» posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 8:08 pm by Andy D
Obama Cuts Our Military
The defense budget is being reshaped in the midst of a presidential contest in which Obama seeks to portray himself as a forward-looking commander in chief focusing on new security threats. Republicans want to cast him as weak on defense.
Today the Obama administration says it wants to cut the U.S. Defense budget by $259 billion over the next five years. However, this is suppose to look like a simple cost savings restructuring. The administration is claiming that our military will still be stronger than it was on 9/11. But will it?
The biggest cut that is being reported is the number of soldiers our military is going to be reduced by. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta listed among the cuts:
The Army would shrink by 80,000 soldiers, from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army on 9/11. The Marine Corps would drop from today’s 202,000 to 182,000 — also above the level on 9/11.
The administration claims our military will still be, “…slightly larger than the Army on 9/11″. This is true if you fudge the numbers a little. In our pre-9/11 military, the army consisted of 32 Brigades. Our army under these cuts would have 33 Brigades. The Obama administration is hoping you don’t dig any deeper. In our pre-9/11 military, each brigade had 3 heavy combat battalions. Brigades in our current military have 2 heavy battalions and 1 light battalion. Brigades under the current plan aren’t as strong as those organized pre-9/11. So while we have more brigades, those brigades aren’t as strong as they use to be. Some might call this slight of hand a lie.
That’s not the only deception in the plan. Panetta also says, “Purchase of F-35 stealth fighter jets, to be fielded by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, would be slowed.” That may not grab you on first glance. However, back in 2009, President Obama canceled production of the F-22 fighter. According to the New York Times:
The Pentagon would rather buy unmanned aircraft to gather intelligence in Afghanistan and accelerate the testing for the F-35, a new plane designed to attack ground targets. Pentagon officials say the F-22 is hard to maintain and costs $44,000 to operate for an hour, compared with $30,000 for older planes.
…and at the time, an F-22 site run by Lockheed Martin,
the Pentagon will end the F-22 fighter jet and White House helicopter programs run by Lockheed, but would increase production of the company’s Joint Strike Fighter.
Now, our military will be without the F-22, and will slow the production of F-35. Slowing production will also drive up the cost of the F-35. If President Obama is re-elected, should we expect him to kill the F-35 due to its increased cost in a year?
The Obama administration is going to continue to use the death of Osama bin Laden as evidence they are strong supporters of our military and they take foreign threats seriously. While the president does deserve credit for allowing that mission to proceed, the proof is in today’s announcement of what our president really thinks of national defense. He’s willing to make our military weaker than it was before Sept 11, 2001.
Pack04 said:
Jan 30, 12 at 11:35 amI see that as 100,000 people without a job.
So we are saving the defense budget but I shortly see us paying unemployment “benefits” to those people or early retirement monies so how much are we really saving?
Lets not forget the 13% reduction in manufacturing of supplies that will go along with the reduction in force. I don’t think that will help the economy. This seems to go against the State of the Union address. From a Huffington Post article: “The president stressed the importance of a rebound in manufacturing jobs to the future of the U.S. economy and asserted that the manufacturing industry is on the upswing.”
I will say I like the opportunity to attack stealthy, Osama bin Laden style. I like that we are changing our tactics. You change tactics to save lives, be more effective. Not save money cause it will help you get re-elected.
Remember when President Bush was accused of sending our troops into combat with “inferior” supplies. It sounds like that is what the President is going to end up doing. I wonder why nobody there are no news stories about him doing it…
Andy D said:
Feb 01, 12 at 4:34 amI like the cover story for the cut back as well. As you suggest, the administration claims this is to allow more special forces warfare in the future. The problem is that this also removes our capability to do a full boots on the ground invasion in another theater if we should need to in the future. That’s putting the nation at risk.
Gerrit said:
Feb 03, 12 at 6:48 amUnless the battleground is the US soil itself, the nation isn’t at risk. If the US would withdraw from all foreign soil, as Ron Paul suggests, the military would only be needed in case America gets attacked itself. And that is the sole moment when the nation is truly at risk. I’m far from a sympathisant of the Republicans, but I can only fully agree with Paul when it comes to that one.
I do think it’s good Obama wants to reduce the military. Because this means less military presence abroad and less involvement in other nations’ internal affairs, hopefully. The weapon industry should be completely dismantled IMO, as I am against war, and against weapon posession for civilians other than policemen and defense forces. Hence it makes sense there too: reducing the military means less involvement abroad, and thus less weapons are needed. Of course this will cost jobs, but weapons cause more victims than it saves lives, so if the dismantling of that industry costs some jobs then I’d still say: good riddance. The price of a human life and dismantling an industry that puts lives at risk, is more important than 1 single sector of the economy.
