Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

Rome Italy

“With Italy mired in recession and struggling with public finances, the money saved by eliminating a single F-35 could be used to build 387 day care centres or renovate 258 schools, according to a motion signed by 158 parliamentarians in the lower house Chamber of Deputies.”

We can easily do without the F-35,” said Giulio Marcon, an SEL lawmaker. “The government should make a responsible gesture and use these resources to increase welfare spending and create jobs.”

“Italian opposition parties and some lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party called on the government on Thursday to abandon its plans to buy 90 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.”

Journalists Steve Scherer and Roberto Landucci report in this article.

Please call me (Chris Hurd) at 802.238.5256 so I can get your name, email address and phone number so we can be in two way communication immediately.

Monday, June 3rd, 2013

Ottawa Canada

Article from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper

Please call me (Chris Hurd) at 802.238.5256 so I can get your name, email address and phone number so we can be in two way communication immediately.

Thursday, May 30th, 7 pm. Unitarian Universalist Church Burlington at the top of Church Street.

• Pierre Sprey, co-designer of the F-16 and the A-10 jets
• Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s
• US Air Force Colonel Rosanne Greco (ret.)
• “Gramma” Carmine Sargent, who lives in the noise zone
• Rabbi Joshua Chasan

Come one come all! Come get the scoop!

• 150 affordable homes now vacant or demolished because of F-16 noise
• Air Force says the F-35 is more than 4 times louder than the F-16
• Air Force says the F-35 will put 3000 more affordable homes in the noise zone that the federal government says is “unsuitable for residential use.”
• F-35 puts a thousand more homes in a very high risk crash zone
• Former Adjutant General Dubie said F-35 basing would cause loss of jobs

Boston Globe quotes a Pentagon official saying the military brass “fudged” the base selection process “so that [Senator] Leahy’s home state would win.”

Come to this community conversation about your concerns, including defects of the jet, jobs, safety, noise, and devastating effect on our neighborhoods

Sponsors: Ben Cohen, Peace and Justice Center, USAction, Vermont Workers Center, Save Our Skies, Stop the F-35 Coalition, Veterans for Peace, Burlington Quakers, CPOC, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, PAX Christi, Vermont Progressive Party, International Socialist Organization, 350Vermont.org.

For more information contact Chris Hurd, 802 238-5256

Print out the attached flyer. Tell your friends!

The Sunday, January 6, 2012 Burlington Free Press features an open letter sponsored in part by the Stop the F35 Coalition and Save Our Skies VT.

This letter is addressed to Senators Leahy, Senator Sanders, Rep. Welch and Governor Shumlin and asks them to formally request that Burlington, VT be withdrawn from this round of basings of the F35 stealth bomber/fighter jets because of the growing controversy about the proposed basing. There is mounting evidence that there will be significant environmental and health impact from the bomber/jets. In addition, thousands of homes will be designated as not suitable for residential use, causing considerable negative impact on property values.

In a December 17, 2012 report, the Vermont Department of Health reported on the possible health effects of the F-35 overfly noise. The possible health effects include: hearing loss, cardiovascular damage, annoyance, sleep disturbance, speech interference, and cognitive development. Also, air pollution, fuel dumping, and accidental crashes are more likely to occur, the report said.

That report comes on the heels of a December 14, 2012 letter by 15 Burlington area ministers and clergy members to our congressional delegation, Burlington Mayor Weinberger and Winooski Mayor O’Brien asking for a basing decision delay.

“Given that we are now only in the first of a number of rounds of basing decisions for the F35s, and given the number of unknowns and still unanswered questions, we urge you to advocate for postponing a decision about bringing the F35s to Vermont at this time.”

We need your help to continue the public debate about this issue and urge a delay in this decision until questions about the impact are fully addressed through a transparent and open process.

Please go to www.saveourskiesvt.org to sign our petition, get more information, or donate much needed funds so we can help generate more awareness about this important issue that will negatively impact thousands of Vermont residents, their homes and communities. Thank you for your continued support!

Check out the Save Our Skies petition asking Leahy to come clean with the initial scoresheets for all bases. Please sign the petition and show your support for our communities and our future. We never should have been in the running in the first place. We are not the only group opposed to the F35 in Vermont or in the nation. Make sure to check out http://tucsonforward.com/ to see the rising opposition in Tucson to the F35s there! As always, thanks for your support.

September 26, 2012

Harry Chen, M.D.
Commissioner of Health
Vermont Department of Health
108 Cherry St.
Burlington VT 05402

Dear Commissioner Chen,

I am writing this letter at the behest of Austin Sumner, Chair of the Burlington Board of Health. I presented during the public comment period this month at the Board of Health meeting. He suggested at that time that I contact you and ask you to open an investigation into the public health effects that will be caused if the F-35 Weapon System is based at the Burlington International Airport.
In terms of health issues, noise is just one. The recently published U.S. Air Force draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) states “our area would be negatively affected in the following categories: Noise, Safety, Climate Change, Air Quality, Socioeconomics, Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Justice and the Protection of Children.” Declines in safety and air quality clearly have negative health effects, and I would argue that all of these categories threaten public health.

In terms of noise pollution, the DEIS shows an increase in maximum sound during a “military power take off” from 94 to 115 decibels (page BR4-18), and the report notes that each additional 10 decibels represents a doubling of sound to the human ear. The 21 decibel difference is more than two doublings of the sound or more than four times louder. The 65 decibel day/night average is “not considered suitable for residential use” according to the Air Force, and yet over 2900 Vermont residences are found within this noise contour

Outside of my workplace in Burlington, I witnessed a Bosnian woman falling to the ground during a flyover of the F-16s, hysterical with fear that she was being bombed after having survived such bombing. This kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is particularly common among veteran and refugee populations. In addition to re-traumatizing people living with such experience and resultant PTSD, studies show that this level of noise pollution adversely affects childrens’ ability to learn, causes elevated rates of stroke and heart attack, and causes hearing loss. Eberhard Greiser, an emeritus professor of epidemiology at Bremen University, states that in a study commissioned by Bonn authorities, it was found that women living near the Cologne-Bonn Airport had an increased risk of developing breast cancer and leukemia. (1, 2, 3. 4) These weapons systems also burn more fuel, and release benzene among other toxins that are known carcinogens.

The Washington Post in a 6/5/07 article describes how a study on children near the Munich airport bore out the claim that children suffer from extreme noise. Students living near the airport scored lower on tests of memory and reading than children in the neighborhoods where the airport was slated to move. However, the children living near the new airport saw a decline in scores after the move, while the children that had initially scored lower living near the old airport site had improved scores. One reaction students had to the noise was a type of “learned helplessness” where students just gave up problem-solving when subjected to loud noise.

Elevated levels of cortisol and adrenaline were also measured in groups of children living near the working Munich airports, which could account for these differences. The resulting increase in blood pressure puts these children at a higher risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack later in life. Other studies have shown the resultant immune suppression caused by elevated levels of stress hormones inhibits healing, and even discourages a tendency most people have of generosity towards others. (5)

These bombers are designed for first strike and offensive as well as defensive missions, and indeed qualify as “stealth” weapons systems. They can carry 18,000 lbs of bombs to initiate attacks on countries thousands of miles away, and are equipped, according to the Air Force’s own advertisement, to have the ability to reduce the people in targeted countries to “hair, teeth, and eyeballs”. Despite these targets not being Vermonters, I would assume that a concern for public health would include all people

While the F-35 may be acceptable for other large military bases far from residential neighborhoods (barring moral arguments), 115 decibels is a grossly unacceptable level of loudness at a commercial airport surrounded by residential communities. Retired Colonel Roseanne Greco spoke to an Air Force personnel who said that the Burlington base was given 10 out of 10 points when evaluating the placement, 6 points of which were given in error, as the fact that there are 6700 people residing in the encroachment area would have disqualified us for these very health reasons. These health effects will have a disproportionate impact on low-income people.

While several of our elected leaders state that noise mitigation will be exercised by VTANG, the DEIS mentions that there are no plans by the Air Force, VTANG, or the airport to mitigate the noise impacts of the F-35, and the FAA further states that no noise mitigation methods actually work.
Safety is another health-related issue raised by Colonel Greco among others: “Safety projections for the F-35A are based on the F-22A, which was operationally deployed in 2002. However the F-22 is now experiencing significant safety issues, so much so that Air National Guard pilots are refusing to fly them. Moreover, new aircraft normally have more crashes than mature aircraft. And crashes are more prone to happen on take-offs and landings.” The DEIS states that projected “Class A Mishaps” (the crash rate) during years 2 -5 is 11 times higher than those of the current F-16 (BR4-46 and BR4-47). If the planes are ever loaded with nuclear payloads or depleted uranium, accidents could cause a deplorable level of damage here at home, and I will argue that they cause a reprehensible effect anywhere they are deployed.

Another important safety issue that proponents are perversely silent about is the fact of the greater Burlington area remaining or becoming a terrorist target; this is obviously not conducive to people’s health or wellness.

South Burlington’s school board (7) and city council have already rejected the local basing of these bombers, as has the Winooski school board. As the Board of Health is charged with some statutory responsibility for the “prevention, removal or destruction of public health hazards and the mitigation of public health risks”, and as you as Health Commissioner can authorize an investigation of this issue, I would like to request that you do so on behalf of all Vermont residents.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this issue as part of your duty to the public health.

Sincerely,

*Name Redacted*

Burlington VT 05401

Citations:

1) Findings of a study on airport noise and health commissioned by the German Federal Environmental Agency analyzing data from more than 1 million people: http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/fpdf-l/3153.pdf

and

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1947782,00.html

2) WHO “The Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise”

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/136466/e94888.pdf

3) International Journal of Epidemiology

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/839.full

4) University of Oregon Study

http://kungfu.psy.cmu.edu/~scohen/kidnoise80.pdf

5) www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060401430_pf.html

6) www.time.com/time/specials/packages/printout/0,29239,1929071_1929070_1947782,00.html
7) South Burlington School Board’s Statement:

http://sbsd.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/483095/File/School%20Board/F-35%20Info/F35_board_info.pdf

Additional:

CCTV footage of South Burlington’s City Council rejecting the F-35 can be viewed here: http://www.stopthef35.com/node/93

Note: Whether you agree with the premise of the website’s title or not, all citations, including a link to the DEIS, can be found by visiting www.stopthef35.com and the link that can be found there to Juliet Buck’s blog, which documents numerous studies, many of which are published by the Air Force itself, as well as the Department of Defense, etc.

This letter forwarded to us by a coalition member.

The US Air Force seems to be paying attention to our efforts. We just wanted to send a big shout out to them and encourage them to keep coming back: we’re here to stay and we’re not going away!

