The F-35 Program Is Patriotism Turned on Its Head!
The Air Force wants to locate F-35 fighter-bombers in Tucson. Some applaud this as an economic stimulus. The apparent logic is that keeping planes here, even such exotic planes as F-35s, will produce jobs.
In reality, this is all about saving jobs, not creating new ones … and very few jobs at that.
Military personnel are not notorious consumers of civilian goods, since they can be gotten for free or more cheaply via the military—so no new jobs there. Plus we are not talking about increasing the number of military jobs, merely keeping those already here. If all the F-35s were to go elsewhere, the economic effect would be negligible.
The irony is that there is no plausible mission for the F-35 other than to support our troops in Afghanistan, where our people shouldn’t be in the first place and from which we will be ejected ultimately as all other invaders have been. They are a replacement for the stalwart F-16s. In the modern world, both aircraft are being put out of business by pilotless drones.
Then there is the issue of oppressive audio pollution that can have deleterious physiological and psychological effects. The Air Force can’t measure these effects, and doesn’t try to, but audiologists and sociologists can. It’s irrefutable: More noise is a bad thing for individuals and communities.
Some additional items to think about: A typical jet flightier aloft for an hour consumes about 1,000 gallons of jet fuel. Each gallon of jet fuel burned produces 22.5 pounds of CO2. A gallon of jet fuel goes for about $4 per gallon. Thus, a jet fighter aloft for an hour costs $4,000 per hour and produces 2,250 pounds of CO2.
There is no benefit for Tucson in any of this. Besides wrecking our peace and quiet, F-35s will add substantial amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, just for practice. This will hasten global warming, thereby threatening Tucson’s already precarious hold on life in the desert.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel or the person with an agenda, be it military aggrandizement or personal financial or political gain. One codger was quoted in another publication, “When I hear the sound of a jet fighter going overhead, I hear freedom.” From what? Invaders from Mars? When I hear the sound of a jet fighter passing overhead, I hear distant and meaningless war, death and destruction. This self-destructive “investment” is patriotism turned on its head and kicked in the behind.
Robert Jacobson
The Tucson Weekly Mailbag
3/11/10
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