ALAN CARUBA
February 1, 2013
The author of "1984", George Orwell, once said, "The quickest way to end a war is to lose it."
In the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, among the priorities listed
is to "provide for the common defense" of the nation. After having
fought a six-year war during the Revolution and replaced the failed
Articles of Confederation, the framers of the Constitution, many of whom
had fought beside George Washington, well understood the need for a
standing army and navy to protect the new nation.
In the nation's earliest years, Americans repeatedly elected
Presidents with military credentials and experience. In addition to
Washington they included Monroe, Jackson, Harrison, Tyler, Grant, Teddy
Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan,
Bush41 and 43. FDR had served as Secretary of the Navy.
In recent times, two Presidents, Clinton-a draft dodger-and Obama
have had no military experience to draw upon. Over the objections of
their generals, both introduced policies to include and protect
homosexuals in the U.S. military services. Now the doors have been
opened to permit women to fight beside men. The military is not a place
where one conducts social experiments. It's a place where men go in harm's way to protect the nation.
Today, thanks to the failure of the Congress to address America's
spending and growing debt problems, the U.S. military faces a draconian
"sequestration"-massive cuts to the defense budget-that would so
seriously decrease the nation's ability to defend itself and project
power globally, that it reminds one of the failure to maintain a strong
military that required a massive effort to get up to speed after the
Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The WWII declaration
of war included the Nazi Third Reich that threatened the United Kingdom,
all of Europe, and Russia.
A recent Rasmussen Reports poll
found that 40% of likely voters "believe the United States spends too
much on defense and national security" while only 22% disagree and 32%
believe the amount spent is about right. This is a definition of
stupidity.
A nation requires a standing army, navy, coast guard, and air force,
along with a trustworthy banking system. After the 2008 financial
crisis-the result of government policies regarding housing-we had to
bail out the banking system to the tune of billions. Today we face the
prospect of a military that is flying an aging fleet of airplanes, has a
navy that has as few ships in service as we had at the end of World War
I, and a volunteer military that requires that support of thousands of
civilian personnel.
Out-going Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has been loudly warning that the result of any spending cuts would be "catastrophic."
One can argue that we have spent a fortune in treasure and blood in
the Middle East since 2001, but only the most foolish would argue that
America and the West is not facing the greatest threat in its history
since Moslem armies were defeated at the doors of Europe in 732 AD and
1529 AD.
In a recent press conference, Panetta said that the practical results
of the proposed cuts in defense would be less training for units not
imminently deploying to Afghanistan; less shipboard training for all but
the highest priority missions; less pilot training and fewer flight
hours; curtailed ship maintenance and disruption to research and weapons
modernization programs. He described it as the hollowing out of the
defense force of the nation.
Noting that members of our military are fighting and sometimes dying
to defend our nation, Panetta said, "Those of us in Washington need to
have the same courage as they do to do the right thing and try to
protect the security of this country. We must ensure we have the
resources we need to defend the nation and meet our commitments to our
troops, to our civilian employees, and to their families, after more
than a decade of war."
Courage and common sense are two elements that are missing in Washington these days.
Retired General Paul E. Vallely,
U.S. Army, states the case bluntly. "President Obama is working very
hard to destroy U.S. military superiority, consciously and unconsciously
to the advantage (of) our global enemies in an attempt to seize control
over national security and (in) another overt attempt to bypass
Congress, the Obama administration may have already made this play as of
this writing."
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