest of the government were manipulated into a paranoid circular firing squad by the bizarre campaign of CIA psy-ops waged within Grenada in the weeks before Coard overthrew Bishop.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

222. I assume the Cubans imposed martial law during the coup attempt

not during the time they were supervising the construction project?

I'm laying down this challenge. Read Kwitny's book, especially the chapter on Grenada. Funny thing, it agrees with what I heard on the Canadian broadcast, not in the broadcasts of the chicken-shit American media, who apparently forgot en masse that they could direct-dial the entire Caribbean.

[arcadian]

131. You for got the sarcasm smilie. n/t

[endarkenment]

65. "people went to jail for it"

Actually, 'person'.

In Poindexter's hometown of Odon, Indiana, a street was renamed to John Poindexter Street. Bill Breedan, a former minister, stole the street's sign in protest of the Iran-Contra Affair. He claimed that he was holding it for a ransom of $30 million, in reference to the amount of money given to Iran to transfer to the contras. He was later arrested and confined to prison, making him, as satirized by Howard Zinn, "the only person to be imprisoned as a result of the Iran-Contra affair."<64>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair#Convictions.2C_pardons.2C_and_reinstatements

Iran-Contra was the signal that the corruption of our government by the kleptocracy was complete, that no investigation would result in punishment, and that no careers would be wrecked. Instead the perpetrators have been pardoned, rewarded, re-instated, and in many cases have served again to perpetrate more crimes.

[gratuitous]

73. Stop trying to rewrite your posts

You said "attack," and now you want to change it to "invade." Sorry, but I was responding to what you wrote; my mind-reading license lapsed recently, and I didn't renew it.

Under the terms you yourself described, we have indeed attacked all sorts of other countries, either directly or by directly funded, trained and armed proxies (a subterfuge that fools some weak-minded people, but that rarely fools the folks who suffer because of it, and presents no substantive difference to the dead or their survivors). And none of the countries I listed presented any existential threat to the United States.

Edited to Add: Oh, and Cambodia and Laos are not and have never been part of Vietnam. You really need to read a book someday.

[ddeclue]

79. Cambodia and Laos were DEFINITELY part of Vietnam.

They were the secret part of the war that Nixon expanded to try and stop the Ho Chi Minh trail and we bombed the crap out of them in a horrendous war crime that Nixon got away with.

[JHB]

209. You are using the word "Vietnam" to include the whole Vietnam conflict...

...the person you were responding to was obviously being more literal or precise, and was referring to the modern nation-states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Keep things like that in mind when you choose how to phrase your arguments.

[Diclotican]

105. ddeclue

ddeclue

I guess you forgot the 1953 coup in Iran, when USA and UK overthrown an democratic elected government.. Trow most of them in prison, and murdered their prime minister and most of his staff, after a kangaroo Cort trial where the death sentences was given long before the trial started... You forgot to tell that between 1953 and 1979 US and UK many times over interviewed if the then government in Iran was "steeping out of line":. You forgot the installment of the Shah, who was never specially popular in the aye of the iranian people, and who also was trembling on most peoples right to the end.. When he was fleeing with his family and some others, and a new, no better regime was installed.. You forgot to tell that the old Shah, had his own little secret police, who in most part was educated BY CIA. And who was know for their brutality.. Even members of CIA was sometimes scared about what the old SAVKA could accomplish.

Most of Latin america have good reason to be afraid of their north american nabohour, who in most cases have treated them no better than the old colonies regimes was doing when they was in power there.. The dirty war, where many country was more or less consumed by violence against everyone who was standing up against American Fruit Company and CO..

It is true that some was been arrested, convicted of crime and been send to prison. But most of them, most notably the big fishes was nothing near a prison cell.. And the ma on the top, Ronald Reagan are still admired by millions.. Even that he possible was senile and rather out of touch with the government the last 4-5 year he was in office...

The issue with Libya was far older than Lokeebee bombing in 1988, but yes it was retaliatory in the nature.. But Libya and US have been antagonizing each other for more than two or maybe tree decades before that horrible act was happending...

I hope you do not invade Venezuela, on the look at it, the US have not the force to do it - if US are not willing to make use of a draft then.. Yes Chavez is a pain in the neck, but he is not that bad as some want him to be.. But he is no hero of mine, just so that is been told..

Diclotican

[ddeclue]

108. Republican President in 1953, Eisenhower NOT Truman.

All your US imperialism problems since WWII have been on Republican watch except for Vietnam. If Obama plays around on Iraq he will own it too just as Kennedy and Johnson ended up owning Eisenhower's Vietnam.

I too hope we will not invade Venezuela nor do I believe that Venezuela poses any kind of real threat to the US. I believe firmly that Obama would not do such a thing but I believe that a President McCain most certainly would have done so.

I don't like Chavez but I don't think him to be nearly as bad as Castro was who we have tolerated for 50 years and whose country is far closer to the US than Venezeula. Any war with Venezuela would again be about stealing other people's oil.

[Diclotican]

206. ddeclue

ddeclue

True, on the outside it looks like Republicans often want to go to war and then democratic president have given the war after a while to try clean it up... But if you ask and republican (as I have doing sometimes) you would find the opposite view.. That it is an democratic watch that most wars have accrued.. Because most people have been oblivious to the fact that a war was going on for many year - it was first when an democratic president was coming to power most people understand that a war was going on.. The Vietnam war started already - for americans point of view already in 1954 when the french was given up their claims on Vietnam, and US was coming into the fry.. And under Kennedy the whole thing accelerated to a point where many american suddenly discovered that they war at war.. And Kennedy and Johnson more or less owning the Vietnam war... Who for most part, both american and sure for the vietnamese people would be true to be a catastrophe.. 58.000 Dead americans, and who know how many vietnamese people Some say 300.000 others say 1 million, and some says over 3 million... And a whole country more or less bombed back to the stoneage..

Venezuela are no danger to the US, and I also believe mr Obama would not go to war with Venezuela. That would be something that would ruin most chances for mr Obama to be re-elected I guess... Even that many americans seen to like the idea of "regime change" in Latin America.. Specially when it came to Venezuela who more than one time have poked US in the back. And who have specially have a dislike for mr Bush - as most of the world have by the way, but most of us have not been that open about the contempt most of us have hasd...

Castro have been there for almost 50 year, and are a old man now.. Cuba will change when he dies, if not before.. When it came to Cuba, the best way to change it, is to let it happened on Cuba's term.. Cuba are a country who can be a far more stable neighbour than your "old friend" Mexico seen to be this days... But they have to sort out how it should change on their own terms.. Not by US bully the country..

Chavez is maybe no great democratic president.. But he is still elected by the Venezuelan country, and US would respect that. If the Venezuelan want an another regime, they have to elect another.. And for the moment, the difference between Chavez and the opposition is to big for the moment... And most of the opposition are from the old regime, who was corrupt as hell... So most Venezuelan seen to have a interest of Chavez.. Even that some says he is the new Castro... Something I doubt.. It is only ONE CASTRO.. And he is over 80 year old now. And sick.. And wil not live forever.. Even that he have outlasted most americans presiden's since Eisenhower..

Diclotican

[tjwash]

23. WHAT?

Vietnam yes and Iraq in 2003 yes but generally speaking...??

Do you fucking hear yourself?

So...just every 20 years or so we just blow the shit out of a sovereign nation, murder a few hundred thousand women and children that have done NOTHING to us, but that doesn't matter, it's not a pattern, just move on, nothing to see here?

And in another response you say we need to fear Iran as well? For fucks sake man, we spend more money on our bloated military than every other country in the world combined.

Are you cutting and pasting this shit right off of fox news or something?

Unbelievable...

[ddeclue]

33. Um NO... are you listening to your nonsense?

I never said "it doesn't matter and let's not pay attention to it". Those are your words not mine so don't try to stick them in my mouth. Reagan should have been impeached and jailed over Iran-Contra and Central America in the 1980's as Nixon should have over Cambodia and Laos and carpet bombing Hanoi in the 1970's and as GWB should have been over the Iraq invasion that has just happened in this decade.

Having a competent and well equipped military has nothing to do with how politicians choose to misuse that military.

[dysfunctional press]

49. afghanistan did nothing to us- but we attacked them.

[ddeclue]

51. Other than provide aid and comfort and safe harbor to those who launched 9/11

yeah I guess they did "nothing"...

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

58. the reason we invaded afghanistan was to prepare for the invasion of iraq.

9/11 was a crime, not an act of war. an act of war is something carried out by a country, not a group of thugs.

[ddeclue]

63. Ummm NO we invade Afghanistan because it was the launching platform for 9/11

Iraq is NOT justifiable NOR connected to 9/11 and is a WAR crime that George Bush is responsible for and any entity that engages in mass killing for a political purpose has engaged in an act of war - be it the U.S.A. or al Qaeda or the IRA or what have you. 9/11 was an act of war.

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

68. 9/11 was carried out and funded by saudi's...the 'pilots' trained in the u.s....

we invaded afghanistan to prepare the public, the military, and the world for the invasion of iraq.

