Outrage Of The Week - Lockheed Martin!
by Vince?Daliessio
PHOTO: The awesome Lockheed F-22 Raptor, designed to counteract advanced Soviet fighters (whoops), now likely to face challenges from, er,Lockheed F-16s (courtesy Wikipedia)
Recently Playboy Magazine ("I read it for the articles, I SWEAR") exposed (haha) the complete and throughgoing penetration (ahem) of the Bush Administration, and the halls of Congress by representatives of ?ber war-profiteers Lockheed Martin.
In the article, Playboy contributor Richard Cumming (giggle) laid bare (snort) the list of senior management types who have used the revolving door between the defense industry, the lobbying industry,?and government to advance the agenda of Lockheed Martin, which is essentially to get politicians to make the taxpayer buy overpriced devices to murder foreigners with. It's an impressive list.
Today, another aspect of Lockheed Martin's long-term strategy swam into view, this time in a pithy observation by Frida Berrigan of the Arms Trade Resource Center;
?""The Maserati of the Skies"
In 2006, the F-22 Raptor began rolling off the assembly line. The Air Force plans to buy 183 of these high-tech, radar-evading stealth planes, each at a price tag of $130 million, being manufactured in a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. But it turns out that the $130 million per plane cost is just one-third of the total price, once development costs are factored in. The whole program is slated to cost the Pentagon 65 billion big ones. In July 2006, the Government Accountability Office asserted. "The F-22 acquisition history is a case study in increased cost and schedule inefficiencies."
Even if it were a bargain, however, it is a classic case of future-planning run amok. The plane was originally conceived to counter Soviet fighter planes, which haven't menaced the U.S. for more than 15 years. The plane itself is technologically awe-inspiring, reportedly having a twice-the-speed-of-sound cruising speed of Mach 2. (The Pentagon jealously guards its maximum speed as top secret.)
In 2007, the only reason the military might need such a plane is to outfight its predecessor, the F-16, which Lockheed Martin has sold to numerous countries that benefited from the corporation's vociferous lobbying for new markets and our government's lax enforcement of arms-export controls.
In this classic case of boomeranging weaponry, Lockheed Martin has triumphed three times: First, General Dynamics sold F-16 fighters to the Air Force beginning in 1976; second, Lockheed (which bought General Dynamics) sold the planes to Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and other nations from the 1980s to the present moment; and third, Lockheed Martin (having merged with Martin Marietta in 1995 and adjusted its name accordingly) now gets to produce an even higher tech plane for a U.S. Air Force that fears it might be outclassed by foreign military hardware that once was our own. The Bethesda-based company ended 2001 with a stock price of $46.67 a share ? and began 2007 at a celebratory $92.07.
The Next Generation Fighter
Of course, the lesson drawn from this is to produce yet more futuristic planes. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by a team led (yet again!) by Lockheed Martin, made its initial flight on December 15, 2006. The total program could surpass $275 billion, making it the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin is sharing the work and profits with partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems (not to speak of scads of subcontractors).
The Air Force already hails the F-35s "transformational sensor capability" and "low-observable characteristics" that will
??? "enable persistent combat air support over the future battlefield. Furthermore, [the] F-35 will help enable the negation of advanced enemy air defenses because it will possess the ability to perform unrestricted operations within heavily defended airspace."
Somewhere in there it is implied that this plane launches missiles that kill people, but it is very deeply embedded. Nowhere does it say that its opponent in the skies could be the F-22 Raptor, once it is sold to all those nations who find their F-16s woefully out of date."
As sitcom character Steve Urkel used to say, wanly, when confronted with a screwup - "Did I do that?"
(Links from LewRockwell.com)