Army is Billions Short

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234
No. Stop the military spending and start dealing responsibly with other countries as apolicy, rather than using military threats to get your way. I'd like to see a 75% military cut. We are now built for empire, not defense.

Saying we should deal with other countries is one thing, calling for a 75% decrease in military spending is just insane. Clinton cut defense throughout his 8 years and look at what that got us, nice terrorist attacks. Everything you say Bush should be doing Clinton tired, and we were still attacked.
Maybe we should come to the understanding that terrorists and religious zealots are going to hate and want to kill us no mater what we do.

Yes because leaving reagans waste of money army in place would have done so much to prevent 9/11 :roll: You can go back in your hole too.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: marvdmartian

Originally posted by: Craig234
No. Stop the military spending and start dealing responsibly with other countries as apolicy, rather than using military threats to get your way. I'd like to see a 75% military cut. We are now built for empire, not defense.

Thanks for your opinion, Mr Gore. It must be nice living in your world, where everyone knows you, and doesn't mind this sort of senseless drivel! :roll:

The single largest problem with the DoD is the SUIT in charge. No, not W.......and not Shotgun Dick......we're talking he who is named after Cuban/PuertoRican alcohol. Quit trying to run the DoD like a business, as if you have to make a profit, and start running it like a military. The problem right now is that Rummy tells the Generals & Admirals every year, "You have X number of dollars, that you can spend on future weapons or personnel.......it's YOUR choice". Now what do you think they pick?? :roll:

Bottom line. If you expect more than peacetime work out of your military, you MUST budget for the extra. Rummy has run the DoD on not much more than peacetime funding, while expecting them to perform at a much higher tempo.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks the Clinton administration had nothing to do with this mess is sadly mistaken. All throughout the 8 years previous to the current administration, all we heard was how the military was being cut for a "peace dividend". Here's a clue.....the real peace dividend was PEACE. Now we have a military that's in not much better shape than it was during the Carter administration, being tasked with MAJOR tasking. Also, guess what usually gets cut first during a military drawdown?? Training and Maintenance.......coincidentally, the two things you need the most once you expect your military to go into combat. To tell the truth, I'm amazed our military has done as much as it has, with as little as it's had to do it, for as long as we've asked them to do it.

So PLEASE, don't spout your flower child platitudes about cutting the military down to nothing........all you do is show your incredible ignorance!

After all his cuts, the clinton military still was 50% of the worlds military spending.

 

[LunarRay]

We don't need a standing military of the current size to ward off the threats to our freedom here at home... it is when we go everywhere and dominate everything that we need that large of a budget... We have all these submarines now.. what to do with them... they can't very well be done away with and they do shoot them missles and stuff... If we could get everyone else to sink their war ships maybe we could scrap some of ours.. or do we intend to start honoring the Congress by naming Carriers after them..

 

[babylon5]

Cutting off over priced non-bidding contract with Cheney's Haliburton will save billions to make up the difference.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Saying we should deal with other countries is one thing, calling for a 75% decrease in military spending is just insane. Clinton cut defense throughout his 8 years and look at what that got us, nice terrorist attacks.

Wow, just wow. And I suppose you can prove one correlates to the other, or are you just talking out your ass as usual? Terrorists fight an asymmetrical war. The very nature of which means that it doesn't matter how many dollars we throw at the military, it's not going to help us.

 

[Moonbeam]

The Bush disaster has put our asses in a sling.

 

[wirelessenabled]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The Bush disaster has put our asses in a sling.

Succinct and to the point:thumbsup:

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The Bush disaster has put our asses in a sling.

When your ass is broken, a sling will hardly help you.

 

[imported_Aelius]

I don't have a problem with heavy military spending. So long as it follows basic principles.

1. Set a hard limit for all contracts. If a contractor goes above budget his contract is automatically under independant investigation or is canceled, or is canceled anyway if the investigation finds major faults. Continuation would automatically require a political vote to proceed or to kill it.

This sort of happens now in a very broad sort of way. The problem is that even if this was implemented the investigators would most likely be shills anyway. Sad but true. The system is just that corrupt. The 9/11 Independant Comission is proof of how little can be done with so much.

