The essay reads like just more neocon propaganda.
We are not the world police. The world police are oversexed puppets:
Posted on 01/10/2014 4:30:57 PM PST by Texas Fossil
If an additional $50 billion a year seems like a lot, how much would be the cost to the United States if adversarial nations continue to chip away at the free world until America finds itself either isolated or impotent to effect a reversal as it faces rogue terrorist states armed with the most deadly of weapons?
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America's fourth wave of neglect of its military since the end of World War II may have disastrous geostrategic consequences.
While Congress has passed a temporary slowdown in the decline in American defense spending with a two-year budget framework, the Ryan-Murray budget agreement, which restores $32 billion to the Department of Defense, the projected defense resources available for the next eight years will not allow the United States to protect its own security, let alone that of its allies.
Taken together, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned, previous and projected cuts to military budgets from 2009-2023 threaten dangerously to undermine the stability required for both economic prosperity and relative peace among the world's major military powers, as well as America's global standing.
One of the nation's top defense analysts sums it up: "The reality is, for all its promise, the Ryan-Murray budget agreement still only addresses less than 7 percent of the defense sequester. Much more work needs to be done to lift the specter of sequestration once and for all …"
(Excerpt) Read more at gatestoneinstitute.org ...
as President Reagan warned us on January 11, 1989 in his farewell address to the nation:
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
Really, it’s hollow? There’s a significant amount of waste in the US military. Lean and mean is what we want.
The essay reads like just more neocon propaganda.
We are not the world police. The world police are oversexed puppets:
The greatest aspect of our fighting forces has been the will to fight. The will to fight is based in the morals of the people willing to lay it all on the line for a cause greater then themselves. Christian morals are being kicked out of the military and with it will disappear the people with the morals and the will to fight for our nation.
The government can buy all the wonder toys it wants, but without a people willing to risk it all to use the “toys”, it will mean our military is hallow or a paper tiger.
Hollow is the opposite of solid.
Solid does not mean large, it means well trained. It means competent. It means well equipped.
Large peacetime armies are the worst thing for a nation. But the core skills must be maintained. I would have no problem with the armed citizenry like the Swiss.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/switzrld.html
Firearms are important, but heavy weaponry is also in the right circumstances.
But your point is well taken. DC is terribly intrusive, terribly inefficient, terribly bureaucratic and they have totally lost sight of who they answer to.
It is TIME to DownSize DC! Close entire Rogue/Unconstitutional Departments. Return anything worthwhile back to the States.
Agree.
Our standing military is being used as cannon fodder at the will of the O_tard.
He has demoralized many of those who love the nation the most and are capable and willing to defend here.
It is no accident. He has done so by design.
From Day 1 he has intended to destroy the US. He serves foreign masters. He had no loyalty to the US.
He is afraid of our military and that is why he is selectively removing top officers. And seeking out Quislings the likes Weasley Clark. (Read somewhere that he is heading up the early campaign for Hillary)
“...Lean and mean is what we want.”
Ah, yes. That quintessentially American conceit: that we can get what we want in national defense, on the cheap.
Though that particular misapprehension flies in the face of all historical evidence, the two factions of our ongoing political dispute have both managed to degrade public understanding yet further:
The Left believes that if only we make ourselves inoffensive enough, our enemies will vanish.
The Right believes that if only we went back to an agrarian republic, drill each citizen in musketry, and turn away from everything beyond our borders, no enemies can best us.
It’s tough to decide which fantasy is less realistic.
Is defense spending costly? Undeniably. Are there inefficiencies? Definitely. Is there waste? Fraud? Mismanagement? Of a certainty. But paying in money is preferable to paying in other ways. And paying now will likely prove cheaper in the long run.
Only one outcome is inevitable: we will pay.
I agree. The purge of military top brass, makes me think these people are being removed because they might have been working on standing up to O......
Regardless, the military is being hollowed out by removing Christian moral standards. My father was a Navy Korean war vet. I spent 6 years in the Navy during the Cold War, and my oldest son is currently in the Army, but whenever asked now about joining the military, I tell people not to. The political control of our military has ruined it and unless they agree with things like excessively dangerous and stupid ROE, open homosexuality, shunning Christianity and embracing Islam as “peaceful”, stay away from the military.
The Obama Administration Culture is based on lies, persecution of political opponents, and violating the US Constitution.
Under the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner, the GOP Establishment Congressional Culture is based on becoming more like the Obama Administration Culture.
By design, the Congressional GOP Establishment has become a doormat speed bump for Obamacrat politicians on the very wide, and well lighted Highway to European Socialism.
Without the capable cave-in expertise of McConnell and Boehner, the successful fundamental transformation of America into a weak, financially devastated, morally corrupt, unreliable, former World Power would not have been possible.
To those US Senators and House members who still support McConnell and Boehner, remember Einstein’s definition of insanity:
“INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS.”
Paying in money for all the wrong things will only weaken our country. The biggest threat to our security right now is the national debt. I guarantee that defense contractors are milking the US taxpayer for everything they can get, and a lot of what they sell is crap that the military doesn’t want. However, these companies own Congress, and that’s all it takes.
Yep.
Primary the RINOs then Defeat the ComDems.
Well, you make some good points, but there is no domestic threat to the US itself. There might be, but not at this rate:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/08/china-qc-disast/
I think it was Pournelle’s series There Will Be War that essentially struck the same chord as you do. Currently, it’s up to us to keep the sea and trade lanes open, fine.
The biggest threat America faces militarily is the foreign policy of Clinton/Obama and the commands of the CIC Obama. That doesn’t get fully cured until 2016, with a down payment due 2014.
No, I had not. The issue of quality control does not surprise me at all. I know about their manufactured goods.
Also know about the quality issue of food from China.
But we cannot afford to not be the leader in Defence Technology.
With the right direction that can be done for a reasonable cost. Kelly Johnson showed that at the Skunk Works for many years. Now that was on the research and development side.
The military was just told the contract they had with the Federal government concerning their hard earned pensions was evoke. It took a total of 72 hours between the announcement by Paul Ryan and Patty Murray that their pensions were being raided and the House and Senate completing their votes adopting this betrayal.
How much morale do they think our men and women in uniform now have?
It is also true that the Sequester has had a devastating impact on the military. It is also true that only 2 Combat Brigades are mission ready, and that the Air Force has grounded over dozens of squadrons.
We blew the money on Food Stamps, outrageous health care costs, student loans, and welfare. The military has been neglected, and now it is betrayed by its own leadership.
When war breaks out this year or in 2015, the US is going to have a massive wake up call.
“Paying in money for all the wrong things will only weaken our country. ... defense contractors are milking the US taxpayer ... a lot of what they sell is crap that the military doesn’t want. ...”
All too true, I fear.
The challenges facing citizens are many: to induce the government to supply the military what it needs and not what it “wants”; to induce suppliers not to supply ineffective, inefficient, or irrelevant stuff (sometimes known as crap); to coax legislators into serving the common interest.
All of it would be vexing enough, if everybody agreed on what it means to be effective, efficient, and service of common interest. But few agree: not even the most experienced leaders. What does that predict, for Congressional Reps and citizens? Please note we’re not yet attempting to gauge the adverse effects of corruption and subterfuge.
It’s fun to poormouth the Military Industrial Complex, but it might be useful to recall that, suboptimal as it is, without it, we’d be back to throwing rocks. All the comfy bank balances in the world will not help us then.
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