Sequestration, Chuck Hagel and the Democrats

Lost somewhat in the fight over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the upcoming standoff over the debt ceiling is the defense sequestration. If you will recall, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the cuts would be devastating. In the campaign, the president said he would take care of that, and he has consistently argued that it was the Republicans who were holding the troops hostage to protect the rich from tax hikes. The GOP has given on the taxes, but the troops and our national security are still being held hostage by the president, who would only agree to delay the sequestration, not to revise or eliminate the cuts to national security.

Overall, Obama has not had the troops’ back. (Since he’s been getting informal advice from Chuck Hagel, it will be interesting to know if he approved of these cuts.) To the contrary, Obama utilized Robert Gates to extract multiple rounds of cuts. In the $487 billion in cuts before we get to sequestration, the Obama defense cuts eliminated 80,000 soldiers, 20,000 Marines and approximately 20,000 from the U.S. Air Force and Navy for a total of 120,000. Obama also took a chunk out of military health care. The burden on those still in service becomes greater with deployments lengthened.

Then we get to the sequestration. That would entail laying off another 200,000 troops, cutting more weapons systems and delaying modernization. That will affect all those service personnel who will remain as well as the vets who will find jobs hard to come by.

What is amazing about this piece by Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post is not that someone in a left wing rag is finally telling the truth, but to view the comments from the paper's loyal Obama voter base.

They are livid.

Take a look:

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"Is that what is the matter. I thought she just might have gotten drunk before she wrone this blog. Hell douse her quick with some water."

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"I've heard nothing about these problems during President Obama's watch. Has anyone else? It seems that now our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen have what they need and are receiving the care that they deserve. I think that constitutes "having our servicemen/women's backs." Shame on you Jen."

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"Republican leadership voted for the Budget Control Act. Republicans refused any and all tax increases in the Super Committee, and got sequestration. Like the Status of Forces Agreement Bush negotiated, Republicans refuse to live with the policy they pass or negotiated. Let sequestration stand. Fire all the contractors doing jobs soldiers could do cheaper. Decimate defense spending in red states and the tea party is history. Many will be out on their ears in 2014."

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"If anyone has ever looked at a map of the states with the biggest defense spending, they are dominated by red states. For states such as VA, GA, SC etc, they would be in depression without the big defense spending. Defense is welfare for the red states."

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Here we are, years after Obama put a gun to the military's head, and our national security is still being bled to death and held hostage by Obama and the Democrats.

In March, 800,000 Dept of Defense employees will be furloughed.

America has lost her way. As long as obese Americans get "their" entitlement check, then they don't care.

What is absolutely obscene about all of this is that no American institution or body of Americans have sacrificed or given more since 9/11 than the military and those who serve it.

I feel our nation has only a short time left.

Yes, we should:
- maintain ongoing military capabilities to defend America
- meet our obligations to former military service men and women.

HOWEVER, when will this country wake up and realize that:
- we cannot afford to be the world’s police force
- we cannot afford to defend our allies in Japan and Europe (they must accept their own responsibilities for their own national defense)
- we cannot afford to maintain military bases in more than 150 nations around the world to make international banking safe for the big 5 American mega-bank-casino’s and for GE and a few other mega-international corporations?????

Look no further than the Roman Empire and its decline and collapse, or to the UK’s global empire and its eventual economic distress and shrinkage to see the course that we are on with our current military reach, scope, objectives, and international empire that is enforced by the sheer size and capability of our military and by still-superior technology and competence.

That which is not sustainable will not be sustained; but we still have a choice about how the inevitable major military pull-back will occur. With pride and grace, and on a planned and controlled basis, or in collapse and humiliation, leaving America’s defense at significant exposure and risk?

We can either deliberately and thoughtfully pull back from our current military course or we can wait until the country collapses economically as the Soviet Union did and the military falls into a state of shrunken paralysis as theirs did for many years. Which will it be???

Macro economic realities will downsize the US Military in major ways in this decade. I do not believe it will be possible to do otherwise, given the true state of the economy and financial condition of this country. American culture and politics make this, in practice, unavoidable.

It isn't Defense spending that has left our nation bankrupt; that "honor" goes to Entitlements. Whenever I hear the words, "We cannot afford....." I invariably ask, "Then can we afford to spend over 65% of all Federal outlays {acquired through taxes and borrowing} on payment checks to other Americans?"

If the answer is in the affirmative, then I know someone is not answering truthfully, but out of fear and self interest.< p> Further, America's economic power is directly linked to our military power on the international stage. I am simply amazed people do not understand this. The military is not a police force, they are a force for good in an evil world. Evil cannot be bargained with, it can only be defeated.

