Four More Years...

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Are there really very many people worried about Bush having undercut our defensive standing in the world, assuming that's even true? I think the common voter tends to be either for or against the war in Iraq and for or against allowing the UN to intervene in our military choices. If they're for the war in Iraq, they aren't thinking anything negative about our defensive standing in the world.

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Here's the concern that many Republicans have concerning our military position in the world. It has to do with our military assets. Every time we envoke on one of these operations we put more wear and tear on the equipment then if we were using them in a peacetime training scenario. This isn't nessessariily a bad thing because the level of proficiency goes up using these weapons systems in a wartime enviorment.The problem comes in when there are no replacements for the assets when they wear out. Right now there are no replacements for the fighter and cargo aircraft that are being used in this war. The C-17's are being built but their numbers are not going to replace what is being lost in the retirement of other older cargo aircraft. The refueler situation is similiar since the 767 tankers are off the table. Other weapons systems share the same situation with wear and tear being placed on them with no replacements in production. Today the pentagon just cancelled the next generation Commanche helicopter as a sign of the times.There are many weapons systems in proposal and some in developement but not much in production. The fear comes in when if we reach the point where we have worn out our equipment to fast and a real barn burner starts up and we show up to the party trying to square dance in a toga. This may never happen because of our technological advantage but the mule defense systems are being worn out at a faster rate then they are being replaced. The constant theme that we are being preached is to "Do more with less". We just hope it doesn't come down to "Do nearly everything with nearly nothing".

Maybe in your neck of the woods focus is elsewhere, but here in Enron's back yard, I assure you attention to the top management of Enron is big news. Slowly but surely, the prosecutors are working their way up the ladder of former Enron management and charging them. It's unfortunate that plea bargains for the guilty middle management are necessary to get to the top.As for Martha, will another celebrity get away with it? Probably a light sentence. For some reason, people tend to associate "rich" with corporate CEOs rather than celebs. Maybe because it's the number of workers affected.Here I am an agnostic, thinking... I wish management of corporations were more committed to ethics and morality than greed. It gets you thinking about how much corruption a capitalist democratic republic could survive. You look around the world and see that democracy and non-corrupt government is very difficult to achieve, much less sustain.If only religious folk on this forum could provide convincing arguments so that everyone could believe and follow the light.

Why? It's not like religious folks are any less likely to be assholes than anybody else.

Message deleted.[This message has been edited by The Atrox, 02-24-2004]

Maybe I should have used the [sarcasm] tag instead of the smilie. Had I replied seriously to Crashfrog I might have said that the particular evidence I offered in support of the view that the electorate has slid to the right over the past decade cannot be interpreted as indicative of a slackening of attention in other areas such as corporate fraud and mismanagement. And I might have added that the budget of HHS (Health and Human Services, which includes welfare) is larger than all other federal departments except defense, and of course it's almost always a very large department in any state government.--Percy

America's military budget is FIVE AND A HALF times as large as the next largest military budget in the world. Quite frankly, you don't need to be spending that much, you could half it and still have the largest, and best equiped, military in the world.

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here in Enron's back yard, I assure you attention to the top management of Enron is big news. Slowly but surely, the prosecutors are working their way up the ladder of former Enron management and charging them.

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Really? Does this include the government officials that helped them gouge the populace? A good example is Enron. Once we get to the top of Enron, that's it? Then we got the bad guy? What about his best friend George Bush? How about Cheney?They helped Enron out and took Enron's money and services in exchange, up until Enron was indicted and then Bush says he didn't really know Ken Lay.Are you up for going after Bush and Cheney, perhaps forcing Cheney to expose the papers he is trying to hide (and Scalia appears set to let him get away with)?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You didn't mention another point as well. Bush's fiscal policy has put us in a financial position where we cannot defend ourselves properly based solely on paying for services (and not just material replacement costs which you accurately detailed).We are in a HUGE deficit because on top of going into Afghanistan... which was necessary... we went into Iraq. As it is that wholly unnecessary diversion added to the cost of Afghanistan (because it lengthened that conflict) and so made it worse for everyone anyway.So now we are sitting here with a huge deficit which will already influence us negatively. This means "rogue nations" can start picking us off financially by starting problems... what are we going to start a WAR??? How will we afford it? And the worst part is Bush left the most important nations we'd have to deal with still on the table: N Korea, China, Pakistan, etc.For any Republican that claims Reagan was the hero of the cold war by driving the Soviet Union into bankrupcty, they have to be thinking very seriously about what edge we are poised on that some other country can push us over.I guess Bush "forgot" that economic strength is just as vital as military strength when going to war. We are now more vulnerable to the very threats he talked about from rogue nations, rather than safer.[This message has been edited by holmes, 02-24-2004]

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Sounds like you're talking about this: Here's another location for those without a CBS MarketWatch account: At one point the article says: You seem pretty certain Bush and Cheney are guilty of wrongdoing. Am I correct in concluding you believe there's been an inappropriate exchange of favors for donations?--Percy

Just like you say to the creationists: If you have evidence, then present it.Otherwise, you are just reeking of speculative conspiracy theories, as usual, when it comes to politics.There are two sides to every story, and you consistently present the anti-Bush propaganda. If I had the time, I would dig-up the counter arguments. But I don't. I would guess you could get that from Limbaugh and some websites, anyway.You get the last word, so go ahead and attack.

