Wednesday, April 12, 2006
SAN DIEGO
Who killed immigration reform? The autopsy shows it was Senate Democrats.
It's tempting to put a pox on both parties. But it wouldn't be fair. Republicans were tireless in search of comprehensive, and bipartisan, reform.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., joined with U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to draft the guest-worker legislation, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., made that legislation central to what his committee sent to the full Senate. U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., were vocal in their support. Sens. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., offered a helpful compromise. And Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., showed leadership by reaching out to the other side.
Democratic villain
Too bad you can't say the same for Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who was the villain in this drama.
Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin-American Citizens, told me he tried to impress upon Reid's office that it was important to get immigration reform done.
"Apparently, it fell on deaf ears," Flores said.
Reid claims it was GOP hard-liners who killed reform by running roughshod over Frist.
Baloney. The hard-liners had -- by all accounts -- no more than 30 votes, including those of conservative Democrats. On the other side, you had -- according to McCain -- as many as 70 votes.
A deal was at hand that would have offered legal status to some illegal immigrants. It would have made the GOP seem more Latino-friendly, but it would also have infuriated organized labor, which opposes something that was in the mix: guest workers.
After the Senate Judiciary Committee put out a guest-worker bill, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney issued a statement saying: "Guest-workers programs are a bad idea and harm all workers."
That did it. Senate Democrats sided with labor and sold out Latinos. The deal came undone because Reid refused to allow the legislation to go through the amendment process. Republicans had come up with as many as 400 amendments but whittled the list to 20. Reid agreed to proceed with debate on just three.
Calculated outcome
It was a masterstroke by Democrats. Labor is happy. And while Latinos are angry, there's always the chance that Democrats can fool them into channeling that anger toward Republicans.
Remarkably, it's working. At a protest in Washington Monday, one Latina held up a sign that read: "The GOP is losing my Latino vote." At another protest in Dallas, someone handed out registration leaflets urging demonstrators to vote Democratic.Some Latino leaders don't think it'll be that easy. Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, told me: "I don't believe that it's wise for Democrats to come to our community and ask for votes by saying: "Hey, we kept an immigration bill from going forward.' People understand when they're being used."
Even so, it looks like Reid and the Democrats orchestrated the perfect deception. Trouble is, they left fingerprints.
The Washington Post said in an editorial: "Democrats -- whether their motive was partisan advantage or legitimate fear of a bad bill emerging from conference with the House -- are the ones who refused, in the end, to proceed with debate on amendments, which is, after all, how legislation gets made."
Frank Sharry, the executive director of the liberal National Immigration Forum, said in a statement: "We cannot escape the conclusion that the Democratic Senate leadership was more interested in keeping the immigration issue alive in the run-up to midterm elections than in enacting immigration reform legislation."
And Kennedy told The Associated Press: "Politics got ahead of policy on this." He then refused, according to the article, to defend Reid's performance. The story noted that, "Outside the Senate, several Democratic strategists concluded that the best politics was to allow the bill to die."
The moral: Marches and Mexican flags don't equal power. Labor uses millions of dollars in political contributions to take care of Democrats, and so Democrats take care of labor.
After the bill died, Democrats rubbed salt in the wound by insisting that Latinos had no choice but to stay on the liberal hacienda. Susan Estrich, who served as campaign manager for Michael Dukakis in 1988, told Fox News that Republicans had blown their chance to win Latino votes and predicted that Latino support would help Democrats win both houses of Congress.
You see, in a twist on the famous words of one of their icons, Democrats no longer ask what they can do for Latinos, only what Latinos can do for them.
The writer is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union Tribune. Contact him at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/12/2006 14:09 ||
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Fairly long, this needs p. 49 (or an editing to the first few ones if this is really too long, my bad).
I find this good, even if this doesn't concern me directly - except that some of thoses are closely mirrored in our own immigration myths (and are even falser, think of the absurd anti National Front slogan "we are all children of immigrants" applied to France which was long a land of deeply rooted peasants) -, but this may prove interesting to some RB readers who follow the issue.
Georgia Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney's recent run-in with a security official at the nation's Capitol reminded me of an earlier dust-up.
On New Year's Eve 2002, while I was a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, the superintendentthe distinguished three-star Vice Adm. Richard J. Naughtontried to enter the academy without wearing the photo ID required of all military and civilian personnel.
