Cross posted at The 40-Year Plan.
War is in our DNA. On a Saturday afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese, two boys play the hi-tech fighter jet video game "After Burner Climax," and a couple plays a shoot 'em up target game in the background.
If Sen. Chris Dodd and Congressman John Larson sought to replicate the Top Gun glory of Maverick and Goose, standing together to drum up support to save funding for the F-22 Raptor, they ended up looking more like Laurel and Hardy.
Suave Maverick Dodd and goofy Goose Larson have been shilling for the threatened F-22 since April. This past Monday, July 14, they lined up their talking points before a 1:15 p.m. press conference phone call.
A press e-mail from Dodd advertised special guests John Harrity, Connecticut Machinists Official and President of GrowJobsCT and Gen. Mike Dunn, a retired three-star Air Force commander.
Both the Senator and the Congressman hit the high points of their arguments for shielding the F-22 Raptor from President Obama's budget ax.
The F-22 Raptor is an aptly named Cold War dinosaur. But Maverick and Goose argued to maybe eight press people on the phone that the single-seater stealth fighter will help the United States maintain global air superiority, deter our enemies and maintain the production line.
The production line, which represents more than 1,000 subcontractors and 25,000 workers spread across 44 states, needs to stay active for three years until the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter comes on line, lest production of that weapons system be slowed.
Panhandling for the war machine falls onto Dodd and Larson because Hartford-based United Technologies manufactures the super hi-tech jet engines for the F-22 through its subsidiary of Pratt and Whitney. The engines mean 2,000 jobs for Middletown.
Aside from the $339 million price tag per F-22, Bush/Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to cut the F-22 because the radar-invisible fleet of F-22s has not seen a day of action in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The $6 billion for 20 new planes could be better spent on a more mobile military, Gates claims. Obama has an ally in Sen. John McCain, who sees the program as worthless.
Dodd led off the presser by stressing the critical importance the F-22 has in our arsenal.
"This is essential to national security and our competitiveness in this world," Dodd said. "I wouldn't be making a case to you on the basis of a parochial issue."
Of course not, Senator. It's a corporate issue. UTC chairman George David needs his puppets in Congress to help finance his massive legal bills from his messy divorce, and his spoiled brat countess ex-wife's $53,000 a week lifestyle.
Dodd has his own spending habits, and he needs corporate moguls and unions to finance them. A few hours before the conference call, Dodd announced a $1.2 million haul for his campaign war chest in the second quarter of 2009.
While the FEC contribution chart listed nothing from either the Machinists or UTC, other unions like firefighters, electrical workers and boilermakers gave healthy sums and defense contractors like Raytheon contributed to Dodd as well.
The whole thing seems like a charade to me anyways. Obama wants to appear like he is challenging the military-industrial complex and reigning in military spending while expanding a costly war, and then blame this on Congress. The members of Congress will face no electoral repercussions because they brought the bacon home.
|
MLN is powered by