Posted on 04/10/2003 12:46:45 PM PDT by baseballmom
Credit military success to Clinton's policies, not Bush's defense spending spree
With that indelible image of Saddam's toppling statue forever banishing the doubts of the armchair generals, and with the amazing achievements of the United States armed forces coming into sharper relief, it's time for all honest observers - and especially conservatives - to confront a simple fact:
The remarkable feats in Iraq are being performed by Bill Clinton's military.
This should be obvious to anyone not blinded by ideology or partisanship. We've been told repeatedly how much more lethal and accurate our forces are in 2003 than they were in 1991 - so much so that we needed only 250,000 troops to drive to Baghdad and change the regime, as opposed to the 500,000 we sent merely to oust Saddam from Kuwait in Gulf War I. Something like 90 percent of the bombs and missiles we use are "precision guided" today, versus roughly 10 percent back in 1991. The catalogue of how today's military is smarter, faster and better than it was back during Desert Storm is a credit to U.S. ingenuity and a source of national pride.
Hmm. Let's see. Between 1992 and 2003, the person who was president for the bulk of that time was... Bill Clinton. It's true that President Bush has been throwing money at the Pentagon since Sept. 11, but defense planners will tell you that none of the impressive leaps in our military capability have taken place suddenly in the last 18 months.
No, much as it must incense Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay, we are liberating Iraq with Bill Clinton's military. The same Bill Clinton, of course, who, as conservative myth has it, "gutted" and "hollowed out" our fighting forces - that is, when he wasn't busy shredding the moral fabric of the country, his first priority.
What should we make of this fact?
The main truth it underscores is how divorced the defense debate is from real life. The myth that Democrats are "weak on defense" and the GOP is "strong" is one that Democratic strategists have struggled with for years.
The reality is that Bill Clinton's defense budgets roughly tracked the blueprint left by then-defense secretary Dick Cheney in 1992. Clinton insisted the Pentagon maintain a Cold War budget even without a Cold War to protect his party's right flank. For the same reason, Al Gore called for bigger defense budgets during the 2000 campaign than did George W. Bush - a fact that almost no one recalls. Gore needed to "prove" his "toughness" on defense with dollars. Bush didn't have to - as a Republican, he was simply more trusted on the issue.
Indeed, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's laudable initial aim was to reform the Pentagon in Nixon-to-China fashion, as only Republicans can. Yet Rumsfeld had hit a storm of bureaucratic, congressional and interest group opposition by September 2001. In the wake of 9/11, therefore, Bush and Rumsfeld decided that reform was a luxury; better to throw money at everything, they reasoned, since the public would support it and worry about rationality later.
Beyond the U.S. military's peerless firepower and skill, however, this spending spree masks dramatic waste and disorganization that cries out for attention. As one Bush cabinet official told me privately, "Not too far down the road, Rumsfeld will get back on the track of rationalizing defense spending so that it doesn't go into a runaway mode."
That reform agenda is for another day - for now, it's time to celebrate the extraordinary courage and accomplishments of our troops. To be sure, the risks and dangers they face in Iraq aren't over - and America's responsibility to help Iraqis build their own future has only begun.
Still, this milestone is indisputably historic.
Yes, Tommy Franks and Donald Rumsfeld and their teams deserve enormous credit, and President Bush's steely resolve may give even Jacques Chirac a secret shiver of apres-war doubt.
But all the same, I hope all honest Americans - and I know that includes you, Rush and Tom - join me in toasting the unrivaled capabilities of the military that Bill Clinton handed off to his successor.
Columnist Matt Miller is a senior fellow at Occidental College in Los Angeles and host of "Left, Right & Center" on KCRW-FM in Los Angeles. E-mail him at mattino@worldnet.att.net.
Or was directed to write it..
You KNOW that after yesterday Clinton is seeing RED.
All those kudo's Dubya is getting? By all right's, those should have been Clinton's kudo's.
