Fighter Jets

It seems that we will be spending (wasting, more likely) 16 billion dollars on a new fleet of fighter jets. Naturally, the jets are American-made. Naturally, they are stunningly expensive. Naturally, there has been no formal competition to find the best provider.

I say naturally, because on the weapon market, the US makes the rules. The French have been building the past ten years a jet that outperforms all its american rivals (the Rafale) but they have yet to make a single sale. Every time a country shows signs of wanting to purchase the Rafale, the US intervenes, Robert Gates makes a few phone calls, and just like that, the deal is dead. It happened in India, it happened in Brazil, it is happening in the United Aram Emirated. It would have happened in Canada. Quite simply, if we had bought a different jet and sent 17 billion of our taxpayer dollars off to Europe, who knows how an irritated Obama would have responded.