Well said. Our brave military doesn’t pick its civilian leaders, nor the missions those leaders want to execute.
Our job as citizens is to ensure that our awesome military is led by well-principled leaders. Instead of whining and claiming that the military needs to refuse orders (good lord) let’s make sure we do everything we can to make 2012 the year it turns around.
The Chinese now have ballistic missiles that can target carriers on re-entry using seekers. Very deadly as the reports on the web go. There is likely a longer range version of this for those “special hangars” where these budget busters are housed. They will be dead before their engines rev up. I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but I’m also not an idiot to believe these are what we need for defense, either....20 at how many hundred billion apiece? 500 billion seems to stick in my mind. That’s damned near the national debt. Add to that all the special considerations and maintenance it needs (keep out of the rain, maintain quaternary control surface computers, etc. etc. etc. and you have one damned expensive aircraft just to drop a few bombs on some third world country at the outset of a Presidential whim....