The Air Force is one of our most loyal site visitors: 65 visits in the past month with an average visit time of 6 minutes per visit! See a bit of our Google analytics report below documenting this.

Thanks for the love folks.

The new deputy head of the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program said his office’s relationship with plane manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) is “the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Air Force Major General Christopher Bogdan, on the job five weeks as deputy program executive officer, fired an unusual public salvo at the world’s largest defense contractor for what he described as a poor partnership in managing the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program.

“We will not succeed on this program until we get past that,” Bogdan said in a discussion on the F-35 at the annual conference of the Air Force Association, a nonprofit civilian organization that promotes aerospace education. “We have to find a better place to be in this relationship. We have to.”

See the full story at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-17/air-force-official-slams-lockheed-martin-on-f-35-program.html

The latest high-level Pentagon review of the trillion-dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program did not go well for the Lockheed Martin-built JSF. But don’t tell the Air Force that. The flying branch is racing ahead with its own JSF training and evaluation, regardless of the Defense Department’s hang-ups.

Last week’s Defense Acquisition Board review by senior Pentagon officials was meant to approve a comprehensive plan for completing the stealthy jet’s more than decade-long test effort, but in a “very painful” four hours, the officials could not agree on the plan, Reuters reported.

Check out the full story at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/air-force-preps-f-35/

Whether the F-35 comes to Tucson remains to be seen but make no mistake, Washington, D.C., the Air Force and the Department of Defense are watching. Right now, they see a community that does not support the Air Force’s mission.

Thanks to Tucson Forward, a small but vocal group, Washington’s decision-makers believe Tucson no longer values the missions of the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

See the whole story at http://www.insidetucsonbusiness.com/opinion/columnists/guest_opinion/small-vocal-tucson-forward-misrepresents-tucson-on-f/article_dc794be0-fdfb-11e1-9d87-001a4bcf887a.html

Check out http://tucsonforward.com/ for more against the Tuscon F35 Fight. Peter, Pat and Bernie: we’re not the only sensible ones. Not every community wants the F35s and Burlington is the LAST PLACE they make sense.

F-35 opponents turned out to the Bernie Sanders Labor Day Picnic in Burlington. The Coalition distributed informational leaflets to over 200 people. Picnic attendees were overwhelmingly eager to learn more about the issue.

(See some of the great placards below.) Unfortunately Senator Sanders continues to dismiss those opposed to the basing by saying that he doesn’t need their votes anyway, and he still refuses to even meet with some of the over 6,000 people who live in the area that will be “incompatible” with residential use if the F-35 is based in Burlington. We believe meeting with us would be very helpful since he clearly doesn’t understand what the effects of the F-35 will be on residents, schools, and neighborhoods, and he continues to repeat unsubstantiated claims about jobs losses if the F-35 doesn’t come to Vermont.

Senator Pat Leahy, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman Peter Welch, and Governor Peter Shumlin (the politicians with the power to stop the basing in Burlington) will all be attending.
Come tell them all, “Stop the F-35! Support and do not destroy neighboring communities.”

When: Thursday, July 19, 5:30 pm (we will be gathering between 5:00 and 5:30)
Where: Ethan Allen Homestead Pavilion, Burlington, VT MAP

Join the Stop the F-35! coalition in protesting some of the biggest supporters of the harmful and wasteful weapons system that has been called, “the plane that ate the Pentagon.”

The Democrats Cheerleading the F-35 Attack Bomber Don’t Deserve Our Money

We will hand each Democratic leader a large check for a negative 700 million dollars for the value of property in Winooski put at risk if they continue their support for putting Winooski in the flight path of the F-35 bomber in violation of the Air Force’s own basing criteria.

We will tell them that we will hold each of them personally responsible for the the hearing loss, the stress, the property loss, including the affordable housing, the educational program loss to children, and the loss to businesses in downtown Winooski.

We think it is wrong for Vermont Democratic leaders to place their political careers (wedded to advancing military interests in Vermont) ahead of impacted communities.

We think it is wrong for them to give lip service to the devastating environmental impacts of the F-35 bomber and then sacrifice schools, health, communities, and property values just the same. The Democrats want our money to run for office when they are promoting $1.45 trillion (Pentagon estimate) for an unneeded, incredibly destructive F-35 attack bomber–while our infrastructure is crumbling and while we desperately need sustainable jobs programs.

We don’t agree that the Democratic Party leaders can simply stand behind the rhetoric of F-35 = jobs, while attempting to hide from the real and significant impacts of the F-35 basing in Burlington.

No official in the Air Force ever said:

· the Burlington Air Guard Station will close if Burlington does not get the F-35

· the Vermont National Guard will lose a single job if it does not get the F-35

· no other vital missions are available

Those arguments have no basis in fact and are pure scare tactics.

Vermonters all know very well that with the increasing floods we need the Vermont National Guard to be equipped to save lives here in Vermont and around New England. The F-35 bomber has no place in such a vital mission and the enormous cost for this buying and operating this plane detracts from the VTANG service we desperately need. Ironically, the massive amount of fuel the plane burns contributes to the global warming problem that causes the flooding.

Pork and Hypocrisy

Noting how hypocritical the Congressional delegation is (claiming to be anti-war and against wasteful spending while cheerleading for the F-35 attack bomber) Garrison Nelson, UVM Political Science professor, commented “Pork is pork…[t}he only way they can spin it is by talking about jobs – high-paying government jobs. Otherwise it’s just pork.” http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/95003/for-vt-delegation-little-political-risk-in-defendi/

We demand that our Congressional delegation and our Governor reconsider their position supporting basing the F-35 in Burlington–tell the Air Force, “No F-35 for Burlington.” Tell the Air Force and Vermont Air National Guard to find a mission compatible with the residential neighborhoods surrounding the Burlington International Airport.

Sponsored by the Stop the F-35 Coalition.

After reading the scoring sheet and the accompanying background paper, and speaking with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the AF (Installations), I’ve come away with new reservations—this time about the process.

I’ve maintained mistakes were made in scoring the Burlington Air Guard Station (AGS), which led to Burlington being selected as the preferred base for the F-35A multi-role fighter aircraft. But I had no reason to doubt the process. However, I now conclude that BOTH the scoring data AND the scoring process are flawed. And after reading some public comments, I think the two major arguments in favor of basing–economics and support of our military–are also flawed.

Scoring Flaw
The scoring sheet shows the mistake. In simple terms, the questions asked are whether there are any homes in the accident and noise areas. The answer given is ‘no.’ But, there are thousands of homes there. Look at the questions, look at the answers, and then look around the airport area. Without a doubt that question was answered incorrectly, and Burlington received more points than it should have. We need the scoring sheets for the other Air Guard bases considered, to see that Burlington was not the top candidate. Unfortunately, the AF will not release that data to us without a freedom of information act request.

Process Flaw
It was during my conversation with Secretary Ferguson, that I learned of process flaws. The AF evaluated a base’s suitability for the F-35A in four categories: cost, mission, capacity, and environment. The first category (cost) seemed to be straightforward, as it reflected the cost-of-living in the area. The next two categories (mission and capacity) evaluated whether the base could accommodate the F-35A. It asked whether the airspace and weather in the area would be suitable for the F-35A mission. It asked whether the runway length could accommodate the F-35A. It asked whether the base facilities (maintenance bays, munitions storage and other infrastructure) could accommodate the F-35A.

However, the questions asked in the environmental category were not related to the F-35A. They were related to the existing F-16. The questions were not whether there would be homes and other structures in the accident and noise areas for the F-35A; but whether there are existing homes and structures in the accident and noise areas for the F-16. Of course, the answer to that question is ‘YES’ (see above). The process the AF followed in this scoring is mind-boggling. For two categories (mission and capacity), they evaluated the base’s suitability for the future aircraft–the F-35A; but for one category (environment) they evaluated the base’s suitability for the existing aircraft—the F-16.

Argument Flaws
Most of the economic impact arguments made in support of basing the F-35A center around the AGS closing. The implied assumption is that if Burlington is not selected now for the F-35A that the AGS will close. No official has ever said that. This basing process is only the first of several rounds for selecting bases for the F-35A. Burlington could likely be selected in a subsequent round. It’s not a “now or never” proposition. But, even were Burlington not selected to base the F-35A in the future, that does not mean the Burlington AGS will close. Despite F-16 retirement predictions, military aircraft often fly years (sometimes decades) beyond their expected lifespan. But even when the F-16 eventually stops flying, that does not mean the AGS will close. The Guard would likely get another mission. As world threat conditions change, military missions change, and bases get new missions.

Others say that supporting the F-35A shows our patriotism and support for the military. I disagree. Giving the Guard an outlandishly-priced weapon system is not the way to show our appreciation. Giving them pay raises, increasing their benefits, insuring they receive adequate health care, insuring their retirement benefits are not reduced, and above all, trying to keep them out of harm’s way are far better ways to support our military members.

We can show our support for the military by opposing the routine practice of paying for extravagant weapon systems by cutting military personnel benefits, salaries, and jobs. The AF routinely reduces the force (fires) military members in order to use this personnel money to pay for weapons. Supporting the F-35A will make senior defense industry executives richer and the average military member poorer.

With all of the above flaws, and the many unanswered questions, many hope it would prompt our Congressional delegates to re-consider their position on F-35A basing. But at a minimum, I respectfully urge them to at least call for a temporary hold on any decision until the scores and the process are reviewed more thoroughly. Without this detailed examination, doubts will forever linger.

Colonel Rosanne M. Greco, USAF, (ret)
South Burlington, VT
8 July 2012

Check out the new Stop the F35 Facebook page recently put up by die hard Stop the F35 volunteers. Connect on Facebook, like us, help spread the word. We have had some recent victories, but we still have work to do. Thanks for your support.

I am writing to you to express my concerns about basing F-35′s in the Burlington area.

First of all I’d like to call your attention to the front page article in the June 27, 2012 Burlington Free Press, “Grave Mistakes Made in Choosing Burlington” http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120626/NEWS02/306270004/Councilor-Grave-mistakes-ranking-Burlington-F-35?

I think you should investigate thoroughly both the data and the scoring model used by the Air Force in determining that the Burlington area is a “preferred alternative” for hosting F-35’s. It’s been clear to me after deciphering the Air Force’s own Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that local basing of the F-35’s is a disaster both for my community of Winooski and the value of the home I own. So it’s hardly a shock to me that “mistakes” might have been.

Second, I’d like to call your attention to the June 25 front page article in the Burlington Free Press “Life in the ‘Dead Zone.’” Since the boundary that includes homes inside the 65 dB DNL (not considered suitable for residential use) is expanded to include a good part of Winooski where I live, I am very much concerned that this article forecasts the fate of my community.  

