Defense budget battle
The Associated Press reports that the Obama Administration has a tough fight ahead if they try to adopt Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s plan to slash the Defense budget by cutting troops and aircraft that have no plan to replace;
The skepticism from both Republicans and Democrats augured poorly for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s vision of shrinking the Army to its smallest size in three-quarters of a century and creating a nimbler force more suited to future threats than the large land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. Tuesday’s advance of a new veterans bill also suggested Congress may be more interested in increasing military spending in a midterm election year.
The cuts “will weaken our nation’s security while the threats we face around the world are becoming more dangerous and complex,” Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two leading GOP hawks, said in a joint statement. “Now is not the time to embrace a defense posture reminiscent of the years prior to World War II,” they said, without outlining substitute cost reductions.
From Fox News, the Congressional Budget Office speculates that the whole reason behind the cuts is so that the administration can spend more money on domestic programs, ignoring defense needs;
Rep. Chris Van Hollen , D-Md., told Fox News the draw down from two wars is a logical time to save defense money. “We do not need for the defense of our country to be able to have a defense doctrine that calls for fighting two land wars at the same time,” he said.
But history is filled with hard lessons in disarmament. Churchill warned a pacifist Britain, worn out from massive loss of life in World War I, of its unpreparedness for war with Germany as early as 1934. In 1936, he said in a speech to a disinterested Parliament, “A lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes… until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong… these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”
McKeon offers a contemporary reprise of Churchill’s words. “The price is going to be paid for this whether it’s in the Middle East, whether it’s in the Pacific, whether it’s in Europe,” he said. “I don’t know where. I don’t know when. I don’t know how, but some bad actor is going to challenge us.”
The capability for fighting two land wars existed long before 9/11, it existed because we had an enemy that was a global threat, much like the threat, on a smaller scale of al Qaeda which is gaining ground in the middle east and fighting, with some success in Africa. They’ve already secured portions of Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t far behind, as well as Syria. Did I mention that Iran is flexing it’s puny muscles off of our coast?
My Obama apologist friends on Facebook tell me that this proposal from the Obama Administration isn’t his fault – that he’s getting bad advice from his generals who are secretly working for the defense industry. I’d almost believe it if they could show me just one instance when Obama ever listened to his generals in regards to anything. Well, that and the fact that I predicted this very scenario way back in 2008 before Obama ever took office.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Big Army, Military issues
Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me. History will continue to repeat itself no matter how blatantly obvious you make it for the drooling moonbats.
I was going to comment but Old Trooper said it all. And we will all pay for those drooling mootbats.
The world is rarely as you wish it to be, but it is always as it is. Ignoring the latter in favor of the former is foolish and usually lethal.
As the thread that Claymore posted yesterday from DU points out, the only reason the Democrats are skeptical is that it is an election year.
I hear him saying ‘savings’ and all I think is ‘redistributing that money to people who we need to vote ‘D’ and to keeping Obamacare afloat’.
What, we’ll go to war again sometime? Dang it, we’ve go deadbeats to keep in “free” phones and EBTs if Progessivism will ever succeed!
@5 Bingo.
I have had direct, personal experience with the type of thinking underlying these moves.
The Vietnam war had just ended, and my boyfriend, who had been a big deal radical during the war, decided to apply for a position as a Navy pilot after graduation. Mind you, this was somebody who avoided service during the war by filing as a conscientious objector.
He told me that he would fly transport planes, and then become an airline pilot.
I told him that no service guarantees a position, and that he could easily wind up in in different kind of plane, if they let him in. I asked him what he would do if he were confronted with that choice.
And he looked at me like I was the stupidest thing on the face of the earth, and told me, “But Valerie, there is not a war on!”
I gave up. The Navy, of course, politely declined his offer of service.
I have since met other people who are willing to ignore reality any time it means a potential advantage to themselves.
@8
Kind of takes a special kind of douchebag to do that in the first place…
‘Oh, I’m a conscientious objector. Just kidding, let me work in a transport plane’.
@9: Agreed. Real piece of work this guy is.
Anyways, I wish all of those in the military or recieving post-service benefits the best in this dark time. We’re at our weakest in over twenty years. I hope that no one tries to seriously take advantage of this, but I think we all know that there will be an incident in the next two years.
The sooner we try the President for treason, the better; no other man in office has had as much blood on his hands as this one.
The defense of Obama position assumes a few things not clearly in evidence. First, that Obama listens to anybody not telling him he is the smartest man on earth and that his preconceived notions are spot on. Second, that Obama has any use for the military beyond its use as a prop or umbrella holder. Third, Obama has any idea what the purpose of the military is or how it should be run other than as a laboratory for his social policies. Fourth, that the generals he has selected have any clue about those things either. Finally, that the generals who ever advise Obama on anything are working for anyone but themselves.
/rant off.
Three words:
Task – Force – Smith
‘Nuff said.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Unfortunately, it won’t be the politicos at the top who suffer and are taught the harsh lessons. It will be the little guy at the front lines.
Now if only the drooling moonbats could be made to pay for the errors of their ways, instead the guys on the front lines.