A president has no higher responsibility than to safeguard the country. And yet, in his zest for a deal that allows him to not have to revisit the debt ceiling debate until after Election Day 2012, President Obama has signed onto an agreement that could destroy the nation’s ability to defend itself.
Obama, with his abject failure to tackle the deficit earlier in his term by proposing meaningful cuts to entitlement programs we cannot afford, has left spending on national security - and our national security itself – open to perilous reduction.
And Republicans, with their absolute insistence on no tax increases, have as I predicted brought about a situation where Democrats get to dive into Defense and rip out huge chunks of it.
According to the White House, the deal would potentially impose $850 billion in cuts to the Defense Department – $350 billion now, and another $500 billion in automatic cuts if a special committee can’t agree on anything by the end of the year. Additional cuts would come out of other national security spending.
Obama earlier this year had proposed to cut $400 billion from Defense, a bad idea that has somehow gained general acceptance. Now the president is prepared to try to force the special committee to come up with a plan – and avoid the automatic cuts – by holding our national security hostage.
Here’s what incoming Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said last week about such defense cuts, before he knew they would be part of the debt ceiling deal:
Based on the difficulty of achieving the $400 billion cut, I believe $800 billion would be extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.
Forget what Dempsey says – as our president and Congress evidently did. It doesn’t take an expert in military planning to understand that you don’t vastly decrease defense spending during a time of war and while overseas threats are growing.
We are at war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and with terrorism. Iran is on the cusp of possessing nuclear weapons – an intolerable situation that must be dealt with militarily – and is spreading its tentacles throughout the Middle East. Chinese defense industry workers are busy as elves before Christmas growing their country’s military might, which China increasingly seeks to project around the world. Russia is on the rebound and is acting far less friendly than we had hoped.
Osama Bin Laden is dead, but the threat of terrorism remains as the United States wages a protracted struggle against Islamism worldwide. Europe refuses to defend itself, and as nice as it would be to tell them to shove it, we need a functioning group of Western democracies and so will have to bear at least some of the responsibility for maintaining them in their happy lifestyle.
Many of us think our own happy lifestyles will go on forever, forgetting the blood sweet and tears that purchased our unparalleled comfort. But the world will remind us of the terrible price we must pay, as it did in the form of Bin Laden and Islamism following years of irresponsible defense cuts by Bill Clinton.
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Isn’t this more to hold the “deal” in place–if things don’t go according to plan, seniors get it in the neck and Dems cry (supposedly, I don’t feel it) and the military gets cut and Republicans suffer?
They used to call this Mutual Assured Destruction…
No, this would be called Self Assured Destruction
barkleypontree.blogspot.com
And happy lifestyles? Really?
Not all, I know.
A study I blogged says four oout of five Americans is suffering a stress symptom right now–can’t sleep, weight up or down, anxiety, irritability, depression.
He could care less about the Pentagon. We could save as much by repealing Obama-care. Our enemies know we are getting weaker. I fear, they’re in the shadows waiting…
I think we just may need a defense policy for America that isn’t written by Brad Thor.
Dates. All that matters to Obama and the military isn’t as important as 2012.
All about his campaign, party the fundraisers and endless little trips on a daily basis. He seems to do everything but stay behind the newly remodeled
and rarely used Oval Office. We are still doomed until we can start to undo
the damage this man has done in less than 4 years God help us!
Well, we are changed…he had that right. Can we morph it into something good–despite him–that is the question.
Thank you for this article Keith. Didn’t realize there were up front cuts in defense. Like Obamacare they have to pass the bill in order to find out what is in it. This is a Jimmy Carter redo, although he didn’t keep us involved in three ongoing wars. The troops are already seeing bare PX shelves because of Obama’s planned draw down in Afghanistan. Any politician who votes to pull the rug out from under our troops during a time of war is no statesman. If they pass this bill they must end the wars and bring our troops home.
As far as Republicans and their defense of tax increases, they learned the lesson of Herbert Hoover. Increase taxes during a recession and you suffer a depression. We are well on our way there already.
“The troops are already seeing bare PX shelves because of Obama’s planned draw down in Afghanistan.”
Bring ‘em home and let them shop at their local supermarket then– sheesh! Why does everyone who wants to keep operation Lost Cause going think they are the friends of our fighting men?
Guess you didn’t bother to read the rest of my comment.
Right Susan – what happened to Boehner’s three days to review the bill. Who knows what this really does . . .
Letting Dems make such cuts is total folly!
Sadly,stripping our defense is how Obama and many democrats think.Naively thinking that we can spread the responsibility of defending against rogue states is how this administration operates(see Libya).Defending from behind would make Neville Chamberlainp proud.
This is nothing but political posturing for Obama. He cares nothing about America or her people. Drudge is linking to Obama’s campaign page where he pronounces the debt debate is over. How bizarre that the page offers you the ability to upload your email contacts or type in the address of 10 friends. These people are downright creepy…
http://my.barackobama.com/page/share/debt-deal?source=20110801_jm_act&utm_medium=email&utm_source=obama&utm_campaign=20110801_jm_act
OMG–don’t let the get your address book–Linked In has terrorized me by doing that…I had to quit and start over!
Great point – really creepy. Nothing on what happens to these email addresses. