The entire congressional delegations of Washington and Oregon, including both Republicans and Democrats, came together this week to harshly criticize the base closure plan that would whittle the Northwest's air defense down to only two F-15 fighters. And good for them--I thank them all for doing their jobs in that regard.
But us Northwesterners should take note of something rather important--of the total of 18 people in those delegations, only five of them are in the majority--that is to say, are Republicans. 13 of 18 are in the minority, their voices largely irrelevant. Isn't there a good chance that this simple fact has a good deal to do with the way the BRAC plan shafted our air defense?
It is an inescapable truth of our system of government that members of the majority party are going to get better outcomes for their constituents than members of the minority party. You can complain about it until you're blue in the face, but that's the way it is. And, for the foreseeable future, the Republicans are the majority party on a national level. The independent voters of this state are doing us all a grave disservice in continually backing the losing horse--or in this case, donkey--in sending eight Democrats to the other Washington, but only three Republicans.
Obviously, I'm a Republican, and thus I'll belive the Republican is the right candidate just about every time, regardless of balance. Democrats will belive the same way--but the bulk of the voters here are independents, and they should seriously consider the consequences of this drastic imbalance.
Fortunately, we'll have some chances to rectify that in a year and a half--but we can start today. Priority number one in 2006 needs to be restoring some balance to our Senatorial delegation, so we must push for an outstanding Senate candidate. Our next priority must be our congressional delegation, something we can start helping out with right away.
For example, don't you think that a highly decorated former Navy pilot like Doug Roulstone would have been a much stronger voice for Northwest air defense than any of the members of the minority party were? We can help give Washington another sorely needed voice in the majority party by supporting Roulstone's run for the 2nd District Congressional seat. A stronger, more balanced congressional delegation is something that everyone in the region should be in favor of. Let's make it happen--visit Roulstone4Congress.com for information on how you can help.
Cross posted at The Flag of the World.
Posted by Timothy Goddard at June 17, 2005 07:59 PM | Email ThisThe BRAC commission has recommended transfering a majority of the Portland-based F-15 fighters to other areas. This might be a bad decision and could be reversed. But, you should probably be aware of the fact that Washington state fared VERY well in the BRAC process and is actually slated to GAIN military personnel when all is said and done. The state is not losing a single major miliary installation (McCord, Ft. Lewis, Fairchild, Widbey NAS, Everett, Bremerton, Bangor...)
Your argument that a more Republican delegation helps to prevent base closues just has not played out in the process. Case in point: South Dakota will probably lose its Air Force base (2nd largest employer in the state). Freshman Senator John Thune (a rock star in the party) campaigned against Tom Daschle using the same argument you have promoted - that Republican representation will help ensure the future of the base.
There are other similar examples as well. The BRAC's recommendations lead me to wonder WHY Washington state is slated to receive more personnel. Obviously the location on Pacific coast, near many of the emerging threats (N Korea, China, etc.), played a key role. Military personnel also rate the area high in quality of life and request for stationing surveys.
BUT, one can't help to wonder WHY the Pentagon would place more military personnel in a state where recruiters are protested and banned from high schools and community colleges, etc. Kind of makes you think the BRAC recommendations were actually relatively free of political influence.
FYI........
Posted by: HH on June 17, 2005 08:19 PMFor example, from NPR "John Thune, the freshman senator from South Dakota became a hero in the Republican Party last year when he toppled Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. Thune said that, as an ally of President Bush, he would make things happen for South Dakotans. But the Pentagon's decision to close Ellsworth Air Force Base has put him on the defensive."
That's one example of a republican who actually who based his campaign on your assertion and now he's in hot water. Idaho has an all Republican delegation and they are losing bases, along with 659 jobs.
Washington,with 8 Democrats and 3 R's is keeping all its bases and is gaining 760 jobs. I'd go with the Democrats we already have. In DC its smarts and senority that count, and the R's in the delegation have little of either.
Posted by: blue donkey on June 17, 2005 08:26 PMMan you people are sick. And just think, they let you procreate.
Posted by: Lush Flimbaugh on June 17, 2005 08:27 PMI can't either.
Posted by: Michele on June 17, 2005 08:34 PMGood job; your brilliance has set those pesky right wingers back in their chairs.
Living across the river from Portland, I can tell you this much... I could care less if that base is closed. All that action has done is give Canvotewell the opportunity to try and take credit for keeping the base open... much like Murray, who lied about being responsible for keeping the VA hospitals in Washington State open.
Oregon deserves the job loss. They're the Soviet Socialist Republic for a reason... and now they can live with it.
