Mainstream newspapers need real military columnists

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote a column on military procurement titled "Behind the battle over the F-35 fighter engine." My comment:

The Washington Post needs at least one columnist who isn't a political partisan AND who has a technical background that includes military science.

This column makes that need obvious, because Ms. Parker doesn't know what she's talking about, and applying what she does have expertise in--Beltway shenanigans--is not sufficient to paper over her lack of understanding of the underlying facts.

Congressmen vote for unneeded military projects because big government contractors make sure to subcontract subsytems in every state, and every congressional district if they can.

So their support for a project only tells us that a subsystem is/will be built in their district.

There is a strong argument for supporting multiple military suppliers of things like jet engines, but not to have multiple engines for one aircraft for one purpose.

Our military needs a variety of aircraft. So spread the enginemaking across several manufacturers. Don't, as another savvy commentor said, create chaos in the parts supply train with different subsystems for the same use in one project.

As for the F-35 itself--as another commentor said, we barely need the thing. Maybe someday China or someone else will truly challenge us in nation-to-nation war, and we should maintain our technological edge for such a circumstance.

But for the foreseeable futures--decades--what the military needs more than anything else is:

1. Highly trained troops with the ability to speak a little of at least one in-theater language and know a bit about the local culture.

2. A new rifle with the accuracy of an M-16 and the reliability of an AK-47.

3. UAVs, UAVs, UAVs, and pilots and mechanics and everything else for them--big ones that can carry bunker busters, smaller ones with machine guns, strategic reconnaissance ones, little hand-launchable recon ones, and ones in between, and more.

The Air Force slow walked UAVs because the generals are ex-flyboys. Time to catch up.

4. Navy UAV carriers with matching UAVs that have the reinforced landing gear and folding wings needed. A couple of these could put an end to Somali piracy, and do so cost-effectively.

And in general we need technology and human resources that help us fight insurgents who main weapons are roadside bombs and terrorizing locals.

All of these come far, far before a second F-35 engine. But Boeing, Northrop et al don't manufacture highly trained soldiers, so no one's lobbying for what our military really needs--or turning congressmen into their shills.

Pity Party for Conservatives

Kathleen Parker is the conservative Washington Post columnist who said Governor Palin isn't qualified to run the country. The comments to her latest column contained a lot of back and forth between angry conservatives and cheery liberals. Here's my contribution:

To the gloating democrats on this forum:

I think it's time to express a little sympathy for the conservatives. Think about it: we who didn't vote for Bush and his congressional co-conspirators have been tremendously harmed by these criminals. But we weren't betrayed. Because betrayel requires a violation of trust, and we never placed our trust in them.

Conservatives voters have been betrayed. They believe in limited government, limited taxes, prudent management of our country, avoiding foreign entanglements, and going after those who attack us remorselessly.

Their party has given them the biggest expansion of government in American history, a huge increase in taxes (albeit put off for a few years--but where do you think the payoff for that trillion-dollar debt's gonna come from?), management of our country by incompentent cronies and party hacks, foreign entanglements up the wazoo, and attacking the country that hadn't attacked us while making the most half-hearted of efforts to go after those who actually had attacked us.

So--you think we're angry? Imagine how they must feel.

The problem is that the party that betrayed them continues to betray them by working hard--and often successfully--to redirect their rage at the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee.

For example, here's the exact and complete text of the robocall that's going out to many thousands of GOP voters:

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"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans, and Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.

"This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500."

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Now the rest of us look at Obama--his demeanor, his advisors, his innately cautious actions and proposals--and see anything but an "extreme leftist." I knew quite a few extreme leftists in college, and Obama's nothing like them.

The Republicans' efforts to paint Obama and his party as crazed socialist revolutionaries is despicable. They are seeking to delegitimize half the country and divide America into two warring tribes while our real enemies proceed with their plans.

But it's not hard to see how folks like the right wing ranters on this blog come by their beliefs.

Their only alternative is to repudiate the party they've trusted with their hopes and dreams--to realize that it has really, truly, profoundly betrayed them. These are people who respect authority more than we do, and to them such a repudiation feels like mutiny. Unthinkable.

I honestly feel sorry for them.