america might have yet even more trouble

[norseamd]

Seems there might be far more to Ashton Carter than he has been made out to be as some intelligent professional.

https://***********/war-is-boring/t...industrial-congressional-complex-a27d6e5fb1a8

 

[norseamd]

Just go to war is boring or medium and find the article from there since they seem to block linking.

 

[Moonbeam]

What is this about? Link doesn't work for me.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Don't worry the Iluminati and Templar Knights/Free Masons have it all under control.

 

[Matt1970]

 

[Newbian]

 

[unixwizzard]

https://***********/war-is-boring/t...industrial-congressional-complex-a27d6e5fb1a8

censored link is censored.

 

[Blanky]

fix yer link

 

[alcoholbob]

Do you tinyurl OP?

 

[nickqt]

I googled the link past the ***'s and then tinyurl'd it

http://************/qchzc2f

If interested, this is a more thorough read:

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

 

[Black Octagon]

Doesn't an American President requires congressional approval before going to war? That last link claims that Obama can do it "without so much as a by your leave from Congress"...

 

[nickqt]

Doesn't an American President requires congressional approval before going to war? That last link claims that Obama can do it "without so much as a by your leave from Congress"...

Usually, a President has 60 days without Congressional approval to use the military. The US hasn't declared a war since WWII.

 

[alcoholbob]

So tl;dr America is following the path of Rome in eventual collapse?

England and France preceded the United States as global powers with world reserve currency statuses. Both empires declined without collapsing in the sense of resulting in a millennial-long dark ages like Rome. In fact it's really their policies post-empire in regards to immigration that will cause their nations to implode in the future. On the bright side the U.S. is replacing itself with Hispanics who are Christians, instead of France and England trying to re-create Andalusian Spain and thinking a second go at that experiment is somehow going to work without massive bloodshed in the future.

 

[Darwin333]

Doesn't an American President requires congressional approval before going to war? That last link claims that Obama can do it "without so much as a by your leave from Congress"...

Technically yes, but we don't declare war anymore. The president can, all by himself, conduct "military operations" up to and including invading another country.

 

[norseamd]

Link will never work since it is linkblocked. If you go to War is Boring the article is about the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. Basically it talks about Ashton Carter and his history and the companies he has been involved in and that he has lots of corruption and cronyism in his political history.

 

[norseamd]

Here is some more. Not sure I have heard anything bad about the new aircraft carriers so the guy who wrote this article may have his own bias. Also I am not finding any real opinions of Ashton Carter on just the A-10 program so that issue is also fuzzy as to how it pertains to Ashton Carter as Secretary of Defense.

His advocacy of more and longer wars is not the only troubling element of Carter’s track record. Between stints at the Pentagon, he has associated with defense-connected firms including MITRE, Goldman Sachs, Global Technology Partners and Textron.

More darkly, he more recently associated with a firm called SBD Advisors, which has advertised itself as working in Washington’s shadows so that “only the inner circle knows that we were involved,” according to the company.


The firm professes it has no defense-related clients, but its board includes former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair—a seeming contradiction.


The Harvard credentials and degrees in physics from Yale and Oxford notwithstanding, Obama’s characterization of Carter as “one of the few people who actually understands how many of our defense systems work” does not rest comfortably with his record in the Pentagon.


Today’s poster children for failing weapons programs prospered with Carter as under secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology and then as deputy secretary of defense. Among the unhappy examples of how not to select and buy weapons are the Navy’s grotesquely over-cost $14-billion new aircraft carrier and the $23-billion Littoral Combat Ship program.


The Defense Department has found that the LCSs cannot survive in serious combat, are all too frequently inoperable, and at $680 million apiece are way over budget. But both the carrier and the LCS program prospered under Carter.

Similarly, Carter recommended little more than a makeover for the world’s most expensive program, the $400-billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.


An embarrassment to all associated with it, the F-35 has doubled in unit cost since its official inception. Its potential combat debut looks to be about a decade late—so far—and its combat capabilities could represent a major step backward from the aircraft it is supposed to replace.


One of the aircraft the F-35 cannot competently replace is the cheap, deadly A-10 Warthog attack plane, which the Pentagon has been desperate to retire. Obama’s talking points at White House event had him waxing on about Carter’s proficiency at getting rid of “old or inefficient” and “outdated, unneeded” weapons, which is exactly how F-35 boosters see the A-10.

This sad development was made all the more repugnant by another statement by Obama at the White House ceremony anointing Carter—the cutting of “outdated, unneeded systems” was “because [Carter] was trying to free up money for our troops to make sure they had the weapons and gear they needed.”


Trashing the A-10 to spend still more treasure on the F-35 is the diametric opposite of supporting the troops and giving them the gear they need.


The cherry on top was the presence at the White House ceremony of Sen. Carl Levin, then a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin is retiring from the senate.


The president described Levin, sitting in the audience, as “my dear friend” and the “kind of guy” who had worked effectively with Carter in the past. It was Levin, along with the rest of the Big Four, who walked away from the legislative instruction to preserve the A-10 force.


Levin’s actions were neither unexplainable nor singular. One public report showed him, as a Michigan politician, receiving the political benefit of $186 million in F-35 spending by 22 companies in various towns and cities in his state—creating what Lockheed claims to be more than 2,000 “direct and indirect” jobs.


In addition, Levin’s 2008 re-election campaign received $209,000 in individual and political action committee contributions from defense industry sources, including $10,000 from Lockheed. Since he was not planning on running again, Levin stopped accepting contributions after 2009.

 

[norseamd]

http://www.pogo.org/blog/2015/01/20...ghlight-ashton-carters-ties-to-investors.html

 

[norseamd]

Ron Paul for his own opinion on Ashton Carter although he can be just too much overopinionated.

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/arc...d-secdef-ashton-carter-mean-for-the-military/

 

[norseamd]

http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-ashton-carter-will-be-caretaker-on.html

 

[Black Octagon]

Technically yes, but we don't declare war anymore. The president can, all by himself, conduct "military operations" up to and including invading another country.

Ok, but I wasn't just talking about Declarations of War. E.g., the war in Afghanistan, and in Iraq (plus the original Gulf War) were all "authorized by Congress," if one trusts Wikipedia.

(I usually don't, but in this case I'm trying to learn rather than make a particular point).

Does this mean that getting approval from Congress is basically a formality, that has been done in recent decades just to give an air of legitimacy to the military oeprations?

Edit: Never mind, just read about the War Powers Resolution.