Of course as a German it's not your tax dollars or government debt being spent on using Billion dollar planes designed to take on sophisticated air defense systems and the most advanced MiG fighters dropping $100 million bombs on barbarians in a desert.
The air force has been flying them around the world for years. Al Dhafra Air Base, 2013 Are you seriously complaining about the cost of bombs and gas that would be used anyways. Money well spent on killing ISIS.
Yes I am exaggerating for effect but that said these are not cheap weapons systems. So do you have any problems with spending taxpayer money on the overkill of using F-22's against a force that has no air force or much of an anti-aircraft capability? Anyway here's a good piece about this. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-america-wasting-the-f-22-raptor-bombing-isis-11380?page=2 Why Is America Wasting the F-22 Raptor on Bombing ISIS? Here's an idea for a tee-shirt: "I Spent $412 Million on an F-22, and All I Got Was This Lousy Bomb on Syria." Last week, the F-22 Raptor -- America's premier jet fighter -- made its combat debut. Was its first combat mission dogfighting with other sophisticated jets like Russia's T-50 or China's J-20? No, it was dropping smart bombs on Islamic militants in Syria whose most sophisticated aircraft is a little surveillance drone. Among the targets the Raptors struck was an ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) "command and control facility," according to the Pentagon. That led Fox News to trumpet the F-22's baptism of fire, quoting defense experts who thought the aircraft had lived up to its $412 million per copy price tag. They credited the F-22 with a unique capability to stealthily penetrate Syria’s air defenses, and then precisely drop a guided bomb on a target in the middle of a city without causing collateral damage or casualties. Target destroyed. No F-22s lost. Good news for America's flagship fighter. But a ringing endorsement for one of the most expensive warplanes in history? Not quite. A true test of a worthy aircraft is a worthy adversary, a label that does not quite apply to Syria. Syria's air defense forces have had one brief period of glory, when a thick network of Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns took a sharp toll of unprepared Israeli aircraft in 1973. Since then, the Israeli air force has repeatedly bombed Syria without loss, including a 2007 strike on a nuclear site and Hezbollah-bound missiles in 2013. The Syrian government was reportedly warned in advance of the U.S. strikes. Yet even if Damascus had objected, it couldn't have done that much to stop it. Most of its anti-aircraft weapons are Cold War-era designs. The Syrian government for years has been trying to upgrade its defenses--looking specifically to purchase the advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia. But challenging F-22s, let alone older F-15 and F-16s, requires an integrated air defense system of radars, communications links, weapons and command centers. With the Syrian military racked by losses and desertions from fighting a brutal war against rebels armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, air defense is probably not their highest priority. While much depends on which aircraft attacked which ISIS targets, the fact is that most of the attacking aircraft were older platforms, including U.S. and Arab F-15s, F-16s, F-18s and B-1s. They did so without loss, which suggests that the F-22 wasn't really needed over Syria. If it was, then one wonders how most of the U.S. Air Force would fare over North Korea or other nations. A more likely reason for unleashing the Raptor was to prove that the F-22, repeatedly grounded for oxygen problems blamed for at least one death, is fit to fly. Since no F-22 pilots apparently passed out over Syria, at least the Air Force can claim the problem has been temporarily fixed. Or, maybe the F-22's debut is related to another aircraft. The F-22 production line has been shut down, so the 187 Raptors still flying (that number is bound to decrease due to accidents and age) are the first and the last. But what is coming is 2,443 of the Pentagon's other ultra-controversial fifth-generation stealth fighter -- the F-35. The Raptor sat out the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Now that an F-22 stealth fighter has flown one combat mission, it might be easier to defend the F-35 against its numerous critics who complain about the aircraft's cost and performance. But the F-35 is designed more as a strike aircraft than as an air superiority fighter, which means it will need fighter escort. The F-22 would be that escort, but with so few of them in existence, they should not be wasted on petty missions where a lucky hit by an anti-aircraft weapon (like the Serbian shootdown of an F-117 in 1999) could destroy them. It is the same curse that afflicted battleships; expensive war machines are too precious to risk, which means that their full capabilities can never be used. On the other hand, it was inevitable that sooner or later the F-22 would fly its first combat mission. It is reasonable for the Pentagon to choose a relatively easy target for that mission. But the F-22's real mission -- the reason why the taxpayer ponied up billions of dollars for just a couple of hundred airplanes -- was blasting enemy aircraft out of the sky. If all that was needed was a bomb truck to drop a smart bomb, then a cheaper aircraft would do.
