All Hat and No Cattle

The Army's massive modernization project, Future Combat Systems, isn't just one program. It's hundreds of interlocking, interwoven efforts to update armor, uniforms, logistics, medical care, and much, much more. A few key threads hold the whole tapestry together. And one of them is rapidly coming undone.

Without communications -- specifically, without the Joint Tactical Radio System, or "Jitters" -- many of FCS' most innovative efforts just won't work. FCS is an attempt to turn the Army into a force that takes out opponents with ultra-precise attacks and almost Godlike knowledge of the battlefield instead of with overwhelming firepower. To make this nimbly lethal dream come true, the Army needs almost-instant information-sharing, both between soldiers and with FCS' new fleet of robots. It needs Jitters.

Right now, the Army isn't getting what it needs. Jitters is flailing, badly. As we noted the other day, the Army has put one of the program's main contractors, Boeing, on notice that it could cancel one component, or "cluster," of Jitters in a month.

Ah, Boeing, one of the fine private contractors lauded by young NeoCon fascist planners in the Pentagon.

CEO: Harry C. Stonecipher
Military contracts 2004: $17.1 billion
Major campaign contributions in 2004: $312,595 (defense related)
$1.6 million (total)

America’s largest exporter, Boeing is also the Pentagon’s second largest contractor, eclipsed only by Lockheed Martin. Revenue from military goods now outstrips Boeing’s earnings from commercial sales by $5 billion a year.

The world's largest aerospace company has a role in all three of the Pentagon’s advanced fighter plane programs: the F-22 Raptor, the Joint Strike Fighter/F-35, and the F-18 and it makes both F-15 fighter and Apache helicopters. Caught knowingly selling flawed parts for the Apache that led to thousands of unnecessary landings and at least one fatal crash, Boeing has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines. Boeing also oversees many of the Pentagon’s missile defense programs, operates the Space Shuttle, makes the guidance systems for the Minuteman and Peacekeeper missiles and builds precision munitions such as the Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM), Brimstone and Harpoon missiles, and JDAM "smart" bombs. Boeing’s JDAM (joint direct attack munitions) kit fits over a "dumb" missile and coverts it into a satellite-guided weapon using movable fins and a satellite positioning system to make a “smart” bomb. But there’s a downside: the precision JDAMs have repeatedly missed their targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, hitting both civilians and US soldiers.

The lobbying efforts of Boeing, and the revolving door between the US government and the Chicago-based giant, are legendary. But Boeing’s influence-peddling finally turned sour last December when Boeing CEO Philip M. Condit was forced to resign in the wake of revelations of that the company negotiated the hiring of top Air Force procurement official Darlene Druyun while Druyun was setting up a lucrative $27.6 billion leasing deal of Boeing’s 767 air-refueling aircrafts over a period of ten years. The deal, which went through despite controversy, will cost taxpayers up to $10 billion dollars more than if the Air Force has purchased the aircrafts outright.

But Boeing still has a lot of well-connected people looking out for its interests. John Shalikashvili, retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is on the Boeing board. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Rudy de Leon heads up Boeing's Washington office. After September 11th Boeing beefed up its political connections by hiring former Senator Bennett Johnson (D-LA) and former Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY). Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Boeing's senior vice president for international relations, uses his forty years of experience to generate business for Boeing with foreign governments and corporations. Richard Perle, former Chairman and current member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, is another important Boeing ally within the corridors of power. So it should come as no surprise that Boeing has provided Perle’s venture capital firm, Trireme Partners, with $20 million. Two other Defense Policy Board members also work as consultants for Boeing: the Air Force’s General Ronald Fogelman and former Navy Admiral David Jeremiah.

Boeing ranks number sixty six in the Center for Responsive Politics’ list of the 100 biggest political donors since 1989. Over the nineties, Boeing handed out $7.6 million in Political Action Committee (PAC) and soft money contributions. During the 2002 election year, Boeing gave $909,134 in PAC contributions and $700,482 in soft money donations and its contributions added up to more than $1.5 million during the 2000 elections.

The really screwy thing, is that naive NeoCon intellectuals like Dr. Barnett really think by promoting Industrial World Warfare they can bring the benefits of their American Dream to the rest of the world.

They don't see themselves as polished, articulate tools for the robber barons to use to steal all they can in their climb to control everything.

Taking one step back, there doesn't seem to be a genuine desire of Dr. Barnett's masters to produce any of the real technology FCS needs to work in the reality-based world.

Perhaps, once they've loosed the whirlwind on their own Homeland, the NeoCon zealots will realize what they've done.

But it's doubtful they'll admit it: they're still claiming they could have won the Viet Nam War.