Baghdad security crackdown seriously curbs killings of US soldiers ?

[headexplode]

So we hold Clinton responsible for Les Aspins decision to deny armor to the Somoli operation, but not for reducing the military by 40%? And we hold Bush responsible for not increasing the size of the military? IF Bush had authorized the expansion of the military to pre-Clinton cuts when he first took office (before 9/11), we would still not be close to reaching those levels. It takes years to get the support and logistics in place just to accomodate the training of the new soldiers. You would have to re-restructure the entire force. It took Reagan years to re shape the military. We are talking a 5-10 year plan, not a 6 month operation. So this would have had zero impact on the initiation of OIF.

I'm not sure anyone's been claiming the same as you are.

[Larry]

That might be unrealistic. But I would like to believe you're right. Figure in two more years when another President, hopefully a better one takes office, we'll be further from the current levels of dissatisfaction than today....

(And lots of other people).

I don't think it's impossible for Bush to salvage the situation, domestically and in Iraq.

It would take a lot of things that Bush may not be capable of doing.

For example, suppose Bush announced, next week that he's talked Colin Powell into coming back, and Bush is giving him full control of all decisions concerning Iraq.

(In effect, Bush hires Marty Schottenheimer.)

Bush says that, "in the planning stages, Powell told me that we'd need more troops. I didn't believe him."

"I was wrong. And my mistake has cost American and Iraqi lives.

"But I'm admitting that mistake, and I'm going to correct it."

Yeah, if he does that, then Bush comes off looking like a doofus who screwed up a war. He also (if it works) comes off as a courageous leader who was willing to take the heat, and to "do what needs to be done".

I could see that working. (Whether he's man enough to do it is another matter.)

[Popeman38]

Actually Clinton heald military spending relatively constant over his 8 year tenure. It was Bush Senior who had three consecutive 10% military budget reductions.

I was speaking of the SIZE of the military. You know, the ones you are proposing that be deployed?

Clinton's largest cut in military spending was in his first budget. It was a 10% cut which was more than made up for over the next seven budgets where military spending was slightly raised.

I don't care about the funding argument right now.

Bush Jr. subsequently has increased military spending by more than 20% every year in office while still having the net effect of lowing the number of personel. Bush's first call for increasing the size of the military came two months ago when he called for a modest troop increase.

This is where your bias shows through. I think Bush has screwed this Iraq war up royally. And I will not defend his screw ups, but I will defend the original call to arms. Not here to argue that. But you put up a defense about Clinton speaking of dollars, and then castigate Bush 2 paragraphs later for waiting to call for an increase in troop levels till two months ago. Call out Bush on it. I will. But you then have to call out Clinton for the massive reduction in force. And Bush Sr started it, so call him out too. But you can't pick one side of the argument for one, and the other for the previous.

Why is it 5-10 years out? It didn't take us 5-10 years to transform the pre WWII American army roughly the size of Belgium into a 8-9 million force. Why couldn't we train up a 500,000 a year for the next couple of years?

Are you really comparing WWII to now? Look at the difference in fighting. We had to basically feed the buzzsaw in WWII. And we had to draft so many men that the women left back had to do the work at home. The entire country downshifted from normal life to support the war effort. We can't get half the country to vote, much less draft and support the war effort. We have an all volunteer military, and we want to keep it that way. To keep it all volunteer would require a gradual build up of troops. We would have to reopen some closed bases, get them ready for the troops, staff and stock these bases. The infastructure in the areas around these bases closed when the bases closed. We can't simply passa resolution raising a bigger army and flood the existing infastructure with the new recruits. Speaking of recruits, where are these volunteers coming from?

[Popeman38]

I'm not sure anyone's been claiming the same as you are.

I may have been reading a teensy bit too much into it. But these threads really get me going since I just got out about 18 months ago, having served under both Clinton ans W....

[Larry]

I was speaking of the SIZE of the military. You know, the ones you are proposing that be deployed?

I don't care about the funding argument right now.

Then allow me to address the issues of military personnel.

I've had this memory stuck in my head from early in the Clinton administration. It's late at night, I'm clicking through the channels. One of the channels (S-SPAN) has a bunch of generals on TV. (The joint chiefs are addressing the military appropriations committee about military spending.)

The general says "The military has all the money it needs."

That makes me stop and watch.

The general explains that the military has needs. They're losing personnel. Equipment is falling apart. They're running out of spare parts.

He says that there's enough money in the budget, right now, to solve those problems. But the military can't spend money on personnel retention, or training, or maintenance.

Because Congress has earmarked the money for big defense contracts.

