BLACKFIVE: Can we risk allowing Airbus to build our air fleets?

UPDATE: Reader Bill Reece emails:

I think that some further information is warranted than the glib one liner you posted in the link. The EADS proposal includes Northrop-Grumman as a major partner in the project. If the contract is awarded to EADS, it would build the airplanes in a new facility in Mobile, Alabama as part of a major capital investment in the U.S. economy with the likelihood that EADS would also expand its operations to include the construction of civilian aircraft as well.

The persons involved in the project from the bottom of the totem pole to nearly the top would be American workers living and paying taxes in the U.S. Boeing is every bit as much a “multi-national” corporation as is EADS. Many prominent American defense specialists and political figures have expressed no concern whatsoever on the issue of EADS building these planes and the only pending issue for the DOD to decide at this point is which proposal is overall most cost efficient and practicable for the U.S. Defense Department. Suggestions about anything else being a problem in this competition is mere paranoid chauvinism. In addition, while the governments that support EADS may not have a pristine record, at least EADS does not have a record of bribery and corruption in U.S. defense contracts such as its main competition has in its past.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a resident of Mobile.

“Mere paranoid chauvinism” is probably a bit strong.