[ddeclue]

74. The plan was hatched and controlled by the AQ leadership in Afghanistan

and had nothing to do with the Bush plan to attack Iraq which was a ridiculously transparent oil grab at the time it was being pushed.

If you are right then Bush is very very much more stupid than we think because he should have given all the 9/11 pilots Iraqi passports and cover stories so that we would blame Iraq instead of Afghanistan and so that he wouldn't have to invent a bunch of crap about WMD's and transparent lies about Iraq and terrorism a year and a half later to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Doug D.

[endarkenment]

91. The plan was hatched and financed by Saudi royals

so why exactly didn't we take them out?

[ddeclue]

99. Saudi Royals is a rather indefinite term given how many members of the "royal family" there actually

are and the fact remains that AQ was in Afghanistan and if you wanted to take on AQ you had to go where they were hiding out.

[endarkenment]

130. But we didn't go there. We still haven't.

We have never mounted a serious effort to take out al qaeda. Instead we pushed the taliban out of Kabul, installed our stooge, and in doing so restarted the Afghan Civil War. Oh, and we destabilized Pakistan in the process.

If we wanted to destroy al qaeda we would have surrounded and besieged their alleged mountain hideouts in the border region and we would have destroyed their saudi based funding. We did neither. Perhaps Obama has other intentions, but there is no evidence at all that Bush (the more stupid and equally belligerent) ever had a serious plan to destroy al qaeda.

[ddeclue]

140. Not my fault that George W. Bush was President the last 8 years..

I mean I voted against the man twice and worked my ass off to defeat him in 2004 and 2008 and donated a good bit of money in 2000, 2004 and 2008 to keep him from having that job. All the things you are complaining about are HIS doing, certainly not how I would have handled it if I were in charge.

That's like blaming government for screwing up the Katrina response - GOVERNMENT didn't screw it up, George W. BUSH did.

Doug D.

[dysfunctional press]

117. are you implying that all of the 9/11 pilots had afghani passports?

or are you implying that whatever info came out was actually a cover story by bush?

which is it?

[ddeclue]

141. No where they had passports from is NOT the issue...

Do all "American" soldiers have "American" passports... believe it or not: NO...

What I am talking about is the leadership of Al Qaeda - that is who was ultimately responsible and that leadership hid out in Afhganistan until Bush let them escape into Pakistan and that's where it hides out now.

[dysfunctional press]

171. then why did you bring up passports?

the taliban offered to turn obl over to a third-party country before the invasion...and by your own words- bush let alqueda escape into pakistan...

so it would seem that going after the ones responsible for 9/11 wasn't the real reason for the invasion...

[ddeclue]

174. I don't recall bringing up passports, you did.. and you are misinterpreting Bush letting OBL go..

He DID go after OBL on 9/12 because of 9/11 and Afghanistan was the place to go - everybody knew that from before Bush was even in office. Bush let him go NOT because that wasn't his original objective but RATHER because he would rather use those troops to take other people's oil at the point of a gun.

Bush had NO choice but to go after OBL after 9/11 because the American public would have gone nuts if he had tried to do anything else but OBL was something that was interfering with his real and original objective of going into Iraq so he did go after OBL for a while until he was ready to do Iraq and the public fervor had died down a bit but at that point Iraq became his priority and he forgot about Afghanistan.

[dysfunctional press]

175. you don't have to recall- just go to your post #74.

:eyes:

[ddeclue]

179. Twisting my argument sir... YOU brought up the passport issue..

I was just showing how bogus it was in #74 by pointing out that the best passports to give them from Bush's point of view would have been IRAQI and that the WORST choice was Saudi. Osama bin Laden is (was??) a Saudi so why would it be surprising that his followers are also? Moreover, his country of origin does NOT mean he has any allegiance to Saudi Arabia's current leadership any more than Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Leee felt towards Lincoln and Grant.

Doug D.

[dysfunctional press]

191. show me a post earlier than #74 where i brought up passports, and i'll believe you...

otherwise you're just another worthless piece of shit lying inernet fool.

[dysfunctional press]

216. just as i thought...doug noclue runs and hides again.

[Bjorn Against]

98. Not one single 9/11 hijacker was from Afghanistan, it was not a launching pad for anything.

[ddeclue]

101. It WAS their hide out and launching pad.

:crazy:

[Bjorn Against]

120. No it wasn't they trained in the US and launched their attacks from our airports.

No rolling eye smiley is going to change the fact that not one single 9/11 hijacker was from Afghanistan, nor were the attacks launched from Afghanistan.

[dysfunctional press]

123. nor were they funded by afghanistan.

[ddeclue]

149. No but they sure as HELL were headquartered there...

Should we just say... I'm sorry we won't fight back if you choose to hide out in another country that didn't formally declare war on us? That is just being insanely obtuse. You don't say that oh we would have gone after them but hey they crossed the border and are safe at home plate now

:crazy:

[ddeclue]

147. Deliberately obtuse... where they have passports is a ridiculous basis for a war.

Where their LEADERSHIP is is the only reasonable basis. You can't change the fact that Osama bin Laden and his leadership cadre was holed up in Afghanistan and that THEY planned this attack and authorized it. Our invasion of Afghanistan was to go after THEM and their enablers in the Taliban, NOT to attack ordinary Afghans.

:crazy:

[Bjorn Against]

152. First where is bin Laden? Second what evidence do you have that he planned the attacks?

[ddeclue]

155. His own video proclamations and that of others (KSM) have said so..

I take the man at his word. Independent journalistic investigations have come to the same conclusion. The man was pissed that we sent American troops to Saudi Arabia instead of letting him and the Mujahadeen defend it against SH and so we became the enemy. We also became the enemy because we propped up a tyrannical monarchy in SA instead of allowing a Sharia based pan-Islamic state to develop in the Middle East.

It makes sense without looking for hidden compartments and secret conspiracies between the Bushes and the Saudi Royal family. Indeed the fact that the attackers were Saudi nationals caused Bush and his Saudi buddies great embarassment and tension and if he wanted to justify the Iraq war and it really WAS a BushCo conspiracy, then he should have planted Iraqi passports and made the hijackers out to all be Iraqi If this was a BushCo conspiracy then it was the most incompetent one ever attempted because instead of making the hijackers out to be Iraqi and using that as a justification for war he had to concoct a bunch of unbelieveable bullshit later about WMD's that nobody intelligent really believed, even then.

Doug D.

[Bjorn Against]

160. Are you referring to this obviously fake video?

Notice that the image of the "bin Laden" in that video looks absolutely nothing like any other image of bin Laden anywhere. The video is a fake, just like the WMD lies were fakes. I am not one of the "Loose Change" people either, I just think that the Bush Administration is more than willing to fake evidence to justify any of their policies and they faked that tape to justify their invasion of Afghanistan.

[ddeclue]

170. No... you can be obtuse if you want but Osama bin Laden was actually

NOT something that Bush controlled or wanted to have happen - he was on the scene under Clinton, I would remind you and was behind the original WTC attack and the Cole Attack and the embassy attacks under Clinton - you are being revisionist to deny that he wasn't already a sworn enemy before Bush was even elected and Frontline on PBS did a brilliant investigation on the subject and came to the conclusion that OBL was behind WTC II on 9/11. Like Katrina, Bush's blame on 9/11 lies in his lack of diligence and his incompetence. Clintons's security people tried to warn Bush but he blew them off until 9/12.

The war that Bush lied about and had planned all along was the neocon war for oil in Iraq and his zeal for forcing this down our throats came at the expense of dealing with the real threat to our security from OBL and he even let OBL go to go after Iraq at Tora Bora nd make his oil buddies happy.

Doug D.

[Bjorn Against]

178. Wow you sure like to put words in my mouth...

I never denied that he was a sworn enemy, but that does not mean that he was the mastermind behind 9/11. He was a terrorist, but that doesn't mean we needed a war to stop him, especially when that war failed to capture him.

[ddeclue]

180. We didn't need a war until 9/11 but it would have been politically unacceptable on 9/12 to NOT go

after him in Afghanistan using the full force of our military regardless of whether it would have been Bush or Gore, we would have done exactly what we did. To deny that is to deny reality.


Doug D.

[Bjorn Against]

182. And Gore would have been just as wrong, you don't go to war over a single individual.

[ddeclue]

185. By your bizarre rationalization then the Revolutionary War was about George Washington

and ignores the fact that George Washington commanded an army.

Blatant obfuscation of reality.

:crazy:

[Bjorn Against]

187. bin Laden doesn't command an army, you are comparing apples and oranges.

[ddeclue]

186. By your bizarre rationalization then the Revolutionary War was about George Washington

and ignores the fact that George Washington commanded an army.

Blatant obfuscation of reality.

:crazy:

[endarkenment]

56. wow - that is nonsense.

We had a brief respite on 'going and arbitrarily attacking countries that did nothing to us' after our defeat in Vietnam, but Reagan ended that with Grenada and we were back to our usual mode of operation - fairly summarized as 'going and arbitrarily attacking countries that did nothing to us' and have been in that mode ever since.

