The mighty 97,000 ton Nimitz-class USS
George Washington,
now in Atlantic waters off South America for
UNITAS 2008.
O Globo,
Brazil
U.S. Navy Shows
That What America Can Do, Brazil Can Do As Well
"One
hears much Spanish on board the USS George Washington, which is considered a
model in terms of combat training and capability. Obviously, this capability is
a function of the 'workforce' on board, and not the hardware or software of
weapons systems. … we can and we
must be as good as they [the Americans] are."
By William Waack
April 29, 2008
Translated By Brandi Miller
Brazil - O Globo - Original Article (Portuguese)
Few soldiers like to say that
their activities are for political purposes - and the Americans that command
the aircraft carrier George Washington are no exception. In a brief visit to
the main vessel of the UNITAS maneuvers this Monday (Apr. 28), Admiral Phil Cullom, the commander of the George Washington Strike Group
[see photo and video, right], only eluded to in the broadest possible way, the
"political significance" of the presence of the George Washington in
the South Atlantic.
Indeed, the arrival of the
powerful warship for maneuvers - the heart of an attack force known as the
Strike Group 8 - together with the Brazilian and Argentine navies, set an
important political precedent. Amongst Brazilian Naval officers there was
enormous discontent that three years ago, UNITAS (the official name of these
maneuvers - Spanish for 'Unity') wasn't carried out because of political
interference that Brazilian officials attributed to [Venezuelan President] Hugo
Chávez.
"Since the Brazilian
government doesn't provide us with the funds to reequip the Navy, why can’t
they at least let us participate in these maneuvers with a fleet so much more
advanced, so that we can learn things that aren't in the manuals?," asked
a major Brazilian commander a few months ago, who preferred to remain nameless.
In that sense, the
"message" given by the Americans is reasonably clear. The George
Washington has 85 combat aircraft, including the Super Hornet, the most
powerful carrier-based aircraft. On a single aircraft carrier of this class
(the Nimitz) there are more late-generation fighter
aircraft flying than the total number available to the entire Brazilian Air
Force.
F/A-18 Hornet canopies get a cleaning, on the
flight deck of the USS George Washington.
I would venture to guess that
American pilots and technicians probably fly more hours per week in conditions
similar to the real thing (45 percent of flights, for example, are nocturnal)
than their Brazilian and Argentine colleagues do in a year. One of the
Brazilian pilots that watched the spectacle of ultramodern planes taking off
and landing every three minutes (almost the pace of an international civil
airport) from the flight deck of the George Washington, commented with obvious
admiration: "What they do isn't that different from what we do - the
difference is in the amount of times they do it."
Aircraft carriers have
changed the history of sea warfare. The precise starting date is the beginning
of the Second World War when in minutes, Japanese
planes destroyed two formidable British surface ships. After that, and except
for the use of strategic under-water weapons, it’s impossible to imagine the
projection of naval power without on-board aviation. In this sense, the
presence of the George Washington is - whether its admiral agrees or not - a
clear display of military and political might.
The message has been known
for some time by Brazilian Navy soldiers: we have very few resources to protect
the sea that we declare to be ours. And neither do we have anything to compare
with a "strike group" like that of the USS George Washington (the
cost of construction for which was almost twice the Gross Domestic Product of a
country like Bolivia, for example).
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
I had another quite interesting
experience on board that American aircraft carrier. Among the four thousand or
so crew members there were several Brazilians. It’s good to stress the word
Brazilian, because these sailors, although they wear the uniform of the armed
force of another country, they continue to feel … Brazilian. In other words:
they consider themselves profession American soldiers and Brazilians in heart
and soul.
The names painted on the
fuselages of modern fighter aircraft, the nametags on the uniforms of technicians
and sailors and a great portion of the officials onboard are Latino. One hears
much Spanish on board the George Washington, which is considered a model in
terms of combat training and capability. Obviously, this capability is a
function of the "workforce" on board, and not the hardware or
software of weapons systems.
The same is true in
construction: a Mexican or Brazilian with seven or eight months of residence in
a large American city reaches, on average, during this same amount of time, the
productivity of an American worker. In other words, these immigrants or
children of immigrants aboard a naval weapon of the first world show the same
pattern of technical efficiency and capability as "soldiers" of the
first world.
My reading of this short visit
by the USS George Washington has two angles. First: yes, these waters of the
Atlantic must be ours not only by law, but in fact. Secondly: we can and we
must be as good as they are. We just have to stop believing the wrong things.
We must lose that "vira-lata"
complex so well-described by Nelson Rodrigues, and so
well embodied by Hugo Chávez.
[Editor's Note: The vira-lata complex was translated as the "mongrel
complex" by this article in The New York Times 
, whereas Wikipedia (Portuguese) describes it as "an expression
created by Nelson Rodrigues, which is the
"self-imposed inferiority that Brazilians place upon themselves when
confronted with the rest of the world ."
CLICK
HERE FOR PORTUGUESE VERSION
SEE ALSO:
Le Figaro, France
U.S.
Navy 'Resurrects' Fourth
Fleet to Patrol Latin America
http://worldmeets.us/lefigaro0000212.shtml
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US April 30, 8:14pm]