Posted by: Who.... me? on June 17, 2005 09:47 PMThat does NOT mean I agree with moving most of the F-15s out of the area: IMO air defense fighters should be stationed on both coasts within about 15-20 airborne minutes max of all major seacoast urban areas (remember: They are really fast, so 15-20 minutes in two directions covers a lot of territory). And it is not just to counter another 9-11 style terrorist take-over of a commerical airliner: Another scenario is that one of these days not far down the road the bad guys might be able to lauch a few basic cruise missles from an old freighter a few hundred miles off our coast.
And 4 Mike H: No; there are no fighters at NAS Whidbey. They are Electronic Attack and Patrol / Reconnaissance squadrons. See:
http://www.naswi.navy.mil/pao/Commands%20and%20%20Depts.htm
But McChord AFB would IMO be a great place for a few more F-15s... And a good place for a few of the new F/A-22 Raptors, when they (finally, I hope) get into the inventory in reasonable numbers.
Methow Ken
It would be great to have "more" F-15's at McChord, but it would also be great to have "some". There are none based here now; it's all airlift these days. I don't think the WNAG has any interceptors based here, either--you certainly don't hear them on a regular basis or anything.
Posted by: Kirk Parker on June 17, 2005 11:15 PMThere are only two possibilities. The current Northwest Air Defense Squadron is either 1) neccesary for the defense of the northwest, or 2) not necessary for the defense of the northwest.
If 1) is true, you are saying the Republicans are willing to weaken the defenses of our country in order to do political damage to the Dems. This is so amazing that I cannot believe you think the Republicans would lower the defenses of our country for political gain. So the only other option is that the squadron is not necessary for the defense of the northwest.
Since the squadron is not necessary for defense, it must be more like pork for the northwest. We might be able to save some money by consolidating the squadron with some other group. My take on pork is that we should cut all pork and lower our taxes.
But you have more to say. You go on to say that we should elect Roulstone, a Republican, so we can keep (or get back) the squadron which is pork or maybe less efficient than putting it somewhere else. I don't think we should be electing people that want to spend our taxes on pork or inefficiency. I am amazed that you want to spend tax money on pork.
But I guess Roulstone would have to say that he wants for tax and spend on pork for the Northwest Air Defense Squadron. His only other position is to say that Republicans are willing to sacrifice the defense of America for political gain.
Amazing!
Posted by: Gordon on June 18, 2005 12:19 AMI for one think the West Coast is under-defended. I know California has F-16s tasked for Air Defense, because I remember seeing footage of the last flight allowed to land at a US Airport on 11 September 2001. One of those F-16s was right on the Thai Airways 747s tail. The Oregon fighters are the twin-engined, which is a better advantage. The F/A-22 is the first true supersonic fighter(the Raptor can go Mach 1 without the fuel-thirsty Afterburners), and a couple squadrons in Oregon(Portland and Klamath Falls) would definately be able to reach anywhere along the west coast in a quick time.
I think it is a bad idea to leave the West Coast open to attack from the air, just as it was a bad idea to decomission the NIKE SAM Batteries that once ringed major cities and military instalations.
The Portland fighters had once been active F-15s based out of McChord, and before that they used a really obsolete interceptor, the F-102, and they were scrambled on Thanksgiving Eve 1971 to give chase to a hijacked 727 that had just taken off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, they could not keep up with the plane, as it was flying with flaps and rear airstair down, and the Convair Delta Dagger and Delta Dart were not designed for flying at that low of a speed(200MPH).(I think you all know the name of the hijacker)
First of all, Congress had nothing to do with the list of proposed closings and realignments that was released last month. That list, and the plan that it was designed to support, was drawn up by the Pentagon, with the intent to reduce costs as much as possible while accomplishing the missions given to the DoD by Congress.
The process is now in the hands of the actual Commission which is the C in BRAC. They'll review the list given by the Pentagon, visit bases, and make their assessments. My understanding is that this commission is half Dem and half GOP, and was set up that way to minimize the amount of political game-playing that accompanies the closing of government facilities. (Actually, do any government facilities besides military ones ever get closed?) BRAC will then send their updated list to Congress.
Congress then gives the entire list-as a whole, not item by item-an up or down vote.
Without knowing any of the specifics of where the Portland F-15s are now based, and where the mission is being moved to (Fairchild AFB, maybe?), but I'd venture a guess that the outcome would have been the same if the two states Congressional delegations were evenly split between the Green and Libertarian parties.
Posted by: Heartless Libertarian on June 18, 2005 04:02 AMWhat I read (in the story about Ms. Cantwell's letter to the BRAC) was that the F-15s would be transferred to New Jersey and Louisiana.
I did ask her (in an email sent yesterday) to compare the number of terrorist attacks in the Northwest U.S. to which an F-15 could respond versus the number of terrorist attacks in the Northeast U.S. to which an F-15 could respond.
