Fw: 'Leaner' is an adjective more appropriately applied to cutting fat, not muscle

["Don Greenlaw" <dgreenlaw@cox.net>]

Forwarded.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Dave Hollenbeck
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 10:25 AM
Subject: 'Leaner' is an adjective more appropriately applied to cutting fat, 
not muscle


By Jack Kelly






http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0112/jkelly011012.php3




A weaker America is a stronger America, President Barack Obama said last 
week in unveiling his new defense strategy.

Mr. Obama didn't use those words. But that's the effect of his plans to cut 
more than 100,000 troops from the Army and Marine Corps; reduce the Navy 
from 300 to 238 ships; cut Air Force strategic bombers by a third, and Air 
Force fighters by half.

Our military will be "leaner," the president said. "Leaner" is an adjective 
more appropriately applied to cutting fat, not muscle.

Mr. Obama has reduced spending for defense by $480 billion since he assumed 
office. The cuts he previewed last week would reduce defense spending over 
the next ten years by $487 billion more.

The cuts are necessary, the president said, because of our mammoth federal 
budget deficits. But defense can't be responsible for the $1.5 trillion he's 
added to the national debt, since he already has cut so much from the 
defense budget.

The failed $821 billion stimulus cost as much as the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. Spending for defense is mandated by the Constitution. Providing 
pork to political cronies is not.

Cutting defense spending this much would make our economic problems worse. 
In addition to the loss of more than 100,000 military jobs, the cuts would 
reduce civilian defense jobs by about 200,000, and employment in defense 
industries by about 500,000, the chairman of the House Armed Services 
Committee estimated.

And if the defense cuts that may be triggered by the failure of the 
House-Senate "supercommittee" to approve a deficit reduction package also go 
into effect, job losses could rise to 1.5 million, said Rep. Buck McKeon, 
R-Ca. Mr. Obama did not say whether those "sequestration" cuts are figured 
into the cuts he announced last week.

Unlike the handful of "green" jobs on which Mr. Obama has spent so much, 
these jobs are necessary, and soon may become more so. As we enter 2012, the 
war clouds are thicker and darker than at any time since 1938. (For you 
history challenged liberals, that was the year before World War II began.)

In an editorial Friday (1/6) praising Mr. Obama's defense cuts, the New York 
Times had this cautionary paragraph:

"Still, the United States must be ready to face multiple contingencies. Our 
own chilling list includes a collapsing Pakistan, another state hjacked by 
al Qaida, Iran blocking oil shipments as it pursues its nuclear ambitions or 
a weak or unbalanced North Korean leader making a suicidal run across the 
South Korean border."

This paragraph makes the editorial self-refuting, said Max Boot of the 
Council on Foreign Relations.

"How, pray tell, is the U.S. supposed to get ready for all these possible 
contingencies -- much less for the prospect of more than one occurring at 
once -- if the defense budget stands to be cut by as much as a trillion 
dollars during the next decade?" he asked.

"It's impossible," Mr. Boot said. "Means don't match ends. Resources are 
insufficient to safeguard against all these risks in a credible and 
convincing manner."

And to the Times' list should be added the rising possibility of a clash 
with China over Taiwan or in the South China Sea. China has massively 
increased its military spending.

Islamists ascendant in Egypt plan to renounce the peace treaty with Israel. 
Once staunch ally Turkey is moving into the Islamist camp.

Mr. Obama's answer to these threats is to assume them away. His new strategy 
ends the "two war planning construct" that for decades has been the core of 
Pentagon strategy. Mr. Obama assumes we won't get involved in another ground 
war like Iraq or Afghanistan.

But that's mostly not up to us. President Bush wasn't planning to fight 
ground wars either. Then came 9/11.

Voters may be swayed by fatuous assumptions from our political leaders, but 
our enemies are not. There are two fundamental truths about defense we must 
keep foremost in mind.

It costs much less to deter war than to fight one.

Weakness is provocative. When tyrants believe we lack the means or the will 
to oppose them, they become more aggressive.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought he'd obtained "peace in 
our time" in 1938 when he sold out Czechoslovakia at Munich. What he'd 
actually done was invite the bloodiest war in history.

Let's pray Mr. Obama doesn't also learn these truths the hard way