Beating the F-22 Fighter Jet into a Ploughshare

How do you go about the process of dismantling a military-industrial complex, which does not want to be dismantled, when, by definition, they have all the guns?

George W. Bush campaigned, in 1999, as an isolationist intent of avoiding the nation-building habits of the 1990's. Low and behold we ignored just enough intelligence to ensure the start of two of the longest wars in US history.

President Eisenhower warned us, as he was leaving office, not to permit the military-industrial complex to establish itself because he knew that once established it would be nearly impossible to remove.

The latest issue of the Atlantic has an interesting article on the F-22. I don't know much about the issue or whether the plane is worth the money. But the article calls into question the statement that the F-22 is a cold-war relic meant to fight a threat that doesn't exist.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/air-force

The article says that the F-22 is key to maintaining air superiority in the wars in which the U.S. is currently engaged. Again, I don't know how true this is, but it at least appears to be something on which reasonable people can disagree. The debate doesn't appear to be simply between pork-barreling Congressmen and sane policymakers. It's more complex than that.

Would you be willing to put aside a potentially problematic example and focus instead of the underlying notion that it may be time for the Pentagon to give up on its claim to the overwhelming majority of the non-administrative portion of the Federal budget during a time when funding is urgently needed elsewhere? I don't think the discussion is really about the F-22. It is about priorities.

"A bloated Pentagon budget starves our nation of essential investments in health care, education, and energy independence"

I've been investing in education since I started college in 1980 and continue to do so with both my boys now. (Private school is expensive but worht it). I've also been investing in health care since my first post college job in 1984. As for energy independence lets start drilling now.

The incompetence that plagues government is intensely magnified in the corporate socialist environment known as military procurement - Dwight Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.

As to just how efficiently government operates in this arena that's even less transparent than the rest of it, look no further than the findings about the Marine F/A 18D Hornet military jet crash in San Diego that took out civilian lives and homes.

Or the reconstruction billions looted in Iraq by U.S. military officials - with millions in taxpayer-provided bribes delivered in pizza boxes.

One of the main reasons some conservatives are granting Obama a lot of slack is just this phenomenon - a Republican administration and Congress that managed to waste more, on a vaster scale than liberals did in the past, with absolutely nothing to show for it but the wreckage of our collective financial future.

I am amazed in my own life how my time, my energy, and my resources can be squeezed and squeezed before I really start making hard decisions. And frankly, when they are squeezed to the end -- I will still make really dumb choices sometimes.

Most severely, I watched this as my wife battled for her life for several years. I watched life being squeezed from this very vibrant, gifted, engaged leader--to the point of being on full nutritional and breathing support. I saw her confront a question: "If I have to fight with all my being so I may have one moment of breath tomorrow--to what will I assign that breath?" I saw her answer that many times. It was so she could silently pray; so she could click her tongue as an expression of love for her little girls; and have me sit by her. But it was not beyond me to waste her energy on some silliness.

I think we could slash the military 50% and the overall Federal budget 50%--and we MIGHT put everything on the table to really establish clarity on our ultimate commitments and align our resources strategically to fulfill the vision. Personally, I think we go kicking and screaming until we have to give up everything, before we yield and commit to the important. It is in dying that we find life.

So it really takes a fundamental morality and humility to enable us to manage wisely before everything is taken off our plate. The ability of the United States to fulfill its redemptive purpose in human history will not be realized as long as we think we are the saviour--or even the police (or peacekeepers) of the world.

If I'm in Congress--the State Department, Pentagon, and White House get the following budget until they articulate a coherent, fundamental, policy and strategy for US foreign policy and military engagement: $0

Where vision is absent--we choose death.

I choose the shalom of God.

I have never been a great fan of the Star Spangled Banner. But I love to watch performances of it on YouTube: from Aretha Franklin, to Sandi Patty, to Jimi Hendrix, to barbershop quartets, marching bands, and banjos. I love the imagery of the flag so tentatively flying in the night while the battle rages--and hearing/watching a hundred different versions of the same tune.

The nation only has value under God as the people, each day, choose to stand and manifest God's purposes within it. We each will play the tune with a unique style. But if there is no melody--if it is only a lifting up of our own idolatries--if there is no deep humility--if there is no wisdom--oh how ugly and evil it becomes.

My point in bringing up the Atlantic article wasn't an attempt to discredit the author's larger point. It was to provide some background information on the specific issue of the F-22. I thought she might like some context.

On her larger point about priorities, I agree. The U.S. spends far too much on our military.

Rev. Hendler-Voss, are you saying this is an either/or scenario? "So, what will it be, swords or ploughshares? " Don't we have to have both?

If we don't invest in swords, other countries will eventually destroy our investments in our children (not to mention the children).

Obama has been compared frequently to FDR. FDR was judged on his ability to build an army and destroy Hitler.

That was the bad warrior FDR. That FDR, along with the Japanese interning, civil liberties violating, supreme court stacking, habeus corpus suspending FDR has been forgotten by a certain segment of society. FDR implemented the New Deal, which was good because it was government taking ACTION in an attempt to solve a problem; that's all you need to know.

I think Rick Nowlin has hijacked your username.

"How do you go about the process of dismantling a military-industrial complex, which does not want to be dismantled, when, by definition, they have all the guns?"

This makes both a compelling case for a limited military and for second amendment rights.

"George W. Bush campaigned, in 1999, as an isolationist intent of avoiding the nation-building habits of the 1990's. Low and behold we ignored just enough intelligence to ensure the start of two of the longest wars in US history."

I don't think anyone has accused Bush of ignoring intelligence with respect to Afghanistan.

