Policies post Reagan, set up what is taking place now.
Thank God he is gone and won’t have to see our men and women have to die because some public officials got paid off and gifted China with technology and the American dollars to put it to good use.
I am literally furious with the pathetic free trade apologists who got us here.
The last 20 years sure have not been good ones for our military. Who's to blame? Four presidents following Reagan who make Carter look competent on readiness as well as Congress. This stopped being a DEM/GOP issue when the GOP majority sat on their hands for six years of Clinton's term. They as well did nothing for our troops. We have been on 1996 End Troop Strength Levels since 1996 give or take just a few several thousand.
A Conservative knows well; that the DEMs are going to sell us out on military issues. But when it was the GOP doing it where was the outrage? Hiding behind some "you're either for us or the terrorist" slogan Bush used to divert attention from the crisis and push his globalization while ignoring our military?
On September 12, 2001 many capable and willing patriotic young men were trying their best to enter the military because our nation was attacked. They were turned away. WHY? There was no excuse none whatsoever.
What makes a wise leader? In 1982 when the recession was in full swing Ronald Wilson Reagan had a fully manned military. I even tried to go back in myself but couldn't get a deal I wanted. Two years earlier? Two years earlier in October 1980 I was offered $15,000 and my next rank. The military at that time was highly undermanned. My ship was on three section duty. Two years under one mans leadership made a huge difference.
What is the GOP's excuse for not even trying? The GOP is as much a disgrace on this issue as the DEM's. I was one who when George Bush picked Rummy as Sec of Defense cringed and said please no not him. Why? Because I remember the mess the Ford GOP made of the military under Sec of Def Rummy's tenure as I had just gone active duty.
One last parting word that Republicans need to hear and understand. The Hollow Carter Military was set in motion by the very same ones two presidents last name of Bush used for advisers and key positions. Carter was undeniably a horrible POTUS but Republicans whether you like it or not the GOP handed him one big mess some of which he did in fact begin too correct. His corrections were too little too late obviously. It was also GOP BEFORE CARTER who put us on the path of state sponsored terrorist acts in the M.E. Ford was the man who signed the EO prohibiting covert assassination of foreign heads of state. That option should never be taken off the table.
It is Constitutional to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisals for enemies. Ford should have never signed that EO. That was when it started to form up. That was as much a part of the fuel as the Shah of Iran.
Please Republicans stop repeating history by making the same policy mistakes and expecting different results. Get your leadership act together. Don't tell me the DEMs stop the progress. Ronald Reagan faced a minority his two terms and took us to the most ready standing military post WW2 and likely in our history as a nation. He was a leader and our last true America Comes First President. The rest have been corporate business brokers selling off oyur future one deal at a time calling it Free Trade. Reagan had a wise saying about that as well.
People generally don't get it, that with the exception of a very few Presidents like Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower, most 20th century Republicans, whether they supported free trade or tariffs, have all been "wooden gun" budget-cutters.
Their Fifth Avenue constituents want their tax cuts, and no backtalk or excuses! And if the rest of us pony up and kick in more for the kind of defense establishment we need in a genocidal world, why, they want that "refunded" to them, too!!
Both Poppy Bush and Dubya came into office slashing the DoD budget: Poppy slated all those heavy Army divisions and all the BB's and many of the CVA's for retirement as soon as he was elected in 1988. He was brought up short by Saddam who, if he'd played his cards a little cooler and waited another two years before busting a move, would be master of the Persian Gulf today.
Dubya came to office as a double-dipped budget cutter; his first six months in office, his favorite buzz-word was "carve-out". He told Rumsfeld to stand fast on the DoD's budget requests and NOT to put in requests that would redeem Dubya's campaign pledges. But 9/11 changed that -- mostly. Two years later, he was still doing "carve-outs" from NASA's budget, even two months after the Columbia accident proved that Slick had skeletonized the safety functions in NASA beyond the danger point.