is a key Romney adviser, who would directly benefit from the ship building.
Wired reports:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to boost the size of the Navy by roughly 15 percent as part of a broader defense buildup. “Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917,” he complained in Monday night’s debate. “That’s unacceptable to me.”
But for one of Romney’s most important advisers on Navy issues, a man who oversaw a massive naval expansion for Pres. Ronald Reagan, there’s more at stake than U.S. national security. John Lehman, an investment banker and former secretary of the Navy, has strong and complex personal financial ties to the naval shipbuilding industry. He has profited hugely from the Navy’s slow growth in recent years — raising the prospect that he could make even more if Romney takes his advice on expanding the fleet.
This also shows the asinine nature of the modern neocon-driven military. We've built a military for kicking the shit out of third-world countries, but that might very well be defeated against a real enemy.
ReplyDeleteIt's unlikely naval surface vessels will last very long in a real war against a real enemy. They're just too slow-moving, easily targeted, and vulnerable. But pissing away money on the military is a prime neocon pastime.
Poor Mitt, he seems to have missed the part where we keep our long range bombers half a world away from the war theater and refuel them in the air. I've read that 70% of our military budget is procurement. In other words, our foreign policy is really just a program for keeping otherwise non-productive manufacturing jobs alive.
ReplyDeleteThis makes no sense:
ReplyDelete"He has profited hugely from the Navy’s slow growth in recent years — raising the prospect that he could make even more if Romney takes his advice on expanding the fleet."
If he profited so handsomely, why would he want to change that? I have no doubt the basic argument of the article is sound, but the author is so desperate to paint these fellows as evil he's foaming at the mouth, poor salesmanship...
"CHANGE?!" He wants to EXPAND it,thus expanding his profit. Does it make sense now?!!!...
DeleteWired got the public side. For J.F. Lehman's PEU side:
ReplyDeletehttp://peureport.blogspot.com/2012/10/mitts-peu-high-seas.html