Naturally expecting that the young Marine sentry on duty would recognize his all-important superintendent, Naughton boldly tried to pass. But instead, the Marine asked him to produce identification. Angry words and some sort of altercation ensued between the admiral and the enlisted man.
Later, Naughton claimed he couldn't "remember" whether he had "touched" the guard, but he did concede he "might" have done so. After a lengthy, ultimately damning investigation, Naughton resignedfirst from his post as academy superintendent and then subsequently from the Navy altogether. During the investigation, some skeptics at Annapolis had doubted whether Naughton would pay any price. But his exalted rank, along with his race and gender, won no exemption.
I mention the Naughton case to illustrate that such mix-ups at government checkpoints are not unusualand that eventually public pressure catches up with aristocratic arrogance and even the powerful are held to account. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
04/12/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
No law or internal regulation in the US Constitution, USC(A), CFR, NavRegs and ... UCMJ says "political privelege" or "politicians/
crats/flag officers only". No law or regs gener forces anyone to be PC, just as no law or reg prevents anyone from telling the truth or untruth of anything. As posted on the Net over the years, where the Commie Clintons and their PC anti-AMer cabal are concerned, America will eventually be attacked, and when that attack occurred [9-11] it occurred in large part to the establishment/NPE's willingness to protect its own Destroyer(s), and to do so willing, wid the Clintons or any others like them superior or inferior, despite knowing it and the Country will be betrayed and sold down the river later on. AMERICA, AND BOTH ITS ALLIES OR ENEMIES, ARE ALL IN A "KILL OR BE KILLED", "FIGHT OR DIE", "RULE OR BE SLAVE", "IMPLODE OR BE IMPLODED" NATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL SITUATION. America and its democratic Allies must now either de facto rule the world, and by extens the future OWG and NWO; OR BE DESTROYED. Be it under Secular Communism-Socialism, or God-based Global Caliphate/Islamist State, aka God-based Socialism, America must either unilater give up, or forcibly lose by armed force and warfare, domestic control its own sovereignty, freedoms, laws, Govt. and endowments to other weaker nations whereupon, iff Eric Pianka, CoasttoCoastAM guests, the Chicom defense white paper of 2005, and other radical intellectuals are any measure, Americans may still end up being gulagged andor exterminated anyways whether we "submit" voluntarily or forcibly. Our national destruction and holocaust is good for us.
#5
The most recent run-in is not the first one for McKinney. She did pretty much the same thing during her first term. The Capitol Police went so far as to post a picture of her on the bulletin board. She refused to wear her Congressional ID pin then, too. Talk about an elitist snob.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/12/2006 9:05 Comments ||
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#6
The only reasons I can think of for members of Congress to be recognized on sight are if their pictures are displayed at the post office or we are allowed to hunt them for sport.
#7
An event like this happened at Ft. Eustis when a visiting one star was stopped at the gate and berated the gate guard. All the guard asked for was ID. When the General refused, because he was in uniform and did not need to he said, the MP ask him to get out of the car. When he refused the MP drew his side arm and insisted. General Starry was the highest ranking officer on the post at the time and came to the gate to get the officer. Before he had the officer's hand cuffs removed Gen Starry pinned an impact ARCOM on the troop. Where have the great officers like Starry gone?
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/12/2006 10:35 Comments ||
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#8
SteveS - now that might not be a bad idea......
/Joking - do not construe this as a threat against congresscritters....
A group of well financed Islamo-fascist terrorists buy current models of American-built jets, paint them to look like passenger or cargo aircraft, then fly suicide missions against targets in the West.
That sounds like the plot of one of my novels. But according to a well-placed source of mine, it's exactly what the Iranian government has been trying to do for more than a year now. Commercial aircraft brokers on at least two continents have received shadowy inquiries they believe originate in Tehran to buy eight-year-old or younger B737 new generation airplanes, and B747-400 aircraft of the same vintage, price no object.
The fact that Iran may be trying to buy American made jet aircraft clandestinely and is willing to pay sky's-the-limit prices is hugely worrisome. According to Joshua R. EDKINS [pseudonym], a retired supergrade CIA clandestine service operative, Buying aircraft is very competitive and the first question usually asked is, How much.?' When price doesn't matter, something's wrong. Such is the case here. If Iran buys these aircraft, what better way to deliver a nuke?