We don't have the largest military, in terms of soldiers. I believe China owns that honor.Regarding costs: I suspect there is a lot of waste. It is, after all, a government-run operation. Much of the high costs can be blamed on current and past Congressmen creating jobs (votes) in their territory. Another source of cost is due to high-technology devices to protect the lives of our soldiers, and increase their effectiveness to reduce the need of so many soldiers for extended periods of time.Regarding what is really needed: I don't know. I don't think any of the people on this forum know either. The politics of world power is mainly conducted behind closed doors. However, since the military does not run the government, the elected administration can seek to cut costs or trade costs for other benefit programs, depending on the mood of the voters. I am not sure the majority of Americans want to see what happens if we cut back drastically. Bargaining from a position of strength seems to be successful, historically.

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dragged by the Republican Congress. At first, Clinton had grand liberal visions, but the Hillary health plan failure and the landslide loss of congressional seats at his 2-yr mark caused him to change tactics (to win a second term).

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Exactly. He became a Republican "lite". Even less difference between the parties after Clinton! AND STILL, the Republicans frame him as a left-wing hippie radical, even AFTER the shift to the right. It's ludricous.

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He was able to slide many monetary problems (such as depleting military) to the following president. Obviously, he didn't beef-up the intelligence community after the first attack on the WTC.

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A blatant falsehood.Actually, the Clinton administration identified bin Laden and Al Qaedea as a major threat, informed the incoming Bush administration, which then did nothing at all.I cite Republican administration officials below on the job the Clinton administration did WRT terrorism:
"Overall, I give them very high marks...The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama, which made him stronger." (Robert Oakley, ambassador for counter terrorism in the Reagan State Dept; from the Washington Post, Dec 25, 2000, "Planned January 2000 Attacks Failed or were Thwarted"). In the same article, Paul Bremer (yes, Paul Bremer) disagrees and says the Clinton administration was "correctly focused on bin Laden".What did the Clinton administration do? It captured, tried and imprisoned for life the folks responsible for the WTC bombing. They stopped plots to kill the Pope, to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously, to attack the U.N. headquarters, the FBI building, the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C., L.A. and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge, and a truck bombing against the U.S. embassy in Albania.ALL of these were thwarted by the Clinton administration after the WTC bombing (Washington Post, Dec 19, 2001, "Broad Effort Launched After '98 Attacks" and subsequent stories in a series).Clinton tripled the FBI's counterterrorism budget, doubled overall counterterrorism spending, eliminated 20 different al Qaeda cells, sponsored simulations to work out responses to terrorist attacks, created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines. Clinton issued a Presidential directive authorizing the assasinataion of Osama bin Laden.And so on. The Washington Post article called Clinton's administration the "first administration to undertake a systematic anti-terrorist effort."After the U.S.S. Cole incident, the Clinton team put together an ambitious plan to knock out Al Qaeda, finalized in December 2000 (check out Time, August 12, 2002), a plan which included: breaking up Al Qaeda cells and arresting their personnel, attacking the financial support and freezing their assets, stopping its funding through fake charities, give aid to governments having trouble with al Qaeda, and to scale up covert action in Afghanistan in an effort to eliminate bin Laden. This plan was never carried out by the Bush administration, which sat on it completely until AFTER the September 11th attacks, despite repeated calls by former Clinton administration officials!Oh, and the military that Clinton funded for 8 years did pretty well in Afghanistan and Iraq, don't you think? You DO realize that Bush could not have had anything to do with our military's preparedness, and that it was Clinton which built the current force, right?(Thanks to Al Franken and Teamfranken for compiling much of the info in this post in a convenient format for my referral).

Lumping Stewart's insider trading in with Worldcom's and Enron's rape of tens of thousands of workers' retirement funds isn't even close to a fair comparison.

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I wish management of corporations were more committed to ethics and morality than greed. It gets you thinking about how much corruption a capitalist democratic republic could survive. You look around the world and see that democracy and non-corrupt government is very difficult to achieve, much less sustain.

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That's human nature.That's also why we need governments to regulate business. Unregulated business WILL, with rare exceptions, screw it's workers. We have seen this, time and time again. The haves will walk all over the have-nots in order to remain the "haves".Unfortunately, this one-party system we seem to have (Republicans and Republican-'lite's') is beholden to the "haves" to provide them with millions in campaign contributions required to win elections.Major campaign finance reform is the only way, in my view, to rip the government away from the moneyed special interest groups.

Do you expect me to believe propaganda from an avowed Bush-basher?
There are two sides to the events, and you presented one.There are plenty of questions regarding Franken's claims, which you present as facts.Here is one website that refutes his claims:Page not found - WNDIsn't it amazing how the debate tactics of EvC parallel the political debates ?!