This has been something that has been knocking around for a while.

Before WW1, the total number of troop levels the US had was about 300k. That was all four branches. Before WW2, about the same. The idea was that a peaceful nation would not ever need a standing army, and the ability to declare war would be a decision that a leader would have to make judiciously and with the support of the people.
To me, this is how a democracy should work. Going to the roots of Democracy and its birth in Ancient Athens, we see the birth of this form of government arising from the need to create an effective fighting force from the people. In the Phalanx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_formation)formation, the necessity of people to hold their line, to not break, to fight hard was critical. Slaves or paid mercenaries made poor soldiers in the Phalanx. If you broke ranks in the phalanx, you exposed the entire formation, its success depended on the valor of each individual. The people who fought the hardest were those who had a stake in something. Those who believed, those who were fighting for their homes. So the Athenians created a system wherein each man had a say in the government they would be expected to fight for. Flashfoward 4000 years to a beach head in Normandy and American boys who had been on their farms or city blocks withstood all the hell Hitler could throw at them and did not break. Why? They were like the Athenians, they believed, they were fighting for reasons other than they were ordered to, they were fighting because they had faith. And we won.

Eventually due to Delian league, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delian_league) the Athenians stopped using their citizens to wage war. The massive amounts of income they were taking in allowed them to build and create and the city of Athens to grow larger and larger. A professional standing army was developed and the Athenians used this to impose its will on the rest of Greece. An army who didnt need to approval of its citizenry to act. An army that used threats of violence against its neighbors to convince them to join the Delian league, pay the dues for the protection of greater Greece and to adopt a democratic form of government. Eventually culminating in the destruction of the small city state of Melos and the engagement with the other super power of Sparta in a disasterous War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War)with Athens that lead to the collapse of their Civilizations.

Where are we today? After WW1 it was decided that the United States needed a massive standing army in order to preserve our way of life around the world. The need was seen to combat the spread of Communism whereever it was. So the US entered a permanent state of armament. Constantly ready for war anywhere on the globe. In the course of 40 years we became a militaristic society.
Dwight D. Eisenhowers farewell address

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.Eisenhower, one of the great generals of the modern era, had a real fear of what was happening. He told his son, "I fear for this nation when a man who does not know what I know about the military sits at this desk".
We increased our defense budget to astromonical sizes. Billions upon billions were spent.
Flashfoward to the 1991, the big threat that enabled and justified the growth of the Military Industrial Complex disappears. The Soviet Union collapses and the Cold War is over. Slowly, we start to cut programs that no longer make sense. Like a junkie trying to ween itself off heroin. We find it very hard to do this. Defense contractors have ingrained themselves so totally in society that they seem to have a need to exist only unto themselves. Parts for the B-1 bomber are made in every single congressional district in the US. How can a congressman vote down a program that would mean 100 jobs lost in his district?
Trillions of dollars are spent. The machine goes on. A standing army without a war to fight.
Then 9/11.
War!
Profits for the defense contractors soar as the US Military is back in business and the good times have no end in sight. Bush has said that this war against terrorism will extend beyond our lifetimes. And the K Street defense lobbiests rejoice. The Long War. A state of perpertual war once again. A reason to spend. And this time its better. While the cold war dealt with supplying arms to our allies in wars by proxy, this brave new war is so much better. Line up a bunch of countries that will be bulldozed over by the our might. Low human cost, high profit. Turn these countries into Democracies, but more importantly, into Free Markets. Free Markets where our American corperations can engage in a form of Neo Colonialism. Oh we will buy their oil...but they will be buying our products. And we will need those tax revenues to fight against the next country that we identify as a threat in the Eternal war.

In todays world we see an American Military that has outsourced almost every non combat duty to contractors. Peeling potatoes, doing laundry, cleaning, supplying, ect. All handled by KBR. As a result we can have a smaller military. More combat troops with a contigent of well paid contractors taken care of their needs. And the American public will barely care. Because they are volunteers, and they signed up for this. We learned this in Vietnam. Nobody really cared about Vietnam until the draft. Thats when support left town. But they learned their lesson. No more drafts, just a steady supply of disposable heros, whose lives have been bought and paid for with the promise a college education or the learning of a trade. Is their blood spilled as "a sacrifice on the altar of freedom"? Or is it spilling to grease the cogs in the M.I.C. Machine.

Our willingness to go to war is frightening. 88% of conservatives polled in a Newsmax poll favor striking Iran. A country that most certainly does not deserve to be attacked by the standards of the American tradition.
http://www.wnd.com/images/spacer.gif




In the 27 years since the Iranian Revolution, the United States has launched air strikes on Libya, invaded Grenada, put Marines in Lebanon and run air strikes in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains in retaliation for the Beirut bombing.

We invaded Panama, launched Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait and put troops into Somalia. Under Clinton, we occupied Haiti, fired cruise missiles into Sudan, intervened in Bosnia, conducted bombing strikes on Iraq and launched a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia, a nation that never attacked us. Then, we put troops into Kosovo.

After the Soviet Union stood down in Eastern Europe, we moved NATO into Poland and the Baltic states and established U.S. bases in former provinces of Russia's in Central Asia.

Under Bush II, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, though it appears Saddam neither had weapons of mass destruction nor played a role in 9-11.

Yet, in this same quarter century when the U.S. military has been so busy it is said to be overstretched and exhausted, Iran has invaded not one neighbor and fought but one war: an 8-year war with Iraq where she was the victim of aggression. And in that war of aggression against Iran, we supported the aggressor.