EDKINS and others with knowledge of the Tehran regime believe that it would be operationally feasible for Iran to buy an aircraft, fit it with a primitive nuclear device, and launch the plane against an American target. The suicide crew might be Iranian, or the mission could be jobbed out to one of Iran's owned-and-operated Shia surrogates like Hezbollah, or even sub-contracted to a Sunni al-Qa'ida or al-Qa'ida in Iraq cell.
They'll train a crew and insert a Plutonium bomb using dated Fat-Boy technology -- which is why they need a fat belly aircraft, says EDKINS.
Indeed, flight training could be conducted in Iran. The pilots could conceivably become proficient enough to fly Iran Air flights in order to learn commercial procedures and develop confidence dealing with air control centers.
Operationally, a mission against the US would be incredibly tough -- but not impossible. And the Iranians have both patience and a long-term weltanschauung when it comes to these sorts of terror operations. You want weltanschauung? Long before the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, the nucleus of what would become his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was training in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley under the protection of the PLO's Yasser Arafat. So by the time Arafat and his minions left Beirut for Tunis in 1982, Iran had already established itself to fill the terror vacuum in Lebanon by creating what would become Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad Organization. And patience? After the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy, hundreds of pages of shredded CIA documents were painstakingly reconstructed strand by strand.
So now, Tehran can take its time too. The Iranians can spend weeks, even months monitoring and recording communications between commercial aircraft and regional FAA control centers or even NORAD by using scanners, thus familiarizing the suicide crew with what they'd have to say as they approached U.S. airspace. The same techniques could be used to glean language from flight control in Western Europe.
The airliners could go through a series of identity changes that would make them nigh on impossible to trace. And when it came time to use them, they wouldn't have to be painted to look like jets belonging to United Airlines or other U.S.-based carriers, either. Any airline that flies 737s or 747s would do -- even FedEx or other airfreight carriers. The list of false IDs would also probably also include aircraft from South America, where Iran is currently deepening its ties with such anti-US leaders as Venezuela's rabidly anti-American president Hugo Chavez.
Indeed, the growing Tehran-Caracas axis is troubling on a number of levels. When I was in Paris recently, a source of mine with well-placed intelligence connections in Tehran mentioned that as far back as early 2005 the mullahs had budgeted more than $200 million to spread around in South America, where a growing number of the continent's new leaders, epitomized by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, are turning both leftward and increasingly anti-US in their policies.
Venezuelan president Chavez is a vocal supporter of Iran's nuclear program. As far back as March of 2005, the then-president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, received a warm welcome from the Venezuelan strongman. Khatami did not visit Chavez empty-handed either. He delivered 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles (an impressive number of weapons considering the fact that the Venezuelan armed forces number only slightly more than 80,000) as well as a cadre of Iranian experts -- several hundred engineers and technicians to help set up joint commercial ventures. Those joint ventures also provide perfect cover for status for clandestine officers from Iran's intelligence service, the Ministry of Security and Information, thus allowing Iran's Seppah-e Pasdaran (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), to establish a fertile and hospitable hub from which to recruit agents, gather intelligence, and organize terror operations against the United States.
Chavez and the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have also exchanged warm greetings in recent months. Ahmadinejad, who has called for the eradication of Israel and claimed the Holocaust never took place, is said to have been impressed by Chavez's 2005 Christmas Eve broadcast, during which the Venezuelan made a number of anti-Semitic remarks.
And how does the current Caracas-Tehran love-fest dovetail with Iran's attempts to buy American aircraft and fly one at a U.S. target? The answer is that the Venezuelan president might actually be loony enough to be persuaded to allow Tehran to substitute its suicide mission for a Venezuelan flight. Fiction? Like I said, it sounds like the plot of one of my novels. But stranger things have actually happened.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/12/2006 13:56 ||
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#1
Paint would be irrelevant to an air traffic controller. What about the transponder on the plane?
Or for that matter, why not just use an Emirates Air jet? They land all over the US.