MASSTRANSITFAN:
I'll grant you that the F-15 is pushing 30 years old (since initial flight), now, and the Raptor is a quantum advance in its "supercruise" ability (sustained cruising speed, without afterburners, of greater than Mach 1.0), manuevering and stealth technology. Unfortunately, the purchase is now down to 279 -- down from the initial (now 20 years ago) concept of a 750 aircraft fleet. The question is, do you set a $250,000,000 piece of hardware (current cost/unit based upon the inevitable downward spiral of increasing unit costs resulting in reduced purchases -- which starts a new round of increasing unit costs....)on CONUS air defense?
Arguable. If you're going into contested airspace, it is now the bird that you want to be in. If you're just looking for the 'time to target' (in this case a hijacked airliner), then, perhaps it might fill the bill. But, let's be honest, by the time that you launch (unless we go back to Noble Eagle missions) any a/c --even from McCAFB or WINAS, or remote based at SeaTac...Paine Field...etc. -- there could be large a smoking hole in the side of the Columbia Tower -- since downtown is not all that far from the flight path from SeaTac or Boeing Field.
And that is assuming someone using another 9/11-type op. If Ressam hadn't been such a nervous fool, he could have gotten his materiele into the States unnoticed. The op was blown by using the wrong person (we will never know whether the following steps would have succeeded, or not). Would a CAP or any a/c based in Portland have been of any value in that type of operation? No. There are much more insidious ways accomplishing another spectacular attack against Seattle or Portland (although, one could make good arguments for and against the likelihood that AQ or fellow travellers would want to make a hit against a potentially sympathetic population base) that an F-15 or an F-22 wouldn't be able to do 'squat' about.
That being said, I can think of a million different reasons why we should elect Republicans. Lower taxes, less government, better National defence, better homeland security, less intrusion into our daily lives, more people taking care of themselves, Social Security private accounts, Medical Savings Accounts, our Second Amendment rights are a few that come to mind.
Posted by: Calvin A on June 18, 2005 07:22 AMThere are endless variations on how they can fly a non-hijacked plane (drug runners use old 727s regularly) rigged with explosives or possibly a nuke. Some threats the planes can be effective against, and some not. But the defense shield has to be there to reduce the number of choices. This is just one in an array of measures that need to be there.
Posted by: Dogbert on June 18, 2005 08:02 AMIt is an inescapable truth of our system of government that members of the majority party are going to get better outcomes for their constituents than members of the minority party."
An interesting observation, and an excellent proof our government, it's bureaucracies, and both political parties are irredeemably corrupt. They belong on the junkheep of history, and any means that achieves that end are good means.
Given the spending binge by the GOP-led Congress and White House over the last 4+ years, I'm not so sure Republican is any longer synonmous with "smaller government."
Can you say "Medicare drug benefit?"
Posted by: Heartless Libertarian on June 18, 2005 01:18 PMBut keep in mind that, as Heartless Libertarian notes, these are just *recomendations*. There's a good chance that the final plan voted on by congress will look a bit different. It could look a lot different, and I think we'd all be more comfortable with a bit more majority-party clout on the issue.
Second, the idea that seniority counts for more than majority status. Sure--tell that to first term senators Norm Coleman and Liddy Dole. They've both got more clout than either of ours.
For those of you who think it's somehow stunning that the majority party does better than the minority party, please grow up. If you believe that things don't work any different under the Democrats, then you're being willfully ignorant. And it's not wrong. It is the responsibility of each member of congress to push as hard as possible for the interests of their constituents. That's why we elect them. And the more powerful someone is, the better they are able to do that--and those in the the majority tend to be more powerful than those in the minority. That's a fact of life that we all have to live with. (Even you, "third party voter." Deal.)
Obviously, congress disagrees over whether the fighters are better off here or somewhere else. Washington's delegation thinks it's better off here--and it sounds like most of us agree with them. Other good people will disagree with us, but I'd like my delegation to be a bit better prepared to win that argument.
Posted by: Timothy on June 18, 2005 04:03 PMHuh? Republicans own the White House, the House and the Senate, and you don't see that as a "drastic imbalance"?
The only thing worse than that is the fact they've been largely ineffectual at doing anything with their sweeping powers other than starting wars in foreign lands, ignoring the wrongdoing of their own, or ruling committees with the subtlety of a raging herd of elephants.
Posted by: Daniel K on June 19, 2005 12:13 AMBut you're obviously a Democrat, and thus this argument is not meant for you--it's meant for independents.
Posted by: Timothy on June 19, 2005 09:02 AMGovernor Kulongouski has said boo to the city of Portland when they opted out of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Now he is all about fighting terrorism? ya right...
Posted by: Ted on June 19, 2005 09:15 PM