Yet here we go....

oh yes we have a military very willing to go to war to prove its usefulness, and a private sector willing to go to war to make obscene profits (in a literal sense). But the one check we had was in our intelligence. The CIA was a check on the Hawks. What are our actual threats? Bush decided to play loose and fast with the intelligence and frame it in a way that was most in accord with his aims. WMDs? Like we cared anyway.


But even this check to war is being made irrelevant. The newest appointment to the CIA is a military general. Not just any General. This one had headed the NSA and in 2000 was first person to ever outsource intelligence functions to a private company.... KRB...

Oh my Brothers.... What times we live in.

As an Imperial Power (of which you are, I am sorry), you have certain duties, and with such a global sphere of influence (or commerce?), priorities will always change.

That doesn't mean you can't be what you once were, or still are. Britain remained a liberal democracy throughout its Imperial period. The British Raj was the biggest Asiatic power for 150 years (300, 000 soldiers alone in India), but the British way of life remained, essentially, the same.

I'm not blind to the fact that you are speaking of US citizens and not Indian sepoys, but the nature of being a global superpower is being a fiscal-military society. And if that means not having the world's 11th largest army as you did before WW1 anymore, well, that doesn't mean that your democratic and liberal society need change either.

Regarding the private sector's greed and its growth through the military, well, it's nothing new. The mercantile and commercial community pushed Walpole and the British society in to most of the wars of the Eighteenth Century, especially the War for Jenkins' ear, with the Spanish. Simply 'cause it made good economic sense.

In other words, don't loose hope. It's not as if you're Tsarist Russia.

Stop the hatred of the single largest contributor to your (and the rest of Western civ's) current standard of living.

While an absolute psychopath is president of the largest terrorist supporting country in the world, who by the way also sees halos while giving UN speeches, who also thinks he's the 12th imam on return, who repeatedly states he wants to wipe an entire country off the map (one of our major allies btw), who also just happens to want to develop nuclear technology for domestic energy purposes while also sitting on one of the world's largest petroleum reserves...

While the IRS knows (or tries to know) every cent you spend on everything from gambling, alcohol, and church donations...

While John McCain wants to piss on the Constitution and throw away your First Amendment rights...

While Cisco, Microsoft, Google et al sell out to China so they can more easily suppress their people...

While Google gives you not one, but three freaking maps to any known phone number...

A billion graves over the past few decades remained empty, millions of mouths fed, and hundreds of millions more have a better life now thanks to your military and its 'military industrial complex'.

Oh disclaimer: My wife works for Lockheed Martin... and I'm -damned- proud of her service to this country and to the betterment of mankind she has contributed to.

You're geaking a bit too much for the boys in khaki, ain't you mate?

You're the sort of twat that can't open his mind an inch incase his sperm-spangled banner is under attack by the "commies". Sorry, did I say commies? I meant the people with another opinion.

Oh please. You have a vastly different opinion of the world from my own... and I could not care any less about your insignificant life and the vapor-locked world in which you live.

Anyone else find it ironic that Halo would accuse me of having a thing for military guys? As if he hasn't been the resident bygone military general worshipping creator of multiple threads and most certainly has centered his advanced education around their conquests, whether it was little boys or continents.

Stop the hatred of the single largest contributor to your (and the rest of Western civ's) current standard of living.

Hate? what hate? Does "love" = Blind Obedience in your world? Sorry, Im not willing to give my government a blank check to do what it wants as long as I have cheap gas, Frappacino and a hi def TV.
Is that the bargin? We release our government from moral responsibility as long as we get cheap shit?
Fuck that.
We should all speak out and demand more of our government BECAUSE we love it. Because WE are the ones who keep it accountable.. WE are the engines of Change and WE are ultimate check and balance. But yet they want to lure us into submission by feeding us a steady diet of Distraction, Disinformation, Denial and Deceit.

Welcome to Democracy. Our worst enemies are apathy and acquiescence. Not figureheads in a Members Only jacket or some saudi with Kidney failure hiding in a cave.
Two days after 100,000 people were on the lawn of the White House protesting the genocide in Darfur, President Bush was on the Phone with the leaders of Sudan. Must be a coincidence, eh?

While an absolute psychopath is president of the largest terrorist supporting country in the world, who by the way also sees halos while giving UN speeches, who also thinks he's the 12th imam on return, who repeatedly states he wants to wipe an entire country off the map (one of our major allies btw), who also just happens to want to develop nuclear technology for domestic energy purposes while also sitting on one of the world's largest petroleum reserves...

He also possess no real power in Iranian Politics. He is a figurehead, the result of sham elections to create the illusion of democratic power to the masses of Iranians.
There is one real power in Iran. Those are the old guys with beards and black turbans. Ahmadinejad engages in fiery populist rhetoric because thats all he has. He has to create broad popular appeal on the streets in order to prevent himself from being rendered meaningless, like the last President of Iran... remember him? Of course you don't. He was just as insignificant.
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has total control of the military and sets policy both foreign and domestic. Want to know what he thinks? Take a look. http://www.khamenei.ir/ Ohhhhhhh So Fiery!
Sure they say "Death To America" and dont like the West very much. Most of them still remember their history.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2000/0416ciairan.htm
In 1941 they were invaded by Britian and Russia to secure their oil fields for the war effort, they then forced their Shah to abdicate in favor of a puppet who they felt would do business with them. After the Iranians nationalized their oil as a result of being raped by British oil interests, we decided that their government was "communist" and we launched a CIA operation to destabilize Iran. which was successful. We then put the Shah on the Throne who instituted an excessively brutal and repressive regime.
Ever hear of SAVAK? Ask an Iranian
Over the years, SAVAK became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest and detain suspected persons indefinitely. SAVAK operated its own prisons in Tehran (the Komiteh and Evin facilities) and, many suspected, throughout the country as well. SAVAK's torture methods included electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting brokon glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails. Many of these activities were carried out without any institutional checks.
Oh yea.. Rape rooms pre-Saddam. But these were A-ok! Just like the ones in Saudi Arabia.
So then a revolution overthrows the Shah... and we are Shocked.. SHOCKED. But they chose neither Communism nor Democracy.
Fearful of this new power in Iran we support a young man in Iraq and encourage him to take steps to keep Iranian power in check by going to War with them. Iraq starts to lose, so Rummy heads over there with Intel and weapons to help support the enemy of our enemy.
Ask again "Oh GeeWhiz... why do they hate us...... why oh why"