[ddeclue]

66. NO we generally only have been in that mode under Republican Presidents

who have beliefs in Empire. We haven't seen that under Carter or Clinton and we haven't seen it (so far at least) under Obama.

[endarkenment]

76. Carter was the anomaly.

Clinton had no problem at all blowing up Serbia. I'll give him a pass on Somalia as Bush the less stupid stuck him with that piece of shit. The embargo of Iraq was a war crime, plain and simple, that primarily victimized Iraqi civilians and in particular children.

The track record of Democratic presidents other than Carter has been as bad as or even worse than Republican presidents going back at least as far as WWI. In the Post WWII era, and like a festering boil in the post Carter era, Democratic presidents seem to feel compelled to demonstrate their willingness to commit us to slaughter, lest they be tarred with the weak on defense (i.e. slaughtering foreigners) label.

[ddeclue]

87. Clinton's uses of force were justifiable either in response to attacks on U.S.

or its embassies or as an attempt to stop genocide.

Truman only ever fought wars in WWII and Korea, neither of which the U.S. started.

Kennedy inherited Vietnam from Eisenhower and escalated it. Kennedy resisted all out war during the Cuban missile crisis - it is doubtful that a Republican President would have been so wise. LBJ inherited for Kennedy and escalated again. Vietnam was NOT justifiable and was a war for empire - and bizarrely not even OUR empire but the French colonial empire. Carter's only use of force was against Iran in trying to get our hostages back - it failed and as far as I know we killed no Iranians in it.

Democrats with the exception of LBJ has largely been far better than Republicans since WWII when it comes to avoiding war.

[rrneck]

11. Or consume a disproportionate share of the

world's natural resources.

[The Traveler]

14. Regrettably I have to disagree.

China has invaded India (1962?) and Vietnam (1979) proving it is capable of hostile action. They currently have several hundred cruise missiles aimed at Taiwan in a gesture of friendship and unity ...

Russia has gained (through outsourcing) access to advanced electronics and computing techniques, which provided the bulk of our advantage over their military technology. (That inevitable in any case ... outsourcing just accelerated the pace.) And this technology has definitely been integrated into their defense industry. For example, the Tu-160 strategic bomber has been completely revamped, and while not as stealthy as our B-2 presents a deceptively small radar signature while retaining excellent flight performance.

Now, I think virtually any nation can be dealt with in a peaceful and mutually beneficial fashion ... I just observe history indicates that is more readily accomplished if all sides are militarily robust. Military deterrence restrains the ambitious, and frankly I think we would have been well served by the presence of a military competitor --- a balance, a check --- earlier in this century. Perhaps we would have not so hastily invaded Iraq, had sabers been discretely rattled.

My point is ... America, I love it, but it does not alway do things I love. I'm proud of our history, but we are not saints. Neither are the other guys. Unchecked power is always deployed.

Trav

[Hugabear]

22. Apples and oranges

China happens to border both India & Vietnam, and considers Taiwan a renegade province. I don't defend China's actions, but there's really no comparison between the actions between China & its neighbors and China & the US.

I'm not advocating the complete disarmament of our military either, but we have far more than what would be necessary for simply defending our borders.

[The Traveler]

30. Convince the dead

of that fine point. In either case, we are talking about a projection of power by means of force. The difference is strategic in nature, not ethical. We would be no more morally superior in conducting an invasion of Venezuela than we were by conducting an invasion of Iraq. The proximity of Venezuela is irrelevant to that matter.

Now, if Venezuela bombs Miami, that's a different matter. Then, it is on like Donkey Kong and too bad for Venezuela. Of course, I do not expect Venezuela to do anything that silly.

Finally, defense of borders and interests (e.g. free and fair access to trade routes) requires the ability to project force. Unless you like losing.

That being said ... I suspect we could deflate our defense budget by a considerable amount and still meet our geo-strategic requirements by forging good alliances with other nations. That, of course, requires more consistent diplomacy than was recently in fashion.

Talking is always better than shooting, and if you have to fight it is best to be on the side with the biggest guns. Just my life experience, anyway.

Trav

**edited for typos ***

[Hugabear]

41. You completely missed my point

It's one thing for a country (especially one with a vastly superior military force) to attack a neighboring country with which it has a dispute.

It's a far different matter for a country to attack a country that's separated by a huge ocean, and which has a comparable military. Even if we didn't have military forces spread around the globe, even if we maintained our military strictly for self-defense purposes, any country would still think twice about attacking us.

[The Traveler]

200. You completely missed mine

A military solution to a dispute remains a military solution and the distance separating the combatants matters little, ethically speaking. And practically speaking, I can assure you that the corpses smell the same.

All governments seek to project military force. Those who limit their actions to neighboring countries do so principally because they don't have the means for a wider scope of action. The history of French military action in the post WWII era might be of interest to you, for example.

But I do agree with your salient issue. It can be argued a) that we have over invested in military resources to exert inappropriate domination or b) that our allies rely on us excessively for their protection. Frankly, I would be more comfortable with a) than I would be for b) since b) involves "fighting for strangers", but of course both arguments have contributed to the current status quo.

We spend too much money on guns. We don't spend enough money on developing our people.

Thus I agree in principle with your conclusion ... but not the way you have arrived at it. Which means we will probably disagree on several important details later on.

Trav

[theoldman]

8. The only country with aircraft anywhere near equivalent to ours is Russia.

I do not anticipate a war with Russia in the near future. We have wasted a lot of bucks on aircraft that we do not need unless there is a war. I worked in the aerospace industry for over 40 years so I have some knowledge on this subject. No country in the world has spent as much money on the military as the US.

[ddeclue]

15. Yeah well that's nice but those aircraft are still obsolete and China and Iran and most of the G20

have the financial ability to buy advanced aircraft from Russia which can outclass our 35 and 40 year old aircraft designs.

The Iranians found this out the hard way in the 1980's when their 1950's design vintage F4's got shot down by 1970's design vintage F15's and the Syrians learned this same lesson when their 1950's and 1960's design vintage Mig's got shot down by F15's.

Now it's the F15 that is old and out of date.

Doug D.

[Hugabear]

27. Not to mention the fact that Russia's aircraft are even worse than ours

Their military is far more obsolete than our own.

[ddeclue]

36. No their latest Migs are on par with our front line aircraft and their new ones will surpass them.

[tammywammy]

10. Agreed. n/t

[hobbit709]

12. And what good did those F15's and F16's do us on 9/11?

Total air superiority means nothing against an enemy that lurks in the shadows.

[ddeclue]

16. And terrorism, isn't the only threat in the world - that's Bush-think. nt

[ChairmanAgnostic]

32. and our super duper Alaskan based anti missile missiles

that don't work? They did just fine!

[ddeclue]

40. THAAD might work... it might not...

they have shot down a few missiles in tests but they don't always succeed and even then the tests are under very controlled conditions and there is no guarantee that THAAD would actually work under actual operational use.

Should we continue to invest in it? Yes to a limited extent - Should we think it's going to stop real missiles under actual conditions - I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

106. I was at a conference where this chinese engineer was asked about

simple defenses to our alaskan anti- missile program.

His solution? with a MIRV, send one on a lower trajectory, blow it up in the atmosphere, destroying the ears and eyes of the defense system, and simply let the others fall along their intended path. Oh, and the idea of hundreds of mylar balloons that inflate in space that would completely fool our optics and radar, mainly because they could be made as warm, and move as fast as the warheads, (at a few dollars a piece).

The way he described the simple, cheap methods made the whole audience kinda quiet.

[ddeclue]

112. Pretty much standard stuff and all true...

I don't dispute it - that is why I said what I said, i.e. we should continue to spend a very limited amount on such efforts mostly as a research project but not treat it as some kind of "security blanket" that will provide real defense against a Chinese or Russian attack. It might (and I mean MIGHT) stop a single missile or a very limited volley of missiles from North Korea (should they ever be able to design one that isn't total crap and design a warhead that actually works) but against China or Russia it would be basically useless. Our choices there would either be to absorb the impact and not respond or to engage in MAD as we have always claimed we would.

Doug D.

[icnorth]

109. Backed up by Sarah the vigilant

who reportedly on one occasion caught Putin serepticiously peeking over the horizon.:hide:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

110. LOL!

[ddeclue]

115. Maybe she can shot them down from one of her wolf shooting helicopters..

:nuke:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Oh lawd.

[Johonny]

18. It seems pretty clear the future of this technology

is heading towards unmanned drones and manned aircraft will not be needed for defense.

[ddeclue]

21. Not really - at least not for the forseeable future.

UAV's are really only effective against ground targets and not against heavily defended ones. They simply don't offer their remote operators (I won't call them pilots) sufficient situational awareness.

Doug D.

[Democracyinkind]

47. That's so not true. years, decades according to analysts.

Have you read Singers wired for war?