Here is what Senator Sanders wrote to me in response to my concerns:

“I have serious concerns about maintaining and protecting the environment and quality of life for people living near the airport where the planes would be based, and believe it is essential to learn what steps will be taken to manage noise pollution and environmental issues, should Vermont be chosen to deploy the F-35s.”

With all due respect this is like trying to reason with the fox once the fox is in the hen house.  What if Senator Sanders finds out that NO “steps will or can be taken to manage noise pollution…..”?  Then what? We deserve better.

To be a bit crass about it, here’s what I hear from Vermont politicians about the local basing of F-35′s:  ”It’s military pork!  It’s free money!  It’s all good!  Trust us!”

I have progressive leanings, and I have supported progressive candidates with time, money, and energy in the last several election cycles.  One might think that, since I live in Vermont, I could devote my efforts to supporting as many progressive candidates and issues as I could.  However, the progressive politicians in Vermont, whom I have supported in the past, are now making it difficult for me.  This is the issue:  All of the significant Vermont politicians – Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, Congressman Peter Welch, and Governor Peter Shumlin among others are supporting the basing of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in the Burlington. A total of 2944 homes would be in this noise area including my home in Winooski, Vermont.  In general the local basing of F-35′s would be devastating to communities near the airport.

The Vermont politicians are acting like teenage girls excited about a cute guy in their excitement over the possibility of getting this military pork.  They have been uncritical of the potential damage to communities like mine.  Furthermore they have been uncritical of the F-35 itself.  Winslow Wheeler wrote an article in the magazine Foreign Policy entitled “The Jet That Ate the Pentagon” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/26/the_jet_that_ate_the_pentagon From the article:  ”The current appraisal for operations and support is $1.1 trillion – making for a grand total of $1.5 trillion, or more than the annual GDP of Spain.  And that estimate is wildly optimistic:  It assumes the F-35 will only be 42% more expensive to operate than an F-16, but the F-35 is much more complex.” So this is the kind of spending our “progressive” Vermont politicians favor?

I bring this up because there’s a part of me that wants to support Obama and progressive candidates.  But I can’t.  I’m spending all my time fighting the basing of the F-35 in Vermont.  More generally I imagine there are many like me who in this election cycle have been distracted from supporting progressive candidates by politicians who have made “expedient” choices or in some cases have been outright sellouts.

Here’s a map of where I live.  Note that I will be in the zone “not considered suitable for residential use.”

http://www.stopthef35.com/map

Igor Zbitnoff, Winooski

The Vermont Guard Commander, General Dubie, held a brief press conference last week to defend the basing the F-35 bombers. “Vermont Guard commander defends basing of F-35s” While attempting to downplay noise impacts, and to seemingly cast doubt on the validity of the Air Force’s own draft Environmental Impact Statement, the General offered no actual data to back up his claims and assurances.

General Dubie’s remarks quoted in the Free Press article appear to be targeting those speaking out against the F-35. But it is the Air Force draft EIS that provides the information that shows that the F-35 is four times louder than the F-16. While the F-35 may be acceptable for the other choices that are large military bases far from residential neighborhoods, 115 decibels is a grossly unacceptable increase in loudness over the very loud 94 decibel baseline for the F-16 at a commercial airport surrounded by residential communities. Particularly where affordable houses are at risk this is entirely unacceptable.

Although F-16 noise is quite high, the Air Force draft EIS shows the present-day 24-hour average 65 dB contour from F-16 noise barely skirts edges of Winooski and Burlingtonwhile the F-35 will put half of Winooski’s houses and Burlington houses along Calarco, Chase,Rumsey, Barrett, Mill, Grove, and Patchen roads, and along portions of Pearl and Riverside,within that incompatible-with-residential-living contour.

The table on page BR4-18 of the Air Force draft EIS shows that the peak noise level for the F-16 is 94 dBA and for the F-35 it is 115 dBA–a difference of 21 dBA–when each plane takes off and reaches 1000 feet above ground level.

The Air Force draft EIS on pages C6 and C9 shows that people hear the 21 dB difference between the F-16 and the F-35 as more than four times louder. According to a table on page C8 of the Air Force draft EIS, the difference in sound levels between the F-16 and the F-35 can be illustrated by the difference between the sound under an F-16 flying at a height of well over 2000 feet and the same F-16 flying at a height of just under 500 feet above ground level.

A final question is what effect the noise increase will have on property values. The Air Force draft EIS reports that studies conclude “that decreases in property values usually range from 0.5 to 2 percent per dB increase in cumulative noise exposure;” According to the numbers in the Air Force draft EIS the decrease in property values for houses experiencing the 21 dB increase in loudness is likely to be in the range from 11% to 42%.

Dear Peter,
The only argument you raise for supporting basing the F-35 in South Burlington is economic.

However, the issue on the table right now is the environmental impact of the basing the F-35 in South Burlington. I notice that nothing in your response disputes the facts about the devastating impact on South Burlington, Winooski, and Williston and part of Burlington and Colchester that are specified in the Air Force’s own Environmental Impact Statement. Surely these devastating impacts will be felt economically as well as environmentally. Already over 100 houses have been razed in South Burlington. The F-35 will cause 1300 houses, as well as businesses, churches, and schools to fall in the same noise range or a greater noise range that condemned those homes. Is there no economic loss involved?

Furthermore, your economic assessment assumes that the base will close if the F-35 is not based in South Burlington. However, one of the highest ranking military officers in the state of Vermont, retired Col. Rosanne Greco, believes that another mission will be found for the Guard in the absence of the F-35. If another mission is found the numbers you site will remain in place for Vermont. Do you believe Vermonters must put our towns and communities at certain risk based on a speculation of economic damage?

We do not have a full economic assessment of the environmental damage on those communities. Could the economic damage to the communities outweigh any economic benefit? Has anyone done that study? If not, it is premature to draw any conclusions about economic benefit.

Your remarks about the economic benefit not only divert from the issue currently on the table–the environmental impact– they also do not give justice to the full economic impact including the sharp economic negatives to five communities.

I am shocked and dismayed that you would divert from the issue now before us–environmental impact–and substitute speculation about economic benefits that does not include the economic costs to South Burlington, Winooski, Williston, Burlington, and Colchester along with economic benefits to members of the National Guard.

A redo of your consideration of this issue and your response to me and to the public is needed on this critical issue. Before the June 20 deadline for comments on the Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Air Force.

Thanks very much for considering this.
best regards,
James

On 6/1/2012 1:37 PM, Governor Peter Shumlin wrote:
>
> Dear James,
>
>
>
> Thank you for your message concerning the F-35A operational basing proposal for Chittenden County. I know that this is an issue that has drawn strong feelings among both supporters and opponents, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me.
>
> As you know, I support this proposal. I believe that basing the F-35A in our state would create jobs, spur economic growth, and increase investment opportunities for Vermont businesses. The Vermont Air National Guard has proudly operated in the state for 66 years, bringing with it 1100 employees and an annual payroll of $53 million. These hardworking Guard members are an integral part of our communities, and contribute to the vitality of Vermont in countless ways.
>
> I know there are some concerns about noise and other potential drawbacks of basing the F-35A in South Burlington that are being discussed in the surrounding communities. Though I feel that these drawbacks are outweighed by the extraordinary benefits that this opportunity presents our communities and our state, I do appreciate those concerns. Having listened closely to all sides of this issue, I have concluded that basing the F-35A in Vermont is good for the local community, beneficial to Vermont, and a wise investment in our bright jobs future.
>
> I appreciate hearing your perspective, and regret that this is an issue on which we disagree. Please don’t hesitate to contact my office in the future if I can be of any further assistance.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
>
> Peter Shumlin
> Governor
> 109 State Street, Pavilion
> Montpelier, Vermont 05609
> 802-828-3333

From http://www.tedauch.com/

So President Obama released his much anticipated budget today and I took a couple of minutes to analyze the numbers to find the winners and losers. The results will surprise those on the right and left alike (See Figure Below).

The big winners are:

1. the Natural Resource Conservation Service with respective 2011-2012 and 2010-2012 budget increases of 123% and 167%.

2. the Department of Energy with a 2010-2012 increase of 134%.

3. the Department of Transportation with 2011-2012 and 2010-2012 increases of 113% and 115%

4. a recipient near and dear to natural/environmental scientists hearts the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a 2010-2012 of 118%.

True many of these recipients could be considered liberal or dare I say the word “scientific” causes, but the fact is that there are many progressive recipients on The Big Losers list below.

The Big Losers:

1. Well we have to start with the undisputed biggest loser of them all and one you would think would be in the previous category given how often Obama, Democrats, and Republicans talk about the importance of small-business creation. The Small Business Administration is going to be 20% of what it was in 2010 in the following 2 years if Obama gets his way. This will be an interesting pivot point around which we will see whether conservatives who say Obama is anti-business fight him OR whether the small businesses of America call Obama’s bluff and the Republicans if they jump in bed with him on this one invoking his recent placating speech at Tom Donahue’s Chamber of Commerce. This country is clearly decoupling both at home and in the workplace with Too Big To Fail Military contractors, Banks, and Agribusiness clearly in the driver seat not just with Republicans but with Democrats as well. What a shame.

2. OH and then there is military family housing, which one would assume everyone would want to increase with the patriotic rheotirc booming out of MSNBC and Fox News equally. I thought we valued our warriors and their sacrifice? Guess not because military family housing is set to shrink by 25% 2010-2012.

3. Education and who – like military family housing – could argue with education? Apparently an Obama administration that has found it’s Reaganomics Religion all of a sudden. Education will be slashed by 11% and 24% between 2011-2012 and 2010-2012, respectively.

4. Finally, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will be slashed by 31% between 2010-2012.

SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS BLOG? The point is that Obama has shown he is hardly a socialist, fascist, liberal/progressive populist and that with respect to the SBA we will see whether all those jokers on Capitol Hill really do care about small businesses because if the Obama administration gets it’s way the SBA will be hacked to a fifth of it’s size today.

NOW if only we could get the Pentagon to incur more than the 2011-2012 4% decline only to rise like a Phoenix the following year giving it a 2010-2012 6% increase.

If we don’t address the retirement age, tort reform, the military industrial complex leviathan, and things like Bureau of Land Management gifts to the coal/natural gas industry via infinitesimal land rents we are not being serious. Hacking away as the Republicans and Democrats are at discretionary spending, which depending on the year ranges from 10-12% of the federal budget means that honesty is in short supply in DC and that faith is winning out over rationality. What a sham I mean shame!

By JOE NOCERA
At the Cowen & Company military industry investment conference on Wednesday, the breakfast speaker was a man named Ashton B. Carter. A former academic and industry consultant, Dr. Carter, as he likes to call himself — he has a doctorate in theoretical physics, in case you were wondering — is the Defense Department’s under secretary for acquisitions, technology and logistics. That is, he’s the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer.

