What fighter plane do you think Romania should use?

Blame? This is the problem! Blame the "culture of blame"! Everything that Romania does is immediately turned by bloggers, twitters and all other hollow "specialists" into an issue that MUST lead to "blame".

Romanians, as already proven in this thread, want nothing but the top of the range fighter and nothing else. The problem is that these "specialists" do not even understand what keeps a plane in the air, never mind understand how to compare them. The second a choice is made, the bloggers get into an insane overdrive trying to explain what that "choice" is "wrong" and start looking for "blame". How could the MoD choose a fighter when they know from the very beginning that irrespective of their choioce, there will be "blame".

The MoD should simply show the finger to "melteanu blogar" and just choose a fighter. Begrudgers can go and take a long running jump from a very short pier.

Radu

This post has been edited by Radub on November 22, 2010 02:23 pm

How right you are,Radu.

Personally I doubt that the people taking the decision care what X or Y are saying on the Internet or in the press about the subject. The dogs are barking, the bear keeps going.

Recently, most "scandals" that dominated the political life in Romania were generated and fanned by blogs and tweets. Take your pick.
Radu

True, indeed! But what were the consequences? If any...
On a funnier note, if Russia enters the "partnership" we'd better return to MIG's!

Well... look at "scandalul frunza". It all started with a tweet and a blog. See where that led...
Radu

There is much more money at stake here that in the case of Udrea's leaf. It's the kind of money people could kill over.

I totally disagree with that - apart from the fact that in the given military matter many there were indeed a lot of inept journalistic accounts, which was not the case in the protracted F 16 business. In that particular situation the mere common sense would decrypt the real essence of a politically ordered deal - disguised as a donation, in order to sell, without an open contest of offers, second hand useless planes at a good price. And when saying useless I’m simply pointing out the fact that no Romanian airfield at that time could have operationally hosted an F 16 - so new investments were needed.

Back to your initial assertion now, I would say that Romania’s problem is a culture of irresponsibility. Take a look a few posts above and judge for yourself the situation of the national defense as presented by Mircea87. Do you find that being normal, justified, beyond the blame? I’d say that in this case the search for blame and the according retribution would be not only normal, but beneficial for the society. What about the repeatedly discussed “Delfinul” file, or even the situation mentioned by Basescu?

Note: we can be sure that Basescu mentioned the blame, without attributing it, because he’s readying his “dirt ammunition” for the future. Not knowing exactly who his arch-enemies are going to be in the next elections (parliamentary) / political conflicts / scandals, he’s preparing another case of “told you so”/self-fulfilling prophecy.

OFF-TOPIC: radub, I’d bet a substantial amount of money on the fact that you live abroad, you voted for Basescu (and would do it again, if necessary) and that, while living a normal life in a overly sane political system, you’re blaming (teaching us lessons) us for not loving our leader(s) anymore, or warmly enough.

I sincerely do not buy the bs that the quality of my life is primarily affected by the poor quality of the media, or by the machination of the bad “moguls”; being rather old-fashioned, I’d look first at the political leadership.

This post has been edited by Agarici on November 25, 2010 11:53 am

That applies equally to any other aircraft, not only F16.

OK, let's say you get your "public execution". Then what? How many planes will we get if we shoot Basescu llive on TV on Christmas day? I can understand you are angry, but remember the old saying: "never take decisions when you are angry".

OK, how much are you willing to bet? You are wrong on pretty much every count except one. (nope, I do not love Basescu )
Radu

Radub, please don’t get me wrong: in my opinion the F 16 deal would still have been better than what we ended with (meaning nothing).

Well, that requires an extended theoretical discussion. The presence of retributions is an essential part of any judicial-type or rule-based system. I’d only say that, since the entire world is using these kind of systems, and unless we have/discover some very convincing reason not to, we'd better go along with their rationale. You should also consider that in any domestic penal system punishing a murderer won’t get back to life the victim, and convicting a thief is accompanied by the recovery of its material damage in only a minority of cases.

I can point at two important reasons to punish the rascals, (but not in the sense of shooting them publicly - even tough I do not like Basescu at all ): the first, not to let them continue as if they didn’t do anything wrong, and the second to set an example (and a precedent) for others who might want to choose the same path. And for me, sine ira et studio, I think they are convincing enough.

If that's the case then it's my bad and I'm ready to apologize and to pay. I might only ask that the final sum be translated into, say, beers. Cheers!

This post has been edited by Agarici on November 25, 2010 06:06 pm

Well, this is way off-topic.

For retribution to be effective, it needs to be timely, fair, adequate and justified.
(I work in courts)

Radu

From Radu's earlier post:

BINGO! I think this is one of the most cogent and accurate statements made in this thread, especially the first sentence.

Slightly off-topic:
This reminds me of an observation that a Romanian acquaintance made to me, and it really stuck to my mind. This guy (he's an architect) was born, grew up, and lives outside of Romania, but we meet occasionally at Romanian parties.
Anyway, he casually observed that regardless of the topic or subject discussed (small-talk made at parties and social functions), he has never heard a Romanian person utter the words "I DON'T KNOW" in a conversation. You will hear doctors heatedly debating architectural trends with architects, engineers confidently contradicting surgeons on medical techniques, etc.... you get the picture.
I think this is an unfortunate trait that we share - and by the way, Romanians living abroad are even worse at this "know-it-all" attitude than the ones living in the country.
But what do I know? I don't know.... I may be wrong.

As for planes, in the current situation I'd be content if we just had fighter planes that don't crash.

Disclaimer:
1. I did not vote for Basescu and I dislike him both as a person and as a politician.

Regards.

I don't think we/they want top of the range fighters since they realise that's an impossible dream. What is desired is buying something new, not second-hand. If we can afford only a handful of second-hand fighters, and with significant efforts too, then maybe we can no longer handle an air force and should go without one, relying instead on our allies and should put the money into a niche sector we could excel at. Attack helicopters, combat UAVs or modern APCs etc.

Phew... That is a lot of emotive talk. No air force? Are you serious?

We need pilots! For starters, most of them move on to be our airline pilots after their tour of duty. And if you have no pilots, what is the point of having fancy aircraft?

In my opinion, if we need to strip our air force to the bare minimum, we should get training aircraft and keep training pilots. If there is a conflict, we can always buy/borrow aircraft from our allies (as we already did in two wars). Keep them flying, keep them trained, keep the tip of the sword sharp.

I personally do not see anything wrong with second hand aircraft. I flew in "second hand airliners". They fly just as well.

I personally would love to see a Romanian Eurofighter, but would not refuse an F-16. If it is good enogh for Israel, then it is good for me also. ;-)

Radu

This post has been edited by Radub on November 28, 2010 09:41 am

I didn't mean no air force at all, just not modern fighter jets. Which we obviously can't afford. It's not a tragedy, there are plenty of countries out there that can't have a proper air force and/or a proper navy. There are even some whose land forces aren't worth a dime either. Romania investing in capital (second-hand) ships and in (second-hand) fighter jets is a waste of money. We should put that money in land forces, SAMs, UAVs, stuff like that.

Don't compare us with Israel. They get billions of dollars in military assistance every year and access to all kinds of arms deals. Look at Israel's GDP and military budget and at Romania's and then ask yourself how come it is so beefed up militarily. It's like a midget pumped full of steroids. Outside assistance plays an important part in that. So Israel handling F-16s says nothing about Romania's ability to do the same.