The general is practically pleading with Congress: We're not begging for more money, we're begging for permission to spend the money on the things that we think are needed.

So please, tell me again about how Clinton cut the military.

[JMS]

This is where your bias shows through. I think Bush has screwed this Iraq war up royally. And I will not defend his screw ups, but I will defend the original call to arms. Not here to argue that. But you put up a defense about Clinton speaking of dollars, and then castigate Bush 2 paragraphs later for waiting to call for an increase in troop levels till two months ago. Call out Bush on it. I will. But you then have to call out Clinton for the massive reduction in force. And Bush Sr started it, so call him out too. But you can't pick one side of the argument for one, and the other for the previous.

You said Clinton drastically reduced the military by 40%. That was wrong. Be critical of Clinton for any number of real flaws, don't make them up. Military spending under Clinton remained relatively constant . The slope of military spending flattened out under Clinton where as under George Sr it was reduced a few years in a row by roughly 10-11% per year.

I don't hold either Clinton or Bush Sr responsible for the mess we're in. Bush Jr. was the guy who decided to go into a war of choice with unrealistic number of troops. Remember for every two boots on the ground you need two additional soldiers in the rotation to keep two boots there for a prolonged period. Yet Bush continued to shrink the size of the miliatry even while doubling spending.

I think I'm realistic about my critism.

Are you really comparing WWII to now? Look at the difference in fighting. We had to basically feed the buzzsaw in WWII. And we had to draft so many men that the women left back had to do the work at home. The entire country downshifted from normal life to support the war effort. We can't get half the country to vote, much less draft and support the war effort. We have an all volunteer military, and we want to keep it that way. To keep it all volunteer would require a gradual build up of troops. We would have to reopen some closed bases, get them ready for the troops, staff and stock these bases. The infastructure in the areas around these bases closed when the bases closed. We can't simply passa resolution raising a bigger army and flood the existing infastructure with the new recruits. Speaking of recruits, where are these volunteers coming from?

First off WWII is exactly what you need to compare this too. That's the last time we occupied a country of a significant size. Those are the numbers the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff quoted to Bush and Rummy before they anounced his retirement and replacement two years before his term was up.

The choices we face as a nation today, are the same choices we faced before we decided to go into Iraq. We had a choice then. We have a choice now. We do what it takes to win, or we loose.

I think your volenteer army is insufficient to pull off a successful occupation of this magnatude.. Times two when you factor in the larger country of Afghanistan where we only have 16k troops.

[JMS]

Because Congress has earmarked the money for big defense contracts.

I again agree with you.

You can't make a 20% margin on sandwitches and boots. That's why they spend money on the multi billion dollar high tech programs. Don't get me wrong those programs were great when we were fighting the Republican guard for the three day war. It's just that those programs don't do jack when we're trying to occupy a country...

[Popeman38]

Then allow me to address the issues of military personnel.

I've had this memory stuck in my head from early in the Clinton administration. It's late at night, I'm clicking through the channels. One of the channels (S-SPAN) has a bunch of generals on TV. (The joint chiefs are addressing the military appropriations committee about military spending.)

The general says "The military has all the money it needs."

That makes me stop and watch.

The general explains that the military has needs. They're losing personnel. Equipment is falling apart. They're running out of spare parts.

He says that there's enough money in the budget, right now, to solve those problems. But the military can't spend money on personnel retention, or training, or maintenance.

Because Congress has earmarked the money for big defense contracts.

The general is practically pleading with Congress: We're not begging for more money, we're begging for permission to spend the money on the things that we think are needed.

So please, tell me again about how Clinton cut the military.

The Army was cut from 18 divisions to 12. The Navy was reduced from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50. Bush Sr began the cuts, Clinton completed them. Funding dipped roughly 1.3% per year of the Clinton term. Facts are facts. I don't blame Clinton for the war we are fighting. But to suggest that we could just instantly create a force twice the current size is blatently dishonest.

[Popeman38]

You said Clinton drastically reduced the military by 40%. That was wrong. Be critical of Clinton for any number of real flaws, don't make them up. Military spending under Clinton remained relatively constant . The slope of military spending flattened out under Clinton where as under George Sr it was reduced a few years in a row by roughly 10-11% per year.

Bush Sr cut it 18% over 4 years. Works out to 4.5%/year. Clinton dipped it an additional 1.3%/year. But he cut the number of people serving. I was there and living through it. People were forced to retire. Let us keep the debate apples to apple here. # of people. Not # of $. Otherwise, your argument is dishonest. I have claimed nowhere that Clinton undercut the military with lack of funding.

The choices we face as a nation today, are the same choices we faced before we decided to go into Iraq. We had a choice then. We have a choice now. We do what it takes to win, or we loose.

