Senator puts India in F-22’s sights
By most accounts, India is an ally of the U.S. But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in his zeal to keep funding for the F-22 fighter jet that Robert Gates and President Obama want to cut, decides that they are a potential threat:
And it’s not like India is at the end of a list of names of potential enemies there, it’s the very first one! Only after that does he mention countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea. Probably on his mind is the notorious 2004 war game in which the Indian Air Force, flying mainly Russian planes, smoked the U.S. Air Force’s F-15s; an episode which has been used to justify massive buys of the improved F-22. (Though Slate’s Fred Kaplan convincingly explains why the deck was stacked against the U.S. in that exercise and it did not in fact suggest that India could beat the U.S. in an air war.)
Still, seems like a dumb thing to say. And I know what it’s like to get on the wrong side of subcontinental defense aficionados, so Cornyn better get ready for some flak…
(H/T The Dew Line)
UPDATE: Politico checks and finds that Cornyn made a verbal slipup and meant to say China, and his office took the video down. So if you can’t see the video now, here’s what he originally said: “It’s important to our national security because we’re not just fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Cornyn says. “We’re fighting — we have graver threats and greater threats than that: From a rising India, with increased exercise of their military power; Russia; Iran, that’s threatening to build a nuclear weapon; with North Korea, shooting intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of hitting American soil.”
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F-22 = workfare + maintaining industrial capacity in this country (which would be offshored if not for the ‘made in the USA’ milspec requirement)
That said, I’d rather see government waste money on folks that actually do work, rather than bums, slackers, and Wall St melonfarmers..
[...] is very disappointed that Congress cut funding for the F-22 because how else will defend ourselves against India, our most dangerous enemy? [...]
Cornyn’s a clown. His last campaign featured a video with him riding in an open car(if only), wearing a Hollywood Western jacket with fringed sleeves and white cowboy hat, complete with an Alpo/Western Sizzler/Bonanza voice over extolling his manly American virtues. He made that guy in the Village People look like John Wayne. His grandstanding “look at me mommy” voting record appeals to his racist, tea bagging, chicken hawk repuklicans. His support of the military-industrial complex to sell F-22s to Japan and the threat of India as a future threat just reeks of the santorum leaking from his gaping rectum.
[...] It’s okay, they’re not out to get you. India’s not a threat to the U. S., Senator. I know you want those fighter jets to be built, but citing made up enemies [...]