Forum: F-16 News

Jackson Lee wants ban on fighter jet parts reconsidered

CARACAS, Venezuela — A U.S. congresswoman called Wednesday for Washington to reconsider its ban on selling parts for U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Venezuela, saying she had traveled to the South American country to repair strained political relations.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, told reporters that she was making the first U.S. congressional visit to Venezuela since President Hugo Chavez's December re-election with the message: "I want an immediate repairing of the relations between the United States and Venezuela."

Jackson Lee described Venezuela as a friendly nation that the U.S. should cooperate with and said that the F-16 jets, which are built in Texas, was an issue of concern to her constituents in Houston.

Pledging to "personally go back and raise" the issue, she called for the U.S. Congress "to reconsider sanctions on the F-16s."

The U.S. State Department has banned arms sales to Venezuela, including parts necessary to maintain its fleet of F-16s, citing a lack of support by Chavez's government for counterterrorism efforts and its close relations with Iran and Cuba.

Venezuela has since begun receiving the first of 24 Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets as part of approximately US$3 billion (euro2.3 billion) in military deals that Chavez has signed with Moscow.

Jackson Lee was speaking at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. She said the views she expressed were personal and did not reflect those of the embassy.

But she added that her fact-finding mission to Venezuela was part of an effort by a new Democrat-controlled Congress to show that "Venezuela has many friends in this new Congress."

"We're here to re-establish friendship," she said.

© 2007 The Associated Press

Jackson Lee said she was so impressed with Syrian President Bashar Assad during her visit that she invited him to speak in Texas, even though his country is designated by the United States as a rogue state and a sponsor of terrorism.

"I'm sure someone will write a headline, `Congresswoman invites a terrorist'," Jackson Lee said. "But that's not what I'm trying to do."

She said Assad showed his willingness to negotiate by meeting despite President Bush's signing on Friday of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which could impose sanctions on Syria.

"He's a 39-year-old president who even gave us a picture of him and his children," Jackson Lee said. "Let's see what he can do. He's not his father," a reference to Hafez Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron grip for 30 years before his death in 2000.

The Congressional bonehead award goes to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) who, on a visit to JPL, asked if Mars Pathfinder had taken an image of the flag planted there in 1969 by Neil Armstrong! Quipped Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) to the Washington Times: "We just don’t teach enough science." Worse, Jackson Lee, who represents Houston, is a member of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee. Perhaps some committee reassignments are in order…

Do devastating hurricanes need help from affirmative action?

A member of Congress apparently thinks so, and is demanding the storms be given names that sound "black."

The congressional newspaper the Hill reported this week that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, feels that the current names are too "lily white," and is seeking to have better representation for names reflecting African-Americans and other ethnic groups.

"All racial groups should be represented," Lee said, according to the Hill. She hoped federal weather officials "would try to be inclusive of African-American names."

I've given up writing her about anything....she's a lunatic....a true raving psychotic.