Reply to Boos Heard At GOP Debate After Gay Soldier Asks About 'Don't Ask'

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

NP.

1.  Defense spending ramped up in the 80's under Reagan, which is why it was relatively level during the post-Reagan era.  If it was enough to defeat the Russians while holding back the Chinese and North Koreans, why isn't it good enough today?

2.  Are you telling me that after WWII, Korea, and Vietnam we spent so much on modernizing that we were not prepared for IED's - essentially landmines? - and guerilla warfare?   If there is anything we learned from Iraq, it is that we lost the basic competencies we had in generations before.  Money doesn't solve that problem.[/quote]

It's not that simple.
1. It didn't level out post Reagan. It plummeted. During the Clinton years, the size of the military went from over2.1 million on active duty to less than 1.4 million. During this time, the military did more operations than during Reagan. Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somali, no fly zone over Iraq, plus conducted air strikes in sudan and afghanistam. We had embassies attacked and dont forget the uss cole.  All of that takes money. 
2. Ieds are not like land mines. Typically, a land mine is detonated in front of vehicle or underneath. Ieds were placed along roadsides and detonated remotely, hitting the most unprotected part of the vehicle - the sides.[/quote]

You are making excuses.  We did not prepare for urban combat.  That's why IED's were so dangerous to us.  We all talked about this back in 2003.  Remember all of the talk about asymmetric war?   The issue was not money.  Armor is low tech.  We did not plan to fight this kind of war, which is bad assumptions, not budget.  Same with the embassies.  And if you are telling me that you think the USS Cole was underfunded and that led to its destruction, you are crazy.  The Cole is a Destroyer.  It was taken out by a small boat.  While in port!  In Yemen!  Do you honestlyt think that lack of guns, radar, or personnel caused this to happen, or lack of preparedness?

As for total budget, this is hardly plummeting.  I suppose the cold war ended, the soviet union fell, and the right thing to do was to keep growing at the Reagan pace.

[img]http://www.data360.org/temp/dsg539_500_350.jpg[/img]

[/quote]

I'm not big on 60s style hippie-dom, but I think John Fogerty nailed PPs worldview when he wrote, "And when you ask them how much should we give, the only answer is 'More, more, more.'"

PP starts from the faulty position that the amount of money we spent during the height of the Cold War is insufficient to the task of our new "small war" reality, and everything thereafter is working backwards towards a justification.  "Where'd the trillion dollars go?"  "Kevlar!"[/quote]

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