[fallujah-nuker]

Please entertain us some more!

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Part of President Washington's farewell address.

***Warns against permanent foreign alliances. "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world..."

---

Korea UN sponsored war.
Viet Nam SEATO sponsored war

[B4Ranch]

The White House contends that the prohibition on purchasing foreign goods for the U.S. military will cause "irreparable damage" to U.S. efforts to build alliances and coalitions.

The New World Order is going to fail without alliances and coalitions that can maintain control over the effectiveness of the US military. They must be able to reduce the United States to a non combatant that shall only go to war when authorization is issued by the United Nations.

Without UN control over key weapon supplies, the United States will be able to attack other countries or defend itself. This independence of the United Nations must be not permitted!

"If the president is presented a bill that includes such provisions, his senior advisers will recommend he veto the bill," OMB warned.

President Bush,

Have you ever heard of Benedict Arnold? You are starting to look a lot like him! Clean out those goddam traitors you have in your administration ASAP!

[bert]

We had a problem with Buy American during the Vietnam war.

As a construction engineer employed by the Navy in the Phillippines , I know the problems it caused.

Projects were delayed for a time because cement (used to make concrete for those of you who are AP vocabulary stylebook impaired) was in short supply. We finally got a shipload from Singapore and i to this day don't know how it was aquired.

We also had problems with rebar. No rebar, no concrete no POL storage tank foundations.

There were lots of minor items.....stuff used for testing in our laboratories for instance that was available locally but often in short supply because of the law.

My wife has offices in a building adjacent to the largest explosive manufacturing plant in the country. It is run by a British defense company.....BAE. Buy American sounds good but it can be a a plague when you are at the end of a pipeline that can't deliver.

[Seamoth]

Glad to see the President has a little backbone left in him.

[A. Pole]

The White House contends that the prohibition on purchasing foreign goods for the U.S. military will cause "irreparable damage" to U.S. efforts to build alliances and coalitions.

One of the prohibitions bars procurement from any entity that has exported or transferred certain items linked to the U.S. Munitions List to the People's Republic of China.

Free trade bump

[Doohickey]

No worries. The President's veto pen is still in the shop.

[jazusamo]

Two sections in the bill would preclude Department of Defense suppliers from purchasing "virtually any foreign made commercial items, components or materials,

It's good to speak out and say "buy American," It's patriotic and it supports our workers.

However, realistically speaking, if our military were to be constrained by the above proposed law, it could slow the procurement process tremendously in peacetime and war.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Buy American?

Oh my. Can't have that.

[MNJohnnie]

Look the Pentagon doesn't tell the Perpetual Whiners how to be the village idiots, they can return the favor by not trying to dictate Procurement policy to them. -

-

PS. Procurement is the Department that decides how and when to buy stuff. I know the big words confuse the you Whiners.

[ozzymandus]

"Buy American" is fine, as long as those products are actually available in America. Buying foreign products to please foreigners is very bad policy, and is also how our military ended up with underpowered, trouble-plagued beretta pistols.

[ex-Texan]

Not to worry. The eight largest banks in the U.S. are all foreign owned and foreign controlled. They account for over over 85% of all banking business in the country. Which really means your mortgages are owned by foreign banks. Mortgage bonds sold on Wall Street were also sold to foreign banks, Saudi princes and wealthy Italians.

America has become a debtor nation in the past ten years. We are turning into a Third World Nation where Mexican illegals demonstrate in the streets on May Day (International Communist Party Celebration). Last year alone, China earned a $ 225 billion surplus from Americans that bought cheap retail junk. China is going to starting selling cars in the U.S. by the end of the year. By the way, Mexicans get first preference for college admission over most Americans.

If and when everything falls apart, Americans will wake up and discover the entire country was sold to foreigners. In the meantime, jobs are being outsourced overseas. Profit trumps all today. Who permitted this to happen? Congress. Both parties supported NAFTA and CAFTA. All in the name of free trade.

[MNJohnnie]

Amazing how gung ho to pick fights the Whiners are. Maybe they might try fighting the Democrats on SOMETHING. Seems they lack the guts to fight anyone but their own side. Curiously gutless that habit of theirs.

[Sir Gawain]

Doesn't it warm your heart to prop up a murderous regime in China?

[Old_Mil]

WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- The White House Thursday threatened to veto the House versions of the 2007 defense authorization bill.

The White House took the action because of a series of "buy American" provisions.

The White House contends that the prohibition on purchasing foreign goods for the U.S. military will cause "irreparable damage" to U.S. efforts to build alliances and coalitions.

There was a time in our history when we understood that matters of national defense were not to be outsourced, period. How the history of the world would have been different had the Army Air Corps been buying Mitsubishi fighters in 1930.

It is unfortunate that the two vetos this White House has threatened have dealt with issues that would directly compromise American security.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Considering the technological requirements of the modern military, would you like to estimate the percentage of microchips in US military vehicles that are American made? And where we will get them in the next 3 - 5 years (a reasonable lead-time for factory construction) after this stupidity passes?

Only a fool cuts off his nose to spite his face...

[Cacique]

[Trinity5]

I guess the President has never heard of the Berry Amendment which requires we buy American. You can go around the Amendment if the product or service you need in not available through a US vendor or it is in the best interest of the end user to acquire said item elsewhere.

[Non-Sequitur]

This is the 540th threatened veto of his administration. Will he actually carry it out or will he cave again?

[untrained skeptic]

I work in the defense industry, and considering we just went through layoffs, and my job is hardly secure, I kind of have a vested interest in this particular topic.

We already have existing requirements for the Department of Defense to generally buy American products to fulfill their needs, if they are available.

Before people start screaming about the President's senior advisers opposing these provisions simply because they're called "buy American" provisions you might want to consider an important fact.

The defense industry is one of the few parts of our economy in which we have a sizable trade surplus!!!

Being overly protectionist in a market in which you have a trade surplus is likely a bad idea.

Our domestic defense industry benefits greatly from the money we make selling weapons and technology to our allies. In most cases we sell versions that are less capable than what what we use for ourselves, but when you're developing products for such a limited market, widening that market a little bit can make a significant difference in profitability and the ability to deliver products at more reasonable prices.

I definitely consider the House to be much more supportive of our military and defense industry than the Senate in general, but they also have a history of including a few restrictions in their "buy American" budget policies that would do more harm than good.

It's not surprising that the senior staff is opposing some of the "buy American" policies in a House appropriations bill. It happens pretty much every year.

Here's the PDF of the White House OMB comments on the bill.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/109-2/hr5122sap-h.pdf

You can go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ and search by bill number H.R. 5122 to find the text of the bill if you want to read it for yourself.