Also, the money spent less on military, can be used to invest in other industries, which in its turn can create jobs. And then we talk about jobs that are not causing innocent victims, which the weapon industry does cause.
Andy D said:
Feb 03, 12 at 8:16 amGerrit, you’ve said that you live in Europe on here before. You need to recognize that if the US drastically reduces it’s military, your own nation will have a choice to make. Less US military means less US involvement aboard, and less US ability to defend other nations from military aggression.
Europe has been allowed to experiment with Socialism since WWII because the United States has shoulder the majority of the burden for defending the free world. The cold war pitted the United States against Russia, the European nations were part of the battle ground, but weren’t that much of the players.
Any future military action by Russia or any of the Islamic nations (or their terrorists offshoots) agains Europe would have to be dealt with by Europeans and not by Americans. So back to the choice…
Is your own nation going to now pick up the tab for defending itself? If so, what social programs are you going to cut at home to do that? If not, how long until your nation becomes someone else’s property?
Gerrit said:
Feb 04, 12 at 11:49 amYou have to remember though that I am far left myself and thus support socialism. I therefor see Russia as an ally rather than as an enemy. I am member of a far left party myself, and advocate socialism. So Russia doesn’t scare me, on the contrary I wish Europe would see more left-wing governments than we currently have (a minority of European nations has a left wing government, I wish more of Europe would shift to socialists-lead governments)
Then we come to Islam. I welcome Islam in Europe and consider equality of religions as an important thing. Hence I think mosques and islamic dress are welcome here on the streets as much as churches and symbols of “traditionally European” religions. I welcome Muslims in our society and I think mosques and Islamic symbolism have the same rights to be here, visable in the streets, as any other religion (under the state being secular though, but allowing liberty of religion for the citizens)
Then we come to the third part you mentioned: aggression by a minority group such as extremists of any sort. This indeed is a problem and it’s a question mark how to deal with this. I do wonder though: if the western nations would not be involved and present in the Middle East, in Israel, in some parts of Latin America and Africa, … maybe those people would not feel any aggression or reason of dislike towards the West?
It is true there is a problem with violence and terrorism (although we must always emphasise that those are minority groups not representing the religions or cultures they claim to defend — the majority of believers, regardless of which religion, are anti violence). We must defend ourselves against that but also not trigger it, and sometimes I do think the West’s presence in other continents is triggering the dislike of the western nations.
I do think we have to defend ourselves against military aggression, and if the US and other nations with a strong military (in Europe this pretty much would come down to the UK, as other nations tend to have a small military) are willing to help we will not reject the offer. We however also must make sure self-defense comes across as provocation, because self-defense is then becoming a trigger for that aggression we try to defend ourself against. Maybe help in defense wouldn’t even be needed if we focus on avoiding conflicts.
Summarised, I welcome the presence of other cultures and religions in Europe under the umbrella of a secular state structure with freedom of religion for the people. I believe if we in Europe would be more tolerant towards immigrants from other cultures, there’d be a lot less friction between expats and locals. This would leave only a very tiny minority group to deal with. (Even now, the number of well integrated people from other cultures is a lot higher than the number of those who cause problems, unfortunately the media tries to portray it differently)
I agree this aggression is a problem, but I do think a more tolerant Europe would also mean the problem would not be triggered as much. Hence I again would defend diplomatic approach first.
As for Russia: I think we need to remember you have a very different political view than me. I support the far left, socialism, and thus countries such as Russia (which IMO isn’t even that far left. Belarus is the only really far left country in Europe, and while it’s human rights record is bad, it’s economical policy isn’t IMO. It’s a pity their human rights record is bad, because this stands in the way of defending Belarus overall)
I respect your political believes, and I think it is great we can debate in an atmosphere of mutual respect. However, we need to remember we have different political ideals. I don’t see Russia as a threat, quite the contrary. When re-reading your post, I mainly agree we have a problem with a small minority group of extremists but I wonder what Europe can do to avoid such ideas to grow. We of course must defend ourselves, but we must also make sure we’re tolerant and not triggering anti-European sentiments.
Gerrit said:
Feb 04, 12 at 11:55 amNoticed a typing error :
“We however also must make sure self-defense comes across as provocation, because self-defense is then becoming a trigger for that aggression we try to defend ourself against. Maybe help in defense wouldn’t even be needed if we focus on avoiding conflicts.”
Obviously, I mean that we must make sure self-defense does NOT come across as provocation!
I think those who read my posts will have noticed this was a simple typing error, but to assure I’m not being misunderstood: I clearly wanted to say we must assure defending ourselves is NOT coming across as a provocation to other cultures.