Seven For B-2s
"We are writing you to express our concern about the
impending termination of the B-2 bomber production line. After
spending over $20 billion to develop this revolutionary aircraft,
current plans call for closing out the program with a purchase
of only twenty bombers. . . . Even after all twenty B-2s are
delivered, the inventory of long-range bombers will total barely
200 aircraft. This is not enough to meet future requirements.
. . . The logic of continuing low-rate production of the B-2
thus is both fiscal and operational. It is already apparent that
the end of the Cold War was neither the end of history nor the
end of danger. We hope it also will not be the end of the B-2."
Open letter to President Bill Clinton, issued January 5,
1995, and signed by seven former Secretaries of Defense-Harold
Brown, Frank C. Carlucci, Dick Cheney, Melvin R. Laird, Donald
H. Rumsfeld, James R. Schlesinger, and Caspar W. Weinberger.
Operating at High Tempo
"I agree that some [US military] units and some specialties
have been overextended. The operating tempo has been too high,
either for the unit or for the individuals involved. . . .
Five years ago, when units went over to Europe, they went
over there and just hunkered down and stayed there for their
tour. Now they go over, and that is a base from which they are
forward deployed. They go from there to Provide Promise or Southern
Watch or Vigilant Warrior, and some of those units . . . are
doing it at a very high risk factor-some of them as high as sixty
percent. That's too high. Not only is there a lot of stress on
the people involved because they're away from their families
. . . but it takes them out of their training cycle. . . . So
some part of their proficiency is going downhill."
Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, in a December 21,
1994, Pentagon press briefing.
Answer in Haste . . .
"I think that the record shows that the readiness of
the forces [is] as high as they have ever been-higher, in my
judgment, than they were in . . . 1990, when we were worrying
about Iraq the first time."
John M. Deutch, deputy secretary of Defense, in an October
13, 1994, Pentagon press briefing on US military readiness.
. . . Repent at Leisure
"You know, there are times when you wish you could take
a sentence back. That's one of the sentences I wish I could take
back."
Secretary Deutch in a December 1, 1994, White House press
briefing, referring to his October statement about force readiness-a
claim that was soon undercut by evidence of readiness problems
within the armed services.
No Russian Veto
"We must not allow the Iron Curtain to be replaced by
a veil of indifference. We must not consign new [east European]
democracies to a gray zone. . . . NATO remains the bedrock of
security in Europe, but its role is changing as the continent
changes. . . . New members will join, country by country, gradually
and openly. Each must be committed to democracy and free markets
and be able to contribute to Europe's security. NATO will not
automatically exclude any nation from joining. At the same time,
no country outside will be allowed . . . to veto expansion."
President Clinton, in December 5, 1994, remarks in Budapest,
Hungary, to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
His statement was aimed at Russia, which opposed NATO membership
for Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, or any
other former member of the Warsaw Pact.
Moscow's Zbig Problems
"Nearly half a century ago, the Soviet Union spurned
participation in the Marshall Plan and chose to go it alone-until
it collapsed from historical fatigue. Tormented by domestic conflict,
troubled by the rise of the new Muslim states to the south, and
facing a possible future challenge from a powerful China in the
east, today's Russia is in no position to engage in a conflict
with the West as well. Moscow can perhaps delay the enlargement
of NATO, but it can neither halt Europe's growth nor prevent
the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security umbrella over the
wider Europe. It can merely isolate itself again."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former White House special assistant
for national security affairs, writing in the December 28, 1994,
New York Times.
Noam Chomsky's America
"True, Japan had committed many horrendous crimes before
the US entered the war, but that's hardly relevant, since the
US had little objection to them, as long as it was permitted
freely to share in the spoils. . . . Also true, Japan did commit
a crime [the surprise attacks on Hawaii and the Philippines]
on December 78, 1941, bombing military bases in two US colonies
that had been stolen from their inhabitants-in one case by deceit
and treachery, in another by slaughter of hundreds of thousands
of defenseless people in the traditional style. But these Japanese
crimes, though real enough, rank so low in the scale of those
we [the United States] have regularly committed, before and since,
that no honest person could take them very seriously as a justification
for [a US] invasion [of Japan]."
MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, in a December 12, 1994, letter
to AFA member Burr Bennett. Professor Chomsky was one of forty-eight
"historians and scholars" who signed a letter demanding
a more critical tone to the National Air and Space Museum's exhibition
of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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