They didn't go to him though because he chose to waste 4 days worth of million dollar munitions and fold his tent on Iraq when the inspectors were thrown out. He didn't choose the course Dubya has.
It's gonna pay off big politically and Clinton has got to be seething about the "big one" that "got away" It would have pushed Gore over the top, established him as a truly world class diplomat and quite possibly got him the Nobel Peace Prize. But he blew it.
Yeah, I would say there's nothing coincidental about this article at all. Probably came right from the top, just like you say.
I spent evenings in O and NCO clubs trying to translate the instructions. My Japanese was nowhere NEAR up to it...ended up begging for help from the sweet little Mama-sans who helped run the places. There's an irony there...
Certainly doesn't sound like Clinton was our high tech savior.
It's going to be interesting to see if this article is picked up by the mainstream press. I don't know enough about this kind of thing to pick it apart, piece by piece.. But I would certainly enjoy reading the words of someone who could.
Thanks for your reply.
Here's the relevant exchanges between Miller on Chris Matthews as caught by MRC news analyst Geoffrey Dickens on the July 14 Hardball on CNBC.
Chris Matthews: "Do you think it is surprising that anything else would have happened if the President after six months has refused to tell us what happened. After having promised us he would. He promised he would. He didn't have to promise but he said, I'm going to give you more rather than less, sooner rather than later,' and henceforth from that there wasn't a peep out of him."
Miller: "I know that you sincerely hang a lot on that presidential statement. I guess I don't think it's the President's obligation to tell us about his personal life like this."
Miller: "Look I'm not saying that Ken Starr is a zealot or somehow a you know, a weird guy who is hellbent just on getting the President. I think Starr is an honorable man who has lost his perspective. Which can happen, it's an occupational hazard for independent counsels when they are set after a person instead of after a crime. And I think as Starr gets closer to the prospect of having to indict a young woman, Monica Lewinsky, for the purpose of trying to get to a President, again all over concealing an affair, he himself will realize that there are better courses to..." [interrupted]
Matthews: "It's not all over concealing....No, that's a misstatement Matt because the evidence now, and every evidence we have, we don't have complete evidence, the evidence is that these tapes show Monica Lewinsky describing an effort to suborn her perjury in the matter of Kathleen Willey, a sexual harassment case mattered not a matter involving her and the President. You guys keep saying it the same way. This is the lingo but it's not true."
Miller: "You're relying on Lucianne Goldberg as your authority. That's nuts!"
That was Clinton's Military. Bush is not a murdering criminal like Clinton or Saddam. His military reflects that fact.
I am convinced.
And yes, some idiots will swallow anything.
You are right. I heard Morton Kondracke spout that line of DNC crap the other night and knew it had to be DNC talking points. And here comes Matt Miller, always willing to spread the crap around. So, now we know how they are planning to spin the victory in Iraq.
Then it is really George Herbert Walker Bush's army that George II was using. All Bill Clinton did was to be a caretaker, and a da** poor one at that.
Now here we have a column with the same garbage.
Clinton talking points, and we neeed to perform whack-a-mole on this one. Next thing you know Clinton will be showing up at Bethesda or Walter Reed with cameras in tow.
An that was due to a misunderstanding
Here's a true story (I've only repeated it a few dozen times): on Dec. 18, 2000 the Electoral College elected George W. Bush President of the United States. The following day, Wee Willy Wanker went to the UN and asked that new, tougher sanctions be placed on Afghanistan if the Taliban didn't hand over Osama Bin Laden in 30 days. Guess what day Kofi and the UN issued the threat? Dec. 20, 2000. He knew it would anger the Taliban and pulled all UN workers out of Aghanistan the same day. Dec. 20, 2000 + 30 days = GW's Inaugeration Day.
Wee Willy intentionally angered the Taliban because Gore lost the election.
Sorewankerman.
Whack 'em whenever and wherever they pop up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.