The Air Force and Navy cooperated in landing a C-17 cargo plane on an aircraft carrier. Wonderful. Now they are trying to figure out how to get a C-17 off of an aircraft carrier.
As Jack Paar would have said, “I kid you not.”
The C-17 isn’t just a cargo airplane. It is a payback to a political donor. The Obama administration, following the advice of the Pentagon decided to cancel the C-17. That’s why we get to see the above picture. The backers thought a stunt might help sell it. It probably qualifies for David Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks routine.
While everyone concentrated on the Congress denying Obama the $80 million to relocate the inmates at Gitmo, there was another story – the $12-plus billion they added to his supplemental request for the C-17, the F-22 and the missile defense program (Star Wars). There is a common thread to those three projects. The Pentagon opposed all three.
The United States spends as much on its military as the rest of the entire world combined. Actually, the bulk of it is misspent. President Eisenhower made a point of warning us about the Military-Industrial Complex. The real culprit is the Corporate-Congressional Complex. The military has just become the excuse for the real players to squander our resources.
Not being current on the military’s need for advanced fighters and stunt-cargo planes, I’ll take Secretary Gates’ assessment. The Star Wars hoax is another matter. It made no sense back in the 1980s. It makes less sense now.
What is the missile defense system supposed to do? Shoot down a menacing missile, you say. The proponents refuse to put it through any real-world tests. Why? They know that it would be a spectacular failure. But, that’s not even the crucial point.
First, let’s discuss it’s viability. Most of the tests have shown it incapable of hitting a missile. This is true even when they use slower, lower-flying missiles, which are, presumably, easier to get a fix on. This is true even when the ‘defenders’ know exactly when and where to aim. It would be just a mite unusual to know that in an actual attack.
Then we have to consider another real-world aspect. Missiles have made a few advances since the V-2 rained terror on the British during WWII. They now have radar countermeasures built in. They may very well have both metal and electronic chaff deployed. These are to confuse the guidance system of any defensive measures. Whether a few dozen or a hundred fake targets, whether metal or electronic, the guidance system may have trouble picking out the actual missile.
Would you believe that, since the project was first proposed back in the 1980s, I can’t find any mention of any tests using chaff? It’s possible they have tested but are not bragging about the results.
Now for the crucial point. There is no law requiring a nuclear device be delivered by a missile. Surprised? Although I haven’t successfully built either, I am reliably assured that a long-range missile is significantly more technically difficult an accomplishment than a nuclear device. True, the later is quite expensive but it is technically less sophisticated.
There are numerous ways to deliver a nuclear device. One could be attached to the hull of any ship headed to this country from any foreign port. If the maps are correct, we have a couple of important cities that have ports.
Since less than one percent of cargo containers are inspected, the odds are reasonably high that one could get a few bombs not only to ports but to the freight terminal of your choice, at any inland location. This doesn’t even speak to the claims of 70-pound backpack bombs that would be fairly easy to hide.
It is unlikely that anyone with the resources to deliver large numbers of bombs would target the U.S. The malefactors would likely be non-governmental players. These are commonly known as terrorists. To them the fact of one or a few nuclear bombs being exploded in this country is terrorizing. The size of the blast is incidental to their aims.
Any missile defense system is a joke, a waste of time, a waste of money, a payback for political donations.
The only argument on behalf of any of these systems, designed for battles that used to be fought, is that they have an economic stimulative effect. That is true. However, if we put our minds to it, we might be able to come up with stimulative projects that provide some benefits to our actual needs.
Obama may feel less than successful at finding grounds for bipartisanship. Send him a cheerful greeting card. Yes, Virginia, there really is bipartisanship. The corporations donate to prostitutes on both sides of the aisle. In return, the denizens of both parties honor the bribes.
I would throw a going-away party for my money, if I could afford it.
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