Posted on 02/24/2009 10:24:38 PM PST by Marie
17:52 in:
"To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and marines.
"And to keep the sacred trust with those we serve, we will raise their pay and give our veterans the expanded heath care and benefits that they have earned."
Second: If we're cutting down on the ops tempo, why do we need more troops? (Other than replacement.)
Third: There's already serious talk about his administration increasing the co-pays for TriCare and having us pay 10% of our medical bills (50% for retirees).
Fourth: On that note, how does the claim that he's going to spend more on service members fit in with the "cut back" and "balance the budget" theme of this speech?
(Does anyone here *seriously* believe that our military will get *more* with this guy?)
And finally: Why does the DOD have to keep the details for the military budget secret if it's going to be so pleasing to the service members and the public? (NO, it has nothing to do with security. Secure info would have already been addressed. This has to be basic stuff.)
http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3957786
Hmmm....is this his own private domestic army, equal in size to the current military, that Obama has talked about?
he said the war was ending, and he was bring the troops home.
He may be ending the war in Iraq, but the war he wants to fight here is about to begin I think.
That civilian army Obama wants, it gives me the creeps. Sounds like brownshirts of days gone by. I’ve always wondered how he planned to errect his domestic military ‘equal in size’ to our current military - how would the two relate? Then I realized he would have to disband the ‘real’ (current) military. So maybe he hires/trains his own domestic army and releases returning soldiers from duty with a big thank you and some sort of money? I mean of course this is crazy talk, but so is his weird desire for a domestic army of his own making. He always said that his ‘civilian’ army would rebuild infra structure etc. Creepy...
Cut the livng (BLANK) out of the Navy and USAF.
With Him giving away the nukes, won't need those silly B52 and B2w, won't need all those ICBMs, or those D5s. SAve a lot of bucks there.
Then the real cuts start....
Reminds me when my dad trained for WWII with a wooden stick because there were no rifles for training. And he shipped out to the Pacific theater - told he could get a weapon when he arrived, from a casualty, those they had a lot of.....
The only way he’s going to increase the size of the military is through a draft.
Unless by “military,” he actually means his Civilian Army of Gorts that perceives everything as an attack.
Well, if he pulls out of A’stan, P’stan and Iraq etc. Announces the world is now at peace thanks to him, then he announces that America no longer ‘needs’ foreign projection of power via aircraft carriers or airforce - then he mindlessly mouths insincere thank yous while showing them the door?
But Hitler hustled up the ‘youth’ into ‘armies’ by providing them with status and in some cases, more food/shelter than was available to them elsewhere. Obama would use his cloying PR to call these the ‘real’ heroes because they’d be serving the messiah’s cause etc, and no threat of ‘nasty’ service over seas.
I agree completely.
If they are coming home and not on the government payroll as combat troops, many will find the new "job" is standing in the unemployment line as the economy melted down in their absence. We'll be paying them less to sit home and do nothing.
Creepy, isn’t it?
The US currently has forces in 123 different nations.
There are only 195 recognized countries, so clearly we will be saying good - bye to places we should have left decades ago, or never have been involved with in the first place (Korea and Kosovo as examples of each).
Just for fun, I googled Navy cuts, USAF cuts and so on over the last few minutes. The military has taken some major cuts - some over the last few years - and that level of funding will never be seen again.
Under the current group of POls, expect to see more, deeper and widespread cuts. Something has to give to pay for all those extra food stamps....
That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. If we’re pulling out of Iraq and barely beefing up in Afghanastan, why would he add *more* troops? We only need more people if we stay or raise the current ops tempo.
So what’s he going to do with this larger military? Either he plans on fighting a civil war or he’s lying.
Honestly, I think he’s just blowing smoke. It makes no sense. It also makes no sense to propose this during a speech concerning the lowering of the deficit. I think he’s just saying this to appease stressed-out troops.
What’s not so good is that we’ll be giving up strategic bases that give us a foot-hold and launching platforms to hard-to-reach areas.
Also, don’t forget that we’re the only thing standing between Israel and S. Korea (and I’m sure others) and certain doom. If we pull back too far, we’re going to have to contend with WWIII. (And yes, it would spill over.)
Probably cheaper to hold our ground at this point.
I am a Victor David Hanson fan and he has made the case, a good one in my opinion, for withdrawing troops from complacent, vindictive European countries and ‘allowing’ them to pay for their own defense for a change. I can see that we need to withdraw from some of these countries. Obama’s math (increasing the military) specifies army and marines will increase - so it sounds like AF and Navy decrease - as another poster pointed out - at the same time we bring people home from the middle east. I suspect his math only works out if he is still planning his gort army (civilian army equal in pay, size to real army)
Uh...because he’s lying.
Hard to say
South Korea has an Army 4X bigger than ours and a very modern air force.
The IDF has hukes (nuff sed there) and has proven they can take care of themselves. IF they cut back on punative expiditions, they should do just fine.
And,ya, we should have been out of Europe in 1960 at the latest. But I suspect German beer played a part in our staying....
No matter what, the US military in 2010 or 2011 will in no way resembile what we have today...
Since Japan picks up a large part of our tab, keeping a base or two there would make some sense.
Dunno about Guam - 25K Marines on that small an island - come a payday, 3 day weekend and it ain’t gonna be any fun for everyone....
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