07.11.11
The Empire’s Dog Feces: “We got new e-warfare!” the vendors screech
A classic on the Empire’s Dog Feces beat today, courtesy of one of the many cheerleaders for arms-manufacturing disguised as journalists, W. J. Hennigan.
Hennigan’s e-mail must now be jammed with junket offers from the domestic arms industry. And that’s because he regularly acts as a stenographer for Raytheon project developers.
Today it’s e-warfare, specifically the EA-18 Growler fighter jet. It’s used now over Libya, part of the standard US military policy of bombing the paupers and pantywaists of the world, enemies with militaries so ineffective, outnumbered and outgunned we could beat them with stuff that’s fifteen years old.
A few excerpts:
The Pentagon is seeking to increase its technology research budget, which includes electronic warfare, to $12.2 billion in fiscal 2012 from $11.8 billion — and that doesn’t include spending in the classified portion of the budget.
[And Hennigan is doing his part.]
With a price tag of about $74 million each, Boeing Co.’s Growler is a showpiece of American electronic know-how with high-powered radar systems made by Raytheon Co., and tactical radar jammers made by ITT Electronic Systems and Northrop Grumman Corp.
But as the Growler enters wartime service, work has already begun on a new jamming device for the jet to give it an even greater ability to befuddle the enemy.
Four aerospace giants are competing for a jamming device contract estimated at $2 billion: Northrop, BAE Systems, and Raytheon Co and a team of ITT and Boeing. A total of $168 million has been handed out by the Navy to the companies for research and development on the program.
The story does not mention the US destroyed Moe’s air force and air defense system with cruise missiles and strategic bombing months ago.
Jets that can fly faster and jam more powerfully are about as necessary as you needing a new pair of motorcycle boots to stomp ants on the sidewalk. Your old shoes work fine, thank you.
And no Empire’s Dog Feces story is complete without Brookings Institution fugleman, Peter Singer, for an obvious and somewhat awkward comment, delivered to seem gnomic:
“War fighters have gone from using physical weapons like spears and knives, to chemical weapons such as gunpowder and explosives, to electronics with radio waves and computer codes,” said Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It’s a natural evolution in warfare.”
“This is the new generation of electronic warfare,” said a saleman for Raytheon, “[a] former Marine Corps pilot,” to the newspaper. “The enemy should never know what’s coming their way.”
And they won’t as long as Uncle Sam keeps spending more than the top ten other militaries in the world combined on this stuff. However, at home, everyone else is left to rot, making it increasingly obvious that there will be less and less to defend. From the depredations and the calumnies of those many pantywaists.
These types of stories aren’t even hard to do. As a frontpage thing in the actual paper edition of the newspaper, even more indefensible. The reporter gets a trip, with a photographer, to go see the military hardware, escorted around by US military and arms manufacturer types. Who all spout some great-sounding bullshit about American military technology.
In terms of journalism, it’s right up there with writing laudatory pieces about pop stars, sprinkled with pictures from recent concerts and comments from record label flacks and fans.