jct74
12-18-2013, 10:51 PM
Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid
BY ALONSO SOTO AND BRIAN WINTER
Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:21pm EST
http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20131218&t=2&i=822011481&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=378&r=CBRE9BH1N3200
(Reuters) - Brazil awarded a $4.5 billion contract to Saab AB on Wednesday to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets, a surprise coup for the Swedish company after news of U.S. spying on Brazilians helped derail Boeing's chances for the deal.
The contract, negotiated over the course of three presidencies, will supply Brazil's air force with 36 new Gripen NG fighters by 2020. Aside from the cost of the jets themselves, the agreement is expected to generate billions of additional dollars in future supply and service contracts.
...
Until earlier this year, Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet had been considered the front runner. But revelations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency in Brazil, including personal communication by Rousseff, led Brazil to believe it could not trust a U.S. company.
"The NSA problem ruined it for the Americans," a Brazilian government source said on condition of anonymity.
A U.S. source close to the negotiations said that whatever intelligence the spying had delivered for the American government was unlikely to outweigh the commercial cost of the revelations.
"Was that worth 4 billion dollars?" the source asked.
The lament echo's recent complaints by Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O), which said in November that a backlash against U.S. government spying contributed to lower demand for its products in China.
...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/18/us-brazil-jets-idUSBRE9BH11C20131218
enhanced_deficit
12-18-2013, 11:00 PM
Part of latest trend. Seems like Police State at home to sustian foreign oppressions/occupations is getting even more costly.
$12 Billion Loss: IBM sued by shareholders for hiding spying ties that hit its sales in China (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?435627-12-Billion-Loss-IBM-sued-by-shareholders-for-hiding-spying-ties-that-hit-its-sales-in-China&)
acptulsa
12-18-2013, 11:10 PM
Saab makes fighter planes?
Since 1945 or so. The name is an acronym for Swedish Aerospace. Cars were a sideline for them.
But the company sold off its carmaker. So, don't let the name or their former relationship fool you into thinking that these fighter jets were once made by General Motors.
Icymudpuppy
12-18-2013, 11:13 PM
Maybe the MIC will reconsider its promotion of hard line hawks and police staters when considering donations... Not likely, but it's a hope...
Occam's Banana
12-18-2013, 11:32 PM
Somebody warm up the roost.
The chickens are on their way ...
http://api.ning.com/files/Tu6nxKDmkbvkEMqql82XenuziP9QkJWOLxTdoNtLigtMsZCKCt agp61CuwhnQs3Bn7voUOfmPlNXu1PpOHURlmF0eKSaH4q1/Chickens.jpg
HOLLYWOOD
12-19-2013, 12:54 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen
Senior Indian Air Force officials, while happy with the improved capabilities of Gripen NG, identified its high reliance on US-supplied hardware, including electronics, weaponry and the GE F414 engine, as a factor that may hamper its export potential.
Brazil/President Dilma Rousseff was being courted by the Russia with their Suhkoi SU-35BM variant and I'm quite surprised they didn't select that model/deal, it's much better than the Gripen NG. Thinking BRIC here, so on their trade agreements, I wonder if this is just a back door deal with US .gov.
Sukhoi SU-35 4th++ gen fighter/interceptor info: http://en.ria.ru/infographics/20110511/163955156.html
http://rt.com/news/bourget-russian-su-35-fighter-792/
Brazil could of been part of the multi-party Pak-FA T-50 development with Russia & India on the very impressive Sukhoi/HAL FGFA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi/HAL_FGFA.
Mixed feelings on this decision considering there's so many US parts incorporated into the Gripen NG fighter. But the details on the deal are unknown at this time.
lib3rtarian
12-19-2013, 08:11 AM
This is good news, because this is the ONLY thing which will make any difference in Washington. The federal government can run roughshod on us commoners, but if you hurt the bottomlines of the big corporations, boy, will it rattle cages in DC!
specsaregood
12-19-2013, 08:39 AM
Maybe the MIC will reconsider its promotion of hard line hawks and police staters when considering donations... Not likely, but it's a hope...
More likely is that next time they will get the NSA to give them "the dirt" on the foreigners that make these decisions and use it to influence them.
jmdrake
12-19-2013, 09:08 AM
Boobus Americanus : "That thar Edward Snowden's not only helping the mooslum tarists, he's also costin Murikun jobs! Murika! Murika!"
Brian4Liberty
12-19-2013, 10:14 AM
What? Brazil doesn't want US equipment with secret backdoors and sabotage codes built-in? They can always buy from China. Whoops, same problem...
Keith and stuff
12-20-2013, 12:12 AM
Why?
Glad you asked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
enhanced_deficit
12-20-2013, 12:14 AM
Glad you asked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.
Ok, I'm glad too I asked :) More informed now.
jct74
12-21-2013, 04:20 PM
Insight: How U.S. spying cost Boeing multibillion-dollar jet contract
BY BRIAN WINTER
SAO PAULO Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:57am EST
(Reuters) - Dilma Rousseff was thoroughly charmed.
Brazil had been struggling for years to decide which company to choose for a $4 billion-plus fighter jet contract, one of the world's most sought-after defense deals and one that would help define the country's strategic alliances for decades to come.
But Rousseff, the leftist president known for being sometimes gruff and even standoffish with foreign leaders, was thrilled after a 90-minute meeting in Brasilia on May 31 with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
After Biden's reassurances that the United States would not block crucial transfers of technological know-how to Brazil if it bought the jets, she was closer than ever to selecting Chicago-based Boeing to supply its fighter, the F/A-18 Super Hornet.
"She's ready to sign on the dotted line," one of her senior aides told Reuters at the time. "This is going to happen soon."
And then along came Edward Snowden.
...
read more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-boeing-brazil-insight-idUSBRE9BJ10P20131220
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.3 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.