[ddeclue]

55. No but I know technology and I really don't see that being true

at least for 10 to 20 years. A human on the scene is always better able to evaluate the situation than one 10,000 miles away whose decisions are being made through a comm link that goes up and down through outer space and has a 200 mS delay attached to it at the very very minimum. That 200mS delay is enough to make you the loser in the real world.

Doug D.

[Democracyinkind]

72. Singer states the industry's argument that SemiAtomatedSystems...

(drones) are already outperforming trained pilots in an embarrassing way. Plus the fact that, as an intermediary step, we won't need pilots at all, just kids used to playing x-box, and those are the guys currently flying our drones as they are phasing out real pilots out of the drone program. That's really what the industry is telling us. your argument is valid for this case. But I pretty much dismiss the idea that our military values a "human on the front". They'd love robots. (cause they are?)

But long term, as you say, 10-20 yrs. and there will be no need of a "virtual" pilot. FullyAutomatedSystems is a RIMA that is currently taking place (Iraq, Afghanistan) and that will be implemented within the next 10, 15 years. Just use usual rates of innovation, and you will come to this conclusion, the groundwork is really laid out in a very extensive way.

In fact the F-15, slightly modified, could be made a FAS prototype with current technology ... I just read that weeks ago... Prototype to implementation takes about 10, 15 yrs - maybe the recession will make it 20, at that's the general rule absent of a major war ( The real one with enemies, the type we used to do way back)

[ddeclue]

77. Computer intelligence is just no replacement for human intelligence

and the time delays involved in remote control are unacceptable in high threat environments. Drones are OK when your opponent has no air force such as in recent conflicts but not against a real military adversary which we may some day face in China. The main advantage drones have over pilots is g-force tolerance and an inability to be captured and used a POW but in every other way they are a decidedly inferior choice over the intelligence of an actual human being - especially when you start talking about automated drones, I concept I find very morally disturbing.

Doug D.

[Democracyinkind]

88. Morally disturbing has never stopped the United States from being number one.

And I totally dig your view, I think the problem just is that you assume wrong things about our national security priorities. Automation is more than welcome. It is enthusiastically encouraged.

Again fully automated systems will not require data feeds, they will have no time delays. Do not underestimate how far we are with this stuff. I can provide you with literature. FAS can already very easily outperform pilots in F-15's Simulators using no weapons at all - they can maneuver in a way that no human-led jet could ever defend himself against.

[ddeclue]

93. I know what they are capable of and what they are not capable of.

As a software engineer, I can tell you with conviction that software is inherently fragile and does not adapt well to unforeseen situations. One of the first rules of warfare is that intial plans do not survive the initial encounter with the enemy. The other is the "fog of war" of Clauswitz which promises you that things never go as planned and you never have all the information necessary to make a rational decision.

I don't trust robots to fight our wars and I find the idea of it to be morally repugnant - that machines alone will be making spontaneous decisions to kill human beings based on some piece of software somewhere. Shades of "sky net" and the Terminator anyone?

Indeed even the current use of UAV's is leading to unnecessary additional civillian casualties because of a lack of adequate situational awareness by these "playstation pilots" who fly these things 10,000 miles away by remote control.

Doug D.

[Democracyinkind]

97. Ok. I totally agree with you but please notice my point that

.. at least the last 4 administrations have been pushing this shit!
Of course software is flawed. I'll just have to find the damn article to convince you of the fact that they perform insanely well already - meaning software fucks pilot every time when they the use software in simulators I read about.

I read Clausewitz, but I believe he is becoming obsolete as soon as humans are no longer doing the killing. I would love to bet with you on when we will see the first FA combat jet. Currently I really do lean to 10/15 years, listening to the industry and beltway. But of course they could be hyping it.

Singers book is excellent-
P.W. Singer - Wired for war
(all about the current RIMA, and ho Afghanistan and Iraq have seen widespread robotic implementation, albeit of the not fully-atuomated sort.

[ddeclue]

107. My experience with programming computers only reinforces my belief

that one should not put a lot of faith in their ability to handle unforseen situations and Clausewitz will never become obsolete because the real world is far more chaotic and non linear than engineers like to pretend. Perhaps you should read the Gleick book on Chaos theory. Your problem is that you are talking about simulations under controlled conditions. Software always performs very well along a very narrow set of pathways of execution that the designers were able to anticipate. Software on the other hand becomes extremely fragile the moment you put a monkey in a room with a computer and let him randomly bang away at keys in ways that the designers did NOT anticipate.

The most classic example of this was the Apollo 11 moon landing where the pilots had switched off the radar system and the software was so busy trying to find an angle with a sine= 0 AND a cosine = 0 (doesn't exist) that the computer overloaded and had the computer tried to finish the landing there would have been a big crash at the end. This kind of thing still happens and there are software horror stories that happen in mission critical systems that would make your hair stand on end.

A smart and creative pilot (or missile battery operator or what have you) will outsmart a piece of software in the real world.

[Hugabear]

207. If you're a programmer, then you should know how quickly artificial intelligence is progressing

I do a lot of reading on this subject, and I've read reports that by 2020, our military will be using fully autonomous robots to undergo routine tasks such as street patrols. It is not a matter of IF it will happen, it's a matter of WHEN. And I'm glad that you don't feel that we have anything to fear from "Skynet", but apparently Stephen Hawking believes that this is one of the greatest problems we will face in the future.

[Johonny]

193. pretty sure the real trend is towards unmanned aircraft

Just read the report. Pretty much has the future written all over it. In 50-100 years the country with unmanned drones will beat the country that needs well trained pilots. The air force knows this.

[Democracyinkind]

203. I just don't see how there is any denying it.

I feel like the Germans an Amiens saying : " But look there! The tank is really revolutionary "

[leftchick]

20. it is OFFENSE spending NOT Defense

when the fuck was the USA threatened by any other major nuke player? The USA has been and still is the most aggressive, destructive force since the Roman Empire.

[ddeclue]

38. Yes we DO spend more than the next 27 nations combined

and yes a lot of that is unnecessary but that doesn't change the fact that our planes are old and out of date and wearing out and becoming vulnerable to new aircraft being designed and built by Europe and Russia.

[endarkenment]

125. So now Europe is going to attack us?

WTF?

[ddeclue]

134. NO - they are going to sell planes to someone who will.

Welcome to the arms trade business... Do we fear AK47's because they are being shot by Russians? No they are a problem because they are sold all around the world to anyone with a few bucks.

[endarkenment]

135. Who?

Specifically who is this enemy that the Europeans are going to arm that is going to attack the United States?

[ddeclue]

143. It's just speculation but the most likely people would be in the Middle East or in China

because they are the ones with the money to buy such military toys.

Doug D.

[endarkenment]

159. So Iran and China.

Yeah. That's likely. Sure.

I understand that Iran is considered to be both a bogeyman and an irrational actor by RWW militarists, but really, how are they going to get those planes within striking range of the US? Or perhaps you meant 'attack our forces occupying Iraq'? Why would they do that? We handed Iraq over to their shiite allies. WTF interest would they have in messing that up? Israel appears to be perfectly capable of blowing Iran off the map, so that doesn't appear to be real problem either.

China? China seems to be pretty much a rational player, so as attacking a nuclear armed state with fighter aircraft would appear to be a pretty insane thing to do, I have to sort of laugh at this idea. Except of course that it isn't really funny and is what is being used as the justification for spending 100s of billions of taxpayer dollars on our planetary offense force.

How about we stand down instead?

[ddeclue]

172. They aren't going to attack the US mainland.

They are going to attack US oil interests or US naval vessels.

Duh...

As for China being a "rational player", that's not always so, they've gone after US Navy ships and planes and threatened Taiwan on a number of occasions in recent history. Weapons are generally neither exclusively "offensive" NOR exclusively "defensive", it is the intent of the user that makes them so in large part. A fighter plane can shoot down bombers or fighters or it can be used to drop bombs and strafe. Context and understanding intent has a great deal to do with it.

NO how about we DON'T stand down... there are plenty of other actors who have no intention of doing so and I am NOT in favor of unilateral disarmament. How about we use our military wisely and sparingly and get out of Iraq?

[endarkenment]

214. Taiwan is part of China as far as China is concerned.

And they have a very good case that the relationship between Taiwan and China is none of our damn business. So yes of course they might consider pushing our fleet out of their territory, where it has no business being.

If we got our military out of everyone else's backyards, decamped our 900 or so foreign bases, and refocused our military on defense of our territory and cooperative defense of the planet's trade routes we would not be having conflicts with any nation states, we would need a military that was about the same size and cost as everyone else's, and we could spend our tax dollars on nonsense like universal healthcare, universal education, decent old age pension plans, adequate unemployment compensation, sustainable infrastructure development, etc. instead of bullshit like this F-22 vs F-35 jingoistic nonsense.

[TahitiNut]

31. God Forbid we spend less than THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED on our military!!!

How else can we stand up against the evil that's EVERYWHERE except in the Holy States of Amurica??