If you can use this argument to convince the people that we need to push all in to win, I will be standing right next to you helping. But let's be realistic here: AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. How loud would all these anti-war people be if we lost 10% of the total we lost in WWII?

I think your volenteer army is insufficient to pull off a successful occupation of this magnatude.. Times two when you factor in the larger country of Afghanistan where we only have 16k troops.

If you want to draft, go ahead. But we will end up with a military like the post-Vietnam military that required massive overhauls and left us militarily weak for years.

[JMS]

But to suggest that we could just instantly create a force twice the current size is blatently dishonest.

We don't need a force twice today's size overnight. We need 500,000 new troops every 18 months for three consecutive periods.

Basically we need the same sized expansions that we are trying to do for the Iraqi military.

The only reason we're not doing that now is because it would cut into the weapons programs which fuel the "military complex". It would mean putting on hold some of those expensive weapons we're buying from Northrup, Mcdonald douglas, and the rest.

There is no monitary, economic or political reason not to call for it and proceed on that path. The political price will come when we have to implement the draft in order to get the bodies. Still when has America been in a major war where we haven't had the draft? It's unrealistic to assume we can defeat our enemies with one arm and both legs tied behind our backs.

We're either in it to win it. Or let's just get out.... The cut and runners aren't doing nearly the damage to national prestige and security as the guys who decided to get in but won't comit to win...

[Larry]

The Army was cut from 18 divisions to 12. The Navy was reduced from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50. Bush Sr began the cuts, Clinton completed them. Funding dipped roughly 1.3% per year of the Clinton term. Facts are facts. I don't blame Clinton for the war we are fighting. But to suggest that we could just instantly create a force twice the current size is blatently dishonest.

1) I think chommie will be around soon to point out that military spending increased (slightly) under Clinton. (He's posted the numbers here, before.)

But you don't care about funding. So let's skip that.

2) I also notice we've migrated from "Clinton cut the military by 40%" to "Bush cut the military, and Clinton continued, and the total cuts were . . . "

I'll also point out that JMS has been pointing out for about a page that Bush 1 cut military spending by 10% a year, for three years running, whereas Clinton cut spending in his first year and then stopped.

(Which implies that, of the "40% cut" you're putting Clinton's name on, 3/4 of it was done by Bush.)

3) I haven't seen anybody suggest doubling the size of the military in a big hurry. They've suggested greatly increasing the number of players on the field.

(Although I'd bet that lots of folks would agree that, if we wanted to greatly increase deployments, we'd need to build up personnel quickly, or it would very quickly become even more of a burden on folks who're already doing their country a big favor, to begin with.)

[Popeman38]

We don't need a force twice today's size overnight. We need 500,000 new troops every 18 months for three consecutive periods.

Basically we need the same sized expansions that we are trying to do for the Iraqi military.

The only reason we're not doing that now is because it would cut into the weapons programs which fuel the "military complex". It would mean putting on hold some of those expensive weapons we're buying from Northrup, Mcdonald douglas, and the rest.

There is no monitary, economic or political reason not to call for it and proceed on that path. The political price will come when we have to implement the draft in order to get the bodies. Still when has America been in a major war where we haven't had the draft? It's unrealistic to assume we can defeat our enemies with one arm and both legs tied behind our backs.

We're either in it to win it. Or let's just get out.... The cut and runners aren't doing nearly the damage to national prestige and security as the guys who decided to get in but won't comit to win...

:doh: There is no way that this will happen. It won't be allowed. 1.5 million troops over the next 3 years? Where are they going? Where will they live? Where is the additional food/clothes/weapons/vehicles/equipment come from? This air? This will require BILLIONS of dollars and several years to prepare for. And then your 3 years can begin. We (the military) do not have the resources to handle the training of an additional 500,000 troops every 18 months. You are doubleing the size of the armed forces in 3 years. The infastructure must be built first.

[Larry]

Bush Sr cut it 18% over 4 years. Works out to 4.5%/year. Clinton dipped it an additional 1.3%/year. But he cut the number of people serving. I was there and living through it. People were forced to retire. Let us keep the debate apples to apple here. # of people. Not # of $. Otherwise, your argument is dishonest. I have claimed nowhere that Clinton undercut the military with lack of funding.

However, the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff have claimed that Congress cut the number of people.

By diverting the money to defense contractors.

(And they've continued to do so under Bush. Spending keeps going up, but the number of people goes down. Even when we're at war.)

[JMS]

If you can use this argument to convince the people that we need to push all in to win, I will be standing right next to you helping. But let's be realistic here: AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.