If you want to talk cost, how much does the carrier group that the "cheap" F-18's sorties originate from cost? Is this seriously your argument? When f-22's are on the sidelines they cost too much to not do anything. When they are in the fight they cost too much to use for unworthy targets.
I was looking to see how many tanks the Iraqi Army had and found this sad tidbit on wikki: M1A1M Abrams M1 Abrams tanks in Iraqi service, Jan. 2011.jpg United States 140 [8][9] 6 more on order, however many have been destroyed by ISIS
I expect better from NewsHour. This guy says the intelligence community didn't underestimate ISIS, Judy Woodruff dismisses that and frame the last question that it is a given they did. The expert restates they didn't and then the title the video "How the U.S. missed warning signs about the Islamic State" <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1PkEd_nSk-E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/K4NRJoCNHIs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Are we going to far on the Drone thing? Rocket River
ISIS is one thing, what about the Shia militias that are becoming just as vehemently murderous---and have always been staunchly anti-American? how many enemies can America make per bomb before the return becomes too high?
It might behoove the American people to know that the President's models for modern warfare---Yemen and Somalia, are collapsed nations, spawning grounds for resurgent Islamic militancy, and piracy. The fact that he cited them as EXAMPLES to live up to---has shown just how badly American warfare has gone. White House calls Yemen 'model' for ISIS fight --------> GCC: Unstable Yemen a threat to regional security US Pulling Diplomats From Yemen
How about stopping ISIS' genocide? As usual, you sit in your mom's basement, theoreticizing about how everything must be America's fault while ISIS is slaughtering people nonstop. rocketsjudoka is whining that the bombs are too expensive, but they are helping to curb an ongoing genocide. I applaud the countries that finally step in and fight the barbarians who commit these atrocities.
Of course we have a whole host of aircraft, manned and unmanned, that can do an excellent job of dropping precision weapons down a stove pipe. The rest of the world's militaries envy our capabilities. However, Syria has some of the best anti-air systems the Russians can crank out. A B-2 can take those out, but a B-2 costs 2 billion dollars a piece. A Raptor costs far less than that, and is "seen" by your typical defense radar as being about the size of a large steel ball bearing. Little chance of being detected by defensive systems, and also very capable of coordinating air strikes by those more conventional aircraft flying with it, and taking out air defense sites if they "light up" those aircraft, and before those poor souls know what hit them, (among other things). There are a wide array of things the F-22's are capable of doing. We've clearly made the choice to dust off the Raptor and use it, instead of hoarding them for the next really BIG war against an advanced adversary. As for the F-35, it's still early days with that piece of kit. We have vastly more experience with the F-22, which has been in our inventory for many years now. I still think it was a mistake to end the program. It would have been far cheaper to continue building the Raptor, making improvements (some could have been taken from the F-35 design work), than to build the gigantically expensive F-35, in my humble opinion. But the Navy wanted a stealth manned carrier fighter/bomber, and both the Marines with their smaller aircraft carriers, and our allies with their "ski-jump" carriers wanted a replacement for the Harrier. So we're stuck with the most expensive weapons system in US history.
Sure carrier groups aren't cheap but they already have a venerable history and the F-18's already have a long history and are cheaper than the F-22's. Your argument is basically one that is well we have them so we might as well use them. That is the type of argument that has ended up bloating defense budgets without considering the appropriateness or the need of such weapon systems. Carrier battle groups aren't cheap but in regard to the project of power for this type of mission are appropriate. The F-22's are pretty much overkill. For that matter this type of mission, close ground bombardment, seems like it would be perfect for the A-10's which have a long service record and were designed for it. The F-22 wasn't designed specifically for this type of mission and as the article I posted shows it was most likely used so the DOD can argue in Congress for more 5th generation fighters even though our enemy doesn't even have 0 generation fighters.
