Seriously, it seems expensive to blow up camels and old toyota technicals? We have plenty and then some to take on any enemy. Why such a fancy expensive F-22? To combat some Alien invasion that we have not been told about?
they werent even used in the iraq deal. the answer is we dont need them but congress has to bring the pork home.
For once, I have to agree with Free Thinker. The generals in the Air Force resist giving up on the old paradigm of piloted planes. A lot of the brass were pilots and have their eyes on cush jobs with airframe manufacturers. It's the same deal with the Navy. The admirals still want their big boats to play with, even if they would be sunk within minutes of the start of a war with China, the supposed reason for them. One of the more disappointing aspects of the campaign season is that the republicans, other than Ron Paul, did not attempt to break away from this neo-con vision of more defense spending and more wars. Listening to them is depressing, whether it is an old fool like McCain or a new one like Rubio.
The F-22 ( and the Seawolf submarine ) are a few of the more expensive and notable timing artifacts from the cold war. The last hurrah and 'swan song' for manned fighter aircraft in the US inventory. All future generations of both land-based and carrier-based fighter/interceptor/air superiority aircraft will be unmanned. I am afraid that this is like the Volcker doctrine and the Dodd-Frank legislation and Health Care and many other political realities - 'pork' supercedes party loyalty and political rhetoric.
So who will we thank for successful drone strikes in the future, the leader who gave the order, or the fatty with the joystick?
Mostly the people who plan an execute the mission. You congratulate the quarterback the coach and the team owner. Trustworthy team owners thank the players and the coach and deflect the spotlight. Quarterbacks thank their lines their teams and their receivers. Coaches thank the assistants and the players. Who congratulates themselves? Hollywood fakes.
i dont think its about whether or not we need the f-22. its more about, how big do you want the military budget to be? and then you just need to figure out how to spend it. if that includeds f-22, then so be it. there is a lot of shit you could argue the military doesnt need.
I would post something factual but why spoil a good thread with information? Get rid of all those latest generation military jets and we'll go back to prop technology and maybe that will work out against MiGs, Sukhois and Chinese hardware. We could get rid of the F-15 and F-16 too and save even more money. Who needs the A-10, we could strap a 30mm gatling cannon on a Cessna-172 and replace it, right? All that money could be spent helping people who don't work so that they can buy better weed and enjoy a few 40s after their hard day of not working. Social Justice and Malt Liquour for All!
I read Billy Mitchell's biography. He was going to meetings with the top military brass before WW2 and they were talking about horses and mules.. He had to contact the WH and get FDR to make a new branch of the military, the Air Force. Old, bad ideas don't die out until the people that hold them die off. We are seeing this with the medical system in the US, the supplement manufacturers and herbalists have access to research going on all over the world, I can and have cured things with supplements that the doctors can't but they consider me a bad influence. I'm not allowed to visit a friend of mine because I might take her some supplements!