Sub officers objected to closing base in Groton

[Eugene]

Sub officers objected to closing base in Groton

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | July 22, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Navy's top submarine officers disagreed with the
study used to justify closing the base in Groton, Conn., raising
questions about the Pentagon's military rationale for shuttering Naval
Submarine Base New London, according to previously undisclosed documents.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vernon Clark, who is set to step
down from his post today, said in a July 18 response to congressional
inquiries that the submarine division at Navy headquarters did not
sign off on the findings of the Navy's 2004 Force Structure
Assessment. That evaluation of future needs was used as a key
foundation for the Pentagon plan to close or realign dozens of bases
across the country, including Groton -- the largest base in New
England that is set to close.

The Navy study concluded that the service will need from 37 to 41
attack submarines over the next two decades -- versus the current 51
-- despite the concerns expressed by the submarine community that
those numbers would not be enough to meet the growing demands for
submarines both in peacetime and during conflicts, according to
Clark's letter and interviews with others knowledgeable about the
internal Navy deliberations.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/07/22/sub_officers_objected_to_closing_base_in_groton/

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Cause base been outsource too

[wli]

2. the idea is to avoid presenting a meaningful target

There's nothing on the mainland to bomb. No more manufacturing since it's all been offshored. The military bases on the mainland are getting closed left and right and the remainder are almost all overseas, and so the system of targets becomes very complex and diffuse and sparsely documented, and worse yet presents an issue of infringing on the sovereignty of the host nation. What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization going to bomb? A bunch of starving, jobless bums in North America? Woops, the Pentagon (or whatever it is that's not reliant on the building itself) doesn't need to care.

Or, the strategy could be the opposite: financially ruin the US military so there are no remaining effective challenges to the corporate police states.

Either way, we're caught in the crossfire.

[fasttense]

3. At a time when China is building up its Navy and

is on track to have more subs than the US, it is just plain stupid to close Groton. But then again, Halliburton ain't making any money out of it so its got to go.