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The US military's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft is proving to be a pain in the neck in more ways than one. Not only did the Pentagon spend almost $400 billion to buy 2,400 aircraft - about twice as much as it cost to put a man on the moon - the F-35 program is 7 years behind schedule and $163 billion over budget. This at a time when cuts in the defense budget are forcing the Pentagon to shrink the size of the military. CBS 60 Minutes took a closer look at the troubled fighter plane a few months back, but their rebroadcast on Sunday evening seems like as good a reason as any to revisit one of the biggest ongoing budget debacles in U.S. military memory. David Martin gets an inside look at what makes the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter the most expensive weapons system in history.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday June 02 2014, @02:27PM
Whaddaya mean, we haven't had any wars lately? We were at war in Iraq quite recently, are still at war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, had a little dust-up in Libya to oust Muammar Quadaffi, and have ongoing covert actions in Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria. And probably a few places I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.
I know it's not the kind of wars that the military jocks are gearing up for, to ensure that we protect West Germany from Soviet aggression, but make no mistake, we're at war right now. It's a testament to our propaganda machine^H^Hmainstream media that you completely forgot about the half-dozen or so foreign countries where the US government is killing people on a regular basis.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 02 2014, @02:41PM
And none of those are fights where we would ever need a superadvanced stealth fighter. Because the world knows (well, other than Russia maybe) that it's just stupid to try to go up against the U.S. in any kind of conventional war. There's a reason it's all asymmetric.
Well, that and we like beating up on people who can't fight back, I suppose.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday June 02 2014, @03:53PM
None of those are declared and all were entirely optional. So basically we're just killing people for sport.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 03 2014, @09:08PM
When did Congress sign a declaration of war against *any* of these nations?
Those aren't wars; they're terrorism.