This article from the NY Times. Original at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/business/12nocera.html.

Cowen is a small firm, but its military analyst, Cai von Rumohr, has been on the beat for more than 40 years. Companies tend not to turn him down when he invites them to his conference. W. James McNerney Jr., the chief executive of Boeing, would be making a presentation later in the day, as would executives from Northrop-Grumman and other contractors. Big institutional investors like T. Rowe Price were out in force.

As was the Defense Department. In addition to Mr. Carter, a top Naval official was scheduled to present the next afternoon.

If you’re wondering what high-ranking Pentagon officials were doing at an investment conference, well, suffice to say that this was not a question on the minds of the people in this room. They’ve gotten used to it. For the last few months, beginning with a secret meeting last October, Defense Department officials have been making the rounds of analysts and investors.

Their main message, to put it bluntly, is that even in an era of tighter budgets, the Pentagon is going to make sure the military industry remains profitable. “Taxpayers and shareholders are aligned,” Mr. Carter intoned on Wednesday. Then he laid out a series of reforms that he said would both increase competition and maintain, as he put it, “profitability over the long term” — a phrase he repeated for emphasis.

He told the assemblage that the Pentagon would frown on mergers among the five giant military contractors — the so-called primes: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop-Grumman and Boeing. However, he added, the Defense Department was going to encourage mergers among smaller military contractors. And, he said, “we will be attentive” to innovative smaller companies that provide services (as opposed to weapons systems) to the Pentagon.

If you were an investor in the military industry, would you find this useful information? You bet — this is the stuff that can move markets. Although Mr. Carter made several references to “market forces,” the only market for the military industry is the government, which spends some $400 billion a year on weapons systems and other purchases. In economic terms, the Pentagon is a “ monopsony,” a single buyer with life-or-death power over its vendors. If the Pentagon wants the military industry to be healthy and profitable, it can pretty much ensure that outcome.

Not being an industry insider, however, I found myself a little taken aback by Mr. Carter’s “guidance.” Monopsony or not, why should the Pentagon be talking up the stocks, even implicitly, of the companies it buys from? Why was Mr. Carter going out of his way to talk to investors and analysts? Didn’t he have more important things to do?

The answer, I eventually learned, has to do with something that happened a very long time ago, and goes under the category of “Be careful what you wish for.” Let’s just say that banking isn’t the only industry where the government has allowed a handful of companies to become too big to fail.

•

The year was 1993. Bill Clinton was the new president, and Les Aspin was his defense secretary. As recounted later by Norman R. Augustine, then the chief executive of Martin Marietta, Mr. Aspin called together about 15 C.E.O.’s of the prime military contractors for a dinner at the Pentagon. Mr. Augustine would memorably label this dinner the Last Supper.

Mr. Aspin and several other high-ranking Pentagon officials (including Mr. Carter, who was then an assistant secretary of defense) had brought the group together to send a tough message. With the Berlin Wall gone, the Soviet Union dissolved — and the Pentagon budget flat-lining — the Defense Department was no longer willing, as Mr. Augustine later recounted, “to pay the ballooning overhead” of all those contractors. In no uncertain terms, Mr. Aspin told the group that they needed to start merging.

“The rest is history,” Mr. Augustine later wrote. “General Electric Aerospace merged with Martin Marietta, which combined with Lockheed. McDonnell Douglas joined Boeing. Grumman joined Northrop. When the dust had cleared, there were only a few firms left standing.” Five, to be exact.

The Last Supper has become part of the lore of the military industry — though partly that’s because Mr. Aspin’s prediction about tighter Pentagon budgets turned out to be so wrong. “On the day George W. Bush took office,” said Loren B. Thompson, a well-known military consultant, “defense spending was around $300 billion.” Today it is more than double that amount, around $700 billion. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — not to mention the Pentagon’s voracious appetite for expensive weapons systems, and the lack of competition among the remaining contractors — have been a gold mine for the Big Five.

Not surprisingly, for most of the first decade of the 21st century, the stocks of these companies soared. But after peaking in 2008, they came crashing back to earth. Which, for the Pentagon, has turned out to be a problem. These companies need access to the capital markets, which is more difficult when their stocks are down. And the Pentagon simply can’t allow them get into serious financial difficulty; there are just too few of them. “What we can’t afford from the defense perspective is a sick industry,” said Jacques S. Gansler, a former procurement official for the Pentagon who teaches at the University of Maryland.

There is another problem, too. Having reached that $700 billion mark — which amounts to about half the discretionary spending in the entire budget — there is simply no way military spending is going to keep growing the way it has, not in these difficult economic times. (When the defense budget is released on Monday, it is expected to increase only slightly.) Recognizing that leaner times lay ahead, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made a speech last May acknowledging that Pentagon budgets were unlikely to rise substantially any time soon, and laid out a plan to create new efficiencies and increased competition among the companies.

Since then, several weapons systems have been canceled. Others are in jeopardy. Military contractors have been told that they have to become more efficient. New military contracts will try to impose some financial risk for the companies — so if there are huge cost overruns, the companies will have to absorb some of the pain. (On the other hand, companies are going to be allowed to pocket 50 percent of any savings they produce.)

Is it any wonder that the stocks dropped so precipitously, and that investors are nervous? Mr. Carter notwithstanding, taxpayers and shareholders are decidedly not in alignment: the tougher the Pentagon gets with its contractors, the better it is for taxpayers and the worse it is for shareholders. And yet it can’t get too tough, because if it is, the companies will start running into financial trouble, which means the stocks will sink even further and the companies will start to have trouble raising capital. This is the bind created by the Last Supper.

Now can you see why the Pentagon has taken to talking up the industry to the investment community? With one side of its mouth, the Pentagon is saying it is going to be more tough-minded in its approach to military contractors than ever before. But with the other side of its mouth, it is telling investors not to worry: the profits will be there, no matter what. Partly, this is political posturing; the Pentagon worries that the contractors and their allies in Congress will push back if the Defense Department doesn’t emphasize industry profit. Still, the Pentagon’s two-sided stance is not a terribly tenable position and requires much papering over. Hence Mr. Carter’s road show.

The sidling up to investors actually began last October, when the deputy defense secretary, William J. Lynn III, held a private meeting for about a dozen Wall Street analysts, laying out the Pentagon’s cost-cutting plans in astonishing detail. Indeed, according to Reuters, which uncovered the meeting, the analysts were sworn to secrecy. Although this would seem to violate, at the least, the spirit of transparency that Americans expect of market participants, notes of the meeting became public only after Reuters exposed it. (A military consultant named James McAleese published his notes on his Web site a few days after the Reuters story broke.)

Whatever the ethics of this meeting — and the Pentagon insists that nothing new was divulged during the session — it appears to have had an effect. If you look at the stock charts of the Big Five, you’ll see that they all started to rise around October. Imagine that.

In December, Mr. Carter and several other Pentagon officials attended a conference thrown by Credit Suisse and Aviation Week magazine. When I first spoke to Mr. McAleese, he casually mentioned that he had organized a private meeting for the Pentagon officials with institutional investors only. Then his cellphone went dead. Four days later, when I spoke to him again, he denied any such private meeting had taken place, and blamed his previous statement on the fact that “I hadn’t slept in three days.” (A Pentagon spokesman also denies a private meeting took place.)

Since then, the stocks have been booming. Maybe I’m putting too much emphasis on the Pentagon’s road show, but it is hard to imagine it’s had no effect at all.

Does the country need a healthy military industry? Of course. It also needs efficiently built weapons. But the Pentagon road show hardly seems like the right way to go about it. Mr. Carter and his minions might be better served taking steps to unwind some of the damage done by the Last Supper, perhaps by letting some of those midsize companies grow into prime contractors, or by taking steps to break up some of the modern behemoths.

But never mind. Next week, there’s an Aviation Week conference where Mr. Carter is supposed to speak. And there’s another conference a few weeks after that. I hear Mr. Carter will be there, too.

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.

The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The government’s goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.

Other democracies – Britain and Israel, to name two – are well acquainted with such domestic security measures. But for the United States, the sum of these new activities represents a new level of governmental scrutiny.

This localized intelligence apparatus is part of a larger Top Secret America created since the attacks. In July, The Washington Post described an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it.

Thanks to Ted Auch for the heads up on this great series.

See the full story and Washington Post series on Top Secret America at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/

December 1, 2010

NINE YEARS into the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and the end is…nowhere near in sight.

At this point, no one can possibly believe that the U.S. is committed to democracy or human rights or the liberation of women or any of the other justifications once put forward. The real reason the war drags on is as simple as it is ugly: Both the Democratic and Republican Parties are committed to maintaining a presence in Afghanistan, a vital strategic foothold in Central Asia for U.S. imperial aims in the future.

The Obama administration and its NATO allies are finally admitting publicly that the horrific war–now officially longer than even the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan of the 1980s–will keep going until at least 2014. And even that withdrawal date is in doubt.

But even if the war wasn’t a catastrophe for the U.S.–even if the indiscriminate raids and bombings of Afghan civilians weren’t further fueling the resistance to U.S. troops, and even if the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai wasn’t both corrupt and illegitimate–the U.S. wouldn’t be pulling out anytime soon.

That’s because the U.S. plan for Afghanistan is similar to its intentions in Iraq: the creation of a submissive client state backed up by a reduced but still powerful U.S. military presence. So far, the U.S. has only managed to prop up an incompetent and crooked stooge government run by Karzai. So Obama will continue with full-scale war and occupation for years to come.

Thus, at the recent NATO summit, the organization’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, affirmed that the beginning of a U.S./NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan would start in 2011, as promised. But the troops’ combat missions wouldn’t end until 2014–in theory, that is. As Obama noted at the NATO summit, whether all troops are out of Afghanistan by even 2014 is a determination he’ll make “when I get there.”

The promise of a new timeline for withdrawal is meant to pacify a U.S. and European public increasingly disillusioned with the war. But as Politico.com noted [2], the U.S. and NATO haven’t even figured out what provinces they can hand over to Afghan control next year, and whether to negotiate with the Taliban.

These shifting goalposts–from a war that the Bush administration claimed would take only a few months, to Obama’s promises of withdrawal by 2011 and now 2014–are further signs of the deepening quagmire. As antiwar author Tom Engelhardt noted [3]:

In July of this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke of 2014 as the date when Afghan security forces “will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country.”

Administration officials, anxious about the effect that 2011 date was having on an American public grown weary of an unpopular war and on an enemy waiting for us to depart, grabbed Karzai’s date and ran with it (leaving many of his caveats about the war the Americans were fighting, particularly his desire to reduce the American presence, in the dust). Now, 2014 is hyped as the new 2011.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

IF THE present course of the war is any indication, the U.S. won’t get its way in Afghanistan very quickly.

