Liberals Use Air Force Against GWOT

General Carlson, AFMC commander, back on February 13 spoke out of turn about the F-22 in the slightest way. He said what Mosley and Wynne have been saying that the Air Force needs more F-22s and that we're going to try to find a way to get them.

In some ways, the poor Air Force general was just playing the Washington game, and undoubtedly wishes now that he merely said the Air Force "still thinks" that the United States needs more F-22s than the Pentagon pencil pushers have determined the military can afford.

In his article, Arkin, says everything the Air Force has been saying about the F-22: China is a threat, 380 are needed to fill all 10 AEF cycles and other missions like training and test, and that the F-22 assembly line is closing late this year or early next year.

Needless to say, the Air Force will only be getting 187 F-22s. But with only 187 F-22s the Air Force will have to keep the F-22 held in strategic reserves. This will limit options for the President has when is comes to employing the F-22. Instead of rotating F-22s throughout the world in AEF cycles, the Commander in Chief will have tip his hand when deploying the F-22 to politically sensitive or hot spots.

For example, if there is a force of 24 F-22s station or deployed to some of the following locations like Kadena, Misawa, Guam, Diego Garcia, Elmendorf and Hickam and possibly Thailand, the Philippines and Australia, without a compliment of F-22s on the other hemisphere it is pretty clear that the POTUS is trying to box in China. Some diplomatic flexibility is lost in this case. It is hard to deny that this force posture is anything but an aggressive stance against China.

Arkin makes the fiscal argument and the argument about fighting the current war first along with taking a swipe at defense contractors (all of which are valid points). But then he continues:

But to me, the issue is how the war in Iraq and the mindset of the war on terrorism is making us strategically stupid: The Bush administration is so intent on redeeming itself -- and by extension finding an honorable end to the war so that the United States can declare victory -- that no amount of money, no number of American lives, no other national security needs can get in the way.

So the article is a swipe at the Iraq War. Arkin just choses the Air Force as the stick to beat the war effort with. But Arkin tips his hand and told us at the begining of the article:

This is not a column in defense of an airplane. Nor is it is defense of a four-star active-duty general who was stupid enough to suggest in public this week that the Air Force was going to figure out a way to buy more than twice as many new stealthy fighter jets than the Bush administration has decided it needs. I am not writing to defend the Air Force in its quest for the best equipment or its constant whine about being unappreciated. Nor am I passing judgment about whether there is a military threat from China and what to do about it, the "strategic" issue at hand. I don't even want to applaud Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who moved swiftly to rebuke the general, reasserting the vital principle that civilians ultimately control the military.

It is interesting that in light of the progress made in Iraq that the blame-America-first liberal world, there isn't an honorable end or a way to declare victory in Iraq. These people are not grounded in reality. The fact is these people are so vested in losing the Iraq war that no matter what the outcome there will never be victory for the liberals who hate America.

Video of F-22 manueverability.