Here are a couple of images from Iraq that you are not likely to find on the television news.
I have dozens of pictures like this that the lying media won't have on "their" programs.
Posted on 03/13/2006 9:35:40 PM PST by smoothsailing
My, My, that did sound very officious. :-)
Am I to assume that that's the only thing you would like to see the MSM pick up?
Awwww, how cute! Your snappy rejoinders always seem to include everything BUT an actual response to others' comments.
[Pats li'l smoothsailing on the head paternally]
One day you'll grow up and then you may try to get off the porch again. Until then, you should probably confine your posts to "!@#$!@#$ the Clintons!" and "BUMP!"
I choose not to bathe in the glow of your self-assumed superiority.You'll have to enjoy the view alone from that high horse of yours.
I may well have been eager to correct, and it's obvious that the recipient was unwilling to listen to it. But I have remained silent and continued to bear mute witness to illogic and insult passing for debate long enough.
If you find that correction of your childish attempts at logic is exhibiting 'superiority,' at some level you're simply subsuming your acceptance of the correction and chafing at being called on it. Knowing you're going to recognize your error next time and refrain from it, even if you can't accept it now or state so publicly here, is all I need to read. I'll simply let your silly insults slide off. They're just the defensive statements of someone caught in improper behavior and trying to distract.
Whatever, have a nice day.
Here are a couple of images from Iraq that you are not likely to find on the television news.
I have dozens of pictures like this that the lying media won't have on "their" programs.
Those are wonderful, and quite heartwarming.
To know that those kids have a decent chance at a rewarding future must really help boost the morale of our guys.
The electricity system is worse than before the war.
Untrue again. The condition of the electric grid under the old regime was appalling. Yet, despite insurgent attacks, the newly revamped system produced 5,300 megawatts last summer--a full thousand megawatts more than the peak under Saddam Hussein. Shortages continue because demand soared--newly free Iraqis went on a buying spree, filling their homes with air conditioners, appliances and the new national symbol, the satellite dish. Nonetheless, satellite photos taken during the hours of darkness show Baghdad as bright as Damascus.
@@@@
Ping
The ping at #50 was meant for you.
The alternative to a small cheap light force that will probably be optimized for "small" wars against second or third rate opponents is pretty obviously a larger better armored, more capable, and thus more expensive force. We had such a force the last time we went against Iraq, thanks to Ronald Reagan's build up.
President G.H.W Bush had a plan to downsize the military to account for the fall of the Soviet Union. Clinton implemented that plan, and about 2X more in reductions. Surely we don't need to cut any more, although we have since Clinton strutted off to Chapaqua, and we are planning to cut even more. We are grounding more than a third of the B-52 fleet, even though it was programmed to keep flying through 2040, we'd already slashed the B-1 fleet by about the same. We're going to reduce the number of aircraft carriers by one, IIRC. We've cut and stretched all kinds of R&D projects, so we are eating our seed corn too. We can't handle a pipsqueak country like Iraq without calling up the National Guard and Reserve. I think we've cut enough, but we are talking of cutting those reserve forces even as we use them.
Maintaining the mixed, heavy and light, force that we, IMHO, need won't come cheap. Heck we might have to devote the same fraction of the GDP to defense that we did at the low point of the Carter years. (4.7% in '78 and '79), now we are spending less than 4.0% of the GDP on the military. Where would the money come from? Well at that same time we were spending 9.9% of GDP on entitlements, in FY 2004 it was 11.6%, and has likely gone up since then. At the peak of the Reagan buildup we were spending 6.2% of GDP on defense and 10.5% on entitlements. In 1962, before the Cuban missile crises and the Vietnam war, IOW, a time of relative peace, we where spending 9.3% on the military and 6.1% on entitlements.
There's nothing in the Constitution on entitlements, there is something in there about Congress having the power to raise Armies, and a Navy. There is a requirement that the federal government protect the states from attack. I'd say we, and that includes President "W" Bush, have our priorities out of whack.
"Well at that same time we were spending 9.9% of GDP on entitlements, in FY 2004 it was 11.6%, and has likely gone up since then."
Yep, since Johnson nobody needs to sacrifice for a war--it's now guns AND butter. God forbid people work to buy their own $#@!$#@!$ butter.
5.56mm
If the MSM picked up that whole story, complete with the unbelievable human toll DU has had on our soldiers (& their families) plus the environmental damage it's done to Iraq and publicized it to the degree that they've done with other "alleged" news stories some of these other issues would pale in comparison.
Ah, war is easy in a book...
Clearly you haven't looked at the numbers. The guns get whatever is left over after we've doled out the butter, and the pork.
"Clearly you haven't looked at the numbers. The guns get whatever is left over after we've doled out the butter, and the pork."
Agreed 100%. I stand corrected.
The military force you describe, is pretty much what existed during my service time starting back in the 60's.I certainly agree with your assessment of "eating our seed corn" and streching the guard and reserve.
Since 9-11 I've wondered what it will have to take for our government and our citizens to realize that entitlements are an unsustainable luxury that weakens us, and that the time has come to put far more resources in to the larger force you speak of.
As I mentioned further up the thread, given what he has to work with, Rumsfeld has done well,IMO.
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