While the IRS knows (or tries to know) every cent you spend on everything from gambling, alcohol, and church donations...
Of course they do. Stealth Bombers and Aircraft Carriers arent cheap yaknow. Our governmet cant pay for the shit it has and has to wring us for every dollar they can legally get.

While John McCain wants to piss on the Constitution and throw away your First Amendment rights...
Oh fucking please. Go the fuck back to talk radio with that bullshit.
The Problem is that under the current system a Corporation = an Individual. It has all the rights, all the protections, all the abilites. But it is breaking politics. The individual in our system of government needs to be pre-eminent.
When you have people like Tom Delay who demand a donation to their campaign before they will let you into their office... Something is fucking broken.
So unless your name is McDonalds, or Nabisco, or Boeing, or RJ Reynolds or whatever... then McCain is actually PROTECTING your first amendment rights by making sure that you actually have the ability to be heard if you dont have a billion dollars.

While Cisco, Microsoft, Google et al sell out to China so they can more easily suppress their people...
http://www.meateatingleftist.com/mt/archives/bush_saudi.jpg
oRLY?


A billion graves over the past few decades remained empty, millions of mouths fed, and hundreds of millions more have a better life now thanks to your military and its 'military industrial complex'.
Really? Which ones?
Vietnam? Laos? Cambodia? Bosnia? Rwanda? Sudan?
How about these?
US Military Actions since 1945:

1953 – US Over throws Massadeq of Iran. (Eisenhower –Rep.)

1954 – Overthrow democratically elected President of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed.(Eisenhower – Rep.)

1963 – US backs the assassination of S. Vietnamese President Diem. ( Johnson – Dem )

1963-1975 – Vietnam war. US military kills 4 million people in SE Asia. (Johnson/Nixon Rep.)

Sept 11. 1973 – US Stages coup in Chile. Democratically elected president Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 civilians murdered.

1977 – US Backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and 4 American nuns killed.

1981 – Reagan administration trans and funds “contras”. 30,000 Nicaraguans die.

1982 – US provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.

1989 – CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as president of Panama ) disobeys orders from Washington. US invades Panama and removes Noriega….3,000 Panamanian casualties.

1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from the US.

1991 – US enters Iraq. Bush reinstates the dictator of Kuwait.

1998 – Clinton bombs “weapons” factory in Sudan. Turns out that the factory made aspirin.

1991-Present – American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. UN estimates 500,000 Iraqis die from bombing and sanctions.

2000-2001 – US gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in “aid”.


Oh disclaimer: My wife works for Lockheed Martin... and I'm -damned- proud of her service to this country and to the betterment of mankind she has contributed to.
[Thats nice. I dont begrudge her for earning an honest living. But she isnt serving her country any more than any other person who works for a living. Unless she volunteers.
And betterment of Mankind? Please.
On the first night of the 2003 invasion, 2 f-117s were sent out on a "Stike of Opportunity. Because Lockheed Martin oversold and underdelivered what the F117 was capable of, both pilots missed their mark by a substantial margin.
Instead, what they hit was a farmhouse and 3 children and a women were killed.
I understand that things happen.. and nobody wants that to happen. But please explain to me how mankind is better off because a bunker buster bomb expressed Shock and Awe on a 4 year old?

Hi guys... Horse dead yet?

We have L2 cut and paste versus the Bush shill army.

This thread is going places!

Thats not fair =(

I wrote 90% of that. I h8 you and Im not going to invite you to my party now.

Troop levels were low before world war 1, before world war 2 because the military was downsized. The main reason before world war 2 was the isolationism that had taken over the country mostly due to the depression. Thats not a secret and it takes no large post full of overblown syntax to explain it.

After world war 2 the driving force was the communists and the "A" bomb. Both of those along with a draft kept troop levels high and help fuel the "military industrial complex" of which Eisenhower warned us. Then came Vietnam which was sold to the American public as the dominoe theory, kind of like the "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here". The PR strategy that the Soviets played on was to rid the 3rd world countries of the imperialistic Americans and they wisely chose this as they would have the popular support of the average person in those countries. They played it out as the peasants were fighting the tyranical leaders, who were placed there by the US, and also were fighting the US forces as invaders of the countries. These were the hotspots of the cold war, unfortunately the US seemed to get their hands dirtier than the Soviets did with our military having a more direct involvement in these conflicts.

The vietnam "syndrome" which washed over the US after the fall of Saigon in 1975 was not a knee jerk reaction by our country, it was a deserved result of letting the M.I.C run things as it is no big secret that the dominoe theory never quite panned out.

