{"id":25417,"date":"2011-06-30T06:38:19","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T10:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=25417"},"modified":"2011-06-30T07:01:24","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T11:01:24","slug":"obama-to-balance-budget-on-national-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=25417","title":{"rendered":"Obama to balance budget on national security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes’ Leo Shane<\/a> writes that President Obama plans deeper cuts to Defense on top of the $400 billion that have already been proposed by outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates;<\/p>\n

\u201cI, as commander-in-chief, have to have difficult conversations with the Pentagon, saying \u2018There\u2019s fat here, we have to trim it out,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201c[Defense Secretary] Bob Gates has already done a good job identifying $400 billion in cuts, but we\u2019re going to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Gates told lawmakers that the goal of cutting defense spending over the next 12 years will require fundamental changes to military pay and benefits, force structure and mission capabilities.<\/p>\n

Pentagon planners have already outlined about $78 billion in reduced spending over the next five years, which includes reducing the Army\u2019s and Marine Corps\u2019 combined end strength by nearly 70,000 servicemembers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, they plan on cutting 70,000 personnel during a war in which just a few years ago they claimed that the force was overstretched. Notice those personnel cuts are coming out of the two trigger-pulling services. Have you read about any personnel cuts to the EPA, the Education Department, the Commerce Department? No, me either. But while there’s a war against terror going on, we’re going to cut trigger-pullers.<\/p>\n

But, don’t worry, they have a plan to use ninja robot zombies<\/a> to defeat the Taliban.<\/p>\n

He talked of hitting Al Qaeda \u201chard enough and often enough\u201d with increased numbers of Special Operations forces and speedy deployments of \u201cunique assets\u201d (presumably drone aircraft), and he underscored that military commandos and intelligence operatives were working more closely than ever before on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will take time, but make no mistake, Al Qaeda is in its decline,\u201d he said in a speech at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.<\/p>\n

But this wide-ranging strategy \u2014 relying on often unreliable allies, sometimes sketchy intelligence and a clandestine American force already strained by a decade of secretive wars \u2014 has its limitations, American officials have said in recent days. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, this is like Clinton’s plan to defeat our enemies with airstrikes from 15,000 feet and standoff shots of cruise missiles. There’s only one way to secure victory and that’s with firepower, maneuver, and boots on the ground. <\/p>\n

And where are they going to get “increased numbers of Special Operations forces”? Are they going to recruit from the ranks of phony soldiers like General Baxter<\/a>, General Ballduster McSoulpatch<\/a> and MSG Soup Sandwich<\/a>?<\/p>\n

And then next year when we have to replace those 70,000 troops who are gone, will the Democrats blame the new Republican President for a Defense spending spree?<\/p>\n

I remember in the 90s when the Clinton Administration bought out career soldiers in ’93 and ’94 and then when they discovered that cuts had been too deep, they begged those careerists to come back and the Defense Department ate the buy outs.<\/p>\n

More criticism from Uncle Jimbo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes’ Leo Shane writes that President Obama plans deeper cuts to Defense on top … Obama to balance budget on national security<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,84,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-military-issues","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}