23. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, May 26, 2021
OMNI ISRAEL-PALESTINE (West Bank, Gaza) NEWSLETTERS MAY 2021. See Gaza newsletters.
#14 http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestinenewsletter-14-may.html
#15 http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestiniansnewsletter-15-may..html
#16 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/omni-israel-palestine-newsletter-16-may.html
US Culture of War
5-5-1494 Columbus lands in Jamaica, settlers follow and the extermination of the indigenous Arawaks.
5-12-1623 English colonist settlers in Va. murdered 250 Powhatans, continuing war v. Powhatans since 1607 when Jamestown settlement founded.
5-26-1637 In night attack English colonist settlers killed 600 to 700 Pequots at Mystic, CT; surviving Pequots sold into slavery.
5-23-1838 Final removal of Native Americans from SE opening the land to settlers.
5-13-1846 US declared war on Mexico resulting in huge expansion of US territory.
5-1-1954 Tested hydrogen bomb.
5-16-1960 US/USSR summit breaks up when Soviets shoot down CIA spy plane over its territory that Pres. Eisenhower had denied. Read David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard.
8-1963 Despite US/USSR Limited Test Ban Treaty, US continued to use outer space for war-making.
5-4-1970 Ohio National Guard killed 4 Kent State Univ. students protesting the VN War.
5-1-2005 Downing Street Minutes revealed US plans to invade Iraq and to lie about it.
From World Beyond War’s Peace Almanac
MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX FRAUD and UNACCOUNTABILITY: Planes, Ships, Tanks
Conn Hallinan. “Are You Serious Awards 2021.” Dispatches From The Edge.” Jan 15, 2021. https://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/
Each year Foreign Policy In Focuscolumnist Conn Hallinan gives awards to individuals, companies and governments that make reading the news a daily adventure. These are the awards for the past year.
The Golden Lemon Award goes to Lockheed Martin for its F-35 fifth generation stealth fighter, at $1.5 trillion the most expensive weapons system in history. The plane currently has 883 “design flaws,” including nine “category 1” flaws. The latter “may cause death, severe injury, or severe occupational illness” to pilots and “major damage” to weapons systems and combat readiness ( which sounds like those TV ads for drugs that may or may not treat your disease, but could also kill your first born and turn you into a ferret).
But the company got right to work on those flaws, not by fixing them, mind you, but by reclassifying them as less serious. As for the rest of the problems, Lockheed Martin says it will fix them if it gets paid more. The company currently receives $2 billion a year to keep some 400 F-35s flying, a cost of $500 million a plane. It costs $28, 455 an hour to fly an F-35.
US aircraft are following industrialist Norman Augustine’s prediction that war plane costs increase by a factor of 10 every decade. He predicted that by 2054 the Pentagon will be able to buy just one fighter plane.
The Silver Lemon goes to the U.S. Navy for moth-balling four of its Littoral Combat ships after less than two decades in service. All 10 Littoral ships apparently have a “fundamentally flawed” propulsion system. The ships cost over $600 million apiece. There are plans to build six more.
The Navy plans to build 82 ships overall in the next six years at a cost of $147 billion, including--at $940 million apiece-- 20 frigates to replace the Littoral Combat ships.
The Bronze Lemon to the U.S. Army for spending $24 billion to replace its aging, 27-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicle with---ah, nothing? Not that it didn’t spend all that money. First there was the M2, but its armor was too thin. Then it built the Future Combat System, but it was too big and also had inadequate armor. Then they built the Ground Combat Vehicle, which was a monster and weighed three times more than the Bradleys. Solution? Keep the old Bradleys. MOREhttps://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/