"President Eisenhower warned us, as he was leaving office, not to permit the military-industrial complex to establish itself because he knew that once established it would be nearly impossible to remove. "

Um, no. President Eisenhower said that we had created the military-industrial complex out of necessity, and noted that it would continue to be necessary. He warned against allowing the complex to endanger our liberties and democratic processes.

Incidentally, how has evoking Eisenhower's farewell address become vogue? Did J-2.0 reference it in a speech or something? Over the last six months, there can't be a single discussion of military policy without the obligatory butchering of Eisenhower's military-industrial complex concept. It's the new Ben Franklin "liberty-security" quote.

Kevin: You live in a cold, dark world. How does it differ from hell other than by intensity?

"Kevin: You live in a cold, dark world."

That's Minnesota for you.

"How does it differ from hell other than by intensity?"

It isn't Michigan.

Incidentally, I would be very curious to hear one of your sermons.

Why do you say that? Was there a guy posting under the name Eric77 relating anecdotes from his personal life as if they carried the weight of a Gallup poll?

From here:

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/document...

A direct quote of the speech:

"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."

What did I butcher about that, exactly? How, exactly, does the military-industrial complex not now completely dominate in influence over our Federal government completely out of proportion to our need for it? How are we not creating wars out of thin air to justify our continuance of it? How has it not completely eclipsed peaceful methods and goals? I'm on pins and needles. Please enlighten me.

"What did I butcher about that, exactly?"

You cleaved this portion, for starters:

":American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions."

Kind of a biggie, in this context, don't you think?

"How, exactly, does the military-industrial complex not now completely dominate in influence over our Federal government completely out of proportion to our need for it?"

You are asking me to argue from the negative, here. Let's start with your assumption about the need for military development, and how you would contrast this with our actual investment in same.

"How are we not creating wars out of thin air to justify our continuance of it?"

Again, where do you see us doing so?

"How has it not completely eclipsed peaceful methods and goals? "

See above. What are peaceful methods, and how does our present investment diverge from those methods?

Keep in mind this post is about investment, not engagement. The two are interrelated, but far from the same.

I started and ended at substantial paragraph break points. If you want to call that "cleaving" and "butchering" we have no common ground regarding communication to attempt communication. Sorry.

You can take a paragraph out of context just as easily as a sentence. It doesn't matter what you want to call it. The point is that it is wrong to say that Eisenhower warned against the establishment of the military-industrial complex. He didn't say what you said he said.

This is incredibly ironic given the way 99% of Christians use their Bibles. Do you only ever quote entire books of it at a time when making a point?

Fine.

"Keep in mind this post is about investment, not engagement. The two are interrelated, but far from the same."

And Eisenhower warned us that the more we invested the harder it would become to avoid engagement. Which was my point. I don't believe the additional sentencing you added changes his intention in the slightest. Far from a "biggie". Which is why I didn't include it. It isn't relevant and doesn't alter the intent of the other sentences. Sentences and paragraphs have meaning which can be known without the inclusion of extraneous material.

Yes, we must not be the country we were prior to the second world war. We must not be radically unprepared to defend ourselves. I never suggested we should be, nor did I assert Eisenhower said we should be. But he is quite clearly warning us that the consequences of poor stewardship of the M-I.C. will be disastrous. And our stewardship of it has not only been poor, it has been nonexistent. We have allowed Congress to turn the M-I.C. into a massive pork machine without a second thought.

And yes, I'm asking you to argue the negative. I'm asserting that the M-I.C. now dominates out of proportion to its value (a positive) and you disagree (a negative). Can you back it up, or can you only keep asking me to refine and clarify as if an inability to do so indefinitely would somehow prove me wrong? If it does not dominate out of proportion, what is the counter force? What is the balance? Where are there -any- plowshares, or olive branches, let alone -enough- to counter the entire M-I.C.?

If you are unaware of the two wars we started out of thin air between 2001 and 2004 there is insufficient space to get you up to speed about them here. Try CNN or something similar, they might have written a few articles about them over the past seven years.

If you are unaware of our blatant snubbing of peaceful means prior to the starting of those two wars, again, I can't help you. That level of disengagement from the world around you is beyond my capacity to address.

You can keep insisting that Eisenhower didn't warn us that if we didn't do exactly what we've failed to do for 50 years that we would regret it if you want to, but at some point you're going to have to back it up with something for this conversation to have any substance.

Better yet, I'll just admit you're right. Hopefully that'll end the conversation.

Sometimes. 99% of Christians don't even read their Bibles.

There is nothing wrong with selecting a single paragraph, so long as it is representative of the whole. In this case, however, you are omitting the portion of a speech that specifically contradicts your argument.

Eisenhower said the military-industrial complex was necessary. Period.

"Can you back it up, or can you only keep asking me to refine and
clarify as if an inability to do so indefinitely would somehow prove me
wrong?"

The inability to refine and clarify your argument for the positive leaves me with nothing to argue from the negative. I can't argue whether the MIC exceeds its value because I don't know how you define value. The best I can say is that I am comfortable with our level of military spending now, because I think we will encounter enemies down the road that will require more military muscle than did Saddam Hussein.

"If you are unaware of the two wars we started out of thin air between
2001 and 2004 there is insufficient space to get you up to speed about
them here."

I didn't say I was unaware of them. I said that I haven't heard the accusation that Bush trumped up a case to go to Afghanistan. In fact, his political adversaries wanted increased engagement in that region.

"You can keep insisting that Eisenhower didn't warn us that if we
didn't do exactly what we've failed to do for 50 years that we would
regret it if you want to, but at some point you're going to have to
back it up with something for this conversation to have any substance."

That's not what I insisted, and this conversation certainly won't have any substance if you insist on putting words in my mouth.