At the end of a wacky face-off -- the Air Force aligned with the grassroots on one side; unions aligned with Congress on the other -- the forces of good finally won out. The F-22 has gotten closer to the Cold War graveyard where it will one day be put to rest.
While everyone with good sense agrees that the aircraft is expensive, unreliable, and unnecessary, the incessant drumbeat for "jobs" made it difficult for many Members of Congress to turn down the program. Defense contractors have cleverly scattered the production of the F-22 far and wide across Congressional districts. In New England, even usually progressive Democrats were reluctant to vote Nay -- the pain of losing jobs is too great.
The swell of grassroots opposition certainly helped sway some of these Members, and we thank everyone who rallied to reach out to Congress.
This is just the beginning of what we hope will be a long and sometimes painful reorienting of our economy. Since the end of WWII, the government has been heavily investing in the military industrial complex; we now have a technological marvel of a war machine. Sadly, this has not only warped our national priorities; it's also made us less secure as a country. We're still gearing up to fight the Soviet Union, and are increasingly weakened in the real defense landscape of today.
Marie Rietmann reports from Capitol Hill: "All entities have acted on the F-22 except Senate defense approps. This may be a problem; for example, Sen. Chris Dodd (CT) has pledged to not give up the fight for it. His last chance this year would be an amendment to defense approps when it comes to the Senate floor sometime after August recess. It would be fine for friends of WAND to tell Senators not to support more F-22s in the defense appropriations bill."
Comments