Calling the 2014 withdrawal target “false optimism,” Joshua Rovner, a professor at the Naval War College, told Politico.com that the plan for withdrawal “requires the belief that Afghanistan can quickly make the heroic leap from war and anarchy to stable and democratic governance. History suggests that this is wishful thinking.”

Disarray, ineptitude and rank thievery among the U.S.-backed government make handing security over by even 2014 unlikely. A year ago, Obama tried to fast-track the process by ordering a surge of 30,000 soldiers, bringing the total number of U.S. troops occupying the country to approximately 90,000. But increased raids and bombings are further inflaming civilian sentiment against the U.S.–and are one of the best recruitment tools for the Taliban.

At the NATO summit, however, Obama sounded ludicrously optimistic, claiming, “You have fewer areas of Afghanistan under Taliban control. You have the Taliban on the defensive in a number of areas that were their strongholds. We have met or exceeded our targets in terms of recruitment of Afghan security forces. And our assessments are that the performance of Afghan security forces has improved significantly.”

But as The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill noted [4], the reality on the ground is different:

Despite increased Special Operations Forces raids and, under Gen. David Petraeus, a return to regular U.S.-led airstrikes, the insurgency in Afghanistan is spreading and growing stronger. “By killing Taliban leaders the war will not come to an end,” said the Taliban’s former foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, in an interview at his home in Kabul. “On the contrary, things get worse, which will give birth to more leaders.”

Obama’s promise that the U.S. is making progress in Afghanistan rings as hollow as promises made by Lyndon Johnson that the U.S. was on its way to winning the war in Vietnam.

And just as in Vietnam, dropping more bombs and killing more civilians will do nothing to win civilian “hearts and minds,” drive back the Taliban or stabilize the U.S.-installed government.

In fact, a recent report by the International Council on Security and Development [5] found that 92 percent of Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar provinces–two Taliban strongholds–were completely unaware of the September 11 attacks.

In other words, the U.S. is bombing people who have no idea why they’ve been bombed for the past nine years. They don’t hate us for our “freedoms”–as has been claimed over and over–they hate us because we’re killing them and their families.

Another sign of the failures of the U.S. and NATO came in late November when it was revealed that the U.S. had given large amounts of cash to a “Taliban leader” who turned out to be an imposter. The discovery not only shows how shoddy U.S. intelligence is, but it also casts serious doubt on U.S. claims that increased night raids and air strikes are indeed bringing the Taliban to its knees. Rather, the U.S. is mainly slaughtering civilians.

As Matthew Hoh, a former senior State Department official in Afghanistan who resigned in 2009 in protest of U.S. war strategy, explained to Jeremy Scahill [6], when it comes to the U.S. strategy of raiding Afghan villages at night, “We might get that one guy we’re looking for, or we might kill a bunch of innocent people and now make 10 more Taliban out of them.”

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

DESPITE THESE continuing fiascos, you won’t find politicians of either party calling for an end to the war.

Keeping the war machine going in Afghanistan remains one of the few things that Republicans and Democrats can agree on–because a U.S. presence in Afghanistan, whether through military occupation or a compliant U.S.-backed government, is key to maintaining its power in Central Asia. In fact, if anything, Republicans want more troops in Afghanistan and no timetable for withdrawal.

Public opinion disagrees. According to a new Gallup poll [7], 54 percent of Americans say that things are going badly for the United States in the war, and 49 percent disapprove of the way Obama is handling the war. Twenty percent would have the U.S. withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and 38 percent said the troops should come home sooner.

It’s no wonder why. According to the Congressional Research Service, even before the troop surge was implemented, the U.S. was spending $3.6 billion a month in Afghanistan. With millions of Americans out of work and the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression continuing to loom over American families, the war is sucking away billions of dollars each month that could be used to fund schools, unemployment benefits, jobs programs and more–all to kill and oppress the Afghan people and further U.S. imperial aims.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [8] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.

1. [1] http://socialistworker.org/department/Opinion/Editorials
2. [2] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45446.html
3. [3] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175324/tomgram:_engelhardt,_general_petraeus
4. [4] http://www.thenation.com/blog/156601/americas-failed-war-attrition-afghanistan
5. [5] http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/20
6. [6] http://www.thenation.com/blog/156601/americas-failed-war-attrition-afghanistan
7. [7] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/11/29/Poll-More-optimism-over-Afghan-war/UPI-33831291043362/
8. [8] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

see original post at http://socialistworker.org/2010/12/01/obama-and-endless-war

So I have been working some calculations trying to get at how much general education revenue could be conceivably generated if we taxed what I will broadly call “war games”, which include at this point “Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3 & X360)”, “Halo: Reach (X360)”, and “God of War III/God of War Collection (PS3). All of these are top sellers for Activision (Call of Duty), Microsoft (Halo), and Sony Computers (God of War). Their average annual revenues are in toto $1.23 billion with “Halo” at $686 million leading the way and “God of War Collection” bringing up the rear at $29 million annually (Fig. WarGamesTax_2). Not a bad profit margin don’t you think?

(click to enlarge)

More importantly I was thinking that if there are so many people with the bravado to fight wars via their video consoles they wouldn’t have a problem paying a heavy tax on those games, which could be used to fund educational programs throughout the country. So I went about trying to gather up as much high-quality data as I could get on dollar sales, weekly units, and in order to come up with a progressive “War Games Tax” I used iCasualties data on a per 100,000 person basis across all fifty states+Washington, DC (no US territories due to high concentration of troops stationed there). I then used the per capita data – with Vermont being the highest (2.568) and Utah the lowest (0.486 per 100,000) – summed those values and converted them into percentages. I then multiplied the $1.23 billion figure across tax rates of 35%, 25%, 10%, and 5%, with the per 100,000 percentage conversions used to multiply across tax rate scenarios. If you do that the numbers are pretty staggering.

Let’s just focus on Vermont for a second as a teaser for what we could extract from this pseudo-war profiteering that doesn’t get nearly the coverage that the explicit profiteers do. Vermont would be able to rely on an annual tax revenue of (Fig. WarGamesTax):

click to enlarge

1. 22.4 million at 35%, 14.9% of FY 2011 budget deficit
2. 16.0 million at 20%, 10.7% of FY 2011 budget deficit
3. 6.4 million at 10%, 4.3% of FY 2011 budget deficit
Or
4. 3.2 million at 5%, 2.1% of FY 2011 budget deficit

While none of these numbers is eye watering they are not trivial either, with the top rate accounting for nearly 15% of the FY 2011 budget deficit. This is not a progressive or regressive tax idea, rather it is an anti-predatory tax idea with the folks that so flippantly turn on their video consoles to play the latest virtual War On Terror paying the heaviest price. What is wrong with that? New England alone would generate:

1. 55.3 million at 35%, average of 3.5% of FY 2011 budget deficit
2. 39.5 million at 20%
3. 15.8 million at 10%
Or
4. 7.9 million at 5%

So as you can see this is not a panacea but is a step in the right direction AND unlike the much maligned soda-tax proposed by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson in NY I would argue that there should be less resistance to a tax that takes money from people that like to play video games about war but wouldn’t be caught dead signing up to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, etc etc and puts that money in to the educational infrastructure of this country. I would like to see someone rail against this idea in public with the lights and cameras on.

Burlington Free Press Editor:

The Burlington School Board should not follow the recommendations for budget cutting proposed by the Vermont Legislature’s Challenges for Change initiative–which, as reported by the Burlington Free Press(11/29/10), requires over $1 million in cuts next year for Burlington schools.

There is no real shortage of resources. The budget shortfalls are artificial and there is an agenda being played out to shrink the public sector and undermine public education. Vermont’s tax rate for the very wealthy has declined by 60% in the past 30 years. On the federal level there are untold trillions for wars and occupations and financial bailouts, with austerity for public assistance, workers, and students.

The Legislature should oppose these priorities, not endorse them. It should enact progressive taxes on the wealthy to begin to recover years of lost revenue. It should oppose basing the F-35 bomber at Burlington’s airport. The F-35 program will cost at least $500 billion, with each of the bombers costing some $150 million. That’s a lot of teacher salaries.

Last year the School Board made a terrible decision to cut the successful Kaleidescope non-tradition classroom program at Hunt Middle School. This is the kind of cuts that the political establishment wants school boards to make. Cut off those who need programs the most, while those with more means will be little effected. There is no shared sacrifice going on here. Send requirements to cut budgets back to Montpelier and Washington. Tax the rich and cut the Pentagon.

Paul Fleckenstein
Burlington

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Will Boise bring in the F-35s? See the buzz at

http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2010/04/05/did-you-get-your-f-35-post-card

How can we move our money from the Pentagon to our communities, fund the jobs and services we need?

On October 3 2010, some 26 peace, racial and economic justice organizations came together and founded a network to support the long-term organizing it will take. This video features short statements about challenges we’ll face: breaking down the silos between movements, building power at the grassroots, organizing for the long term, focusing on what matters to our neighbors, connecting the economic pain of today with the ‘justice economy’ that’s possible.

Check out the video at http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=23246.

See original post from Leahy’s Office at http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/october/msa-newport-garners-21-million-army-helmet-contracts?utm_source=VBM+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=2e0e7054c4-October_20_201010_20_2010&utm_medium=email.

Wed Oct 20 2010
Related Company:
MSA Gallet Helmets

During a tour of MSA’s (Mine Safety Appliances Company) Newport factory on Tuesday, US Senator Patrick Leahy announced three new orders, under competitively bid contracts totaling $21 million, for the Army’s Advanced Combat Helmets (ACH). Leahy visited the facility to meet again with employees and to see the new work being done by MSA after a slowdown following the expiration of $6.4 million in earlier contract work secured by Leahy in 2008 and 2009.

“It is truly gratifying to see MSA bounce back so strongly,” said Leahy, who, as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and of its Defense Subcommittee, has championed earlier investments in the firm.

Leahy visited with MSA workers coming off the line during an early afternoon shift change. After a tour of the factory to see the work done by the second shift, Leahy congratulated MSA’s employees for their work on the ACH. Referring to the 1300 Vermont Guard personnel currently deployed to Afghanistan, Leahy thanked employees for doing their part to keep their neighbors safe during a mission that has put them in harm’s way.

Leahy said, “I believe in this company and in the work that you all do for our troops. I’m sure their service is never far from your minds, and it makes your work as timely and as meaningful as it could be. These Vermont men and women — your neighbors and mine — depend on the high quality helmets you produce here at MSA Newport.”

