Letters to the Editor
-
Msbau764
Uh, I think Jim Mc was trying to say that we are on the way to bankrupting ourselves with our crazy Mideast adventures, much like the Soviets did trying to 'keep up with the Jones' (according to the acolytes of Saint Ronnie).
At least, that was how I read his post.
-
DOES a bigger Army mean another Iraq?
I say, not necessarily. Remember that during the 1990s, the government (both Democrats and Republicans) reduced ALL the military forces significantly as they assumed there were no more major wars we needed to fight (their case in point was the ease with with we won Desert Storm).
There were those of us who tried to tell people they were reducing us too much...that if we were to have to fight a two-front war, we would be very hard-pressed to fight it...and GOD help us if we were to have to fight a three-front war. No one listened to us...we were called "warhawks" and "didn't understand the world today" and "were relics from a time long past."
Unfortunately, we were right and the current situation proved it. It gave us no happiness that we were right either.
So NOW, I believe our lawmakers have LEARNED from this lesson and will now power up and KEEP powered up the armed forces IN CASE there is a need for us.
At least I hope this is the rationale behind this.
-
Anonymous is completely BRAINDEAD
"So NOW, I believe our lawmakers have LEARNED from this lesson and will now power up and KEEP powered up the armed forces IN CASE there is a need for us."
No. The lesson learned is to never invade countries that are not a threat. Iraq and Afghanistan WERE NOT threats. If we added more troops in Iraq there would simply be more dead Americans, less stability and ample proof for the Islamic world that we are imperialist occupiers determined to steal/protect resources.
If you are concerned with the level of armed forces, advocate removing troops from Korea, Japan and Europe. Those countries/regions are sufficiently rich enough to protect themselves.
I'm pretty sure someone here will say - so you wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11? Yes, that is precisely what I'm saying because OBL apparently isn't there, and terrorists are just as much a problem in Algeria, Sudan, Central Asia, and Europe etcetera as they were in Afghanistan.
-
re: Anonymous is completely BRAINDEAD
msbau764
"No. The lesson learned is to never invade countries that are not a threat. Iraq and Afghanistan WERE NOT threats. If we added more troops in Iraq there would simply be more dead Americans, less stability and ample proof for the Islamic world that we are imperialist occupiers determined to steal/protect resources.
If you are concerned with the level of armed forces, advocate removing troops from Korea, Japan and Europe. Those countries/regions are sufficiently rich enough to protect themselves."
I was not trying to make any comments about the current conflicts we are engaged in. I was simply making a point that we allowed ourselves to become woefully inadequate to engage more than one enemy at a time. That is an obvious fact at this time.
As for your comment about removing troops from Korea, Japan, and Europe, I HAVE done just that...and have further advocated relocating these troops to the posts in Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. Given these are now the hot spots of the world, I would rather we be where we may be needed.
You see, I believe what we should do in Iraq is to train their government and troops and slowly pull out our troops except for enough to permanenly man a military post there. This would serve two functions: 1. It would show the government and their working army that we plan to aid and support them and will not abandon them and 2. It would show Al-Qaeda that we will not allow them back in.
Of course, I'm not a politician so what do I know?
-
Where else are all those millions of unemployed Americans going to work?
Or for that matter, what else do you propose to do with 3 million illegalitos you can't repatriate and you can't amnesty either?
200,000? How weak. A million, minimum, including all uniformed support staff. Go into el Barrio and tell them you'll fast track their citizenship and that of their entire huge extended family if they join the Army for 4 years, get social security numbers, pay taxes and insurance. Then sit back and watch Hugo Chavez's head explode in a gout of blood.
-
Keeee-RIST! What we need...
Is an army that is half the size it is now. An air force that is half the size it is now. A navy that is...etc, etc. We do NOT need a Cold War sized military anymore. THE COLD WAR IS LONG OVER! Now, we DO have GOPers and far too many Democraps trying to gin up a new variant of the Cold War (War on Terra) by conflating a bunch of raggedy militant groups scattered hither and yon as more of a threat to the universe than Hitler's Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union COMBINED but the fact is, it just ain't so! We don't need a bigger military to take care of our legitimate national security needs. Imperialism and illegal invasions are NOT national security needs. Garrisoning occupation troops all over the world is NOT a valid or necessary national security need. We STILL need to enjoy the Peace Dividend! We never got it! It just barely got started when the powers that be agreed with their corporate masters that the military-industrial complex was looking to lose too much money on peace so we need to gin up some war!
Enough already! It is FAR cheaper and FAR more peace-encouraging to NOT invade people's countries on whim, to not THREATEN to invade other people's countries on whim, to NOT claim other countries' natural resources as our own...and these are the ONLY reasons to field a mega-army and spend more on the military than ALL the developed nations (including Russia and China) combined! We DO spend more than all of them combined...for no valid or defensible reason. We are NOT the World Police. We do NOT own the world and its resources. We do NOT have a monopoly on the "correct" form of government (hell, OUR system doesn't work unless you are a corporation and that is NOT what other people want!).
We need to shrink the military a great deal and rely on REAL coalitions via the UN or NATO and the like to deal with REAL threats rather than making up false threats in order to illegally claim other people's land and resources. A big military INVITES war crimes (like violations of the Nuremberg Principles).
Peace Dividend! It is WAY past time that we enjoy it! Give us our Peace Dividend and quit the corporate welfare that is the HUGE military-industrial complex!