Then let's get out. cause all we're trying to do now is put off loosing. And that is just going to extend the war for a year or two and not effect the ultimate outcome. A pro Iranian terrorist nation that much closer to Israel.

An open sewer pit right in the middle of one of the most strategic locations on the planet.

The largest strategic blunder in American history!

How loud would all these anti-war people be if we lost 10% of the total we lost in WWII?If you want to draft, go ahead. But we will end up with a military like the post-Vietnam military that required massive overhauls and left us militarily weak for years.

We're going to end up with that no matter what. Every time you commit troops to war you're going to get that in the aftermath. Look at WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. You always weaken your army when you use it.

It's the dammed folks who think we can wage war with no sacrifice, no planning, and no strategy which kill me. Those folks aren't on the democratic side of this mess, they're all on the Republican side.

So my choice is to back the pull out, unless I hear someone with a creditable plan to win it. Which I would also back, since we're already paying the financial price for that victory now anyway.

[Popeman38]

1) I think chommie will be around soon to point out that military spending increased (slightly) under Clinton. (He's posted the numbers here, before.)

But you don't care about funding. So let's skip that.

2) I also notice we've migrated from "Clinton cut the military by 40%" to "Bush cut the military, and Clinton continued, and the total cuts were . . . "

Go back and read my posts. I say to blame Bush Sr and that he began the cuts. I don't attack based on partisan points.

I'll also point out that JMS has been pointing out for about a page that Bush 1 cut military spending by 10% a year, for three years running, whereas Clinton cut spending in his first year and then stopped.

(Which implies that, of the "40% cut" you're putting Clinton's name on, 3/4 of it was done by Bush.)

Bush Sr cut spending by 18% total over his 4 years. Clinton cut spending by a total of 10% over 8 years. And to use this argument, you are saying that a future President is not allowed to pull the troops out of Iraq becuase Bush put them there. Clinton could have put a stop to any troop cutting very easily. Especially while increasing the deployment rates. An argument you can equate to Bush right now.

3) I haven't seen anybody suggest doubling the size of the military in a big hurry. They've suggested greatly increasing the number of players on the field.

(Although I'd bet that lots of folks would agree that, if we wanted to greatly increase deployments, we'd need to build up personnel quickly, or it would very quickly become even more of a burden on folks who're already doing their country a big favor, to begin with.)

JMS suggested 1.5 million more troops in 3 years. That effectively doubles the active armed forces.

[Sarge]

Do I have to come in here and rehash who gutted the military AGAIN?:doh:

[JMS]

:doh: There is no way that this will happen. It won't be allowed. 1.5 million troops over the next 3 years?

18 months deployments.. So roughly 1.5 million troops over 4.5 years not 3 years.

Where are they going? Where will they live? Where is the additional food/clothes/weapons/vehicles/equipment come from? This air? This will require BILLIONS of dollars and several years to prepare for. And then your 3 years can begin. We (the military) do not have the resources to handle the training of an additional 500,000 troops every 18 months. You are doubleing the size of the armed forces in 3 years. The infastructure must be built first.

Bush has more than doubled the size of military budget in 5 successive budgets. The military budget is about 250% larger than when Bush took office. Why can't we just redirect some of that money into creating the force which we need rather than buying a force which has already prooven insufficient to our needs?

It will take billions? hundreds of billions we've got... The 2008 budget Bush submitted to Congress is 620 billion a year.... Clinto nleft office with a millitary budget of around 270 billion a year.

Money is not the problem. It's political will. Not the political will to stand up to the american people for the draft. But the political will to stand up to the defense contractors when you tell them your chaning military procurements to the tune of a few hundred billion over the next 5 years to get us over the hump in Iraq.

[Popeman38]

However, the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff have claimed that Congress cut the number of people.

By diverting the money to defense contractors.

(And they've continued to do so under Bush. Spending keeps going up, but the number of people goes down. Even when we're at war.)

And the circle has been completed. Bush is responsible for everything that has happened during his admin, but Clinton is not. Either both are, or neither are. That was my original point.

I liked Clinton, met him at Ft Drum after he deployed my ass to Bosnia and Kosovo in a 2 year time period. Cool dude. I think Bush is an screw up with good intentions.

[Popeman38]

18 months deployments.. So roughly 1.5 million troops over 4.5 years not 3 years.

Proof that I was in the Army: my math skills suck!

[Popeman38]

Bush has more than doubled the size of military budget in 5 successive budgets. The military budget is about 250% larger than when Bush took office. Why can't we just redirect some of that money into creating the force which we need rather than buying a force which has already prooven insufficient to our needs?

