Unbelievable!

I've been watching FNC's coverage of the Maersk Alabama incident, and they've got LTG Tom McInerney (ret.) on making recommendations on how to deal with this incident.

His suggestion? Use the F-22.

What would it do against pirates? They'd be on patrol, and since they can fly at Mach 2, they could respond quickly. Respond and do what, you ask? Answer: strafing runs. And the good General doesn't even think the F-22 could hit the pirate skiffs, just put fire in their vicinity.

Unbelievable. How many US commanders would risk a $178 million fighter (and that's not counting "sunk costs") on a strafing run against a pirate skiff that may have SA-14s on board? Are we really so desperate to plug the F-22 in the wake of the Gates recommendation that we're making these claims?

The F-16 has the same gatling gun the F-22 has for strafing runs, and can shoot it just as accurately. You can get 10 $18 million F-16s for the price of 1 F-22. Having 10x more aircraft on patrol will improve response time a hell of a lot better than the extra .2 Mach or so of speed. And if we get unlucky and lose an F-16 to a shoulder-fired SAM, it will be a major loss, but not the fraking disaster losing an F-22 would be.

Apparently, the case for the F-22 is so weak that we need to pretend we need it as an anti-piracy weapon.