#5
I for one was surprised that there were not a second wave of 9/11 attacks based on this idea in late 2001 early 2002. In fact it was used in a really cheesy Glenn Ford/Vince Edwards movie done for TV called Evening in Bytantium http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077521/fullcredits
In an earlier essay titled Migration to the West and Radicalization of the Muslims, I have delved into how Muslims suddenly become more radicalized or Islamized when they arrive in the West and how that helps in transforming the next generation Muslims into tools of violence and terrorism. I have also explained that the Western cultures are hateful and unacceptable to Muslims. They consider Western way of life sinful. Migrants of other religious backgrounds, such as Hindus, Buddhist, Christians etc., coming from the same countries with similar socio-cultural traditions and values do not seem to show similar hatred against the Western social and cultural values as do the Muslims. The question readily arises: Why Muslims only find the Western culture, tradition and way of life sinful and unacceptable and get into clash with them?
The Islamic theological basis needs a detailed exploration to grasp this riddle of the migrant Muslim communities of the West. This clash emerges from the crux of the Islamic creed. The core theme of Islam is contained in the Islamic Shahada which reads There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet. Explicit in this central creed of Islam is the denial of all other Gods and all other ways of spiritual life. Also implicit in the Shahada is the denial of the history, cultural and traditional heritage prior to the Islamic revelation. Islam in itself is the perfect and complete code of life, culture and tradition thrust directly from the infallible master of the universe. The history, culture and tradition, prior to Islam is unworthy an era known as the age of Jahiliya (ignorance) in Islam. The civilized history of the world starts with the perfection of the religion of Allah and the history, culture, tradition and heritage within the fold of Islam are the only civilized ones. The extra-Islam tradition, culture and ways of life are the extension from the Jahilaya age and contrary to the wishes of almighty creator, Allah. Shashi R Sharma writes on the advent of Islamic theology in the 7th century Arabia, In one fell stroke of theology, the accumulated vision of mankind in every other part of the globe its most cherished cultural and intellectual acquisition are consigned to a state of utterly forgettable decadence. Nothing was valuable prior to Islam and nothing will be valuable for mankind in the future unless the assignation of value corresponds to some element of Islamic ethics. [Caliphs and Sultan, p38]. He continued, Rejection of every value contrary to Islamic precepts is the sine quo non of a pure life of (Islamic) faith.
Affirmation of this central thought in Islam has been brilliantly reflected in a recent article by Aatish Taseer, titled The Damascene Conversion in Prospect Magazine after his months-long probing the state of Islam in the so-called secular state of Syria. He wrote:
Nadir, my guide and translator, showed me that history itself came from Islam. In a frustrated moment, he said: "We used to have a great history. Not before Islam of course, but since." By "we" he meant Syrians, who a mile away had founded the Christian church, and who, a millennium before that, had invented the alphabet.
"This land has had a great history for thousands of years that pre-dates Islam," I said.
"Yes," Nadir answered, "an immoral history."
I had never heard of such a thing, but Nadir's idea, like Khaldun's (authors Arabic teacher in Damascus) was part of Islam's all-encompassing nature. If you had it, you needed nothing else. "If I find one thing," Nadir said, "one thing that the Koran doesn't cover, I will renounce the faith." But Nadir could never find that one thing because Islam served as the source of everything.
Since Islam is prefect in every aspect for living the ideal human life [Q10:37], everything else is unnecessary, uncivilized and immoral innovation and extension from the Jahiliya age. Those are not worth entertaining and must be rejected and destroyed, if within the power. The rejection of all extra-Islamic value and cultural systems, which is binding on the Muslims by the Islamic doctrine comes to work when Muslims are faced with values and cultures which are different from what is acceptable in Islam, such as those in the West. If one follows Prophet Muhammads life and actions, it becomes evident that he had single-mindedly worked on destroying all other religions, cultures and tradition, including his ancestors, which he came in contact with and replaced them with his own brand, that is, Islamic religion and culture. On the day the victorious Prophet Muhammad entered his hometown of Mecca in 630, he immediately destroyed all the pagan temples there, including the Kaba which have been places of worship for his ancestors for centuries.