My perspective is that Americans - a majority - will continue to demand their Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, pension guarantees, subsidies, etc. as their priorities over military spending in the future as the huge influx of baby boomer retirees ramps up that spending far beyond current unsustainable levels.

The Federal Reserve will keep printing money to buy US debt, and this will continue until the dollar’s value drops so far that radical change is forced. Military shrinkage will occur inevitably as the current course is continued. At least that is what I foresee, driven by culture and moral decline aligned with political and economic interests of the most powerful who put their interests above all else.

In crisis, all too many dependent and ignorant people can be persuaded to follow persuasive tyrant statists and their media and academic allies. Increasingly, that new populist majority of takers is changing things regardless of the original reading of the Constitution.

I don’t think our military is evil or bad, but they are led by an Executive branch which repeatedly enter into wars that have not been declared in a Constitutional manner. That, however, is not the fault of the military.

“Further, America’s economic power is directly linked to our military power on the international stage. I am simply amazed people do not understand this. The military is not a police force, they are a force for good in an evil world. Evil cannot be bargained with, it can only be defeated.”

Amen Chaplain. I would like to some things I have come to believe about the use of the military. One - The military exists to break things and kill...not to be “peacekeepers” with ridiculous rules of engagement. Two - IF the deployed military (to a combat area) cannot use any and all force necessary to destroy an enemy (Total War) then it should not be deployed/used.

I am sick to my soul of our military personnel being put in harm’s way and not fully able to defend themselves.

RD :””Republican leadership voted for the Budget Control Act. Republicans refused any and all tax increases in the Super Committee, and got sequestration.”

Voted for it?? Bohner and Ryan praised it.
Republicans did demand spending cuts with no tax increases and then agreed to this (2011) as a compromise.

In any case O is commander in chief, let him worry about this. Republicans had > 16 months to come up with replacement targeted military cuts, but they were not interested.

Rs finger prints are all over this bill with the delayed cuts. Best to lay low on this(certainly not demand restoration of spending) and then if anything goes wrong just blame O.

...defense sequestration. If you will recall, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the cuts would be devastating.

Ubanga sent Panetta out there to make that dire prediction. It's just another version of the rats' stale old, "close the national parks, open the prison doors, slash police forces and fire departments, stop the social security checks," scare tactics they always resort to when they don't get their way. I can't believe the general public - - including the ignorant chattering class - - still buys that crap, even with all the help the rats get from their "mainstream" newsrooms.

Call the African communist's bluff. Let the sequestration cuts happen.

RE :”Ubanga sent Panetta out there to make that dire prediction. It's just another version of the rats’ stale old, “close the national parks, open the prison doors, slash police forces and fire departments, stop the social security checks,” scare tactics they always resort to when they don't get their way. I can't believe the general public - - including the ignorant chattering class - - still buys that crap, even with all the help the rats get from their “mainstream” newsrooms”

True. except some of that is coming from the Rs and repeated here. I trust them to screw this up as they always do.

Let O come to the table with a offer if these cuts bother him.

It's just another version of the rats' stale old, "close the national parks, open the prison doors, slash police forces and fire departments, stop the social security checks," scare tactics

Lancey, I highly respect your opinions and I agree with you most of the time here on FR. However, this time you are dead wrong.

Gutting the military is not the 1995-Clinton-MSM Show, displaying busloads of minority students fell prostrate outside of the entrance to a Federal park, crying crocodile tears, or worse yet - Aunt B could not view the Hope Diamond.

These cuts are devastating to national defense. What Jennifer Rubin wrote in that piece is correct, the military has already suffered the Obama/Gates/Panetta budget ax to the tune of over $450 Billion.

The military is still reeling from those cuts. Real jobs were lost. Weapons systems canceled. Contracts ended. Supply chain management lines severed. If a real war comes along (not another "nation building" exercise but a real war), then this nation will rudely wake up to the fact that we much, much weaker than we have ever been in recent American history.

The $600 Billion in sequestration cuts come on top of the other cuts, and the first fiscal year's meat ax of those cuts have to be implemented across the board between March and September. Worse still, troop strength cannot be touched, so the entire amount must come from Operations and Maintenance, to the tune of perhaps 30% almost overnight.

I see our nation blindly marching towards its own doom: militarily, economically, culturally, morally, and spiritually.

In all my years, I have never seen such selfishness combined with a warped sense of entitlement that has invaded the American psyche. It is entitlements that are breaking the back of this nation economically, and that are sapping our national will.

I pray that America awakes soon, because it may soon be too late. In fact, with Obama's reelection, I fear it already is.

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