Posted on 02/25/2014 11:17:31 AM PST by jazusamo
Full title: Col. Oliver North: 'There is no strategy' to the defense budget that reduces military to pre-WWII levels
VIDEO at link: Ollie North up to the 4:45 minute mark.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Colonel Oliver North joins us. Nice to see you, Colonel.
LT. COL. OLIVER NORTH, HOST, 'WAR STORIES' & FORMERLY U.S. MARINE CORPS: Good to be with you but not on a day like this.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. I was going to ask you two things. Two-part question. First, do we have to make cuts in the military? Is that smart and wise? And secondly, what do you think the proposed budget?
NORTH: I think the budget is terrible because it doesn't do the thing that defense budgets are supposed it to do and that is to support a national strategy. There is no strategy to this. Instead of deciding who our enemies and adversaries are and building a force capable of dealing with both, what they have done is they picked a number and then they backed into a budget. In other words, they backed into fore-structure based on the number instead of the other way around. Totally the opposite of what Ronald Reagan did.
President Reagan came to town, came to office promising to build a 600-ship Navy based on years and years of analysis that we needed a Navy that big to protect this country. He created millions of jobs, Greta. People forget that. It wasn't just a matter of putting more people in the military and paying us all better. It was a matter of building the capital equipment, ships, planes, trains, all this stuff that you need to make a military work. Reagan did it. They didn't. They are backing away from it.
Transcript continues
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Actually there is a strategy, but Col. North is wise enough not to say what it is on television.
You got that right!
Hey Obama, appeasement leads to war. Yes, I know that's part of your plan, to destroy America.
A thing I pointed out yesterday, but do I get an interview on Fox? Nooooo...
Joking aside, this really is the crux of the matter. In the absence of a change in overall national strategy this is a useless gesture at best and potentially a very harmful one. OK, so we're going to cut the size of the Army. What about its current commitments? Sure, we can reduce the Navy to 8 carrier battle groups or less. What about its current commitments? And has anyone pointed out that you don't just stop spending money on this stuff, that it costs money to retire?
I'm hoping that this planning really has taken place and it is simply a failure to communicate. I'm hoping for the Easter Bunny, too.
There is a strategy:
it’s driven by the fact that we’re broke.
WW II used the draft to get all the troops needed and that didn’t include women, gays or Guard. Right now the army seems like a gig to create Generals and recycle them into commentators. Eisenhower and MacArthur served for the duration. The WW II system worked just fine - declare a war, get overwhelming force with the help of Rosie the Riveter and win it.
But Obama needs the money to pay for Obamacare....
The strategy is “F-— the military and give out more foodstamps.”
That’s it.
We’re broke because there are too many parasites and not enough producers.
Yep, and cutting to pre WWII levels could be suicide now with what’s taking place in the world.
And that includes wars that were not Constitutionally formally declared. Also throw in nation building and deficit trade financing. Spending on Americans should be the last item we cut.
Hey, he’s flexible.
Uh, there's definitely a strategy.
The military is loyal to the Constitution, and our wannabe Dictator in Chief views them as a threat to his ambitions.
Broke? Not according to the administration. They keep adding programs and debt like crazy. So the administration’s supposed strategy is not “we’re broke”. Their strategy is to gut the military because they despise the military and American “hegemony”. It also frees up money in their minds for even more spending.
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