Obama is Stripping National Defense ... Alan Caruba

Obama is Stripping National Defense
By Alan Caruba

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There is no single duty that a President has as Commander-in-Chief that is more important than ensuring the nation’s engines of defense remain at a level that will deter and defend against any attack upon America or its allies.

How is that going under the Obama Administration? As this is being written, the U.S. Air Force and Navy are seeking alternative ways of powering their aircraft after having been ordered to cut fuel costs by $20 billion. The Obama solution includes an August test flight of the C-17 transport aircraft attempt to fly missions on tallow, which is a nice way of describing animal fat.

The push for biofuels notwithstanding, the notion approaches absurdity considering the fact that, beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, there are millions of untapped barrels of oil to power military aircraft. The absurdity is compounded by the White House attempt to shut down deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico which has been struck down by the courts not once, but twice.

My interest in the status of our air defense was piqued while watching a recent C-SPAN broadcast of some Senate committee discussing funding of the C-17. I paid scant attention until one senator said, “We don’t have the money.” Suffice to say, that caught my attention.

Of course we have the money! There are billions unspent in the failed “stimulus” act and millions more wasted weekly across the spectrum of a government that funds all manner of idiotic “research” programs of dubious value. Some $20 million was just spent on signs touting construction projects funded by the stimulus bill.

As Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, recently noted, “Barack Obama came to office promising to ‘fundamentally transform’ America.” Gaffney and others are increasingly concerned that Obama is “changing the United States from ‘the world’s sole superpower’ to a nation that may require the permission, or at least the help, of others to project power and defend its interests around the globe.”

Nothing invites mischief and outright attack more than weakness. Theodore Roosevelt said, “The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.” The latter is a good description these days of Iran.

“The backbone of America’s power-projection capability is its ability to get to a fight ‘the firstest with the mostest,’” wrote Gaffney. Something tells me that doing it with aircraft fueled by slaughterhouse renderings is a very bad idea.

No less important is the future of our fighter jet fleet. It is the subject of a huge congressional debate concerning the next generation of fighters, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). More specifically, the debate involves the engine to power it. But the rub doesn’t involve which engine to use; the argument is whether the F-35 engine should be sole-sourced to a single manufacturer or whether production should be shared by two manufacturers.

One engine is the F135, made by Pratt & Whitney. As with any technological advance, Pratt & Whitney encountered various problems in the development process because the F-35 is designed for use by three different service branches, each with different missions and engine requirements.

More to the point, these services comprise the overwhelming majority of our national jet fighter capability so many in Congress are advocating the production of a second engine. That would be the F136, produced jointly by General Electric and Rolls Royce.

The issue centers on fleet reliability and comes down to an easy and obvious question: Is it prudent for 80-90% of the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corp’s fighter jet fleet to be dependent on a single engine from a sole-source provider? The answer is no.

If mechanical flaws or difficulties occur, or if that sole-source provider suffers an industrial accident, a labor dispute or terrorist attack, the entire fighter fleet could be grounded.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) laid it out in starker terms, noting, “Because the JSF is expected to be the primary fighter aircraft in the U.S. inventory, and Pratt & Whitney will also be the sole-source provider of F119 engines for the F-22A aircraft, DOD is faced with the potential scenario where almost the entire fleet could be dependent on similar engine cores, produced by the same contractor in a sole-source environment.”

Despite the strategic risks noted by the GAO, the GE/Rolls Royce engine has been batted about in Congress like a ping pong ball. As Defense Industry Daily noted some years ago, “The Pentagon attempted to remove Fiscal Year 2007 funding from the F-35 Lightning II’s second engine option, the GE/Rolls Royce F136.” But eliminating that funding wasn’t so neat and tidy, and the newspaper further reported, “Many in the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, were openly skeptical of handing Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine the keys to the entire F-35 fleet.”

F136 funding was re-inserted and development continued on schedule until the FY 2008 budget came around and the Pentagon again tried to remove funding. Congress disagreed and, supported by the GAO’s estimate of $20 billion of tax savings over the life of the program with both the F135 and the F136 engines, again reinstated funding.

Production on the F-35 is increasing but testing is not expected to be complete before 2014 and the engine issue remains unresolved. The Obama Administration now considers avoiding the risk of a systemic sole-source engine failure as a luxury and seems willing to back up that position.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has reportedly urged President Obama to veto the 2011 defense authorization bill if the final version includes any money for the GE/Rolls Royce engine.

I cite this to alert you to the irrationality that is driving decisions affecting our most vital national defense capabilities. When a Secretary of Defense proposes a veto of an entire defense authorization over an additional engine for the next generation of fighter jets we’re witnessing something that’s not just absurd; it’s reckless.

The notion that we can’t afford a second F-35 engine is not true. What we cannot afford is to permit our jet fighter fleet and our air transport fleet be put at an indefensible risk when the fate of the nation rests upon both.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Don't Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” To Be Repealed?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Reports in the Mainstream Media tell us that President Obama made a deal with key Democrats on earlier this week that could repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy governing gays and lesbians in the military — assuming Congress signs on.