:eyes:

[ddeclue]

35. I'm NOT talking about MORE defense spending, just better choices

Indeed if we pull out of Iraq that would be a huge reduction in defense spending while still allowing for modernizing our forces.

[dysfunctional press]

37. "the necessary invasion of Afghanistan..." ??? when was that? i guess i missed it.

:shrug:

[Democracyinkind]

43. Yeah you did.. Don't remember Uncle Ahmed diggin a trench in your front yard?

[ddeclue]

46. Umm does the name Osama bin Laden mean anything to you?

:shrug:

Perhaps you did miss it..

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

54. oh- was he finally apprehended?

9/11 was a crime, not an act of war. afghanistan didn't attack us.

learn the difference.

[ddeclue]

60. Don't patronize me...9/11 was a WAR crime, not a mere crime and Afghanistan as a sovereign nation is

responsible for what it allows to occur within its borders and the United States has a reasonable right of self defense to put a stop to such aggressors. You don't get a free pass just because you hide out in a lawless governmentless area of the world.

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

64. you really need to learn what a 'war crime' actually is. words mean things.

were you were one of the 90%'ers that gladly swallowed cheney's load after 9/11...?

how'd it taste? :rofl:

[ddeclue]

67. No YOU need to learn what war crime means.

An intentional mass killing of non-combatants for political purposes is a WAR crime.

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

69. when there is a war going on perhaps.

there wasn't on 9/11, and it was not carried out by a sovriegn nation- therefore by definition- it isn't an act of war.

by your definition- was oklahoma city also then a war-crime?

what about the olympic bombing in atlanta?

[ddeclue]

95. I flatly deny your premise that only "sovereign nations" can declare or engage in warfare.

That is a preposterous reading of history and flatly false. Anyone who uses violence for political purposes is engaging in an act of war.

Do you think that the Minutemen who fired on British troops in April of 1775 were just "thugs" or were they engaging in an act of warfare? They had no sovereign government to make it an "act of war" by your silly cardboard cutout definition.

War is the use of violence to achieve a political end, it doesn't require that the warmaker be an officially sanctioned "nation state" for them to be engaging in warfare.

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

122. the minutemen who fired on british troops were british citizens...

that's why it's called the "REVOLUTIONary war" :eyes:

get it?

by definition, war is something that is waged between nation/states- it's not my 'premise'

or a card game.

[ddeclue]

133. And how are they any different than any terrorist anywhere?

They ALL claim to be fighting a revolutionary war of some sort.

You need to know how to conjugate "terrorist"...

It's "terrorist" in the third person... in the first person it is "freedom fighter" or "revolutionary".

Terrorists are engaging in acts of war whether you choose to recognize it or not and whether it was Nanthaniel Greene or the Minutemen who did NOT fight by the conventional rules of warfare during THEIR war or Nathan Bedford Forrest who did NOT fight by the conventional rules of warfare during HIS war or any one who engages in non-state political violence - THEY ARE ALL ENGAGING IN ACTS OF WAR.

You are simply being obtuse not to recognize that that which waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck IS a duck.

None of our own "wars" since World War II have been properly constitutionally declared but no one disputes that Vietnam or Korea or Iraq I or Iraq II or Afghanistan are NOT wars.

:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

166. because terrorists are criminals, not part of any national drive.

the revolutionary war was fought by citizens of one country breaking away to form their own.
but if you want to equate the 'founding fathers' with al-queda...that's your prerogative and you're entitled to your opinion. i don't know of anyone who shares it.

"None of our own "wars" since World War II have been properly constitutionally declared but no one disputes that Vietnam or Korea or Iraq I or Iraq II or Afghanistan are NOT wars. but no one disputes that Vietnam or Korea or Iraq I or Iraq II or Afghanistan are NOT wars."

when does 'properly constitutionally declared' have to do with anything? those were all actions between and involving nations- not a rogue band of mercenaries.

was our intervention in somalia considered a war?

[ddeclue]

183. You are the one making legalistic ridiculous distinctions about what constitutes an "Act of War"

not I... if we haven't declared war on someone but then we go drop bombs on them by your own bizarre reality free logic we haven't committed an act of war on them.

I'm NOT saying that the Founders have the same ideology or religion as al Qaeda but nonetheless the were engaged in acts of war whether or not you wish to admit that fact from April 19, 1775 up until the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 over one year later without any formal legal framework to do so. In that regard their actions are legally the same as those of al Qaeda on 9/11 - it all depends on your point of view whether you were an English loyalist or an American patriot.

YOUR definition is the same as King George III and Parliament, that these were NOT acts of war but rather of insurrection. War however is war whatever legalistic mumbo jumbo you try to use to obfuscate it. What al Qaeda did on 9/11 was an act of war, just as it was when they attacked our embassies in Africa or bombed the USS Cole. All acts of war, all of which justify military response in defense.

As I said it's always freedom fighter in the first person and terrorist in the third person. I think Franklin said something to the effect that revolutions are always legal in the first person, it's only in the third person that they were illegal.

[dysfunctional press]

192. that's because you described 9/11 as a 'war crime', which it obviously wasn't.

and if you understood the definition of war, you'd understand that it was a crime- but not a 'war' crime.

btw- are you saying that al queda is involved in a revolution to free itself from u.s. sovereignty and taxation...? or...what, exactly?

[Democracyinkind]

84. Osama Bin Laden? Has to do what with Afghanistan? Beside the fact

.. that he was tolerated there?
The name Osama Bin Laden, aka Tim Osman, means allot to me in the sense that we refused Sudans offer to take him into custody and persecute him, we denied Afghanistan's offer of the same, we didn't use our several possibilities to just kill him while we were starring at him for hours thru our drones (00/01, ghost wars etc.)
By the time we attacked Afghanistan Bin Laden DID NOT repeat DID NOT have any significant command or any significant forces in Afghanistan, and he was most certainly not a Taleban, he was barely tolerated by them, a nuisance that they ignored as good as they could since the americans weren't that interested in offing him, although they repeatedly "dared" (in a "please dare to" sense)us to do it.

Afghanistan has nothing to do with 9/11 besides the fact that they did a bit of training there in camps that we built for them, and even that claim is bogus because there was no specific training for the 9/11 mission done in Afghanistan, they just recruited them there.

[ddeclue]

96. Oh brother... what a bunch of nonsense... now you are parroting right wing nutters

who accused Clinton of not taking Osama bin Laden "when he had the chance".

:eyes:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

102. I was thinking the same of you...

and your support for military boondoggles.

[Democracyinkind]

104. thanks. for a moment there I thought I had to take him serious.

That was scary.

[Democracyinkind]

103. Read "ghost Wars" .-.. My history professor is most certainly not

... a right wing nutter. Neither am I or my paper on the war on terror. All I have written is a fact. Care for the list of books?

[ddeclue]

116. It is utter nonsense that Clinton could have had OBL on a silver platter in the 90's

the only one who let OBL get away was GWB because he pulled our troops out of Afghanistan when OBL was cornered so he could send them to Iraq.

[Democracyinkind]

129. It was in 99/00. The CIA was running the drones, and the argument

was a legal one. There are at least 3 recorded incidents in which we could have offed him then.
Mind you, that was all after THE SUDANESE GOVERNMENT OFFERED OBL to the USA. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble but Clinton was president back then although I don't believe he was really deciding on that matter. How is this disputable?

Your previous post is just an opinion. Many experts believe that OBL didn't live to see the Tora Bora Jumbo, others are certain that he did and was in Waziristan pretty soon after 9/11 - well before we started giving out ransom for bogus "terrorists" to the vilest of Afghans.

Again. You wanted to tell me how exactly Afghanistan ties into 9/11..? I don't see any arguments for that coming forth.

[ddeclue]

151. I'm sorry but there was no way that WJC was gonna get OBL on a silver platter

that's just right wingnut trash talk from 2002-2008 elections to deflect criticism for why GWB hadn't gotten OBL yet. There's no way that the Sudanese were actually going to hand him over.

And GWB let OBL go at Tora Bora according to numerous sources who say they heard OBL on the radio apologizing to his supporters for getting cornered. GWB let him go because he really didn't care about getting OBL and was more interested in sending those troops off to Iraq for his oil war.

[Democracyinkind]

202. If you are telling me that OBL COMMANDED GROUND FORCES

in Afghanistan in 02 you are just..ludicrous... There is no positive documentation for anything that happened surrounding OBL 02.
As I said, I think he was dead then. As do many others. Others think he was in Waziristan. HE DID NOT COMMAND OR DIRECT THE FIGHT AGAINST "OUR TROOPS"..

And I'm sorry for you but just because historical facts are twisted by the repugs that doesn't make them untrue.
Are you denying the CIA tracked him, and could have killed him with predators?
It's so silly because the guy flying the drone had no problem talking about it. Actually nobody has a problem with it. Because it wasn't their fault, it wasn't exactly a failure out of that perspective.

I know you will never study history but maybe at least read "ghost wars" by steve coll. It is a good introduction. If you can't do that, stop writing this bullshit about right-wing..Ok?
I am currently enrolled at college in a Master program concerning the war on terrah. I really mind your equating my education with right wing propaganda. What I have written is widely agreed on by most scholars, it is not bullshit.

This is my last answer to you since all you can say is: RW bullshit!
Study History. Read some stuff. Start realizing what " Al Kaida" and the Taliban really are.
Could it be that you have a slight imperial bias?
I don't think it's significant that we missed to killed OBL under a democratic administration...
I doesn't matter because he was created under a republican one.

So if it's party politics that keep you from getting the gist of the OBL story you might wanna reconsider - OBL is still a direct consequence of evil republicans.
Ok, then again, actually it was Carter who gave OBL the big pants, but the people who did that under Cartet were Trilaterists primarily and Democrats only secondly.
Hope you can sleep at night now. If not just keep on pretending that OBL has anything to do with Afghanistan. It surely seems to help your sleep.

One day history will have to explain why we bombed all those weddings.
Let's hope someone comes up with better reasons that u did.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

221. It Was In 2001.

Your head may have been in the sand at the time.

[dysfunctional press]

228. i remember the UNnecessary invasion of iraq... 8 years ago and we're still...there...?

you don't launch a full-scale military invasion half-way around the world to catch a handful of criminals.

[Democracyinkind]

42. One day we're going to find out that....

.. the F/22 was nothing but an elaborate hoax by the MIC to cheat you out of your money. Bogus Bogus Bogus.
Proposition: the F/22 program is arguably one of the most unsuccessful in military history and is a brilliant example of our collective denial of what Eisenhower tried to tell us.

ridiculous.
Good luck selling those worthless pieces of junk.

[ddeclue]

50. They fly rings around our existing aircraft - they are most decidedly NOT junk.

F15's have to fly on afterburner just to keep up and the F22's have an almost non-existent radar signature.

They would have cost less per unit had we built the original number intended. When you have to spread the non-recurring engineering and tooling costs across a smaller number of units, the per unit cost goes up - true whether you are designing iPods or fighter planes.

Doug D.

[Democracyinkind]

75. I'm sorry but I'm not impressed with something that was promised....

.. to be the greatest thing since sliced bread (stealth? where did that go? and all the other requirements? loading?) and turns up to be slightly superior to the existing models... at least not revolutionary as should be demanded for that shitload of money...

I was under the impression that many people believe the radar signature isn't exactly non-existent if the benchmark is todays technology, not the 80's benchmarks.

So you would say the F/22 program was a success?
Just wondering.

[Statistical]

118. Where do you get all this from?

F-22 has the highest climb rate of any modern fighter.
Lowest drag coefficent.

It has one (but not the top) highest speeds w/ afterburner but more critically it can super cruise = exceed Mach 1 w/o after burner.

Radar cross section is -40dBsM that is about the same size in echo strength as a steel ball bearing the size of a large marble.

while it is not as radar stealth as F-117 or B-2 it is much more maintenance friendly.
The other detection signatures (heat, sound, sight) are all lower than any air superiority fighter.

The F-22 is a single trick pony. It doesn't do close air support well, it isn't a long range strike fighter. You don't want to take out SAM with it and it hopefully will never need to bust tanks.

It kills other flying things. There is nothing that is as good at killing flying this as the F-22.

No worries though the OP is wrong. Nobody is canceling the F-22. Production will simply stop at a "mere" 150 units.

[ddeclue]

153. That is for all intents and purposes a cancellation.

150 units is a far smaller force than our existing fighter force. The original run was for 750 then 575 and it keeps getting cut back, now it will be 150.

I do agree however that the F22 flies rings around our existing air superiority fighter, the F15 but is not really suitable for CAS roles, although it would probably be a far superior platform for Wild Weasel missions than the existing aircraft because of it's much greater manuveurability, and speed and much smaller RCS. The best plane for CAS is still the A10 regardless of all the crazy AF generals who think it should be replaced by F16's or what have you.

That said, AS is a very important aircraft mission. Until you control the skies through AS you can't successfully conduct the other kinds of missions CAS, bombing, etc, anyways.

[Statistical]

157. Which is why the F-22 & F-35 were always intended as a team.

F-22 control skies
F-35 take battle to the ground.

750 was just insane. There simply is no threat to warrant that size of a fleet.
Cold war is over. Russia has ramped down production.

No other country on the planet has more than 70-80 Tier I fighters.

Sure Russia & China have numbers but most of it is aging and obsolete.

So instead of US having an airforce that is larger than rest of world combined in the future we will need to accept having an airforce "only 2x as large as the #2 country".

[ddeclue]

167. And when we have to fight China???

Do you really think that they will ONLY field 150 fighter airplanes?

China is ultimately far more of a threat to the US than Iran both in numbers and wealth and ambition and not having democratic (small d) goals in mind.

I don't think we need 750 planes but I think 150 is rather small. I would go for 300 at a minimum.

[Statistical]

173. Lets se China get 80 aircraft in the same cateogry as F-22

then we may need to expand the program.

Many other programs have been expanded in the past. F-16 comes to mind.

If it is the year 2014 and China has 86 top of the line Mig-xx and expanding the fleet at rate of 25 per year then maybe we need to consider buying another 50 or 100 F-22.

To not do so would be reckless. Right now there is nothing China is fielding that can't be erased by 150 F-22 backed up by 100+ F-35 and/or F16.

[ddeclue]

176. China is geographically large as well as populous and growing richer all the time

and they are investing in military and space hardware with their new found wealth. They don't pose a Russia like Cold War level of threat now but I don't know about 5 to 10 years from now.

I think you also have to consider that our existing inventory of F15's, 16's and 18's are reaching the end of their airframe lives and are becoming technologically inferior to the latest generation of russian and european planes so considering them as a "backup" really isn't being realistic.

[cherokeeprogressive]

227. I'd say the F-22 program was a success.

I guess it depends on your definition of success. It meets mine.

"Its dual afterburning Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofans incorporate pitch axis thrust vectoring, with a range of ±20 degrees. The maximum thrust is classified, though most sources place it at about 35,000 lbf (156 kN) per engine.<40> Maximum speed, without external weapons, is estimated to be Mach 1.82 in supercruise mode; as demonstrated by General John P. Jumper, former US Air Force Chief of Staff, when his Raptor exceeded Mach 1.7 without afterburners on 13 January 2005.

The F-22 is highly maneuverable, at both supersonic and subsonic speeds. It is extremely departure-resistant,<43> enabling it to remain controllable at extreme pilot inputs. The F-22's thrust vectoring nozzles allow the aircraft to turn tightly, and perform extremely high alpha (angle of attack) maneuvers such as the Herbst maneuver (or J-turn), Pugachev's Cobra,<42> and the Kulbit, though the J-Turn is more useful in combat.<42> The F-22 is also capable of maintaining a constant angle of attack of over 60°, yet still having some control of roll.<42><44> During June 2006 exercises in Alaska, F-22 pilots demonstrated that cruise altitude has a significant effect on combat performance, and routinely attributed their altitude advantage as a major factor in achieving an unblemished kill ratio against other US fighters and 4th/4.5th generation fighters.

During Exercise Northern Edge in Alaska in June 2006, 12 F-22s of the 94th FS downed 108 adversaries with no losses in simulated combat exercises."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor

What argument do you have with an aircraft that can do such things? Surely we've never built one like it before. Nor has anyone else that hasn't built a plane with pitch axis thrust vectoring. That alone sets it apart.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

44. Oh, dear, Oh dear! The bogeyman(men) will get us!

[Hawkowl]

48. When was the last time we lost a dog fight?

Seriously. We need to get a grip on outspending the rest of the world's COMBINED military expenditures. It is not just hardware. It is the fact that our pilots are the best trained and best practiced anywhere. The F16 is more than capable against anything, anyone has now or in the pipeline.

Christ with satellites, unmanned drones, and cruise missiles launched from subs, the F22 is ridiculous overkill. Considering that the F22 propaganda proves it is a match for any 5 fighters at one time, we really only need about 30 since which air force has more than 150 F16 equivalents.

Get a grip. The War Department is bankrupting us.

[ddeclue]

71. The F16 is old and obsolete. You might have noticed that I said

one day... I'm not saying that day is today. When that day comes, our adversary will be flying a Mig or European built fighter aircraft that totally outclasses our 1970's F16's and 15's or perhaps will be firing an SAM that totally outclasses our old airplanes.

The problem with killing a program like this is that it took twenty years to get to this point and when you stop it then restarting it becomes problematic and when you need it it will be too late. I'm not arguing that we need to have huge numbers of these planes, just that they need to be slowly phased in to replace existing equipment as it goes out of inventory due to attrition.

[Posteritatis]

136. It hasn't happened lately, therefore it will never happen? (nt)

[Old and In the Way]

52. Cut the Defense Budget by 30%, then let the generals decide where to spend what's left.

If the F-22 can't make the cut on a $420BB budget, then I guess it's not a good strategic or tactical program.