The result was the downsizing of the military, almost a stagnation. Carter however was no dummy and foresaw the crisis created by our dependance on oil and also saw the bigger picture of the issues with the M.I.C.

The result was we got Reagan and so began the upsizing of the military and the dismantling of government programs that were the mainstay of our society. Programs in education, job training, mental health and other medical programs, environmental protection, parkland and wildlife habitat programs etc...

The myopic conservative philosophy of a smaller government was bought hook line and sinker by a large portion of the American public. We know know that it was smaller programs that protected the average citizen while moving welfare dollars from the neediest individuals all the while increasing them to the largest corporations. We see massive social control being forced upon us by religious radicals who are really no different than the religious radicals that we are told want nothing more than to have control over our lives so we must fight them over there. What we saw and see are no reductions in spending, only lateral moves of government funds. Truly the result of business interests (M.I.C.) lobbying our government officials.

We see laws and regulations with a big "For Sale" sign on them in the halls of congress. We see people in the executive branch involved in policy making with no other interest than to fill the coffers of the corporations that they came from.

The result can never amount to anything good, as L2 said it is beyond a cheap flat screen TV. Its about the very freedoms that we are told we are fighting them over there for.

Doesnt anyone wonder why after going through combat and after seeing the reality of what is Iraq, so many come back a little more liberal than when they left?

As soon as I saw the attack on McCain for trying to clean up our disgusting political system, I knew this was going to get derailed.

I am curious about what party Akipt belongs to; it is obviously not the Republican party that McCain is a member of, and which Bush has used to his advantage but has betrayed at every turn. Maybe he is simply a Bushie.

That was a well presented opening post, btw. I might not agree with all of it, but I like seeing someone take the time to present an idea rather than simply regurgitating the morning DJ's opinions.

I bet both Dwight and Barry G would slap the shit out of Dubya for what he has done to this country in the guise of being a Republican President. And now he is looking at Iran for his next escapade.......

On the first night of the 2003 invasion, 2 f-117s were sent out on a "Stike of Opportunity. Because Lockheed Martin oversold and underdelivered what the F117 was capable of, both pilots missed their mark by a substantial margin.


I smell bullshit throughout your post, but this accusation needs a source. The F117 has been in service since the early 80's and is being retired soon... so it's not new and untested.

I smell bullshit throughout your post, but this accusation needs a source. The F117 has been in service since the early 80's and is being retired soon... so it's not new and untested.

I believe the source for that was the US Airforce. I've seen that documented.

Do your own research.

March 19, 2003. Dora Farms.

As far as the F-117a (didnt include the A before) it is in a constant state of upgrades in LHM Skunkworks. Making cash on the front and back end of the sale.

As far as its failure. It was sold and thought of as a product that could attack "high Value targets" with extreme precision. New weapons systems, new bells and whistles... brand new bunker busters..

So they try to use this weapon for what LHM says it could do. And the result is dead kids.
Again, how has this improved humanity?

ie "I found it on the internets, it must be tru!"

And I know you don't embrace pacifism, but if I drama-queened arguments like you have been doing I'd waste a good hour of my life scoffing at you.

As it is, I have better things to do with my life than waste it being your snopes.

Well ok, you wasted my time. And you're full of poop as I suspected. The Dora Farms hit was just one of 50 high-value targets that the CIA got wrong... had nothing to do with Lockheed technology. Just bad intelligence. Lots of that going around.

So after all the hand-wringing, historical lessons, and emotional vents, you offer up one bogus example of this military industrial complex conspiracy that threatens our civilization.

The only one fear mongering around here is you.

Heh.

Of course it was design flaw. Remember "Shock And Awe"? Remember the promises of being able to surgically dismantle the Iraqi regime with minimum civilian causalities? Bullshit. Remember how we were going to be greeted as liberators and be able to utilize an intact infrastructure to finance the rebuilding of Iraq?
Remember going to war with a bargin basement number of troops?
A DIRECT result of the collusion between the salesman of these weapons systems and the buyer. It slices, it dices, it purees, it wins hearts and minds!
Overfaith in technology.

Who is the only person with the ability to order a F-117a into action?
The President. A key part of the intelligence equation is "what opportunities should we be looking out for, what are our capabilities." How did this man come with the knowledge that the F-117a could be used as a weapon to take out a single specific person? Who came up with the brilliant idea that single hardest target, a mobile human being, could be taken out with a bomber and large ordinance? (Osama, Kim Jong Il, Saddam... this F-117a is your answer... Buy more!) Because thats what he was told it could do. Irresponsible, inaccurate, immoral.
Maybe next you'll tell me that the Brits thought that there was a bunker there. Maybe Putin called up and whispered in someones ear that there was a bunker there. Really doesnt matter does it. The decision was Bush's. Intentions do not affect reality.
Wether it be WMDs, or non existant bunkers, it is part of the same INSTITUTIONAL FAILING. And thats what we are talking about here. A complete failure of a system.

Dora Farms is a microcosm for the entirety of Iraq.
Shock and Awe was a lie. A big, massive lie invented by the systematic internalization of bad information. You cannot have a war where innocent children arent blown apart. THAT IS WHY YOU DONT FUCKING START A WAR.

Four children are dead because "The Decider" made a decision. Thousands more have joined them in the last few years. Their blood on our hands. Our responsiblity.
How Bush arrived at this decision is important. LHM has an equal role with the CIA in this process. But in the end... someone made the call.

Because Lockheed Martin oversold and underdelivered what the F117 was capable of
Based on extensive test missions, the F117A was considered a viable option as far back as the operations in Lebanon and Libya. It saw combat in Panama in 89. In Desert Shield, it offered unprecedented accuracy against hardened ground targets.