2. Contracts need to be awarded for the best equipment, not necessarily the lowest bidder. ie. You could spend $900 for a MAC10 with appropriate support and you would get a close range sub machine gun for anti terrorism use, or you could spend $2,000 for an MP5 that does the same thing. Option a) is a POS, while option b) is the best there is.

Currently the way politicians get around the system is by setting standards that can only be meet by a specific contractor. Oldest political trick in the book. In any government when a job is created the job description is sometimes written in such a way that those working in the department know exactly who will be the successful candidate before anyone even applies. Sad but true.

Again you need a watchdog that has the teeth needed to point out faults in the procurement system and get them resolved.

The way Canada got around the problem, for a long time, is by appointing shills as a watchdog so nothing ever happened. Look what happened when someone got into the position that actually did their job. A whole government got sacked.

Bottom line. You gota get value for your money. The US is, or was, spending billions to buy Stryker APCs to replace tanks. Why? Above all, it's cheap. It's also a death trap vs RPGs. So was Canada up until just recently when the gov sacked the program due to public outcry that we are buying equipment that will not properly protect our troops. Canada's plan to trash all of its tanks was suddenly halted. It's not these fancy APCs that are being sent to Afghanistan by Canada, but tanks.

You gota have the right tools for the right job, be willing to spend the money for it and to replace them when they go belly up.

Or you can do what the US did. Do it half assed and be forced to play catch up 5 years later.

I still have a hard time swallowing that Canada blew almost 4 grand a rifle some 12 years ago, just because it's a Canadian company making knock off M16s. Total BS and it's a POS rifle.

Anyway... I'm ranting.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Clinton cut defense throughout his 8 years and look at what that got us, nice terrorist attacks.

let's be honest here... if Bush had continued the spending cuts and hadn't invested billions into the military via the war in iraq, we'd probably be even safer than we are today.

 

[Craig234]

I don't have a problem with heavy military spending. So long as it follows basic principles.

You express concern about waste. That's one part of the problem, not the largest part.

The opportunity cost of all the lost money on 'heavy' spending is huge to society. You know - education, safety nets, infrastructure, other enrichment for the public.

I'll quote President Eisenhower 12 weeks after he took office:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

The excessive military also pressures leaders to use the military more - and this can cause injustice.

We killed 2 million Vietnamese for wanting to end their repression under colonialism. Was that just - or was it caused by our own weaknesses including excessive military?

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Pens1566

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234
No. Stop the military spending and start dealing responsibly with other countries as apolicy, rather than using military threats to get your way. I'd like to see a 75% military cut. We are now built for empire, not defense.

Saying we should deal with other countries is one thing, calling for a 75% decrease in military spending is just insane. Clinton cut defense throughout his 8 years and look at what that got us, nice terrorist attacks. Everything you say Bush should be doing Clinton tired, and we were still attacked.
Maybe we should come to the understanding that terrorists and religious zealots are going to hate and want to kill us no mater what we do.

Military spending has almost nothing to do with terrorist attacks. Outside of the portion of the DoD budget for intel, of which very little is/was used on terror groups. Try again to make it Clinton's fault.

Pens and Aisengard I was point out that Clinton tried exactly what Craig said and it did us no good.
Craig says we need a 75% cut in defense spending and that by dealing with other countries as policy etc etc we can bring about world peace.

My point was that Clinton tried the policy thing and cut spending and the results were a more dangerous world where terrorism became the biggest threat to world peace, not a less dangerous world.

Like Teddy R. said, speak softly but carry a big stick.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: babylon5
Cutting off over priced non-bidding contract with Cheney's Haliburton will save billions to make up the difference.

No-bid contracts were around under Clinton as well. Get over the Haliburton thing and trying to score cheap political points.

 

[Craig234]

John, you are misstating history in a big way, as many have pointed out.

First, Clinton did not do what I'm suggesting or anything close to it.

Second, you are misunderstanding the connection between out military spending and terrorism - terrorism is not caused only by our supposed and false 'weakness' with that cut; you don't understand the other things that contribute to terrorism, the things we are unable to do because of a lack of resources when they are wasted on military spending, and even how excessive military spending can cause increased terrorism.

Carter and Reagan's arming of the radical muslims to fight in Afghanistan had a lot more to do with the explosion (no pun intended) of terrorists than Clinton's military budget.

Roosevelt said carry a big stick; read Eisenhower for what happens when you don't stop at a big stick and try to carry a redwood tree around.