[Ikonoklast]

53. "You can't trust them Russkies, Mr. President!"

[Political Heretic]

59. One can only hope.

[cboy4]

62. I know. This is very disappointing news indeed.

:thumbsdown:

[northzax]

83. any idea when that day might come?

15 years? 20 years? 25 years? how much more advanced do you think our drone and unmanned aircraft technology will be by then? will anyone really be flying expensive manned fighters in 15 years? I know fighter jocks are cool and all, but we don't really use the F-15 or F/A 18 for sky to mud operations much these days, we use disposable UAVs because who cares if they get blown up? the UAVs apparently cost about 5 million each, so we can buy 8 for each F-22 (at the cheap price of an F-22, you know they'll be more than $40m each) even the Air Force is going toward remote piloting.

and before you say "what if the satellites get killed?" if that happens, the F-22s won't be much use either. It's a cool toy, no question, but it is ancient technology, conceived of the cream of 1980s technology, and it's already obsolete. the first flight was in 1990. which means it was probably greenlighted in 1986 or so. think about how the mission and technology has changed since 1986? this plane was built to fight the Soviets over the battlefields of Europe, when UAVs were science fiction. guess what? the Soviets aren't designing any new planes, and no one is even coming close to building decent new fighters.

[Statistical]

92. Agreed UAV are main focus.

The F-22 is more like $130 million so about 25 drones for each F-22.

The F-22 does fulfill a role though. It wipes out enemy airforces.

1)Send in F-22
2)Destroy enemies inferior airforce
3)Send in F-35 w/ paveways and destroy rest of AF on ground.
4) UAV rule skies performing ground support.

Despite the misleading title the 130-150 F-22 are NOT going anywhere.

[northzax]

137. in fact, the number is increasing to 187

minus attrition. figure you lose 3-4 a year in accidents and the like, you're still looking at over 100 in 2020.

[Statistical]

148. See even better.

I do think the 187 number is the previously reduced # when the contract was reduced to end in FY2011 (reduced from FY2018).

There are only 135 built and production capacity is only about 2 per month. Given FY09 ends in 6 months I can't see them building 50+ jets in that timeframe.

Worst case scenario we "only" have 150ish
Best case scenario we have 187.

Either way more than enough and it opens room in budget design newer UAV.


The OP was justing being an alarmist for no real reason.

For the next 30 years we essentially will have 4 major airframes
F-22 air superiority
F-35 multi-role
B-2 stealth bomber
B-1B strategic bomber

There will be other niche role aircraft but these 4 will make up the backbone of air force.

The B-52H continues to hang in there (60+ years) but I wonder if AF is just justifying a need. The idea of giant fleets of bombers covering countries in bombs is kinda long past.

[jody]

85. Obama must know a President's first duty as CIC is to fulfill the oath taken by all officers under

his command, ""I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic".

Any President who fails to plan for the worst case scenario against "all enemies, foreign and domestic" is guilty of the most immoral, heinous act of treason that can be committed.

If Obama is smart, he will reequip out forces that are ill equipped for such worst case scenarios.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

113. I'm still waiting for him to go after our domestic enemies

instead of letting them off the hook and even appointing them to Cabinet positions.

[JHB]

210. So you think we've had about 44 presidents who were guilty of treason?

And "the most immoral, heinous" treason at that?

Or are you giving wide latitude as to what constitutes "plans for the worst case scenario"?

[jody]

212. Either you meant that as a joke or you failed to read my post. n/t

[JHB]

215. I read your post, not your mind.

"Any President who fails to plan for the worst case scenario against "all enemies, foreign and domestic" is guilty of the most immoral, heinous act of treason that can be committed.

If Obama is smart, he will reequip out forces that are ill equipped for such worst case scenarios."

It's not nearly as simple as that.

Applying that to any president, which side of the treason line they land depends on what you count as planning, whether those plans were adequate, and "equipping". Was Buchanan guilty of the most immoral, heinous act of treason for having no (or inadequate) plans against secession?

And actually, many times there are several worst-case-scenarios (i.e., massive nuclear attack, vs. total conventional war vs. large-scale civil insurrection), so which plans -- and equipping to meet it -- takes priority?


Perhaps if you were a little more specific about what you considered the current worst-case scenario and how our forces should be equipped to meet it, I'd be better able say whether we have an argument or if we actually agree, at least on a concrete level.

[jody]

217. People familiar with the duties of a President know the seminal documents are NIEs. Have a great day

Mea culpa for not restating the obvious.

:hi:

[Statistical]

89. They aren't getting rid of the F-22

They simply will not be building any more starting in 2010.

We have already built 135 F-22 and likely will be 20 more in 2009. The fleet will be capped at whatever has been allocated by the end of FY09 likely 155-160 F-22.

The only thing that changed is production will wrap up in FY09 w/ 150ish planes instead of FY11 with 190 planes.

Nobody is talking about scrapping them.

As the airforce gets smaller over next decade and cuts numbers they likely will cut OLDER planes not the F-22 from the fleet.

Eventually the ONLY air superiority jet will be the F-22 and the primary multi-role the F35.

[Occam Bandage]

94. Then we'll use our F35s. nt

[depakid]

114. The amusing thing is that some people upthread don't realize that the F-22

is an air superiority weapon- and the concurrent increase in F-35's (which strike aircraft) means a greater capability of hitting civilians- as opposed to shooting down other aircraft.

Ah, the irony of the knee jerk left....

[endarkenment]

132. Most of us are arguing we don't need much of either of them.

There are two or three posts claiming the f35 is a better choice. As far as I can tell, the f-22 is yet another costly over complicated techno-tragedy from our corrupt military industrial idiots, and the f-35 is likely to be more of the same.

[Statistical]

142. Who is number one arms seller in the word?

Hint: you are living here.

If US weapons are so crappy why do so many countries buy them and often pay huge premiums compared to European or Russian gear?

The sad truth is the US is one the thing the US is good at is designing machines that destroy other peoples machines. We are one of the best in the world.

Just because 750 (the initial procurement request) F-22 are not needed doesn't mean they are crap. It just means we no longer face a threat that requries 750 air superiority targets.

Comparing the F-22 to the F-35 makes no sense. They fulfill different roles. It would be like asking which is better a speed boat or a station wagon. Well if you need to get groceries to the house the station wagon probably is.

The F-22 has one purpose. To eliminate any and all air resistance and enable other aircraft to do their job better and safer.

The F-35 is a good program because if nothing else it eliminates 5 different costly and aging airframes. It simplifies future upgrades, parts, and logistics because you have one main design rather than 5.

It brings stealth to an everyday multirole fighter and elinates the need for the very expensive, very fragile and very limited Stealth fighter.

The F-35 however is well rounded fighter but it isn't a specialist. The F-22 is a specialist. It eliminates enemy airforces.

[Democracyinkind]

146. HaHa! As I said good luck selling this shit to the Europeans...

..I fell like your missing a trend here... Europe isn't going to buy no more F's

[Statistical]

156. Wrong again. That is the only trend.

UK, Netherlands, Italy, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Israel, Signapore all have orders for F-35

Main reason many European countries are opting out is more politics, economics, and jobs related than superiority.
The euroflghter has been plagued with cost and technical issues as well.

The F-22 won't be exported (at least not initially) but that is due to American law not interest.
UK, Japan, Australia & Israel have already expressed interest. Gates has indicated to Australia that he would be willing to export the F-22 but it would require Congress changing the law.

[Democracyinkind]

201. The moment you sell the F'35 to Japan or Australia you will have delivered the tech to China.

And again. I doubt any European nation will buy F'35.
I believe they never will be produced in such numbers as to make them reasonable machines of war.
I think the Netherlands, Italy, Canada, Norway, Denmark have pretty much opted out of the F'35 future.
Of course, thinks can change... And sure.,. Gripen and Rafale suck ass when compared to what we developed but if you look at their production cost and unit cost/performance they actually don't look that bad.

The reason I am so sure of this is that European Defense Industries have taken the american example and started to give out bribes big time. Ever since Europe plays this way to, the major incentive to buy american junk of war is slowly thinking, especially in the high tech sector.

And I really don't believe we need them.
There was an interesting piece of info i saw lately on how with the current distribution of oil whether China nor the USA could wage a significant air campaign comparable to a longer conflict such as WW2 or Vietnam. But that's a whole other point. Chances are WW2 was the biggest thing ever to happen. Let's see.

[depakid]

144. In training and testing, the F-22 is in a performance class FAR by itself

which is one reason why (I think mistakenly) Gates and others (and this is as much a "turf war" as anything) believe that 187 are enough to handle the foreseeable missions over the next decade or two.

As much as we might be philosphically be opposed to international conflicts that erupt into wars- the world's not going to be getting any safer as resources grow markedly scarcer. Indeed, the opposite will be true.