“All of us at MSA, and in particular our associates in Newport, Vermont, appreciate the support Senator Leahy has shown over the years to not only our company, but more importantly to our fighting men and women in uniform,” said Joe Bigler, President, MSA North America. “Over the years Senator Leahy has been responsible for significant funding that has been critical to the development and production of advanced combat helmets used by our troops.”

In support of the Army’s need for helmets, MSA will assign some helmet production to Pennsylvania, though MSA Newport will still complete the majority of the ACH work orders.

Source: Leahy’s office. 10.20.2010

By Kitty Donaldson – Oct 19, 2010. See original online at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-18/u-k-said-to-cut-lockheed-f-35s-on-one-carrier-put-helicopters-on-another.html.

Prime Minister David Cameron will say today that the U.K. will order fewer, cheaper planes for one new aircraft carrier and station only helicopters on another to cut costs, two people familiar with the plans said.

Announcing the results of a defense review to lawmakers in London, Cameron will say one ship, HMS Prince of Wales, due to enter service in 2019, will be redesigned with a catapult and arrester-wire system, the people said. That will enable it to take carrier-variant Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, rather than a more expensive version that can take off over a shorter distance and land vertically.

“That gives us a whole new capability,” Defense Secretary Liam Fox told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” show. “The design of the carriers that we have would not have allowed the American navy to land on our carriers, nor the French navy. Interoperability with our allies seems to me a priority.”

Cameron called President Barack Obama yesterday to say the U.K. will “remain a first-rate military power and a robust ally of the United States,” the premier’s spokesman, Steve Field, told reporters in London today. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week they were concerned the spending squeeze might damage NATO.

Harriers Withdrawn

The first new carrier in service in 2016, HMS Queen Elizabeth, will carry no planes, only helicopters, and may be mothballed once the Prince of Wales begins operations. With existing Harrier jump jets being withdrawn, Britain will be left without the ability to launch carrier-based plane strikes for 10 years.

The people declined to say how many F-35s would be ordered instead of the 140 the previous Labour government said it hoped to buy. Fox said there were long periods in the past when Britain was unable to fly planes off carriers.

Cameron’s announcement will also set out details of cuts to other weapons programs to help tackle the record budget deficit and redefine military needs for the post-Cold War era. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will outline reductions in other ministries’ spending tomorrow.

The dispute over the military budget has been the most public within Cameron’s government, with Fox dubbing it a “soap opera.” Fox told the premier in a letter leaked last month that deep cuts while Britain is at war in Afghanistan would hurt morale. Cameron intervened personally on Oct. 16 to make sure the defense ministry had a budget with which it could work.

Catapult Costs

The addition of the catapult system to the Prince of Wales will cost several hundred million pounds, said the people, who declined to be identified because the results of the review are not yet public.

The carriers are being built by a group including BAE Systems Plc, Babcock International Group Plc and Thales SA at a cost of 4.9 billion pounds ($7.8 billion).

Cameron will say that HMS Ark Royal, a carrier launched in 1981, will be decommissioned immediately. Another, HMS Illustrious, will carry helicopters until 2014, when it will be decommissioned and its crew transferred to the Queen Elizabeth.

From 2017, the crew of HMS Ocean, a helicopter landing platform, will transfer to the Prince of Wales to get it ready for service and Ocean will be decommissioned. The Prince of Wales will only have catapult-launching facilities from 2020, the people said.

Conservative lawmaker Douglas Carswell said the defense cuts “mark a milestone” in Britain’s “decline” as a military force.

‘Belgium With Nukes’

“We have the third or fourth largest military budget in the world, we are the sixth largest economy, yet we’re reduced to the status of being Belgium with nukes,” Carswell told Sky News television today.

A decision about the future of the Queen Elizabeth, including the possibility that it may be sold, will be made in 2015. The carrier may be mothballed once the Prince of Wales goes into operation in 2019, the people said. Another possibility would be to fit it, rather than the Prince of Wales, with catapult equipment before a sale of either carrier.

The overall Defense Ministry budget is being cut by 7 percent to 8 percent, a person involved in the discussions said two days ago. That represents a victory for Fox after Osborne asked for reductions of as much as 20 percent.

The U.K. will also press ahead with building the remaining ships from an order to London-based BAE for seven Astute-class hunter-killer submarines, the people said.

Trident Delay

A decision on replacing the Trident submarine-based nuclear-missile system will be delayed until after the next election in May 2015, the people said. BAE and Rolls-Royce Group Plc are among the project’s contractors.

“I’ve always believed that we should have the Trident program, and I’ve always believed in continuous-at-sea deterrence,” Fox said. “Neither of those have changed.”

Cameron will also announce that the Royal Air Force’s fleet of Tornado jets will be kept in service because they are needed for the current mission in Afghanistan, the people said.

QinetiQ Group Plc said today the defense ministry has terminated the first phase of its training program in Wales with immediate effect, leading to costs for the company of 37 million pounds.

London-based QinetiQ fell as much as 13.2 percent and was down 3.3 pence, or 3 percent, at 107.3 pence at 12:33 p.m. in London.

By CHRISTOPHER DREW See original at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/business/20arms.html?ref=christopher_drew .

Lockheed Martin on Tuesday cut its earnings forecast for 2010, and said delays in the award of Pentagon programs would hurt its sales growth and leave profits flat in 2011.

The company, the world’s largest military contractor, said the percentage growth rate in its sales would slow to the “low single-digit range” next year as a long surge in Pentagon spending comes to an end.

Lockheed also announced that its third-quarter profit from continuing operations had dropped 28 percent to $565 million, or $1.55 a share, from $786 million, or $2.04 a share, a year earlier. Sales rose 6 percent to $11.4 billion, from $10.77 billion during the same period a year ago. Analysts, on average, had estimated that the company would earn $1.53 a share on revenue of $11.59 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

The drop in quarterly profit was partly a result of a $178 million charge for a buyout program for 600 executives. The company said the reduction in its forecast for 2010 earnings also reflected plans to divest units and add more money to its pension funds.

Lockheed, based in Bethesda, Md., said it now expected its full 2010 earnings per share from continuing operations to be $6.75 to $6.95, down from the previous range of $7.15 to $7.35.

As the Pentagon moves to save $100 billion through tighter contracting and other measures, Lockheed said it faced further pressures, with some plans for new programs were being canceled or delayed.

Bruce L. Tanner, Lockheed’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said possible contracts for a Navy ship that could operate in coastal waters and for missile defense systems had been delayed by several months, reducing the amount of new business it expected in early 2011.

He said that the company’s expansion into solar energy had also developed more slowly than expected.

Mr. Tanner said in an interview that the company had hoped this energy business would bring in hundreds of millions in sales by 2011. But with utilities and local governments also canceling and delaying projects, “we’re not expecting it to be anywhere near that level,” he said.

Mr. Tanner said Lockheed’s aeronautics business should show strong growth next year. It will benefit from production increases for the new F-35 fighter, a radar-evading plane that is expected to become the main fighter for the United States and a number of its allies.

But Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, said Tuesday that his government would order fewer of the F-35s than the 140 that his country had previously sought. He also said Britain would buy a version of the F-35 that could be catapulted from an aircraft carrier rather than a more expensive variant that can take off almost vertically.

Lockheed’s chief executive, Robert J. Stevens, told analysts that while the company would lose some sales to Britain, it expected to offset the losses through sales to countries in the Middle East and Asia.

Canada and Israel both recently announced plans to buy the F-35. Company officials still expect to eventually sell more than 3,000 of the planes.
The company’s stock was down 55 cents to $69.49 a share in the afternoon.

As published originally at http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2010/10/defence_review, Oct 19th 2010, 18:36 by M.S. | LONDON

“PAIN all around, but nothing fatal” appears to have been the guiding principle of Britain’s strategic defence and security review (SDSR), the results of which were announced by David Cameron today. The budget cuts – 8% in real terms over the next four years – were not as swingeing as they might have been nor nearly as deep as the Treasury was hoping for. But the cash squeeze is nevertheless intense.

There were several reasons why Mr Cameron decided at the last moment to tell the Treasury to back off. Chief among them: a doughty rearguard action fought (at some personal political risk) by the defence secretary, Liam Fox; the persistent demands of the campaign in Afghanistan; pressure from the Americans not to go too far; and the sheer riskiness of abandoning important capabilities in an uncertain world. The scope for radical cuts, Mr Cameron wisely concluded, was severely limited.

The headlines are that the army will eventually shrink to 95,500 soldiers from today’s 102,500 while losing about half its heavy armour and artillery, most of which is in Germany, still awaiting the Soviet armies that never came. It will be able to sustain a 7,000-strong brigade permanently in the field, significantly less than the 9,500 soldiers currently deployed in Afghanistan. But that brigade will, however, be better protected and more mobile, with new medium-armoured vehicles and more helicopters.

The navy and the air force will also see manpower reductions – about 5,000 in each case. Most controversially, the navy will get its two new aircraft carriers, since cancelling one or both would have cost more than completing them, although its fleet of destroyers and frigates will shrink from 23 to 19. The first of the carriers will carry only helicopters and will be held in reserve once the second becomes available in 2020. It may even be sold, or shared with the French.

That second carrier will be fitted with catapults and arrestor hooks, which the previous government astonishingly deemed unnecessary. The original plan was to outfit the ships with jump-jet versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but the new arrangements will allow the carrier to field a cheaper and more capable version that takes off and lands in the traditional way. It will also be able to host the planes of Britain’s French and American allies. In the meantime, though the government has decided to scrap the existing, modest, carrier strike capacity by taking HMS Ark Royal, the Navy’s flagship, out of service, along with its Harrier aircraft. That will leave a gap in carrier strike capability lasting ten years.

The Harriers will be sent to the knacker’s yard prematurely because Dr Fox has granted a reprieve the Tornado ground attack fleet, which many had expected to be quickly retired, because of its greater usefulness in Afghanistan. By 2020, however, the air force should be down to just two types of fast jet, the JSF and Eurofighter Typhoon.

Sensibly, by keeping the existing fleet of four nuclear-armed submarines going for a bit longer – the oldest will now come out of service in 2028 – the decision to start building their replacemnts can be put off until 2016, saving a useful £1.2 billion. Some will suspect, probably wrongly, that the main reason for delaying was to pander to the Liberal Democrats, who are rather less keen on maintaining Britain’s nuclear missiles than their Tory coalition partners.

The review was not entirely a tale of cutbacks and woe. Some areas will actually get more money. Britain’s special forces, which are much-valued by the Americans, will get a boost from better kit, while £500m has been earmarked to beef up defences against computer attacks. With international terrorism still identified as the most immediate threat to the country’s security, the intelligence and security services, which have seen their budgets tripled in recent years, will only have to make small “efficiency” economies.

