What bribery are you talking about? We should not get into accusations if we can't prove it. Regarding the issue "Saab loosing" and national pride -
Sigh, and yet the professionals associated with the tests including the warfighters all want the JSF. Who cares what the general public want if they don't have any technical input into it and aren't the ones who have to fly the things.
The Swedish bribery claim is wrt to India - it's been a huge issue for over years as Bofors was banned from selling anything into India, officials were sacked and the entire tender program was subsequently shut down - its only recently been re-opened after years of closure. It's not my opinion - its the Indian Govts internal investigators. Perhaps you should argue with their own investigation people? As an issue of fraud it was common knowledge. We even referred to the case to ensure that our own programs with swedish companies were not at risk. BTW, you are aware of the reason why Sweden allowed some of its own companies to be bought out by US majority stakeholders on US military contracts? It was part of the post Bofors review process.
as far as I understand, Vivendi is norvegian and most norvegian newspapers that I've read on Internet share his opinion about the norvegian fighter aircraft selection. I only have positive feelings for my norvegian neighbours so, despite the fake selection process - a big merry christmas to Norway from Sweden! :xmas
I am happy that you have positive feelings for Norway - but what relevance has that got with a technical assessment done by systems experts and current qualified fighter pilots on what they want to go to war in? Zip. Nada, Zilch, Zero, Nothing .
I can show you media results where the general public in some countries would rather not have an air force at all and would rather see the monies used for tax breaks, schools, hospitals etc etc.... Or I can show you political parties who will argue the same principles - the Greens in Aust for example/ It's irrelevant as national interests are beyond the pervue sometimes of what the voting public think is in their interests as they don't have the expertise to make some of those calls. Its why elected Governments get professionals to do those things on their behalf.
I'm not interested in getting the opinion of the general public on what warfighting platform they think the military get - I want to get the best solution that the military recommend based on their own needs. When the general public get to be warfighters and have to go to war and get shot at on day 1 - then maybe their voice will be weighted accordingly. If I approved a platform based on what the public said, or what the vendor told me was gospel about their products capability - then the construct of the force structure would be a dogs breakfast. It's why we employ professionals at a contracts level, at the technical level, at the user level, to make professional decisions where they aren't tainted by misplaced "feelgood" or emotional commentary.
At a private company level they can make a commercial decision and buy what they want and suffer or benfit through the vagaries of the commercial outcome - military procurement is a bit more demanding.
