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US military cutbacks

Samhain said:
Except that if it was built using a proper design, it would still be there.

Using your logic, the fact that the WTC collapsed was due to bad building standards.
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Show me any of my post, where you think that my logic is so flawed that i would think that "the WTC collapsed was due to bad building standards ".
 
apdst said:
If the dumbass that designed it, along with the dumbasses that maintained it had done their job, it wouldn't have collapsed.
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Agreed...but my point still stands "its still and interstate bridge and has to be replaced; mostly with federal funding. ":2wave:
 
treedancer said:
Agreed...but my point still stands "its still and interstate bridge and has to be replaced; mostly with federal funding. ":2wave:
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You tried to use the I-35 bridge as an example of our, "crumbling", infarstructure. You got it wrong. It's time to admit that our involvement in the GWOT didn't cause the bridge to rot down.
 
apdst said:
You tried to use the I-35 bridge as an example of our, "crumbling", infarstructure. You got it wrong. It's time to admit that our involvement in the GWOT didn't cause the bridge to rot down.
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The bridge crumbled into the river. You think that flaws in design won’t make a fifty-year-old bridge crumble/collapse?
 
treedancer said:
The bridge crumbled into the river. You think that flaws in design won’t make a fifty-year-old bridge crumble/collapse?
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That's an awesome argument you're making. No wonder Liberalism is failing every day. :lamo
 
apdst said:
That's an awesome argument you're making. No wonder Liberalism is failing every day. :lamo
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You didn't think this turd was going to fly did you?:mrgreen:

"It's time to admit that our involvement in the GWOT didn't cause the bridge to rot down. "
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Helix said:
we should honor our commitments to veterans, and we should bring troops home and nation build here.
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Except that with Obama, bringing the troops home is so as to expand nanny-state programs here, and put more folks on the gubmit teat.

That's not nation building. That's suicide.
 
treedancer said:
The bridge crumbled into the river. You think that flaws in design won’t make a fifty-year-old bridge crumble/collapse?
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We already have healthy infrastructure budgets. If it was a design flaw, it happened at a time when we had plenty of money in the budget.

Drive around my friend. Unlike the frantic panic of the libs demanding that we blow money we do not have on "infrastructure", you can safely get to where you want to go, and all on the current budget. We already threw hundreds of billions at "shovel ready", remember ?

Spare us the BS.
 
treedancer said:
Whether it crumbled right after it was built, are lasted for a half-century; its still and interstate bridge and has to be replaced; mostly with federal funding. Reread my post #32.
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Point is, we already have "funding". The engineers screwed up, not the funding.
 
Finally something I agree with Obama about, Military is oversized to say the least.
 
samsmart said:
Obama is not going to threaten China and China isn't going to be a threat very soon.

Also, it should be noted that the Pentagon is going to cut its budget by doing less spending on the Army and the Marine Corps. Much less spending cuts will be applied to the Navy and the Air Force. This is so that the U.S. can maintain global power projection while cutting costs.

Most of our intervention with China can be done by the Navy, so it makes sense to cut spending by reducing soldiers and marines. It's only if the **** hits the fan that we'll need to increase the number of soldiers and marines again, and if that happens we have a group of very experienced veterans that we can recall if we need to.
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I have a few issues with this statement.
1) The US cannot maintain global power projection without ground troops. The number one way we ensure we can stabilize a hostile area is send a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) in. I won't go into it, but here is a link to explain what they do.
Marine expeditionary unit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A US Navy ship, sitting off the coast of some foreign land, does not project anything other than the people of the foreign land saying, "Wow, that's a big ship out there." You need troops to hit the ground to gain any kind stability in any theater.
2) China is not a military threat right now. They know that if we fought each other everyone would gang up on them and we would probably fight to a standstill for about 3-4 years. During that time, the power vaccuum would be intense and another country would step in to fill it while we were distracted. We are also their number one consumer, so why would they kill their consumers?
3)The statement about just recalling veterans sounds so easy and non-chalant to you. Yeah, lets just rip some 35 year old guy, who may have PTSD, started a family and overcame that, has finally gotten stable in his job, out of his life and put him in some foreign land. Screw him. He shouldn't have volunteered to begin with and he wouldn't be in this situation right?
 
Hare said:
Finally something I agree with Obama about, Military is oversized to say the least.
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The military was oversized before the first cut. Now, its right where it needs to be and he's cutting it again.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
I'm all for the cuts. Cut, cut, cut. I just find it ironic that liberals are so behind it when, in the same breath, they bemoan that any cuts in spending will hurt the economy and cost Americans jobs. Using the "greater than the next top 10 combined" argument seems disingenuous when insisting that other spending be measured as a % of GDP and military spending be measured in nominal dollars.

