This was written by mar Estrin and published on his blog 2 http://marcestrin.blogspot.com/

Most of the noise concerning the F35 issues is about NOISE — and rightly so, as many Vermonters will be hurt, their lives and homes devalued and in some cases destroyed.

But let’s not forget another aspect, at the moment relatively noiseless, but in the long run, equally worthy of note: the military’s push for the F-35 is intimately connected with Obama’s plan to upgrade the US’s nuclear strike capability. The current F-16 fleet is incapable of carrying and delivering the newly-designed “smart” nuclear bombs. The F-35 has been designed to do so.

By supporting the development of the F-35, in Burlington or not, Vermonters are willy-nilly upholding the US’s evasion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — to which it is a signatory — which contains a pledge to slowly lower nuclear strike capacity to zero.

The anti-F-35 movement itself has bracketed this issue, in part because the local, clearly predictable effects will be so severe, but partly out of wariness about being seen as “unpatriotic”. What I think is unpatriotic is to allow one’s own country to be the linchpin and supplier of WMDs beyond any local nightmare.

Let this remain an undertone at least in the current symphony of noise.