Marine ONE.. made in Not the USA

[Navy1960]

No. Nor have I had that impression for the last twenty years or so.

Now...answer me this Navy...

Do you think that international corporations that were formerly producing in America, but have offshored their production, but who still import their foreign made goods have American's best interests at heart?

My honest opinion is this, I don't think and have never thought for a moment that American Military hardware, should be manufactured offshore in any shape or form. The reason being is quite simple, for a strategic reason one would not want to be put into a situation where a foreign supplier of a tactical asset would hold that asset hostage for any reason. Say for example the United State wished to perform a flyover of a country to access another for whatever purpose, and the country that we flew over was a main supplier of saay , tanker aircraft. So their response was, "we will withhold your tankers for your airforce, as we don't want you to flyover nor do we want you in X country or Y country" Not to mention the fact the number of highly skilled jobs that Americans are missing out on. So my honest opinion is, especially for military assests when our country does not first source these items from the United States and sole sources them from a foreign supplier then to me thats tantamount to treason. I know that may sound harsh, but to me it puts our country at great risk. I am not against a foreign supplier as a second source such as with BAE in the JSF project but not as a single source like the presdential helicopter.

 

[Navy1960]

Maybe the European-made helicopter is better quality?

Don't really think it had anything to do with quality E.D. , the biggest reason I think was that the European design is an in-production design where-as the design that Sikorsky proposed would have been an all new design. The other difference was that the European design according to the Navy was slightly bigger than the Sikorsky design.

The choice of AgustaWestland for Marine One surprised most industry observers because U.S.-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. was the heavy favorite. Sikorsky patented the first helicopter design in 1939 and built virtually every president's helicopter since 1957. President Eisenhower regularly flew in a Sikorsky to his Gettysburg farm, and the Sikorsky that Nixon boarded when he resigned from the White House is now being restored for permanent display at the Nixon Library.

Not only did Sikorsky lose, but it lost to a foreign firm that has no problems selling its helicopters to the United States' adversaries. (See side bar, "Choppers for Sale, to Everyone")

As with the yellowcake dossier, the key figure in the Marine One contract is Gianni Castellaneta. When the Pentagon put the Marine One contract out for bid, Castellaneta was deputy chair of Finmeccanica and national security advisor to Prime Minister Berlusconi. By the time the contract was awarded, Castellaneta had been appointed Italy's ambassador to the United States.

Castellaneta proudly told U.S. Italia Weekly, "At noon President Bush received me for the official delivery of credentials. He didn't make me wait a single day. An exceptional courtesy."

Castellaneta's role in obtaining the Marine One contract has never been examined before, but according to Affari Italiani, Italy's first online daily, and disarmo.org, an Italian arms control advocacy group, Castellaneta has long managed the most sensitive dossiers in U.S.-Italian bilateral relations.

Was Presidential Helicopter Deal a Pay Off for Italy's Pre-War Yellow-Cake Intel Role? - NAM

DoD is a big mess now E.D. and these days most contracts are not based on a side by side review they are based on give backs, or favors. I suspect when you look deeper into this one you will see this as very much a "thank you" for the help contract.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

DoD is a big mess now E.D. and these days most contracts are not based on a side by side review they are based on give backs, or favors. I suspect when you look deeper into this one you will see this as very much a "thank you" for the help contract.

I see, that makes sense too. Not very surprising, either.

 

[editec]

My honest opinion is this, I don't think and have never thought for a moment that American Military hardware, should be manufactured offshore in any shape or form. The reason being is quite simple, for a strategic reason one would not want to be put into a situation where a foreign supplier of a tactical asset would hold that asset hostage for any reason. Say for example the United State wished to perform a flyover of a country to access another for whatever purpose, and the country that we flew over was a main supplier of saay , tanker aircraft. So their response was, "we will withhold your tankers for your airforce, as we don't want you to flyover nor do we want you in X country or Y country" Not to mention the fact the number of highly skilled jobs that Americans are missing out on. So my honest opinion is, especially for military assests when our country does not first source these items from the United States and sole sources them from a foreign supplier then to me thats tantamount to treason. I know that may sound harsh, but to me it puts our country at great risk. I am not against a foreign supplier as a second source such as with BAE in the JSF project but not as a single source like the presdential helicopter.

