How will Obama destroy the military?

[LogansPapa]

The boats that Wal-Mart buys:

First of all, with two 094 SSBNs – nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines – entering service, the overall combat strength of the No. 1 Nuclear Submarine Flotilla based in Qingdao, on the eastern Shandong Peninsula, has been greatly improved. As a consequence, there is a legitimate need to reinforce air defense and aerial interception capability in this region.

http://upiasiaonline.com/Security/20...te_korea/7969/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...pe_94-line.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...e-094-pic1.jpg

[Molon Labe]

The biggest problem I can see is that American middle class kids won’t join the service in this all volunteer military. I suspect troop morale will decline significantly and the enlistment rate will drop. Fewer people will reenlist. Everybody will be trying to get out.

The military has already lessened standards in order to meet demands for it's current missions.
I'm not totally against a leaner more efficient force...especially our overseas prescence, but what Obama will do is reduce the size of the military in the wrong areas. Liberals don't tend to listen to the military leadership when it comes to military matters.

[biccat]

Not if we continue like we are now and make the security of Israel the cornerstone of American foreign policy.

Israel aside, there is still the issues of dealing with OPEC, the geography of the ME with respect to shipping lanes, and particularly the fact that the three major world religions have their seats in the region, with Islam having the strongest presence.

The Middle East is going to be a headache unless we can finally convince the theocracies of the region to accept modern concepts of democracy and equality.

[LogansPapa]

Screw the Strait of Hormuz and everything that comes through it.

That is where our military, in convoys of Iraqi oil, etc. - is most vulnerable - not because of our lack of self defense for our ship and planes, but busting one of those fat crude cows open might lead to a large sea of fire.

The key to this problem is cutting off the dependence on the oil that comes through that choke point. Geography has always been key to every military campaign and not having to go there negates that issue. There are other sources, domestic and other foreign countries - that can be tapped.

If every major coastal town did their part like the one I reside in - problem solved.;)

[CLibertarian]

It's been a pattern. The last two Democrat Presidents gutted the military and their Republican successors had to rebuild it at a much higher cost than it would have to maintain it as it was.

[Odysseus]

It's been a pattern. The last two Democrat Presidents gutted the military and their Republican successors had to rebuild it at a much higher cost than it would have to maintain it as it was.

It's worse than that. Obama is unable to even grasp that we face a fundamental threat, much less its nature. The basic structure of warfare is changing, as non-state actors (terrorists, criminal cartels, tribal chieftains, warlords, etc.) fill in the vacuums in those parts of the world where established states are incapable of enforcing their will, or in collusion with those who would prey upon them. The conventional states that oppose us do so through surrogates that can act in the interests of their patrons while providing them with plausible deniability. China, for example, is all over the global Jihadi movement. China subsidizes the North Korean weapons that flow to Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda through Iran. China also provided nuclear instruction to Pakistan, which was spread to Iran. But that's just one example. The entire world is riddled with small, deadly groups of losers who are subsidized by monstrous states for their own ends. North Korea supplies rockets to Hezbollah, nuclear tech to Iran and provides arms and equipment to Hamas and anyone else who is willing to shoot at Americans or Israelis. Narcotraficantes in Colombia are supplied by Hugo Chavez, who also provides them with safe havens, while they, in turn, work with Islamist terror groups and communist terrorists such as the Sendero Luminoso.

Imagine that a terrorist wants to enter the US through the southern border. He will be recruited from a tribe in Afghanistan or Pakistan, train in Syria or Lebanon, then travel to Venezuela, where he is received by the Iranian embassy staff. He is housed by the Venezuelans until he can be escorted by Colombian drug smugglers to the Mexican border, where he is greeted by Zapatista rebels who place him with human traffickers for the border crossing. The ideological differences between these groups are not so great that they will not form alliances in order to attack their common enemy, namely us, because each of them gets something for their efforts. The smugglers get money, the terrorists get to strike a blow to advance the global jihad, the tribal chieftains gain weapons with which they can dominate their enclaves, the communists disrupt the west and the traffickers get to indulge their darkest impulses with the people who have been turned over to them (except, of course, for our terrorist). Each group works with, and protects, the others, sharing information and facilities and providing each other with critical support.

BTW, this is not new. We've fought warlords, international criminal cartels and Islamist insurgents before, but the things that make this a more deadly time are that most governments are incapable of marshalling the will to address the threat, and those that do are routinely subjected to the opprobrium of those who won't. Thus, when Hamas and Hezbollah fling rockets at Israeli cities, it is Israel that is attacked for defending itself. When 3,000 Americans are murdered in one day by terrorists, the major powers of the world are more frightened by what we might do in response than they are by the fact of the initial carnage. Also, the networks of criminal, terrorist or tribal organizations are far better organized and capable of exploiting the weaknesses of the lumbering governments that they seek to undermine, as well as being far more capable of playing the media.

