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The Telegraph : Thousands of U.S. warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee.
In total, the committee said it had found more than a million fake parts had made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J “Super Hercules”.
… each of which Canada has recently contracted to buy more of : a $1.4-billion contract for 17 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30s, and a $869-million for four Boeing C-17s.
No worries though – the Senate Armed Services Committee ‘discovered’ exactly this same Chinese fake parts racket back in 2005, and again in 2008, and everyone on the committee had a cow both of those times as well but nothing came of it.
With their easy access to a trillion dollar military budget, it’s probably cheaper for defence contractors to buy senators than the right parts.
“As electronics manufacturing migrated to China, the US has been less and less able to control the quality of its military hardware. Some of the fake chips are bought by the Pentagon on the open market …. These chips are often salvaged by Chinese scrap merchants from the dumps of electronic waste that have accumulated in the south of the country “
… where they are burned off old computer circuit boards, sanded down, repainted, and voilà – the new F-35 chop shop war bling!
“‘Ello, I wish register a complaint about this plane which I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.”
“Ah yes, the F-35. Remarkable plane, the F-35, beautiful fuselage. What’s wrong with it?”
“Well if you scrape away the loose paint just here, you’ll see that underneath it says ‘Hello Kitty’.”
And given that fake components were also found in the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system, how’s about a Skynet iPhone?
It’s your own fault, said ‘a former Peoples’ Liberation Army officer who has become a commentator in the Chinese media’ :
“The US has been dismantling its factories since the 1960s,” he said.