There is plenty for critics of this hastily-conducted, financially-driven SDSR to snipe at. In particular, building a second carrier when the navy desperately needs smaller surface ships to patrol the sea lanes looks lopsided. But frigates can be easily built at a later date if they are needed, whereas the carriers are a once in 50 years decision. There is also a lot of detail still to come, because the agreements reached are only partial. But the government has made a goodish fist of a rotten hand. Britain will still have the fourth biggest defence budget in the world and in will be one of the few NATO countries to meet the alliance’s target of spending 2% of its GDP on defence. Critically, Mr Cameron promised that military spending should start to grow again in real terms after 2015. Britain may not be quite so willing to throw itself into every fight going as it has been in the recent past, but this SDSR should be seen more as a tactical retreat than a surrender.

As we watch our country fight preemptive wars that we are told will be generational wars, we experience more fear than ever. We see our constitutional rights being signed away in the name of defense. We watch our neighbors unable to afford health care, our infrastructure collapse, our schools go begging; yet the military is exempt from the government’s spending freeze.

Close to home we know that 18 or more F-35 fighter bombers based at the Burlington Airport will produce deafening noise, cause the loss of housing and further traumatize veterans of war. F-35s approved at $62 million apiece are likely to soar to $150 million or more. We know this is an offensive weapon for wars that kill masses of unarmed civilians in their own homes, in lands the U.S. occupies. We know the F-35 makes our own home a more likely target. We know the military is the earth’s largest polluter and these planes will pollute our skies. In fact, the Air Force favors Burlington because our clear skies mean fewer worries for them about F-35 pollution degrading our air quality.

We do not feel secure or defended by these policies or this weapon. We choose to make a stand here and now locally and in alliance with others across the nation opposing this bomber. We strongly oppose the military policy of endless war and no weapon too costly in monetary or ecological terms. We wish to work together to build a community, a nation, and a world that meets human and environmental needs.

As originally posted on Seven Days at http://7dvt.com/2010roger-bourassa-f-35 By Kevin J. Kelley.

Vermonters favoring the deployment of a new generation of war planes at the Burlington airport will have trouble depicting one of their chief opponents as an unpatriotic wimp.

Roger Bourassa, a public face of the Stop the F-35 Coalition, has a red-white-and-blue, star-spangled résumé that includes a three-year stint with the U.S. Marine Corps. He also served 13 years in the National Guard in Vermont, New York and Maine, and another 13 as an Air Force Academy liaison officer, retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Bourassa, 73, took part in the invasion of Lebanon in 1958 and flew wartime transport missions to Vietnam. With Donna, his wife of 49 years, Bourassa raised six children and was active in the Lutheran Church.

A native of Winooski, he grew up seeing and hearing National Guard aircraft soaring and screaming above his home. Those flights inspired Bourassa to become a military pilot himself, but he failed an eye exam and had to settle for a career as a navigator on a variety of fighter planes, including the F-89 Scorpion and F-101 Voodoo.

Those were defensive aircraft, Bourassa notes during an interview in his Colchester condo, where he still hears the boom of National Guard jets as they hurtle into the Vermont sky. The F-35, however, is “an attack plane,” Bourassa says, designed for use in what he calls the “imperialist wars” the United States is waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He’ll make those points at an October 13 forum at the Chamberlin School in South Burlington sponsored by the Stop the F-35 Coalition. The meeting is part of an effort to rally opposition to the possibility that two dozen stealth fighters will be stationed at BTV seven years from now.

Proponents of the basing plan, including all three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation, say the F-35s will help protect the country, generate jobs and ensure the continued mission of the Green Mountain Boys. Coalition activists living near the airport tend to argue against the deployment on environmental grounds, charging that it will produce unbearable noise pollution and foul Chittenden County’s air with benzene emissions. Others, such as Bourassa, see the F-35 primarily as an expression of a militaristic U.S. foreign policy.

Describing himself as “extremely patriotic,” the soft-spoken suburbanite explains, “My love of country is based on an America that is an example of democracy in the world, and I think we’re failing democratically today.” Bourassa echoes Dwight Eisenhower, the president under whom he served in Lebanon, in condemning a “military-industrial complex” that encourages aggressive U.S. behavior in the Middle East and beyond.

“Our foreign policy involves using military means so we can remain a very prosperous nation,” Bourassa says. “But we need to be concerned about the global climate and about the billions of people who are living on $2 a day. Our country shouldn’t be accumulating resources but sharing resources.”

A University of Vermont professor deserves some credit for shaping Bourassa’s worldview: Harold Schultz taught a course on American diplomatic history that deeply affected Bourassa 45 years ago. He had enrolled at UVM after leaving the Marine Corps and joined the Vermont National Guard while an undergraduate. Bourassa simultaneously became an opponent of the war in Vietnam, and he brought his antiwar advocacy to the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College in Alabama, where he earned a master’s in international relations.

In keeping with his belief in the transformative power of education, Bourassa became a social studies teacher and later served as a high school principal in both Randolph and Winooski. He held the post of superintendent in the Orange Southwest, Colchester and Franklin West supervisory districts for a total of 17 years.

Bourassa’s father was at least as influential as formal educators on the peace-loving patriot. Joseph Bourassa, born in Québec in 1905, migrated to Vermont as a boy and found work as a factory laborer in the American Woolen Mill in Winooski. Roger grew up speaking French and learned from his father to respect trade unions and the values behind Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

More recently, he supported the campaign of Barack Obama, but has grown “very disappointed” with the president’s performance, mainly because “his approach to the Middle East is so unbalanced.” Bourassa traveled last year to the West Bank and was teargassed during a demonstration against the Israeli occupation. He has also taken part in protests in Washington against the war in Iraq. He’s now opposed to the “unwinnable war” in Afghanistan as well, even though he initially supported the U.S. invasion as a justified response to the terror attacks of 2001.

Bourassa’s active retirement is not devoted solely to the cause of peace. He’s a member of the Colchester Development Review Board and works with a local chapter of the AARP.

Despite the political clout of the forces arrayed in support of the F-35s, Bourassa says he’s hopeful that the local deployment can still be prevented. Much will depend on the conclusions of an environmental impact statement that the Air Force is preparing for scheduled release in January. The Air Force announced in July that BTV and Hill Air Force Base in Utah are the “preferred alternatives” for F-35 operations, but added that a final decision will not be made until the environmental assessment is completed.

“Vermont is really the last place that should be hosting this plane,” declares Jimmy Leas, an attorney active with the Stop the F-35 Coalition. Pointing to the efforts of Bourassa and other local peace advocates, Leas says the state’s strong antiwar sentiment can prevail over “this weapon of mass destruction.”

Vermont’s Pentagon payout: What’s our bang for the buck? | Seven Days | By Ken Picard [11.10.04]

The Pentagon doesn’t discriminate between red states and blue states. The spoils of war come in just one color — green. Like it or not, military spending is on the rise, and the reelection of President Bush all but assures that the trend will continue. Between 1997 and 2003, the U.S. defense budget rose from $296 billion to $379 billion, not including supplemental appropriations; experts say it could surpass $500 billion in 2005. Next year, according to the World Policy Institute, the United States will spend about $1.15 billion per day on the military — or $11,000 per second.

A rising tide raises all ships, and the flood of money that’s flowing from the Pentagon to civilian defense contractors is lifting Vermont, too. Though pacifistic and peace-minded Vermonters prefer not to think about it, the U.S. Department of Defense funnels hundreds of millions of dollars each year into the state’s economy, buying goods and services, funding research and development, providing start-up grants to new high-tech firms, and ultimately, creating new jobs.

While Vermont can’t hope to compete with larger states like California and Texas in manufacturing or research-and-development money, this state often fares better than others of comparable size and population when vying for defense and homeland-security dollars. Largely, that’s due to the influence of Senator Patrick Leahy, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee who sits on the subcommittees on defense and homeland security. Leahy also wrote the rule that requires every state to get at least a minimum share of all homeland-security grants, which in Vermont totaled more than $51 million in 2004.

It’s not easy to measure the state’s exact slice of the Pentagon pie, since defense dollars can flow through a number of different channels, depending upon what the money is used for: research and development, small-business seed money, direct purchases, and so forth. But according to the Federal Procurement Data System, the Department of Defense is by far the biggest spender among government agencies with civilian contracts in Vermont. It drops more dollars on Vermont than four other big-budget federal agencies combined.

Not surprisingly, the military’s Vermont shopping list is growing. In fiscal year 2000, the Pentagon spent about $243 million on defense contracts here; by 2003, the number had jumped to $455 million. In comparison, the second largest federal spender in 2003 — the U.S. Department of Transportation — spent just $25.6 million in Vermont; Veterans Affairs spent $7.9 million.

But even a state-by-state breakdown of defense contracts doesn’t necessarily paint an accurate picture of where the money ends up or who benefits from it. For one thing, the state in which a company is headquartered — and thus where a contract may be listed — isn’t necessarily the state where the company or the majority of its employees or performs most of its work.

Goodrich Aerospace of Vergennes is an example. The company manufactures a wide range of high-tech electronic, fuel and utility systems for both military and civilian uses. Goodrich products can be found on everything from Boeing 727s to Black Hawk helicopters and F-16 fighter jets; their products have been on every manned space flight since the Apollo missions. Goodrich, which has been in Vermont for more than 50 years, currently employees about 700 people as engineers, assemblers, technicians and the like, and about 60 percent of its work is for the U.S. government. But because its parent company, Goodrich Corporation, is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, some state-by-state breakdowns don’t reveal the millions of dollars that Goodrich contributes to Vermont’s economy.

On the other side of that equation –that is, at the top of the local defense-spending list –is General Dynamics Armament Systems of Burlington, the state’s largest defense contractor. Between 2000 and 2003, General Dynamics’ armament division saw its Pentagon contracts jump from $14.7 million to $437 million.

But looks can be deceiving, explains Art Woolf, an associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont. With 550 employees, the company’s impact on the local economy is far less than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the facility — then General Electric — employed nearly 3000 people in Burlington. Plus, Woolf notes, many of the government dollars probably pass right through Vermont to out-of-state plants or subcontractors that now do most of the company’s manufacturing.

A better way to assess the impact of defense dollars in Vermont is to look at employment, suggests Burlington policy analyst Doug Hoffer. How many local jobs do defense contractors provide and what do they pay? It’s also important to look at where these companies buy their supplies and how much business they do with other Vermont firms. “It’s never enough to say how much money goes through the company,” says Hoffer. “You have to say how much of it stays in Vermont, to be recycled in Vermont.”

