Letter to the Editor: Kammerer discusses Thune, national security, veterans, airplanes
Rapid City, South Dakota
A couple weeks ago, John Thune gave a news release asking that the F-35 airplane be considered for a base at Sioux Falls, SD. Senator Thune is the head of the SD congressional delegation, a big man on C Street, and number three in the US Senate, but John Thune is not a leader! Here is why I write this.
Weeks ago a request for verification of a senate vote regarding the Powder River Military Operations Area required by the Engel Act. No answer to that request has been received.
The SD congressional outfit talks out of both sides of their mouths about the VA hospital in Hot Springs. The power of votes and money is in Rapid City where the flag waving, bible thumping, fear mongering, patriots in the chamber of commerce crowd want a VA Center and Hospital in Rapid City. Beware Sturgis, the next step will be to close your VA Hospital. Our veterans deserve more respect. Let’s quit using them as cannon fodder for the benefit of powerful corporations.
The term national security is an ambiguous concept use by pork barrel packers and enhanced by their politics of fear to bleed the middle class people of their hard earned money for the security and greed of corporate America. We must remember that a former President and commander of the European theater during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower, warned us about the threat of our military industrial complex and the imperialist tendency that follows.
Mr. Thune, consider the following: share with the public what is written in these articles found at http://WWW.pogo.org have to say about the F-35:http://www.pogo.org/about/press-room/releases/2015/congress-pentagon-must-re-evaluate-f-35.html and http://www.pogo.org/about/press-room/releases/2011/ns-jsf-20110923.html .
Winslow Wheeler, an analyst for POGO called the F-35 the airplane that will eat the Pentagon.
At the same time, the Air Force is planning on retiring the A-10, a very good troop support aircraft. I also suggest interested parties also read: http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2015/suggested-congressional-oversight-priorities-and-legislative-reforms.html .
The Center for Defense Information was started in 1971 with the help of real patriots including Admiral Carroll and Admiral Zumwalt. The people of POGO are not phony patriots. They can and will question military spending and waste for the people of the United States. It is up to us as citizens and patriots to demand that our government representatives use and share these sources of information with all of us.
Democrat and Republican congressional people are guilty of using national security as pork barrel and campaign enhancement. Pimping for the military establishment that Eisenhower warned us about is the same as pimping in the flesh market.
Finally, Mr. Thune, demand full accounting of the expenditures of the Pentagon every year. Allocating excessive money for national security is a theft from our treasury and the needs of all of us. Principal is something one should treasure, not sell.