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I agree with samsmart that it's smart to cut the Army and Marine Corps first. I'm no expert on military strategy but it seems to me that in the age when we can put a bomb in someone's office from a drone at 80,000 feet that there is no need to continue supporting an infrastructure designed for outdated warfare.
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Don't fall prey to the technology hype. This generations Predator drones are last generations Cruise missiles. Remember that? Clinton would launch a cruise missile in a heart beat and say it killed this guy or that and then the same guy would emerge days later unharmed. Same happens with drones. Nothing ever replaces boots on the ground.
 
I won't argue that boots on the ground is the best way to KNOW that an enemy threat is neutralized.

What I WILL argue, though, is why our military budget is the absolute largest in the world, by a considerable margin, for such a so called peaceful nation. Si vis pacem, para bellum, be damned. I'm sorry, but I just feel like we have this need to constantly have our guns pointed at someone. And from my friends over seas, they feel the same way. Last I checked, there ain't no german, chinese, french, or any other coountries, basis anywhere near where I live, or anyone else I know in this country. Try doing THAT in any other country, and you'll fail. Someone will know someone else who lives near a US military outpost or base. Because they are ****ing everywhere. Why? So we can start shooting people within 70 hours of deciding to do so? Also, more than just the military, as in personal, is the hardware side of it. As good as the military industrial complex is for my state (CT), it's GOT TO STOP. We make **** here that the military doesn't even NEED anymore, but we lobby for it to keep going, because otherwise, it costs us a couple good, 30+ dollar an hour union jobs. And you can't piss off the union, if you want to get elected to another term. That is a problem. And the solution is to cut funding.
 
So Barack Obama is going to weaken the American military. I am not surprised.

I also doubt Obama has the cojones to send troops into Iran to overtake their nuclear and military installations in concert with Israel.
 
johnny_rebson said:
So Barack Obama is going to weaken the American military. I am not surprised.

I also doubt Obama has the cojones to send troops into Iran to overtake their nuclear and military installations in concert with Israel.
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If Israel's gonna do it, of their own accord, on their own dime, why should we spend money on the issue? Seems to me, it's a win. It's about time some folks start taking care of business without the US either spending dollars, or lives, to crutch them up. They get an equal seat at the UN, do they not? Money ---->mouth.
 
treedancer said:
And the funding comes from?
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The tooth fairy.

Let me guess. All these years, and all the roads and bridges you have crossed, you thought it all came from Jobs Jobs Jobs ?

Pssst .... the roads and bridges that you will travel this week, and next, etc., are not what is holding back our economy. In fact, if you see government folks fixing something that doesn't really need to be fixed, then maybe you should look at it a little extra. And just think a spell about what you see. ;)

And we already dropped near a trillion down this rabbit hole not 3 years ago .................. remember ?
 
Eighty Deuce said:
The tooth fairy.
In fact, if you see government folks fixing something that doesn't really need to be fixed, then maybe you should look at it a little extra.
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Liberals just want to waste money on infrastructure items.

It's not like one of our bridges is going to collapse and fall into the river below.
 
If the military spent money efficiently, we could stand to lose a lot of funding while simultaneously gaining ability.

Just focusing on the dollar amount is not the answer. There need to be fundamental changes to how that money gets spent.
 
Gonzo Rodeo said:
If the military spent money efficiently, we could stand to lose a lot of funding while simultaneously gaining ability.

Just focusing on the dollar amount is not the answer. There need to be fundamental changes to how that money gets spent.
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But oddly - they never seem to cut it where it really counts.
 
Krhazy said:
I hope it is done slowly because I don't think the economy would react well to a lot of soldiers suddenly looking for private sector work. We may cut military costs only to increase unemployment/welfare costs.
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The American Jobs Act that the GOP blocked included a provision to offer tax credits to employers that hire Veterans.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
Actually we do have liberal candidates running for President its just that they are in third parties.
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Now all you have to do is wait until society evolves enough to have a majority that would vote for a liberal as president.

On Topic: I don't think that the cuts are going to do as much damage as everyone is saying they are. At end of the day even with these cuts, the US still has the power to protect itself and its allies.
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No doubt about that, we will still be spending almost as much as we were at the end of the Bush Administration and Bush nearly doubled military spending.
 
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