It will take billions? hundreds of billions we've got... The 2008 budget Bush submitted to Congress is 620 billion a year.... Clinto nleft office with a millitary budget of around 270 billion a year.

Money is not the problem. It's political will. Not the political will to stand up to the american people for the draft. But the political will to stand up to the defense contractors when you tell them your chaning military procurements to the tune of a few hundred billion over the next 5 years to get us over the hump in Iraq.

I am not argiung that it is impossible to fund by reappropriating funds. But we have to be able to support the 1/3 increase of the armed forces every 18 months. Not just fund. You would have to undue years of base closures just to begin.

[JMS]

And the circle has been completed. Bush is responsible for everything that has happened during his admin, but Clinton is not. Either both are, or neither are. That was my original point.

WHY? Why do you hold Clinton responsible even partially for Bush being a moron? And going to war because he wanted to without listening to the folks who told him he needed a larger force. Bush could have doubled the size of the military six months after 911 without the draft!!!... Bush made all the decisions here.

Blaming Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Nixon.. etc is just passing the buck. This is all on Bush... who is unfortunately stil in office.

I liked Clinton, met him at Ft Drum after he deployed my ass to Bosnia and Kosovo in a 2 year time period. Cool dude. I think Bush is an screw up with good intentions.

We call guys like that screw ups. Leave off the good intentions because that's just softpeddling it.

[Larry]

And the circle has been completed. Bush is responsible for everything that has happened during his admin, but Clinton is not. Either both are, or neither are. That was my original point.

I liked Clinton, met him at Ft Drum after he deployed my ass to Bosnia and Kosovo in a 2 year time period. Cool dude. I think Bush is an screw up with good intentions.

No, Congress is responsible for what Congress does. During both administrations.

I understand that it's tough to look at a situation and say "this is the President's fault, but this is Congress". The way the government works, unless we're talking about an overridden veto, everything that happens crosses both desks (usually several times). (We can argue about whether the Reagan deficits were Reagan's fault or Tip O'Neil's for weeks.)

But to me, when the CJCS says "I'm losing people because of Congressional earmarks. I urge you folks to just pass the budget the President submitted, because I wrote it for him", then I tend to assume that the CJCS does know how much of this situation is to be blamed on which part of the government.

[JMS]

I am not argiung that it is impossible to fund by reappropriating funds. But we have to be able to support the 1/3 increase of the armed forces every 18 months. Not just fund. You would have to undue years of base closures just to begin.

You can create a base over night. We've done it before. We need to realize that we are at war, and adjust our priorities accordingly. We need leadership with a vision. We need a realistic plan.

Nothing I've said is impossible if we had a leader with vision who had competent people around him.

The entire conversation is likely mote. Bush is incompentent with no vision and doesn't have competent folks around him. Unfortunately the next President will likely have to implement the draft and the reording of the forces exactly as I've described. We're going to loose in Iraq. We're going to loose in Afghansitan. We will likely have to clean up Bush's mess in 4-7 years anyway. That's if we have the money left when Bush leaves office.

[Popeman38]

WHY? Why do you hold Clinton responsible even partially for Bush being a moron? And going to war because he wanted to without listening to the folks who told him he needed a larger force. Bush could have doubled the size of the military six months after 911 without the draft!!!... Bush made all the decisions here.

Blaming Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Nixon.. etc is just passing the buck. This is all on Bush... who is unfortunately stil in office.

We call guys like that screw ups. Leave off the good intentions because that's just softpeddling it.

First, read and comprehend this quote from me:

I don't blame Clinton for the war we are fighting.

Do I need to repeat myself again?

Now, I have stated over and over on this board how Bush has screwed up the execution of this war. I disagree with you on the size of force needed. I think we can execute this war perfectly fine with 200,000 troops who are allowed to actually fight the bad guys, ie hunt and destroy. Civil engineers can then be allowed to nation build.

[Popeman38]

You can create a base over night. We've done it before. We need to realize that we are at war, and adjust our priorities accordingly. We need leadership with a vision. We need a realistic plan.

Nothing I've said is impossible if we had a leader with vision who had competent people around him.

The entire conversation is likely mote. Bush is incompentent with no vision and doesn't have competent folks around him. Unfortunately the next President will likely have to implement the draft and the reording of the forces exactly as I've described. We're going to loose in Iraq. We're going to loose in Afghansitan. We will likely have to clean up Bush's mess in 4-7 years anyway. That's if we have the money left when Bush leaves office.

And here is the crux of your argument. Bush is an idiot. I guess I can't entirely disagree with you. However, creating a base in the US overnight? Please, tell me when that happened?