Second, the emergence of the internet and globalization has taken regional conflicts and expanded their scope in ways that no one could have anticipated. Non-state actors can communicate over borders, oceans, mountains and any other barriers that nations can build, and follow up that communication with action. Grievances (real or imagined) against the west result in terror within formerly safe enclaves. Arabs who lived in Afghan mountain caves were able to bring down skyscrapers in Manhattan. Hate crosses borders more easily than goods.

Finally, the assumption by western liberals that these groups want to live in peace is fatally wrong. Peace does nothing for these kinds of men. Violence provides them with the means to satisfy their deepest, darkest cravings for power, money, women or just more violence. An Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was a petty sadistic thug, rotting in jail after jail in Jordan, until Al Qaeda turned his propensity for beheading innocents into a recruiting tool. Pablo Escobar was an impoverished peasant until he learned that decadent westerners will pay through their noses to have powder to put up them. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was just another dopey college student until the US Embassy takeover, which made him into a romantic revolutionary and absolute ruler of Iran, just as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Robespierre, Hugo Chavez, Che Guevara and a host of other losers were transformed by revolutionary violence into dictators whose power allowed them to indulge their worst impulses, and for every one of them, there are hundreds of thousands of wannabes who seek the same power (Bill Ayers, anyone?). These men came to power and glory through violence, and they will not willingly relinquish the means of their glory, no matter what you offer them.

That's what Obama doesn't get, and that's why he is the wrong answer.

[gator]

Thus, when Hamas and Hezbollah fling rockets at Israeli cities, it is Israel that is attacked for defending itself.

Yea, right. These goddamn Israelis kill Palestinians and other Arab women and children, take land away, institute an apartheid government, brutalize the people and then claim they are the victims when the people fight back.

You have a very distorted view of morality.

The Palestinians are the oppressed people not the fucking Israeli, you imbecile.

If you were any kind of a man at all you would fight back yourself if you were a Palestinian and were oppressed by the likes of the Israelis. Or maybe you would just accept them being your masters.

You have really been drinking that NeoCon pro Israel Kool Aid, haven’t you?

[cclanofirish]

Yea, right. 1.) These goddamn Israelis kill Palestinians and other Arab women and children.

2.) They take land away

The land is rightfully Israel's...Genesis 15:18 says:

"On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. A giant landmass encompassing parts of Egypt as well as significant portions of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq was promised to Abraham's descendants. Abraham had two sons - Ishmael and Isaac (he had other sons from his wife after Sarah) and I will focus on those two sons. Clearly the descendants of Abraham that will possess and own this land would be from Isaac. Genesis 17:19 says: Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. More than 2,500 years later Islam made a stark revelation that the beneficiary of this covenant is Ishmael and not Isaac. The Palestinians have a bizarre claim that they are owners of Israel and that they should have their own nation - Palestine."

This assertion by "Palestinians" is crap.

3.) Institute an apartheid government

That is a point worthy of true debate, whereas your other assertions are do not even closely resemble logical thought.

4.) Brutalize the people and then claim they are the victims when the people fight back.

Again I ask....who started the fight, and why is Israel held to a different standard by you as related to self defense of their land?

5.) You have really been drinking that NeoCon pro Israel Kool Aid, haven’t you?

Absolutely!

[Odysseus]

Yea, right. These goddamn Israelis kill Palestinians and other Arab women and children, take land away, institute an apartheid government, brutalize the people and then claim they are the victims when the people fight back.
You have a very distorted view of morality.
The Palestinians are the oppressed people not the fucking Israeli, you imbecile.
If you were any kind of a man at all you would fight back yourself if you were a Palestinian and were oppressed by the likes of the Israelis. Or maybe you would just accept them being your masters.
You have really been drinking that NeoCon pro Israel Kool Aid, haven’t you?

Out of five paragraphs of analysis of the changing nature of warfare in the face of new technological, social and demographic trends, you fixated on one line about Israel to the exclusion of everything else, and that's your response?
What the hell is wrong with you?

Are you so consumed with hate that any mention of Israel must trigger a tirade that would embarass a Tourette's Syndrome patient? Get some help. Seriously.

And for the love of God, find a new catchphrase. "NeoCon Kool Aid" wasn't particularly clever the first hundred times that you used it, and it's not getting any better with repetition.

[gator]

Out of five paragraphs of analysis of the changing nature of warfare in the face of new technological, social and demographic trends, you fixated on one line about Israel to the exclusion of everything else, and that's your response?
What the hell is wrong with you?

Are you so consumed with hate that any mention of Israel must trigger a tirade that would embarass a Tourette's Syndrome patient? Get some help. Seriously.

And for the love of God, find a new catchphrase. "NeoCon Kool Aid" wasn't particularly clever the first hundred times that you used it, and it's not getting any better with repetition.

By the way, look at the post above. We already have the kid invoking religion as an reason to support Israel. It happens in almost every thread.

If you are going to say dumb things about Israel then I will respond appropriately.