That's a misleading lie. Cheney made proposals to a shift from a primarily Soviet defense needs, to two-theatre defense capability. He had cuts in some areas and moved those resources to others. The Dems, under Clinton, took only the cuts - without any movement of the financial resources (pull the equipment to another area, but not their funding). That's why even bullets were in short supply. And remember, our equipment was in need of maintenance and repair after the Gulf War. If you just "reposition" all of it, without any benefit of repair (or, god forbid, a replacement budget), your just moving a piece of broken equipment to a unit that expects to be fully functional. This was a very troubling, frustrating, and demeaning time. But not because of Cheney... remember... we had a congress and white house all under Dem control.

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Originally posted by TA-99:
That's a misleading lie. Cheney made proposals to a shift from a primarily Soviet defense needs, to two-theatre defense capability. He had cuts in some areas and moved those resources to others. The Dems, under Clinton, took only the cuts - without any movement of the financial resources (pull the equipment to another area, but not their funding). That's why even bullets were in short supply. And remember, our equipment was in need of maintenance and repair after the Gulf War. If you just "reposition" all of it, without any benefit of repair (or, god forbid, a replacement budget), your just moving a piece of broken equipment to a unit that expects to be fully functional. This was a very troubling, frustrating, and demeaning time. But not because of Cheney... remember... we had a congress and white house all under Dem control.

That's why the cuts happened under a Republican Congress in 95-96?

I digress then, obiviously Clinton and his administration were totally "pro-military" in every aspect. I know that the Chinese military and their stategic nuclear weapons program was enhanced strongly during the "wonder years" of Bill. I think that while Clinton enjoyed a re-start of the American economy (thanks to Bush and Alan Greenspan) that our National Security was given up for PAC money. But that is American politics, we would cut our own throats to make a buck.

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Originally posted by IntelSergeant:

quote:

Originally posted by TA-99:
That's a misleading lie. Cheney made proposals to a shift from a primarily Soviet defense needs, to two-theatre defense capability. He had cuts in some areas and moved those resources to others. The Dems, under Clinton, took only the cuts - without any movement of the financial resources (pull the equipment to another area, but not their funding). That's why even bullets were in short supply. And remember, our equipment was in need of maintenance and repair after the Gulf War. If you just "reposition" all of it, without any benefit of repair (or, god forbid, a replacement budget), your just moving a piece of broken equipment to a unit that expects to be fully functional. This was a very troubling, frustrating, and demeaning time. But not because of Cheney... remember... we had a congress and white house all under Dem control.

That's why the cuts happened under a Republican Congress in 95-96?

What if the attacks on 9/11 never occured? A war time mentality versus a peace time mentality will ultimately cause those in charge to either beef up or neglect the military and it's resources be it equipment, budget, troop numbers, etc. We don't walk around with our gaurd up, because we don't expect to get punched in the mouth. 9/11 was that punch, and since then we've had our gaurd up, it's the difference between being reactive and being proactive.

I assisted on a terrorism brief with the subject on AL QADIA potential threats back in August 2001. The focus and final assessment was that sooner or later terrorism would strike the U.S. and would be effective. 9/11 happened and thus we go from a re-active to now pro-active mental state. There are plenty of people who would want nothing else but to set some small nuclear device off in a large US city. The American military had to blast japanese fanatics out of caves and mountain emplacements, they crashed aircraft into American carriers, conducted frontal banzi assault charges against well manned defenses....nothing new. America is dealing with a multiple faced enemy who is not a huge army but small little bands of followers with their own mission and means to conduct the attacks. Whether or not Obama wins the presidential election it is not going to mean anything to the fundementalist that feels that Islam is the one and only way of life and all others are doomed. Bush could have never been elected and 9/11 would still happen. Gore would have had to do something, the American public wouldn't stand for just sitting there.

For clarification: when I said the New Yorker I meant Giuliani.