October 30, 2009--F-22s, I.E.D.s: Change I Can Believe In
During the campaign some began to wonder if Barack Obama was decisive and tough enough to stand up to various forms of powerful opposition. They liked his change message but suspected that he might not have the chops to stand up to Hillary Clinton much less the generals. Maureen Dowd, who was attracted to his message and the hope he represented, went so far as to not only call him The One but also Bambi.
Well, Bambi may not wind up standing up to the generals about plans for Afghanistan—I fear he will give in to the pressure to send tens of thousands of more young Americans there in a futile effort to do I-know-not-what—but about their even more favorite thing—building more and more ludicrously expensive weapons systems we don’t need—he not only stood up to them but also managed to wrest and sign a defense spending bill from a reluctant Congress that significantly ends the production of some systems of this kind and which also saves hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Enough, in fact, to pay for pretty much all he wants to do to reform health care.
This is a remarkably under reported story, the New York Times for example buried their article about it on the bottom of page 2 in the Thursday Business section. (It is linked below as “Original Story”).
For a White House that daily now is being criticized for not being able to walk the talk, this is truly a remarkable accomplishment. Not only do military leaders want to build an enormous fleet of F-22 stealth fighter planes (what they call “the next generation” of them) but members of Congress who are either on the payrolls of defense contractors and/or have weapons system manufacturers in their districts (John Kerry, for one, who few would accuse of being a Hawk, tried to keep the F-22 alive since Massachusetts is heavily involved in their manufacture—“It’s about jobs” he shamelessly said), but Obama had to buck the decades-long propensity to give the Pentagon whatever it wants. Toys such as the F22 again, which, if you can imagine, cost at least $70 million each. Or “a copy” as the boys like to say.
As evidence of his toughness, Obama threatened to veto the defense bill if there weren’t cuts, among others, in the F-22 program. Knowing he would be vetoing a bill approved in a fully bipartisan way—his favorite thing is bipartisanship. Isn’t it amazing that bills of this sort consistently receive such inter-party support?
Rahm Emanuel is on the record as saying that that veto threat was real, in part because they wanted “to show we were willing to expend political capital and could win on something that people thought we could not.”
Known for his ober-macho, I do understand this unguarded comment; but though I would have liked to have heard more about why we need these things in the first place, I’ll take it.
In fact, why do we need hundreds of these kinds of military aircraft? Isn’t it true that the enemies we face are now fighting in what strategists call “asymmetric” ways? They battle us as loosely organized insurgents across borders, blending into the terrain while living among the people. Rarely taking and holding ground. Even less frequently digging in as a way to defeat the very kinds of high-tech equipment about which we pride ourselves.
Even when we use unmanned drones to bomb suspected Al Qaeda fighters in the valleys of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we wind up killing at least as many women and children as we do terrorists. So all the stealthiness, all the super-technology often have the opposite effect than we seek—rather than winning the hearts and minds of those we purport to “liberate” and protect, we wind up turning more against us and help groups such as Al Qaeda recruit more followers and suicide bombers.
And those terrorists and insurgents with these tactics render our most-vaunted weapons obsolete by attacking us with homemade devices such as I.E.D.s—improvised explosive devices. In the same issue of the Times that reported in a stealthy way about the defense bill, there was a more prominently displayed article about how these makeshift weapons, which cost just a few hundred dollars each to make and are typically exploded by enemy fighters using simple cell phone technology as the trigger, that they are not only dramatically increasing in number in Iraq and Afghanistan--where this week nearly two dozen Americans were killed by them--but they are also showing up all over the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even Europe.
So while we build the next generation of fighter planes—at a cost that has been contributing to bankrupting us—those who wish us harm are shopping in Radio Shack for components for their weapons of choice.
Befuddled by some of this, I asked a Florida-based very conservative friend of mine, one who loves the military and knows a great deal about modern weapons systems, why we have invested so much in my favorite F-22s. He said, “To prepare to go to war with China.”
Thinking I hadn’t heard him correctly, I said, “Huh?”
“Yes, China,” he repeated.
Still incredulous I asked, “Tell me more.”
“Well, they’re preparing to go to war with us . . . “
I interrupted, “More than economically?”
“You bet your ass. They are investing very heavily in these same kinds of weapons. Let me tell you that within ten years they will have not only . . . “
Before he could conclude this fantasy, I again cut him off and said, “Sorry, but I have to go. There’s someone at the door.”