What bizarre logic are you using to claim that suddenly, decades later, Lockheed oversold the F117A's capabilities? This, I have to hear.

You could say it was oversold, since in practice the accuracy of the "smart bombs" has been dismal. They're more accurate that classic high-altitude bombing schemes (which were so inaccurate you would need hundreds of planes saturation bombing an area to reliably destroy any specific thing), but certainly no where near as good as people have been led to believe. This is quite typical of the "sanitization" efforts since Vietnam trying to keep any knowledge of all the effects of war from the American public, but eventually some of it gets back to us via non-US news outlets.

As a bonus side effect, these "precision weapons" are not fairly generic bombs like in days of old, meaning the company that makes them gets to command huge profit margins.

There were something like 120 "precision bombing" attacks in OIF, IIRC 2 of them hit the targeted building and the rest did nothing but up the civilian death toll -- the one that's 50-100 times larger than the US death toll and never reported.

The F-117a isnt the same plane it was in 89.
Thats part of the deal. It was designed as a weapon that was in a constant state of evolution. We spent just as much upgrading it as we did when we bought it.

just one example of hundreds.
In an effort to improve the combat effectiveness of the stealth fighter, test experts from the F-117 Combined Test Force at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif., are working to expand what it brings to the fight. On April 2 2002, developmental test experts in Palmdale teamed up with their operational counterparts from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., to complete the second phase of a demonstration project designed to provide the F-117 and its pilots with the ability to receive and transmit mission and target data in real-time from the air. Phase one tests, completed in October of 1998, allowed a pilot to receive live-threat information and manually replan a mission from the cockpit. The second phase completed the test cycle by demonstrating the transmission of real-time mission and target data out of the cockpit and into the hands of command and control forces on the ground.

Until this testing, the potential time-critical combat capabilities of the F-117 had not been explored. The target data technology works by allowing the aircraft to receive and transmit tactical information on targets or pop-up threats via satellite communication. The fighter's ability to send and receive text and images enhances its combat flexibility yet does not compromise its stealth configuration.

http://f-117a.com/Upgrades1.html
http://f-117a.com/Upgrades2.html

Add to this the fact that we give LHM 2 Billion/year to maintain the F-117a fleet. So we have a very profitable weapon system that is on the verge of being phased out.
And you are asking me why they would oversell what it was capable of?
Seriously?

Love listening to folks chatter about military aircraft when they clearly haven't a clue other than internet blogs.

The Aardvark is an awesome airplane, fills it's role and frightens the hell out of folks who previously thought their airspace secure.

I suggest some of you political experts remain in the arena where you clearly have ability. Arguing against the aircraft that is mostly classified and ya'll only have model kit information AND blogs from websites clearly anti Military does you no good.

Fandros Finglaflin
USAF Vet

Its easy to follow the money

Love listening to folks chatter about military aircraft when they clearly haven't a clue other than internet blogs.

The Aardvark is an awesome airplane, fills it's role and frightens the hell out of folks who previously thought their airspace secure.

I suggest some of you political experts remain in the arena where you clearly have ability. Arguing against the aircraft that is mostly classified and ya'll only have model kit information AND blogs from websites clearly anti Military does you no good.

Fandros Finglaflin
USAF Vet


Should be WAS mostly classified until one was shot down over Yugoslavia.

Its easy to follow the money

It's easier to make shit up as you've been doing.

Where?
Show me what has been made up.

It would likely be helpful if people on threads like this had read Sorrows of Empire (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805070044/qid=1147656508/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-1582972-2632638?s=books&v=glance&n=283155), which is one of the most thoroughly referenced and attributed books written on modern politics ever to be seen in a bookstore (53 pages of references to hundreds of news sources, official government information, and other books. Digging up the Amazon link shows that it cites 65 other books alone). Sadly, the people who most need to never will, but then again they've never read Thomas Friedman either.

It doesn't cover the F117 subject at all, but does go into quite a bit of depth about the breadth of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex, which is a known entity to everyone in the world except for the Americans who serve as its well-indoctrinated taxbase. The sort of people who think that Reagan ended the Cold War and not Gorbachev (who ended the Soviet Brezhnev Doctrine, of which nobody in American ever speaks even though we still follow it ourselves).

I must be thankful that someone quoted Fandros, as his post illustrates a number of key problems as a result of the long growth of the MICC cancer in our democracy:

a) The unconstitutional classification of public-funded projects to the point is has taken 20 years for us to become aware that the incredibly expensive and politically destabilizing "stealth attack aircraft" programs doesn't do everything we've been told it does, modern marvel or not.

b) that we think it is A-OK to violate the airspace of any other sovereign power we feel like because they can't stop us

c) that having been in the USAF grants him some kind of sacred trust qualifying him, without question, to be right about issues he likely was never involved in; particularly given only a tiny fraction of the Air Force had anything to do with the design, purchasing, maintenance, or flight operation of the F117 and are just in the dark about it as anyone else, save the more regular in-service propaganda.

Sorry Malse, wrong on many accounts.

Then again, you are on record for blathering facts and attempting to sound learned...kinda like the nerd in cubicle down the way that kinda knows something about everything but nothing of substance about anything.