With this in mind note that the Cope India exercises showed unequivocally that the US air superiority capabilities with its older aircraft have waned to a rather disturbing point:

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000976.html

[ddeclue]

163. THANKS - exactly my point but this thread has degenerated into

a thread about the misuse of US military power rather than about the ACTUAL OP which is that our weapons are rapidly becoming obsolete and your article demonstrates exactly what I was saying in the OP... I guess someday is NOW if India were to ever be our particular problem point in the world and I would venture to guess that India is probably a realistic sparring partner for what we would face in a conflict with China which is not altogether out of the realm of possibility. Our military has a LEGITIMATE role in defense regardless of how a particular Republican President may abuse our military for neo-imperialist objectives.

[Democracyinkind]

204. That's true. But I'm of the persuasion

... that the only place we would NEED to fight a war is on our own turf. And it seems kinda strange talking about F-series as "defense" ... I agree that it's not the OP but it ties in nicely:

Many Americans do not believe that we need the capability to make war overseas. And both F's have been designed with exactly that in mind.
Which makes them - in a systemic sense - imperial weapons. I'm not interested in that kind of stuff.
You could spend all that money on true defense, I would think it's stupid, but I wouldn't be fundamentally opposed.
I don't think we have to fear either India or China if we wouldn't have imperial aspirations.
I'm not saying we don't need no army, but needing and airforce capable of fucking everyone around the globe is pretty much a sign of weakness, not strength.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

184. LOL, this is your justification?

"The Indians flew a number of different fighters, including the French-made Mirage 2000 and the Russian-made MIG-27 and MIG-29, but the two most formidable IAF aircraft proved to be the MIG-21 Bison, an upgraded version of the Russian-made baseline MIG-21, and the SU-30K Flanker, also made in Russia."

Mig-21's? ROFL. Did you see this in that article?

AND MORE: On the eDodo message board -- often populated by Air Force types -- some are saying that the results of Cope India are not quite what they seem.

USAF pilots were flying "Red Air" -- meaning they were simulating the (presumably worse) tactics and (presumably lower) capabilities of enemy flyers.

That means they walked into the fight with their arms tied behind their backs. It makes for a good media coup in India... But in a full-up fight, I'd put ALL my money on the Alaska F-15C's over the Indian Air Force...

They may have 'lost the war' in the excercise. But it was an excercise. In the real thing, our boys won't be flying as 'Red Air.'

Nice try though.

[depakid]

188. The point is that other nations that will be at odds with the US (or its allies)

are developing- or have advanced capabilities- which match or exceed the F-15's and f-16's. And probably the F-35's

In the real deal, "our boys" won't be facing Mig 21's -but potentially larger numbers of much more advanced aircraft, with better trained pilots than they've been used to seeing in the past.

Better hope the aircraft we have are enough to deter or deal with that threat down the line- cause it ain't going to be a pretty situation as energy and resource stocks deplete and decline.

[ddeclue]

165. Thank you...

:)

[anaxarchos]

124. There are always people out there looking to insult John Bull...

...and the Colonial Office.

Send HMS Britannia to show the flag, by jeepers.

[endarkenment]

126. Now your talkin.

[tammywammy]

128. It'll probably cost the government more to get out of the contracts

than to just continue to build what they've contracted for. I doubt there will be a draw back of the F22.

[A HERETIC I AM]

139. The US Air Force seems to have the unique ability to turn large amounts of cash into hi-tech weapons

and then turn them into junk.

Over


and over


and over


and over again.


BTW, the shot above is less than 1/4 of the storage acreage at Davis Monthan in Tucson.

Just trying to make a point here, that's all.

[Democracyinkind]

145. cutting edge trash. Uniquely American.

[bemildred]

150. Missiles and drones are where it's at.

Manned aircraft are obsolete.

[DainBramaged]

162. Read this thread I opened up. or are you working for one of the companies working on the F22?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=259x26011

[Kip Humphrey]

168. False conclusions and wrong premises. The F22 is obsolete. The real reason behind Obama's decision

and the real reason that F16s and F18s are still flying is that they already hit the limits of human pilots. The next generation of fighters and fighter-bombers will be flown virtually, without human pilots on board. Drone fighters will be capable of higher g-force maneuvering than humans can endure and, because of constant feedback, will make those maneuvers without the possibility of compromising the plane's aeronautic stability. Until this new generation of jets is on line, the current fleet will continue to perform to the limit of human pilot endurance.

[Statistical]

194. Everyone has an idea just not all of them are good.

You honestly think F16, F18, F22 are all limited by the pilot.

Nothing abut F22 lower signature and stronger radar means it can see the enemy before the enemy can see it.

We aren't talking about dogfighting. We are talking about BTH beyond the horizon.


By the time a plane w/ inferior radar and larger signature sees the F-22 then F-22 launches almost a minute ago. The inbound AIM-120 is within decoy envolope. Hard lock, good burn. No space, no speed, no time, no options.

Yes UAV are next gen but avionics, radar, signature are all important and F-22 will be the main air defense fighter for next 20 years.

[friendly_iconoclast]

169. So license-build the Typhoon, save money and have a great fighter

You know, just like we did with the Canberra and the Harrier

Pop some GE or P&W engines in that puppy and have at it

[anaxarchos]

190. Typhoon?

Seems dated...

[friendly_iconoclast]

196. This Typhoon- the Eurofighter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon

Why not? The US Army Air Force flew Spitfires during WWII, so it's not like it's a new idea

There was a great American fighter with a British engine (the P-51D with a license-built
Rolls-Royce Merlin). This would be a license-built British/German/Spanish/etc. fighter
with American engines

The Typhoon is superior to the F-16 and F-18, as well as several varieties of MiG and Sukhoi.

Of course, there's always the NIH syndrome. But a pretty good fighter that's ready to use
beats a super fighter that's not there because it is too expensive to produce.








As you can see, it will also haul lots of interesting and useful things that go boom, as well.

[friendly_iconoclast]

197. Oh, and keep cranking out the F-15E as a medium bomber/drone mothership

Low R & D cost and ease of production.

The guy/gal in back would become a UAV pilot, in addition to what they do now.

Yeah, it's old and not a bit stealthy, but sometimes air forces just need something that will
haul a lot and has a long range

[anaxarchos]

198. I like the old one...

... it's cheaper. Bring back Hawker Aircraft while we are at it ("stimulus")... Gloster and Napier too.

The old Typhoon looks good at air shows, it was easy to produce, and it doesn't create the same "temptations" as the new stuff.

Good for air races as well:

[cherokeeprogressive]

225. Notice the fixed exhaust on the Eurofighter. The F-22 uses a vectored thrust.

The Eurofighter couldn't turn with the F-22 on it's best day. No plane will, until they're made pretty much the same way.

[Renew Deal]

177. I think you make an important point.

And it's certainly worth discussion.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

181. Meh, the Air Force needs to learn how to manage their projects.

F-22's are overpriced plain and simple. There is plenty of life left in the F-15. The navy canceled it's equivalent to the F-22, the AF-X and choose Super Hornets. It's time for the Air Force to do the same.

BTW, do any of those Russian fighters cost $140 - $200 million a piece? No they don't. WTF are we doing spending that much? Answer: we're getting ripped off.

[Bonobo]

189. Wow, an aerospace engineer wedded to the need for more aerospace engineering!

Knock me over with a feather!

[eridani]

199. As long as the designers go for functionality instead of designing planes--

--that don't like getting wet, or cold, or hot.

[JHB]

213. And who is to blame for this?

The Pentagon's (non)accounting that wastes billions?

The Wall Street swindlers who've smashed the economy?

The "Frei Market Ueber Alles" ideologues who have politically aided and abetted both?


Or the guys who have to clean up the mess?

[DS1]

218. Ok. Who has carriers as well as any benefit from invading the US?

[hunter]

219. The French once built a big expensive wall to keep the Germans out.

The Maginot Line

Our air forces are the modern equivalent.

Generally speaking it's much more effective and much less destructive to figure out what you or your neighbor's problem is and solve it before things get grossly out of hand. The best time to implement a Marshall Plan is before things go to hell, and not after.

"It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health to the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is not directed against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Any government that is willing to assist in recovery will find full co-operation on the part of the U.S.A."

-- U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall

A "Marshall Plan" for the United States today might include a single payer health plan, generous grants for education and job training, a very significant reduction of the military budget, and extensive public works programs to restore the natural environment and greatly reduce our use of fossil fuels.

[Uzybone]

220. A long thread full of "liberals"

slavishly attached to the military industrial complex. I never thought I 'd see this on DU. Or is cutting out useless weapons now a bad thing because its coming from a democrat. I don't get it.

[HooptieWagon]

223. Bigger current threat - MIGs or IEDs? n/t

[Orsino]

224. We'd have to try using them for defense, first. n/t

[Mr. Hyde]

226. I agree and have told my congress people as much. they didn't listen apparently

[librechik]

229. let us pound our weapons into plowshares

everybody else on earth except tribal savages know that we can war no more. The survival of the species is at stake.

WE are the only ones who will ever need those planes, and not for defense; probably for attacking in tribal areas.

SCREW THAT