Indeed, Muslims have destroyed or tried to destroy every culture and tradition that they had come across during the glorious days of Islamic conquests and replaced them with the Islamic ones or sought to do so. One shining example is the people of Turkey whose life-style, social values and thought-process are so vastly different from the people of other European countries, despite desperate attempts to modernize, secularize and westernize the Turkish society and culture starting with the disbandment of theocratic caliphate and introduction of secularism by Kamal Ataturk in 1924. The vastly different life-style, culture and values of the Caucasian people of Chechnya and Russia also tell us the same story. The underlying reason lies in the fundamental theological basis of Islam. The word Islam means complete submission to Allah, the almighty owner of the Universe. This submission is achieved on earth by unquestioned acceptance of Gods perfect laws and guidance as revealed in the Koran. Allah Himself says, Today I have perfected your religion through the Koran. Since Allah is the unquestioned owner of every terrestrial being and object, who is infallible in his judgment, all must submit to His perfect and unchangeable code, which is Islam. It cannot happen that one lives in the Kingdom of Allah but does not follow or submit to His laws, which is perfect, infallible. This desire of the almighty Allah for complete submission of the entire mankind to Islam has been explicitly spelled in the Koran: Mohammad is the messenger bringing Islams rules to all humankind, and Allah is sovereign of the heavens and the earth (7:157-158). This submission has to come through persuasion; if not, through threats and intimidation and if needed, through force including wars, massacres and mass enslavement. The protocol for submission of infidels to Islam as described in the Koran has been summed up by Sir William Muir in his The Life of Mohamet as follows [p288]:
In the Koran, victories are announced, success promised, actions recounted; failure is explained, bravery applauded, cowardice or disobedience chided; military or political movement are directed; - and all this as an immediate communication from the Deity (Allah).
All such means were put to practical application by Prophet Muhammad himself, which must be continued until complete submission of human beings to Islam has been achieved. Allah urges the Muslims to fight those, who are outside the fold of Islam, until such an end has been achieved:
· And fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah, but if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors. [Q2:193]
· Fight those who believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. [Koran-9:29]
Destruction of extra-Islamic societies and cultures or attempt to do so, has been one of the glorious feature of the victorious history of Islamic conquests. If one takes a careful look at the Muslim people across the world and compare them with their non-Muslim counterparts (people of their ancestor religion), one can easily recognize how the invading Muslim rulers have systematically destroyed or the converted Muslims have ditched the vastly different cultures, customs and ways of life and replaced them with largely similar Islamic ones. In India, thousands of Hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries and other indigenous religious institutions were destroyed by the Muslim invaders and rulers and many famous temples were replaced by mosques. The construction of Babri mosque at the site of temple of Rama, the most revered Godly figure in Hindu religion (which has created so much tension and violence recently in India), is one such example. In fact, Indias National Archaeological Survey has identified 400 mosques across India having building materials extracted from destroyed Hindu temples. Remains of temples structures have recently been identified below the destroyed Babri mosque.
Thus, the desire to destroy extra-Islamic religion, culture and value system, which are all born out of ignorance (extension from Jahiliay age), is central to the fundamental thesis of Islam. This central ordinance of Islam has been put to practical application throughout the last 14 centuries of Islam's existence on earth, starting from the days of Prophet Muhammad. This doctrine is being routinely exercised by Muslims wherever they are a dominant force even today. In Saudi Arabia, one cannot carry Bible or any other non-Islamic religious book, nor can there exist any Church, temple or synagogue. In so-called modern democratic Muslim states, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, non-Muslims are routinely being harassed, their young girls are being abducted and forcefully married to Muslims, they are being evicted from their homes, lands and properties and their religious places of worships are being attacked and destroyed. Even in a place like Kosovo, the Muslims Albanian settlers, brought during the Ottoman occupation and who now form a majority, are reported to have destroyed ~200 churches of indigenous Serbian Christians, since the Kosovo war ended in 1999. These are all happening in front of the very nose of UN protection force. The central writ of the Islamic theology has been applied by the Muslims with unfailing conviction starting the Prophet Muhammad and continues even today in all Muslim-dominated territories. Import of the Muslims through the generous policy of the West have placed the Western social, political and cultural systems and values at the receiving end of the central Islamic doctrine which is now becoming increasingly evident as Muslims tend to constitute a visible numerical force there.
#1
Why Muslims only find the Western culture, tradition and way of life sinful and unacceptable and get into clash with them?
Because once in the West, they're reminded of the reason their ancestors invented Islam in the first place---total inability to compete on a level playing field.