<---Avionics Tech for multiple aircraft, perhaps you should look up what that means and step back to square one...dumbass

Fandros

<---Avionics Tech for multiple aircraft, perhaps you should look up what that means and step back to square one...dumbass

Fandros

Avionics techs had it made :( When I enlisted I was completely succered by my recruiter. I had thought that being in avionics would be a good thing but I also had a talent for photography so I attempted to become a combat photojournalist. My recruiter convinced me that going with a guaranteed MOS could leave me stuck in something that I might not like once I got there and changing would be next to impossible or totally impossible, so the best thing was to go "open contract"....needless to say my first orders out of PI were to camp geiger and train as 0311 :) ...

I salute you airwingers and those nice clean squadbays and racks you slept in!

Where?
Show me what has been made up.
Ignoring all your blustering, capslock induced posts, all we're talking about is this:

On the first night of the 2003 invasion, 2 f-117s were sent out on a "Stike of Opportunity. Because Lockheed Martin oversold and underdelivered what the F117 was capable of, both pilots missed their mark by a substantial margin.

Do your own research.

March 19, 2003. Dora Farms.
Well, anyone that did their own research could easily find that you're the one off target, not the bombs.

http://www.directionsmag.com/features.php?feature_id=88

Cliff Notes: Dora Farms was exactly the intended target, and was hit with great precision. Saddam and/or his sons were thought to be there that night. In all likelihood, we were barely late and you're regurgitating what you heard the Iraqi Information Minister say about the attack.

Either way, the F117A performed flawlessly.

So yeah, you're making it up as you go, and it's painfully obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on the facts.

Fandros, you have still not added anything substantive to the debate other than "I am an Air Force vet and I know things so my opinion is more valid". That is still nothing. If you have a clearance and know anything about a project that requires a clearance you would not even be mentioning it on a website.

As far as the "smart bombs" and their relative stupidity, I was part of a project to design an electronic system that would rely heavily upon civilian GPS signals. We ended the project about 4 months into it because we decided that the GPS system was not reliable for anything more significant than a handheld garmin on a field trip. I am not surprised at all that a "smart bomb" that relied on GPS failed in it's mission.

Btw; I have a secret clearance and I work for a defense contractor and I would never discuss anything related to secured projects. Ie, the above example is not secure.

I also have a clearance and what I said is public info. Nothing I stated or ever would state would be other than public release.

Thanks tho Phel for chiming in....

again

Fandros

I can only presume the qouted Fandros drivel was directed at me, so I'll ask a simple, straightforward question that he won't answer anyway. Did you work on the F117a, and how many combat missions that resulted in a bomb delivered to a target did you personally participate in?

I happen to know what avionics technicians do, but the worlds greatest calibration can't make up for the fact that hitting a small object (say, a house) from a platform moving several hundred miles per hour, several miles up and away, with a single unpowered missile, is by no means a solved problem. We've had the basic math behind it for hundreds of years; Modern artillery, which has the benefit of not being mobile at the point of firing, still isn't that good either.

Incidently this is a big part of the impetus behind the Predator drones, because pilot-safety doesn't factor in they can launch guided, powered missiles at much closer range.

Additionally, the quoted article from Sanchek was so soon after the strike that any real impact analysis had yet to be done, and secondly that it openly shows how the US commited war crimes by trying to assassinate a foreign leader without even a joke of a trial. Go us, lucky the current administration rescinded all the treaties that would have held them accountable for that beforehand, in a move sure to win hearts and minds.

Hopefully we're done with that little digression and can get back to Akipt and L2 rants!

Thank you for doing what I hoped someone would do Sanchek.

What was the target? Saddam. Was he there? No. therefore, ergo, forthwith...
The attack missed by a substantial margin. The F-117a did not perform flawlessly. It did not because it is part of a greater organization. One continuous chain whose success depends on competency and accurate intelligence at all levels. To ask a bomber to target an individual is to ask it to do something it is not capable of. Obviously. But the F-117 needed a purpose in this new and changing post cold war world in order to keep the flow of billions going.
So a purpose was found.
No matter the technology, no matter what it has promised it could do, it is only as good as the people controlling it. And I dont mean the physical operator of the weapon. You dont ask a carpenter to build a skyscraper. Maybe the carpenter will perform flawlessly, and do the best job he can. No nail will be out of place. But in the end the project will fail.
If you really need me to walk you through the point im trying to make, then I will.
How does an army perform brilliantly, but the mission still turns out so disastrous?
Bunker = WMDs.
F-117a = Our forces in Iraq
Children = real result of our institutional failing.

Something went wrong in Iraq. Really, really wrong. And we are on the verge of attempting to do it again in Iran without even stopping to find out what is fucked up in our process. Reckless insanity.

Okay, Mister Information Minister.

Are you now holding Lockheed and the F117a responsible for Saddam making it out of Dora Farms before we could get there?

Maybe the F117a gave Saddam a call on the bat phone and told him to evac, because it wanted to have a chance to drop more bombs. I hope you aren't upset I stole the idea you were going to use for your next post!

Because Lockheed Martin oversold and underdelivered what the F117 was capable of, both pilots missed their mark by a substantial margin.
Are you going to back this up, or just keep avoiding it with bad analogies?

I happen to know what avionics technicians do, but the worlds greatest calibration can't make up for the fact that hitting a small object (say, a house) from a platform moving several hundred miles per hour, several miles up and away, with a single unpowered missile, is by no means a solved problem. We've had the basic math behind it for hundreds of years; Modern artillery, which has the benefit of not being mobile at the point of firing, still isn't that good either.
It's a fairly long stretch to compare an unpowered missile or artillery with what is actually used in the F117a. While it has no thrust based vectoring, it wouldn't really make sense anyway. From any decent altitude, the movable flight surfaces on laser/gps guided bombs are more than enough to hit a stationary target.