You show no sign of having any grasp of the idea of a limit on when it's 'too much'. That's the common fallacy among many on the right; any cut means 'weak'.

It's wrong and extremely bad policy.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Craig234

I don't have a problem with heavy military spending. So long as it follows basic principles.

You express concern about waste. That's one part of the problem, not the largest part.

The opportunity cost of all the lost money on 'heavy' spending is huge to society. You know - education, safety nets, infrastructure, other enrichment for the public.

I'll quote President Eisenhower 12 weeks after he took office:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

The excessive military also pressures leaders to use the military more - and this can cause injustice.

We killed 2 million Vietnamese for wanting to end their repression under colonialism. Was that just - or was it caused by our own weaknesses including excessive military?

I don't think that is happening. Although having the strongest military in the world may actually encourage us to do thing we would not have done if the Soviet Union was still around.
Our involvement in Vietnam was about fighting communism, not stopping the people of Vietnam from ending oppression of colonial rule. Besides do you think they were better off under the commies than under the French? Or is it more likely that both systems sucked.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Craig234
John, you are misstating history in a big way, as many have pointed out.

First, Clinton did not do what I'm suggesting or anything close to it.

Second, you are misunderstanding the connection between out military spending and terrorism - terrorism is not caused only by our supposed and false 'weakness' with that cut; you don't understand the other things that contribute to terrorism, the things we are unable to do because of a lack of resources when they are wasted on military spending, and even how excessive military spending can cause increased terrorism.

Carter and Reagan's arming of the radical muslims to fight in Afghanistan had a lot more to do with the explosion (no pun intended) of terrorists than Clinton's military budget.

Roosevelt said carry a big stick; read Eisenhower for what happens when you don't stop at a big stick and try to carry a redwood tree around.

You show no sign of having any grasp of the idea of a limit on when it's 'too much'. That's the common fallacy among many on the right; any cut means 'weak'.

It's wrong and extremely bad policy.

You called for a 75% CUT dude!!! If you said we could scale back our army some, bring troops home from Germany and other places where they are needed in order to save money. Then maybe I could have thought about it and agreed or disagreed.
Right now I look at Iraq and all the poeple saying we need more troops and thinking a military cut would be the worse thing we can do.
However, we can certainly cut back some of the stupid wasted programs. The Stryker vehicle for starters, looks great, 8 wheels, neato and all that, but any one with an RPG can kill it and everyone inside it, while a cheaper Bradley doesn't have that problem. Stryker is perfect example of Washington telling the military what it needs, instead of military telling DC what it needs.
We need programs like the F-22 and F-35 in order to stay ahead of the other countries, but we don't need too many of them since no one is challenging us in the air.

BTW: without military research where would we get all the neat weapons for games like Ghost Recon?

 

[Craig234]

Our involvement in Vietnam was about fighting communism, not stopping the people of Vietnam from ending oppression of colonial rule.

Do you just make this stuff up or buy the party line? Can you begin to back that up with anything other than quoting the government sales pitch?

On the other side, I can quote Robert McNamara saying that the war, for the Vietnamese, was about ending colonialism, and that our government tragically misunderstood that.

And you are wrong even before the war - do you know what when Viet Nam begged us to support their being independant after WWII when the Japanese were expelled, and not to let the French re-occupy them, that not only did we support our European ally in their colonization as we usually did, following our broad support for Europe in that, but at one point we were even paying up to 90% of the Frnch war cost for them in the 1950's.

Besides do you think they were better off under the commies than under the French? Or is it more likely that both systems sucked.

First, there are bigger questions. It's not up to us to go around the world going to war to put in governments we think are better.

For one, we are not exactly immune to corruption in how we do it.

Second, I do think they were better off without without the French occupation after WWII we sided with the French on, without our putting a puppet dictator over the country, without our killing 2 million of their people and leaving a nation destroyed, contaminated, with mines and bombs, not to mention the Khmer Rouge which was able to come into power because of our policies. Having said all that, I think communism is terrible, but I think they were better off with that than what we did, and better as they are now.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234
No. Stop the military spending and start dealing responsibly with other countries as apolicy, rather than using military threats to get your way. I'd like to see a 75% military cut. We are now built for empire, not defense.

