Lucia

de Vernai

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July 22, 2009

F-22s: Even a Patriot Can’t Give the Military Everything It Wants

The F-22 fighter plane is the object of a confusing spending debate, and often filled with guilt, for civilians who fear sounding ungrateful or unpatriotic. Somehow the difference between “this particular bill is not where I want federal money going” and “I don’t care about America” disappears as soon as words of uncertainty or dissent come out.

A House committee proposes to spend $369 million to buy a dozen F-22s. Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss wants to give the Pentagon $1.75 billion to purchase F-22s. President Obama has threatened to veto Pentagon’s $534 billion budget if the F-22 money is included.

Legislators have a hard time distinguishing between support for the Armed Forces, in general, and the willingness to spend absolutely any amount requested for the military – even as the nation’s available funds are heavily contested. The scare-tactics of the military complex have changed some. It’s not just the threat to our supremacy from abroad. Now it’s a matter of saving jobs, union-endorsed and legislator-promoted.

The actual number of jobs this would cost the economy is much smaller than Lockheed Martin would have us think, and national security as we know it will never rest on a single weapons system, especially one not used in the two current conflicts in which we are presently involved.

In an unusual looking-toward-the-future moment, the proponents of the F-22 spending suggested that we look to the future for motivation. No, not the future that includes better student loan options and a functioning Social Security Administration, but rather the one with our next conflict.

Wait, what?

It’s important that the military is thinking ahead, but could we please get out of and, oh yeah, pay for the present conflict before we start a new “to-do” list? I will be paying for Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of my life. At the present moment, the future unknown threats that will be added onto the bill as we go along are not the best sales pitch.

Particularly because, as impressive as the technology of the F-22 is, its tactical uses are not indispensible to American security. Insisting the federal government take money from other sources and add it onto the nearly $700 billion dollar military budget so that we retain our world dominance is blatant abuse of the concept.

The second largest Air Force in the world belongs to the U.S. Navy, and when it comes to military spending, our biggest competitor is China, which shells out less than $200 billion a year. And if we ever got into a military conflict with China, I’d put my money on the nukes to save us, not the planes.

Or we could try diplomacy, although that would never keep Lockheed in business, so let’s find another solution.

Arizona Sen. John McCain has proposed that if the military has to have the planes, and has to have them now, as they insist, the best place to find money for them is in its very own budget. Move some things around, make like the rest of the country – individual to federal bureau – and make some tough choices.

We have no affordable health care, schools are shutting down and unemployment is historically high. Forgive us lowly civilians clearly in the dark for having our skewed priorities. No one was there to save the teachers, the construction workers and new graduates, and while jobs at the major military contractors are important to this economy, please don’t spend my money and use my commitment to this country to buy things you don’t need.

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