Friday, April 10, 2009

Is this retaliation?

Yesterday, the Yellow Springs News published a letter from Harvey Paige that urged residents to oppose the Springfield Air National Guard Base's training mission for Dutch pilots. This morning, the F-16's have been scrambling all around the skies over town in what seems like retaliation. Paige's well reasoned and well researched letter points out that the Dutch are making their noise here, not in the Netherlands.

A couple years ago, I interviewed the Colonel-in-charge about this problem. One of the things I learned was that the Dutch version of the F-16 uses a different (and apparently noisier) engine than the American planes. They fly these planes over here from the Netherlands, refueling them several times over the Atlantic. As I recall, there are 16 of them. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them there and send one or two trainers to teach them in the skies over Holland? Or would that drive home the unpopular point that they are our still our allies in the war in Afghanistan?

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