#2
"Import of the Muslims through the generous policy of the West have placed the Western social, political and cultural systems and values at the receiving end of the central Islamic doctrine which is now becoming increasingly evident as Muslims tend to constitute a visible numerical force there."
This parallels my own thinking, that there are really no "moderate Muslims"-- only Muslims who are, for the time being, outnumbered by the non-Muslims around them.
Once they become a significant political presence, say goodbye to moderation.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/12/2006 8:20 Comments ||
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#5
Yeah, it's perfect. That's why anywhere in the world where you find muslims, you also find an impoverished, uneducated, socially retarded society that treat their women like farm animals and strap bombs on their kids to blow up the mosque down the street.
Very Enlightened.
#6
That's why anywhere in the world where you find muslims, you also find an impoverished, uneducated, socially retarded society that treat their women like farm animals and strap bombs on their kids to blow up the mosque down the street.
#10
"The extra-Islam tradition, culture and ways of life are the extension from the Jahilaya age and contrary to the wishes of almighty creator, Allah."
So, it's a free ticket with guaranteed permission to destroy other cultures.
Funny, though:
"Fight those who believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book (Christians and Jews),
until they pay the Jizya with willing submission,
and feel themselves subdued. [Koran-9:29]
Well, in fact, doesn't it make sense that the People of the Book are STILL in rebellion against Islam, by BEING "People of the Book" still? Otherwise, they'd go ahead and be muzzies, right? So, in Islam it's okay to be "in rebellion," and the muzzies will accept this only as long as you give muzzies MONEY honor them, (i.e., kiss their ass).
#11
Got a haircut today. I told my barber that we would have to kill them all before we see peace again. He said, we can't kill them ALL, there are too many.
#12
take away the freebies, make em work, and they assimilate better. It seems to be the welfare layabouts that talk the most trash and feel "victimized"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/12/2006 19:36 Comments ||
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An Era of a major player in the Aerospace industry and especially the defense industry is coming to an end.
Stanley Aviation, which has been in business since 1948 (and well before via Robert (Bob) Stanley during WWII and before) is closing down after nearly almost 60 years in the industry.
Eaton a large global manufacturer aquired Stanley Aviation from Cobham PLC(UK) in November of 2005 has reached the decision to transfer manufacturing to low cost manufacturing country or countries.
You've probably not heard much about Stanley, which has a rich history in the industry and American Defense, as it was a quiet but important player in the industry. Note this is not like some little plating company or machine house shutting down.
For example a few of our projects past and present:
Ejection Seats, Bell X craft, Nulcear Range Finding and Computation (before computers), parts on the moon, major components of many aircraft, fuel air and ECS systems for commercial and military, missile seals for sea launch ICBMS, cones and nozzels for sea launch and other ICBMS, F22, F35 (JSF), C17, UAVs, other military planes, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Eaton is not to blame for this, there are other issues, however, it is indeed a very sad day for Aviation and especially American Aviation that Stanley is ceasing manufacturing activities.
This is the reality now that the American Aerospace Industry and even general manufacturing in America face ... simple math. We cannot compete with $2.50 - $10.00 per / hour shop rates that the Low Cost Countries can deliver. The myth that China, India, Mexico, et al are not quality or mature manufacturers is complete just that, a complete myth.
They've recently started to crush ITAR / Export concerns and issues, a major roadblock for any Military transfer to an LCC and quality is no longer a concern.
As I've mentioned before, there will be a major shift when an industry / country make nano-manufacturing a reality. If the US is not first, we will face major problems as we already do with traditional manufacturing. We've tried many things, heavy automation, new technologies and methods / processes, new materials, etc but we just can't compete anymore.
If you care about our Areospace and Defense Industry (A&D) please urge congress or whatever to really chase nano-tech as that is the next big step ... as it is now, we as an industry have tried / done all the incrementals. Thus a major revolution has come, which is transfer of even important commerical and military manufacturing activites to LCCs. This train has already left the station and there is nothing we (as Americans) can do about it. But what we can do is make sure we book and are on the next train, and hopefully exclusivley on the next train of Nano, before we are left in the dust.
Please have a thought for Stanley Aviation, as a major player in the industry and our defense has fallen at last.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