And do you understand that this nation's mighty military might ALSO depends on AMERICANS working to pay for it?

You see, it isn't JUST military hardware made in the USA which protects our freedoms, it's having an industrialized America PERIOD.

Sadly, one cannot convince most Republicans or Democrats in Congress that our FREE TRADE policies (as currently practiced) have put us on the path to the destruction of this once great nation.

Adam Smith (contrary to the out-of-context quotes so often used as an excuse for FREE TRADE) understood this perfectly.

The Founding Fathers understood it well enough, as did our leadership for 200 years for having trade policies that insured that this nation was industrialized and self sufficient.

If I were given to rhetorical excess I might even suggest that we, the American people and the Republic for which it stands are being STABBED IN THE BACK by the monied interests who have taken control of our government and now craft policies that make them richer, but which make our nation poor.

But since I'm not given to rhetorical excess, I'll just suggest that the leadership of this nation has merely made a pattern of mistakes consistently for the last three decades, and hasn't yet noticed that our nation is now bankrupted by that pattern of mistakes.

Our modus vivendi is for them to pretend to be clueless and innocent, and for me to pretend to that I believe them to be so.

 

[Navy1960]

And do you understand that this nation's mighty military might ALSO depends on AMERICANS working to pay for it?

You see, it isn't JUST military hardware made in the USA which protects our freedoms, it's having an industrialized America PERIOD.

Sadly, one cannot convince most Republicans or Democrats in Congress that our FREE TRADE policies (as currently practiced) have put us on the path to the destruction of this once great nation.

Adam Smith (contrary to the out-of-context quotes so often used as an excuse for FREE TRADE) understood this perfectly.

The Founding Fathers understood it well enough, as did our leadership for 200 years for having trade policies that insured that this nation was industrialized and self sufficient.

If I were given to rhetorical excess I might even suggest that we, the American people and the Republic for which it stands are being STABBED IN THE BACK by the monied interests who have taken control of our government and now craft policies that make them richer, but which make our nation poor.

But since I'm not given to rhetorical excess, I'll just suggest that the leadership of this nation has merely made a pattern of mistakes consistently for the last three decades, and hasn't yet noticed that our nation is now bankrupted by that pattern of mistakes.

Our modus vivendi is for them to pretend to be clueless and innocent, and for me to pretend to that I believe them to be so.

edit, I am very much and have always been very much in favor of the prime source of Military procurement be American made. The reasons, I stated have not changed from what I stated above. To sole source any item under this false guise of American company , foreign produced fools no one except perhaps the congressmen that have a financial intrest in seeing to it that it gets approved. Military purchases of strategic aand tactical hardware from foreign sources as a sole providers puts the U.S. Military at great risk for political blackmail, not to mention the number of American jobs that are shipped offshore. Here is something else to consider, some of the needed skills to build Military hardware are NOT skills that you pick up in college. Take for highly skilled welding needed for building Naval vessels, each time the DoD closes down a shipyard and sells it to the Chinese like at Long Beach, this country loses a skill that cannot be taught again.

 

[bigdaddygtr]

Can't say I can speak educated on the topic but it does sound like a bunch of crap

 

[Navy1960]

Can't say I can speak educated on the topic but it does sound like a bunch of crap

Anyone can big, here is the bottom line, our country and especially the DoD has trended to the same pattern the civilian sector has and that is to sole source off shore items purchased by Americans tax money. It does seem to me that our tax money should be used here at least first and foremost. The money spent on these projects is your tax money and the DoD does these things because they know that the averarge American will say, well I don't know what it involves so, I will leave it to the experts, when the bottom line your the one paying for it, so you should have a say so in where that money goes.