Are you going to back this up, or just keep avoiding it with bad analogies?

Are you saying they were aiming at 4 children and their mother?
AFAIK they were aiming at Saddam. Maybe you have some information that I dont that the 3 year old had ties to Al-Queda.

They did not hit what they were aiming for... I call that a miss.

Garbage In/Garbage Out

Even so, L2, that doesn't pertain to Lockheed's marketing and the US Government's purchasing of the 117a. The two issues are distinct. The 117a's targeting ability has nothing to do with the accuracy of intelligence on Saddam's movements on the ground.

Did we need the planes (or, perhaps more accurately, do we need to maintain whatever 'subscription' we have with LM?)
Do the planes do what LM says they can do?

I agree that the MIC is a major force in the political landscape, and that Eisenhower is probably churning in his grave, but there's a disconnect between argument and conclusion in this aspect of your posting.

So it is a peice of machinery's fault for bad intelligence?

The way you are arguing it your blaming an aircraft that which once the bombs are let go are no long in the hands of the pilot. Most guided bombs are fire and forget, but there are problems with visibility in some versions of smart bomba but that has to do with the bomb itself not the pilot. Most smart bombs used in Afgansitan and Iraq were the cheaper more reliable bombs that do not have problems due to visibilty(JDAM). (yes i said chaper and more reliable)

Also it seems more likly that bad intelligence or just old intelligence not aircraft that caused the problem. Should they have verified during/before they released.. yes.. but you do not always have that luxury.

Newer precision munitions use the global positioning system - an array of satellites that provides extremely accurate guidance data - to hit their targets. But even with 90 percent accuracy, 100 of every 1,000 bombs dropped will go astray.

Still it has nothing to do with the airplane. Maybe over selling the bomb? Which werent sold as 100% accurate. In the above case did the bomb hit its intended target?(Not Saddam but the intended building) To a bomb a person is not the target coordinates are.

I am asserting that it is all part of one continous motion.

Operational Failure. And the reasons why.

The Invasion of Iraq was perfect in a technical sense, yet the mission is still a disaster. The F-117a performed "perfectly" in a mechanical sense, yet its end result was still a tragedy.
To gauge the success of an operation or the use of the weapon by mechanical standards is a myopic viewpoint. The mission on Dora Farms was a failure because the weapon was doing a job that it wasnt capable of. A hammer will "work" in causing a mortar round to detonate, it doesnt mean it was successful. And if the maker of the hammer told the buyer that it would be a good tool for that job, then he has made a flawed product.
The US Army, as it went into Iraq, was not capable of doing what we needed it to do. It is not a force that was prepared for the situation that it came into contact with. It still isnt. Iraq is being held together with duct tape and glue. Once we leave the place will fall apart, chaos, confusion, civil war.

PNAC said US military might should be employed in order to maintain US hegemonic status. Guess what... It cant do that job.

Well taking into consideration that the minimum safe distance to drop a 2000 LB bomb from friendly troops is about 700 meters, thats a big frag pattern, the concussion will also do quite a bit of damage to living breathing creatures like blow their lungs and eyes out. Not to mention the hole that these things put in the ground is about 75 feet across and 30 feet deep.

One can pinpoint any spot they want but there is no good way to contain the rest of the blast.

No matter how accurate the aircraft is in dropping the bomb it will probably kill more than intended.

Its war, it sucks and thats the way things go...bottomline.

It's a well publized opinion that operations in Afgan. and Iraq are going to lead to a reshaping of our Military. Our Military might was based on WW2 models that no longer support war in it's current and future realities.

To best simplify it think of current operations as a shaking out. We're being mutated and of course not all of the permutations are going to survive.

To answer Malse's assertion, yes it would be hard to aim a bomb moving at those speeds.

If we were launching inert lawn darts.../chuckle

As for your first question, I'll answer it best I'm able.

I've worked on nearly all fighter aircraft in our inventory and done so in wartime.

Have you done so? Did you ever serve your country ...in peacetime or war?

Hell, did you ever do more than serve yourself?

To address L2's earlier point. I too believe that the purchasing contracts need to vastly change. It's too dern self propagating and in as such too damn expensive not to mention not very flexible.

Fandros

I am asserting that it is all part of one continous motion.

Operational Failure. And the reasons why.

But by this measure everything from M-16s to Halliburton issued toilet paper is a failure. It seems more accurate to say that the proper tools were used improperly.
It's a well publized opinion that operations in Afgan. and Iraq are going to lead to a reshaping of our Military. Our Military might was based on WW2 models that no longer support war in it's current and future realities.
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were based on the reshaping of our military. Iraq in particular relied on the lighter, more technologically based army envisioned by Rumsfeld. Fewer troops, more computers. Sounds good on paper, but in practice it's turned out poorly in the post-Mission Accomplished period.

The endless ad hominems against Malse do nothing to buttress your points or respond to his, btw.

/shrug

I care less Thor than you imagine. I can only respond with so much public data ( he knows this so attempts to paint in a corner I'm not allowed to walk out of) and in the past I could've replied with reams of data and our lil hermit savant would decry them regardless.

I know his type, have debunked their theories all to no avail. So I lower myself to his level and snip him a lil in return for his baseless slander at my own personage.

Truth is, he showed how lil he knew when he talked about dropping weapons that didn't make course corrections on their own after leaving the weapon platform ( they are quite capable of making significant changes and that's public info ). All the while he attempted to sound like he knew what he was talking about...

He doesn't, and it's clear to those who know and apparently less clear to those who fence only with words and never served themselves.

