Now is the time at SDA for a little nostalgia.
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor running for president, has told an audience in New Hampshire that the United States “won’t always have the strongest military,” an assertion that drew a strong rebuke today from one of his rivals for the Democratic nomination. […]
Dr. Dean rejected that characterization of his comment. “What serious presidential candidate would ever say such a thing?” he said. “How ridiculous!”
This harks back to the “Peace Dividend” under Trudeau where the Armed Forces were expected to “more with less” until finally we were doing everything with nothing.
I’m glad they are making cuts. I’m with Ron Paul on this.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2013/october/18/does-our-military-spending-really-make-us-better-off.aspx
Well globull warming IS America’s biggest threat, don’t ya know! What do you expect from a military geared to fight the weather?
Yeah well, I’m old enough to remember a time when Canada was the 4th largest military in the world with about 2/3 the current population.
A nation with about a million in uniform degenerated to the reality that Canada’s total combat strength could be seated in Maple Leaf Gardens…..with empty seats….
Ironically, as the baby boom provided the potential manpower and a strong economy the finance…..the LIBRANOs of the day demobilized….like occurred after WWI.
Ron Paul is just the latest American isolationist.
Unto everything there is a season…..a time to….
US Military spending is still outrageously excessive. More and faster please.
I’m all for a strong military, but let’s be realistic. The US may technically be able to fight 2 major wars, but financially they can’t. They no longer have the treasure or even the public support to launch an ongoing war anywhere. The only two countries that could survive a week of US attack are China and Russia and if it really was that bad, nukes would be the deciding factor.
Everything else is going to be guerrilla warfare and the US had to learn the lesson every empire has. Don’t try to fight an entire population on the other side of the world, it never workes out well and you go broke doing it.
They spend way to much on their military and at the very least they have to get more bang for their buck. What they really need to do is take on the industrial military complex who soaks then for excess billions on every fancy project.
Yah, you guys posting before me are a barrel of laffs. If they cut the gov’t to a reasonable size, cut the needless bl**dy welfare programs that turn humans into pets, then these military cuts amount to nothing but pocket change. Here I thought I was in a “conservative” blog were the participants understood priorities!!!!!
The biggest takeaway from all this is that soon we won’t have uncle Sam around to help us when mad Vlad decides to send a few ice-breakers to claim the seabed in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Currently we have nothing capable of cutting through multi-year ice and would be reduced to shouting epithets at them from shore as they sailed past, assuming we could get there in time. If we don’t do something soon to claim our North they will simply stroll right in and take it.
almost every country in the world disparages the USA, but they are the first on everyone’s speed dial when the SHTF! Funny, eh?
The usefulness of the US military is questionable. A lot of money is being squandered on female “soldiers”,
many of them pregnant. And will they hire any old gay man just because of his sexual orientation?
Of course some gays are good fighters – very good – Alexander the Great, Frederic II, etc.
And then there is the decapitation of the US military.
The present US administration ended Pax Americana, and are now making sure that the US will
suffer the consequences along with everyone else. So I am partly but not completely in agreement with you,
Mr. Brick.
It was bound to happen, Obama or no. It’s time the rest of us started our plans B,C, D and E.
There is actually no proof whatsoever that Alexander the Great was gay, even though it was acceptable at the time. Its just something the gay lobby threw out there and for some reason it was never challenged. He loved his horse and he loved to fight and booze it up but his best childhood friend and confidant was never interested in men as love objects and neither was Alexander. History shows he was offered 2 handsome young boys and he rejected them outright. He enjoyed the occasional woman but even that took a back seat to planning the next fight, which was his true love.
Lawmakers force Pentagon to buy tanks, keep ships and planes it doesn’t need
The U.S. spends more money on defense than any other nation in the world. So in an era of fiscal challenge, the Pentagon looked for ways to reduce costs.
Too bad Congress wasn’t listening.
Lawmakers have nixed several of the money-saving ideas, instead forcing the Defense Department to purchase or maintain equipment it says it doesn’t need.
Take for instance the half-billion dollars in Abrams tanks that Congress ordered up for the next two years, or the seven obsolete ships the Navy is being forced to keep.
The Pentagon says it doesn’t want them, or need them. But taxpayers will keep paying the price.
For not listening to military leaders and instead forcing unneeded spending, Congress wins this week’s Golden Hammer, a weekly distinction given by the Washington Guardian to the worst examples of government waste.
Last week, The Associated Press reported that Congress has authorized almost half-a-billion dollars over two years to build Abrams tanks for the Army. But the Army has said it currently doesn’t need any tanks, and the money would be better used elsewhere.
“If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, said.
Lawmakers, however, are insisting on keeping the program going, usually in the name of national defense. Behind that, however, is usually an economic concern. The Abrams tanks – and most other equipment used by the military – are built within the U.S. Stopping production means losing jobs in home congressional districts.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/9/lawmakers-force-pentagon-to-buy-tanks-keep-ships-a/#ixzz2uWt8bjMv
“almost every country in the world disparages the USA, but they are the first on everyone’s speed dial when the SHTF! Funny, eh?”
You’re thinking of the old days. Obama’s in office now. Ask anyone in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq ,Israel,Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey,Benghazi or (put country here). Now the speed dial rings and only a community organizer will answer. Cutting the military back to pre WW2 days will only enforce the reality that the USA is broke and the phone dialed the wrong number. Not saying that’s good or bad, but it will continue to be tested. A man’s only as good as his word and Obama’s word is not worth much.