In this respect, General Dynamics differs significantly from a smaller, less traditional defense contractor in Vermont: New England Woodcraft of Forest Dale. This family-owned and operated-company on the western edge of the Green Mountain National Forest manufactures institutional wood furniture — beds, desks, dressers — that is sold to colleges, universities and the U.S. military. New England Woodcraft has been around for more than 40 years and employs about 100 people full-time, but only began getting defense contracts a few years ago. In 2003, the company landed a $4.2 million contract to build furniture for military barracks. Today, defense contracts account for about half the company’s business.

But unlike General Dynamics, New England Woodcraft does all of its manufacturing in Vermont and buys all of its raw materials from local and regional sources. Moreover, when New England Woodcraft adds jobs, most of the workers are hired locally, not through national searches. New England Woodcraft’s manufacturing jobs don’t pay as well as the high-tech jobs at General Dynamics. But all of the company’s profits go to its Vermont owners, not Wall Street investors.

Another factor to consider is how defense dollars “multiply” in the local economy in terms of creating new jobs and earnings for other Vermont businesses. Hoffer cites U.S. Department of Commerce figures showing that two traditional defense-related categories — aircraft and missile engines, and ordnances and accessories — don’t multiply in the Vermont economy as well as other industries do.

Every $1 million increase in wood-furniture manufacturing in Vermont translates into $1.88 million in total economic output for the state. But every $1 million uptick in ordnance and accessories spending in Vermont translates into just $1.47 million for the Vermont economy.

The same holds true for job creation, Hoffer says. Commerce Department figures show that every $1 million increase in wood-furniture manufacturing adds 20 new jobs in the state. But a comparable $1 million increase in manufacturing of aircraft or missile engines translates into just 14 new jobs in Vermont; for ordinance and accessories manufacturing, 12 new jobs.

Other concerns are the stability of those jobs, and the company’s long-term employment prospects. Does the company produce goods and services that have both military and civilian applications, or does its business rely entirely on a war economy? As Hoffer points out, “if you’ve got one customer that’s 80 percent of your business, you’ve got a problem.”

Mine Safety Appliance employs 120 people at its helmet-manufacturing plant in Newport. In the last year, the Pittsburgh-based company secured three defense contracts totaling more than $78 million to produce more than 230,000 helmets for the U.S. Army. According to a company spokesman, defense contracts account for just 15 percent of the company’s global sales, but all the work done in Newport is for the U.S. military.

The Newport plant may seem vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of U.S. military operations overseas, but the helmets produced in Newport also have applications for homeland security and law-enforcement. And the U.S. Army always needs helmets, even in peacetime. Moreover, according to the company’s spokesman, the Newport production line can be converted to produce similar products, like fire helmets and riot gear.

Some defense contractors in Vermont produce more obvious “dual-use” technologies. The portable hospital units Mobile Medical of St. Johnsbury builds for the U.S. military have a wide range of domestic applications. Other contractors produce military goods that are needed even after conflicts end. For example, Applied Research Associates of South Royalton builds remote-controlled tractors that deactivate and remove undetonated landmines and other ordnances. For better or worse, this technology will likely be needed throughout the world for years to come.

Even after you’ve untangled the economic puzzle of local military contracts, that still leaves questions about the ethics of profiting from armed conflict. “If you’re asking me if defense spending is good for Vermont, I’ll say that it’s probably a regrettably good thing for Vermont,” Woolf concludes. “It’s like saying, is it good for a hardware store when I buy a lock to put on my door? Well, yeah, the hardware store is selling me a lock, but it’d sure be nice to live in a world where I don’t have to put a lock on my door.”

Rutland Herald/Barre Times Argus | Oct 10, 2010 | By Haviland Smith

During the endless deliberations that took place on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan during the summer and fall 2009, it became clear that the U.S. military establishment — as personified by Adm. Mullin and Gen. Petraeus — was vitally interested in proving that it could reach a successful conclusion in Afghanistan. The military seemed disinclined to consider any of the other factors involved in our Afghan commitment.

This entire episode is laid out in minute detail in Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” which is a fascinating read on the way the Obama administration builds military policy and the interplay between the White House and the Pentagon.

What is clear is that our military establishment was concerned primarily with its own goals and operations and far less concerned with the many other issues facing the administration and the nation.

In effect, the military leadership told the president that the only viable policy for Afghanistan would involve our commitment to six to eight additional years and almost $1 trillion.

Today’s military is probably correctly described as far more politically aware and attuned to the needs of the nation that it ever has been. After all, many of the military’s general officers have advanced degrees from some of our most prestigious universities.

It is not the purpose here to decide whether our efforts in Afghanistan are in our own national interest or not, good or bad, viable or hopeless. This is designed simply to enumerate some of the more difficult issues facing America right now and whether or not we can afford the costs of our military engagements in the Middle East and Asia.

It is generally conceded that one gallon of gas delivered to our troops in Afghanistan in 2009 cost $400. More recently, that has been revised upward to $800 because of the Pakistani closing of one of our routes to Afghanistan and the blowing up of fuel trucks.

In February 2010, the cost of the Afghan war was running $6.7 billion a month and the cost of Iraq was $5.5 billion. At those rates, the current cost of our military involvement in those theaters is verging on $150 billion per year. In fiscal year 2011, Afghanistan is projected to cost $117 billion, Iraq $46 billion. These figures will ultimately be revised upward by the costs we will be incurring in dealing with the long-term effects of the wars on hardware and, more important, on personnel.

As long as these wars are placing such a burden on our economy, it will be difficult for us to deal with the critical issues that face us at home. Quite simply, our national infrastructure, our public education system and our issues with energy demand a level of investment that will be impossible as long as these wars drag on.

Without major changes, those critical structural elements of our country will not support the kind of economic and political clout that will be required for us to maintain any sort of meaningful influence in the world. In short, our needs at home far outweigh our needs in the Middle East and Asia.

Finally, there seems to be a growing sub rosa debate in our military establishment concerning the appropriate role of the military in the formulation of military policy. A close read of Woodward’s book shows strong evidence of the military attempting to end-run the president on the timing and extent of the commitment of increased troop numbers to Afghanistan.

The role of our military establishment is to carry out the policies of our civilian leadership. It is not to determine policy from the cocoon of the Pentagon, but to do what any administration tells it to do. Such military decisions will and must be affected by other national realities of which the Pentagon should be aware, but should not be concerned. The role of those realities has always been considered by the White House.

The legal pre-eminence of our civilian leadership over and control of the military is completely established. The ongoing argument (http://www.ndu.edu/press/breaking-ranks.html) that an officer is obliged to refuse to carry out orders he finds morally objectionable cannot be supported in our democracy (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/09/breaking-ranks/), yet it apparently persists at all levels of the officer corps.

We are clearly approaching some sort of critical juncture where insubordination may play a role. The behavior of some of our military leadership around the two critical issues of Afghanistan and our well-being at home has no place in this liberal democracy.

There should be no question about the role of the military or the identity of the commander in chief.

Haviland Smith of Williston is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.

Here are some suggestions that have substantial potential for achieving a desirable outcome.

-Take a petition and fact sheets and talk with your friends, neighbors and co-workers to gather petition signatures and raise awareness.

-Write a letter-to-the-editor of the Burlington Free Press and also your local newspaper.

-Write a letter to your local, state and federal legislators.

-Sign the on-line petition available at petitionbuzz.com/petitions/stopthef35.

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-Consider donating money to help finance expenses such as flyers, yard signs, printing, etc.

In a participating democracy, every individual’s voice is important.

Depending on how you look at it this chart either is good in that it says we are keeping our troops safe (which is debatable!) or bad in that we are allocating too much money to too much hegemony, while lining the pockets of folks like Lockheed Martin the maker of the F-35 and others on the Spade Defense Index I discussed earlier. I say this money would be better spent domestically. We are currently spending $698.14 per active-duty US military enlistee. Could this not be better used to combat the mushrooming of charter schools in place of public schools, agribusiness at the expense of Vermont (and the nation’s) local small farmer, alternative energy advances vs. traditional mountain-top-removal and dams galore.

Click the chart for larger view.

I think this chart says alot and speaks to another reason why the F-35 is a bad idea…..The MIC and it’s angel investors/shareholders will be the only ones who benefit from our men and women sacrificing their lives for the advancement of across the board free-markets. We are spending more and more, but we are creating blowback due to inaccurate drone strikes and the fact that we insist on bringing F-35s to a gun fight. This graph demonstrates the exponential rise in spending per troop and it presages the collapse of the MIC, because exponential rises are not sustainable, rather their meteoric rise further decouples the blue from the white collar and the troop from the war profiteer. Vermont and Chittenden County should not participate in such a decoupling.

Author: Ted Auch

“The worst helicopter crash in four years killed nine people bringing NATO fatalities in Afghanistan in 2010 to 529 and making it the most deadly year since the war that began in 2001.” “Pentagon officials said most of the dead were Americans.” (N.Y. Times, 9/22/10)

The helicopter crash and the number of dead American soldiers brings home the terrible toll the Afghan War is having on our young people and the cost of the war. This event in Afghanistan along with the Air Force wanting to develop the most costly weapon system by the Defense Department is one more piece of evidence why we must STOP the F-35 from coming to Vermont. We need to diminish our war fighting capability rather than increasing costly, polluting and destructive weapon systems.

Author: Roger Bourassa

There is something that Wall Streeters and Captains of Industry pay close attention to and it is called The Spade Defense Index. The SDI is a blended index of “publicly traded companies that benchmarks the performance of companies involved with defense, homeland security, and space. The Index is composed of more than 50 firms…with representative…activities including: naval vessels, military aircraft, missiles and munitions, battlespace awareness, C4ISR, network centric warfare, homeland security including border security and biometric and screening systems, and space systems.” (http://www.spadeindex.com/aboutspadedefense.php)

Click on image for full size chart.

Two companies of prominence in The Index are the two leaders of our beloved F-35 project Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. As a whole The Index has grown by 247% since its debut on December 30, 1997, which far exceeds gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader S & P 500, which increased by 136 and 118%, respectively, between then and now. So, it stands to reason that the forced arrayed against our mission are not simply military and political but financial as well given the volatility of conventional investments. There are certain industries that are “recession proof” and the Military Industrial Complex seems to be one of those industries. It not only is buffered against austerity and crisis but thrives in the milieau created after post-crisis Shock Therapy is implemented. In a more volatile world both climatic and economic more and more of Wall Street’s best and brightest will reallocated their money to the MIC and will most certainly push the creation of more and more F-35s as well as even more bloated MIC projects quixotic or not these types of projects socialize the risk and privatize the gain in the hands of people willing to leverage this country’s long-term viability at the expense of short-term wealth aggregation. The data does not lie. As Michael Bloomberg once said “In God we trust…Everyone else, bring data.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/nyregion/09mayor.html?scp=1&sq=bloomberg%20in%20god%20we%20trust%20everyone%20else%20data&st=cse)

Author: Local TV Coverage from CCTV

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