I didn’t want to have the glow fade that I was feeling when I knew that Bambi was living in the White House.
Well, Bambi may not wind up standing up to the generals about plans for Afghanistan—I fear he will give in to the pressure to send tens of thousands of more young Americans there in a futile effort to do I-know-not-what—but about their even more favorite thing—building more and more ludicrously expensive weapons systems we don’t need—he not only stood up to them but also managed to wrest and sign a defense spending bill from a reluctant Congress that significantly ends the production of some systems of this kind and which also saves hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Enough, in fact, to pay for pretty much all he wants to do to reform health care.
This is a remarkably under reported story, the New York Times for example buried their article about it on the bottom of page 2 in the Thursday Business section. (It is linked below as “Original Story”).
For a White House that daily now is being criticized for not being able to walk the talk, this is truly a remarkable accomplishment. Not only do military leaders want to build an enormous fleet of F-22 stealth fighter planes (what they call “the next generation” of them) but members of Congress who are either on the payrolls of defense contractors and/or have weapons system manufacturers in their districts (John Kerry, for one, who few would accuse of being a Hawk, tried to keep the F-22 alive since Massachusetts is heavily involved in their manufacture—“It’s about jobs” he shamelessly said), but Obama had to buck the decades-long propensity to give the Pentagon whatever it wants. Toys such as the F22 again, which, if you can imagine, cost at least $70 million each. Or “a copy” as the boys like to say.
As evidence of his toughness, Obama threatened to veto the defense bill if there weren’t cuts, among others, in the F-22 program. Knowing he would be vetoing a bill approved in a fully bipartisan way—his favorite thing is bipartisanship. Isn’t it amazing that bills of this sort consistently receive such inter-party support?
Rahm Emanuel is on the record as saying that that veto threat was real, in part because they wanted “to show we were willing to expend political capital and could win on something that people thought we could not.”
Known for his ober-macho, I do understand this unguarded comment; but though I would have liked to have heard more about why we need these things in the first place, I’ll take it.
In fact, why do we need hundreds of these kinds of military aircraft? Isn’t it true that the enemies we face are now fighting in what strategists call “asymmetric” ways? They battle us as loosely organized insurgents across borders, blending into the terrain while living among the people. Rarely taking and holding ground. Even less frequently digging in as a way to defeat the very kinds of high-tech equipment about which we pride ourselves.
Even when we use unmanned drones to bomb suspected Al Qaeda fighters in the valleys of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we wind up killing at least as many women and children as we do terrorists. So all the stealthiness, all the super-technology often have the opposite effect than we seek—rather than winning the hearts and minds of those we purport to “liberate” and protect, we wind up turning more against us and help groups such as Al Qaeda recruit more followers and suicide bombers.
And those terrorists and insurgents with these tactics render our most-vaunted weapons obsolete by attacking us with homemade devices such as I.E.D.s—improvised explosive devices. In the same issue of the Times that reported in a stealthy way about the defense bill, there was a more prominently displayed article about how these makeshift weapons, which cost just a few hundred dollars each to make and are typically exploded by enemy fighters using simple cell phone technology as the trigger, that they are not only dramatically increasing in number in Iraq and Afghanistan--where this week nearly two dozen Americans were killed by them--but they are also showing up all over the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even Europe.
So while we build the next generation of fighter planes—at a cost that has been contributing to bankrupting us—those who wish us harm are shopping in Radio Shack for components for their weapons of choice.
Befuddled by some of this, I asked a Florida-based very conservative friend of mine, one who loves the military and knows a great deal about modern weapons systems, why we have invested so much in my favorite F-22s. He said, “To prepare to go to war with China.”
Thinking I hadn’t heard him correctly, I said, “Huh?”
“Yes, China,” he repeated.
Still incredulous I asked, “Tell me more.”
“Well, they’re preparing to go to war with us . . . “
I interrupted, “More than economically?”
“You bet your ass. They are investing very heavily in these same kinds of weapons. Let me tell you that within ten years they will have not only . . . “
Before he could conclude this fantasy, I again cut him off and said, “Sorry, but I have to go. There’s someone at the door.”
I didn’t want to have the glow fade that I was feeling when I knew that Bambi was living in the White House.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
1:37 AM
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