Why the rush? We were told it would take about a year to repeal this law. The answer is simple. November is approaching! The Mid-Term Election, otherwise known as the “Apocalypse for the Democrats” is only a few short months away. The democrat/socialists know that if they are to get “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. overturned – they must do it NOW while they still have the numbers in the Congress -- and -- a socialist President in the Oval Office.

Of course, a little CYA never hurts at moments like these in politics and so the Obama Regime is practicing that little dance with their usual amateurish skill, while their motives are thinly veiled. They say it will depend upon the president and top military leaders certifying that the repeal wouldn't threaten the military's "readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention," according to documents the sponsors of the bill sent to the Obama Regime.

Of course, people who reason normally know it will do ALL those things. But the less than bright lights in our Congress and in the Obama Regime who have near zero understanding of The Military, cannot, or will not, see the promise of chaos this repeal holds for the finest military on the face of the planet.

You may read about it here (SOURCE) .

Mike Pence, a Republican Congressman from Indiana and the third-ranking Republican, said Republicans would oppose it. Pence is reported to have told the Associated Press: "The American people don't want the American military to be used to advance a liberal political agenda,"

The president of the conservative Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, criticized the agreement and referred to it as a backroom deal that "disregards the views of our troops and uses the military to advance the political agenda of a radical special interest group."

Mr. Perkins went on to say: “This rushed deal is a tacit admission that after the November election, the Democrats are likely to lose a working liberal majority," Perkins continued. "They want to get what they can now, and also far enough away from the election that it won't be prominent in the mind of voters." (SOURCE) .

So. There it is.

This is the kind of social experimenting we get when we elect politicians to our national legislature and to the office of President who have no clue as to how the military works.

It has been my contention for many years that the criteria essential for becoming a candidate for President should include having served in at least one branch of the US military. If necessary I could support a constitutional amendment to that effect.

Social engineering, social justice, socialism – so far that is all the Obama Regime seems to be capable of accomplishing. They seem wholly lost, running in place, but running in a frenetic way.

It was great theatre, recently, to observe "the Obama front line" writhing and tying themselves into knots in a vain attempt to explain away their impotent response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If there has ever been a larger gathering of people who didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, I have yet to acquire knowledge of it.

That is the same amount of expertise they bring to the question of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” ZERO! They know so very little about the military they have no clue as to the damage repealing the law will have on our troops, individually, and on the US Military as a whole.

If the Congress agrees to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military will lose some excellent soldiers. Millions upon millions of dollars spent on training these soldiers, as a singular part of an elite military, will be lost.

One other thing you are not likely to hear anywhere else, certainly not in the Mainstream Media. The shame is – what I am about to tell you is a given. It WILL happen. And -- when it DOES happen, the MSM and the democrats/socialists in Congress and the White House will act “SHOCKED! SHOCKED!

What is this horrible thing of which we dare not speak its name?

If you are a person of, well, average intelligence, you know that there will be incidents between “straight” soldiers and “homosexual” soldiers. There will be fisticuffs involved, probably some sort of weapons involved, and you might as well reconcile yourself to accept that there will be incidents between “homosexual” soldiers and “straight” soldiers in which the “homosexual” soldiers will be killed. Of course, there is also the chance the fatally wounded soldier will be “straight. The point is – it is going to happen. Resign yourself to it. It is as certain as is the fact that day follows night.

Placing homosexuals in a platoon of trained killers with male testosterone running rampant in their bloodstreams and it is the equivalent of tossing a lamb into a pen of ravenous wolves.

Now, the folks over at the Pentagon KNOW this. It will fall on their shoulders to contrive ways to keep this from happening and not be accused of discrimination against the openly homosexual soldiers and/or the straight soldiers. Simply put -- it is going to be a mess!

Re-enlistments will drop. Recruiting will drop. Civilian respect for the military will drop -- precipitously. Unrest within the various military units where the actual fighting is done -- such as platoons, and squads -- will be palpable. Talk about a “Hostile Working Environment!”

Sadly, though, it appears the left is going to get its way with the military. They have shown a much lower level of respect for our fighting men and women than the right ever has. By repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” they have a chance to do some REAL damage to America’s defenders.

Look I don’t agree with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, either. I am of the belief there should be zero tolerance of homosexuals in the US military – period! But that ship has sailed.

Homosexuals serving openly in the US military will be a disaster. Most of the unpleasantness in the ranks will be covered up. Occasionally, a leak will give the rest of us a peak inside a unit where “cohesiveness” is no longer possible. And, of course, we will get the horror stories from those who have served their hitches and been discharged -- and then, over a few drinks, spills the beans.

The Obama Regime IS going to do this. It is just another example of how their ineptness, coupled with their “arrogance of elitism,” blinds them to the REAL world where the rest of us actually live.

Repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is just another of those gross errors by the Obama Regime, and the socialists in Congress, that we must “Remember in November.”

J. D. Longstreet