OPINION:
It is wrong to give one man so much power to implement changes that have relegated the United States from a superpower to a class-B country (“Obama to kill Navy’s Tomahawk, Hellfire missile programs in budget decimation,” Web, March 25).
Has no one in the military or Congress the guts to stand up to President Obama and organize a resistance?
This most recent missile-killing move will end any possible “tooth” provided to Navy submarines and surface vessels for sea-to-shore or sea-to-sea surface targets, a practice that has been successful for 30 years. The move to kill the missile programs has reduced the Navy to an ineffectual “force at sea,” removing the shock-and-awe capability so evident during Desert Storm, when there were more than 500 Tomahawks in flight at one time headed to targets in Iraq.
In fact, at that time there were so many missiles in flight at once they required an air-traffic control on one of the flattops to keep them from colliding in air.
This is nothing more than yet another neutering of the armed forces. A recent new photo of five first-line U.S. carriers in Norfolk, Va., moored side by side was just too absurd to believe. This simultaneous docking was not just another Pearl Harbor in the making. It would have removed five of the current 10 carriers we now have in operation.
The Truman is still in overhaul and will not be completed owing to cost overruns of $1.2 billion, and the Ford will not be completed for several more years owing to lack of funding. The congressional requirement for 12 carriers to be operational has dropped further, from 10 to nine.
The brand-new Reagan was internally contaminated at Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power-plant accident and may have to be scrapped owing to the number of radiation class-action suits brought on the Navy by exiting sailors. Lawyers are standing on the end of the pier having sailors sign up if they were on the Reagan at any time during or after Fukushima.
I have to wonder what was discussed during Mr. Obama’s recent Saudi meeting with King Abdullah. Did the king say: Get rid of those missiles because we saw what happened to Iraq, and we don’t want to get contaminated if you hit Iran’s nuclear facility with a couple hundred of these things?
JOHN LEMANDRI
Williamsburg, Va.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.