Apparently, rigging of F-35 test results has been going on with the A-10 used as a budgetary scapegoat against the ordering of more F-35s, forgetting much of the changing needs and missions in the post-2014 combat environments.
This issue has been diaried in DK before and with a GOP Congress, the situation will probably get worse before it gets better. This occurs as "a squadron-sized element of Warthogs from Afghanistan (has been deployed) to the Middle East to fight militants affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS". $337 million was allocated in the lame-duck session for the A-10, but the F-35 issues have become less a matter of technology and an increasingly moral issue beyond the "close air support" needs of US armed forces.
From Napoleon onward, and actually long before, commanders and historians of battle have emphasized that moral traits — commitment, cohesion, belief in the rightness of a cause—matter more in combat than simple material strength. Napoleon's famous way of putting this was, "the moral is to the physical as three to one." As weapons of war, the F-35 and the A-10, with their pluses and minuses, are part of the nation's physical arsenal. The patterns revealed as the weapons are purchased, tested, developed, and promoted reveal say something unpleasant about the moral element of our defense.
Is this an example of "creeping fascism" - hardly, but porkbarreling will be the only kinds of rolls completed in the coming Congress.
Maj. Gen. James Post [right], vice commander of Air Combat Command, was quoted as saying, “If anyone accuses me of saying this, I will deny it … anyone who is passing information to Congress about A-10 capabilities is committing treason” ...