About freaking time!
McCain has been like a drunk sailor on shore leave in Thailand...
But finally the Weekly Standard has called him on his recent rash of foolishness.
Read the whole thing here but a highlight....
Terminating the F-35, or simply terminating the F-35B short take off
vertical landing (or STOVL), would be fatal for the Marine Corps as a
serious war fighting service. The modernization of the Marines is
already at risk; the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport turned out to be
more difficult and more expensive than anticipated, and last year the
Obama administration cancelled the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, which
would have given the Marines both enhanced amphibious assault
capability but, even more important, more firepower and mobility ashore.
The Marines’ AV-8B Harriers – a development of the original British
jump jet – are at the end of their service life, and the Marines’ F-18s
cannot operate from Marine amphibious assault ships. And there’s hardly
reason to have the big-deck amphibs without the F-35B. Conversely,
operating a fifth-generation aircraft would give the Marine Corps a new
viability in small-scale contingencies – think Libya – and allow them to
contribute to more challenging “anti-access, area-denial” contingencies
in East Asia or in an Iran-type operation. Similar challenges face the
Navy; without a fifth-generation aircraft, its own aircraft carriers are
increasingly irrelevant to high-end strike campaigns.
I know how the "hatred" of the F-35 started.
A think tank in Australia with a vested interest in its demise....a writer with the desire to preserve the European defense industry....the "cool" thing to do if you're a defense blogger....but the days of simply allowing the dis-information has passed. The F-35, the US defense sector, high tech US manufacturing and our alliances world wide require this program to progress.
It would be beyond a shame for a few guys with axes to grind, along with a few Congressional staffers to determine the fate of US defense for years to come.