Fandros

When I first saw this thread titled M.i.c., my first thought was to finish it with... k.e.y. I've tried to follow the thread, honest but it's like "wtf" to me so sorry for the derail :( Bombs and guns don't kill people, people kill people wars have casualties. Game over so what.

You arent holding to the boundries of the analogy there Thor.

In the context of the mission... the F-117 failed. It failed because it was asked to do a job it was not capable of. From the narrow scope of did the missle go where the computer told it to go, then it worked. But from looking at it from a wider, more realistic and more historically mature view then we realize that the criteria for success in a war are not so superfical.
During the run up to the war, a new concept of "Regime Targets" was implemented. The F-117 was promoted and advance to be able to meet this need. Bombs were created to meet the need. The one dropped on the bunker actually began its development cycle 2 weeks after 9/11.

A failure of intelligence this large is not the sole responsibility of CIA analysts. It is a failure of the capabilities of our army, of what was possible. To this end and in full knowledge of the collusion between the US Army and the Defense contractors, we must examine the responsiblity that they share for the use of the weapons.
Before the war there was a promise of the use of bombs in such a way that preciseness of the weapons would minimize collateral damage in way that history had never seen before. Iraqs people would be unharmed, its infrastructure intact, its people welcoming this "bloodless" overthrowing.
How did our miltary people come to believe that this lie was possible?
They believed in because of an over reliance on our technology. A faulty understanding of our own capabilities.
That.. is the failure.

I'm thinking the analogy isn't apt, then. If the weapon delivers its payload to the target (in this case, a patch of ground allegedly containing a particular person), then that weapon is successful. An accurate gun pointed at the wrong target is still accurate. Linking A and B, B and C, C and D doesn't necessarily link A to D. All of this applies to your statement regarding LM overselling their product. They might have done so, but this thread hasn't shown it.

The premise that our technology failed to deliver, and that our reliance on it in place of boots on the ground proved detrimental to the war/occupation effort is still one I agree with.

What we are seeing here is a debate between the 2 philosophies:
War sucks, and if you can't guarantee that no civilian casualties will occur, you can't fire a single shot;
And war is inevidable, so try and make the best, most reliable weapons you can that will reduce the civilian casualties, and infrastructure damage.

There are no absolutes in either situation. Whether we like it or not, there are people that do not like the United States.
Whether misinformed, uninformed, or informed beyond all measure, they want us to fall and fail.

If you adopt the thinking that we cannot fire a single shot, because we might hit an innocent bystander, an enemy will use that to his advantage. No amount of "trying to understand" will fix the issue.

I prefer to keep the casualties and infrastructure damage to a minimum, but someone will accuse me of just trying to keep more consumers of goods alive, and trying to keep potential liquid assets from being destroyed.

:rolleyes:

You're again inventing incorrect parameters to justify this argument.

Before the war there was a promise of the use of bombs in such a way that preciseness of the weapons would minimize collateral damage in way that history had never seen before. Happened.

Iraqs people would be unharmed Pretty much happened. its infrastructure intact Was destroyed when we got there, honest. , its people welcoming this "bloodless" overthrowing. Pretty much happened. It's the 30% or less causing the problems, and that's being worked out politically as we speak.

Was F16's that dropped this very very accurate payload from 15K feet aprox onto a very infamous Terrorist a few days back!!

Same munitions but no need for stealth..

Here's one for SMART weapons../toast

Fandros

I blame Lockheed Martin :devil

No, see we lost. We should have been able to solve this without blowing anyone up. We should blame America, because we know anything America does is wrong.*




















*sacrasm

Remember kids.. we solved a problem we helped to create with a weapon from an industry that helped get us into the problem in the first place.

Sure, we got laid, but we just fucked our 1st cousin. (btw Sixee, thats NOT socially acceptable in most parts of the country)

Sure, we got laid, but we just fucked our 1st cousin. (btw Sixee, thats NOT socially acceptable in most parts of the country)

I'm suprised you know that L2.

But at least you are consistantly anti-American with your statements.

grow up cub scout

reality isnt anti-american... it just is what is. The flag is for hanging in front of your house, not shoving in your ears and covering your eyes with.

L2 that is my new favorite quote.

Remember kids.. we solved a problem we helped to create with a weapon from an industry that helped get us into the problem in the first place.

Sure, we got laid, but we just fucked our 1st cousin. (btw Sixee, thats NOT socially acceptable in most parts of the country)

You're such a clueless tool. Here's big Z's first act of terrorism:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200607/zarqawi/2

“Despite their enthusiasm, al-Zarqawi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Muntassir did not appear to be natural revolutionaries. Their first operation was in Zarqa, in 1993, a former Jordanian intelligence official told me, when al-Zarqawi dispatched one of their men to a local cinema with orders to blow it up because it was showing pornographic films. But the hapless would-be bomber apparently got so distracted by what was happening on the screen that he forgot about his bomb. It exploded and blew off his legs.”

Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but Lockheed isn't in the business of making porno.

Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but Lockheed isn't in the business of making porno.
But what about KRB???? huh? huh?:p

Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but Lockheed isn't in the business of making porno.
They ought to be. I never get a good in-flight movie.

You're such a clueless tool. Here's big Z's first act of terrorism:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200607/zarqawi/2



Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but Lockheed isn't in the business of making porno.

**WARNING, SARCASTIC REMARKS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**

But you see, that's America's fault. Since we invented porno, we deserve to get blown up.
Don't you see the logic of that argument?
America is always at fault. We create all of the enemies we fight. We have always been at war with Oceania, et al.