Saying we should deal with other countries is one thing, calling for a 75% decrease in military spending is just insane. Clinton cut defense throughout his 8 years and look at what that got us, nice terrorist attacks. Everything you say Bush should be doing Clinton tired, and we were still attacked.
Maybe we should come to the understanding that terrorists and religious zealots are going to hate and want to kill us no mater what we do.

:roll:

And Bush and companies' war in Iraq has made us all safer

U.S. militar spending more than next twenty nations combined

That is right since Bush has increased world terrorism and spent 400 billion nation building which he stated he wouldn't do it is all Clinton's fault. Since Bin Laden is the number priorit of Bush ... oh wait he went from number one priority to "I don't think about him" within one year it is all Clinton's fault. You first state cutting funds is ridiculous and then make broad generalizations that the religious zealots are going to hate and want to kill us no matter what we do. So if they are going to hate us no matter what we do then what is your problem with reprioritizing foreign policy so that it actually make sense and cutting military spending so that little things like the Gulf Coast and the education system can be rebuilt? I agree with you that a 75% decrease in military spending is not sound thinking but when we spend more on our military then the next 20 nations combined and now have 400 billion invested in Afghanistan and Iraq (and look at the state of those nations) then some questioning is bound to occur over the soundness of said policies.

Bush has increased terrorism around the world with draconian them or us policies that have demonstrated their fruits in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you can tell me that Bush's wars have made the world safer with a straight face then I will have to admit defeat to your rather blazing bias. (I agreed with Bush in the overthrow of the Taliban but our immediate attention on Iraq left Afghanistan a breeding ground for drugs and resurgence of Taliban).

For a President committed to not nation build ...

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234
John, you are misstating history in a big way, as many have pointed out.

First, Clinton did not do what I'm suggesting or anything close to it.

Second, you are misunderstanding the connection between out military spending and terrorism - terrorism is not caused only by our supposed and false 'weakness' with that cut; you don't understand the other things that contribute to terrorism, the things we are unable to do because of a lack of resources when they are wasted on military spending, and even how excessive military spending can cause increased terrorism.

Carter and Reagan's arming of the radical muslims to fight in Afghanistan had a lot more to do with the explosion (no pun intended) of terrorists than Clinton's military budget.

Roosevelt said carry a big stick; read Eisenhower for what happens when you don't stop at a big stick and try to carry a redwood tree around.

You show no sign of having any grasp of the idea of a limit on when it's 'too much'. That's the common fallacy among many on the right; any cut means 'weak'.

It's wrong and extremely bad policy.

You called for a 75% CUT dude!!! If you said we could scale back our army some, bring troops home from Germany and other places where they are needed in order to save money. Then maybe I could have thought about it and agreed or disagreed.
Right now I look at Iraq and all the poeple saying we need more troops and thinking a military cut would be the worse thing we can do.
However, we can certainly cut back some of the stupid wasted programs. The Stryker vehicle for starters, looks great, 8 wheels, neato and all that, but any one with an RPG can kill it and everyone inside it, while a cheaper Bradley doesn't have that problem. Stryker is perfect example of Washington telling the military what it needs, instead of military telling DC what it needs.
We need programs like the F-22 and F-35 in order to stay ahead of the other countries, but we don't need too many of them since no one is challenging us in the air.

BTW: without military research where would we get all the neat weapons for games like Ghost Recon?

I think even more so than that, it's the large military contractors who are telling the military what they need. That and several of the top decision makers for these contracts within the Pentagon are 100% on the take of the defense lobbyists.

On a side note, I think the F-35 is a gigantic piece of crap and will fail utterly.

 

[piasabird]

Typical large ticket items for the Military is trucks, Missle systems, Helicopters, Tanks, Artillery, Ammunition, Small Arms, machine Guns, Antitank Shoulder rockets, Anti-aircraft Shoulder missles.

The US Army does a lot of transportation of fuel and supplies like MRE's etc. A lot of their equipment like vehicles has just been blown up. Every time you hear some soldier is injured or dead just count on the vehicle being totaled.

When I was in the Army like 20 years ago they would get excited if you lost a wrench or were missing a poncho. You cant just keep blowing up fuel trucks, and supply trains, Hum-vees, and keep everything moving.

 

[fitzov]

A lot of their equipment like vehicles has just been blown up.

Really? Wow, I guess we're losing Iraq War II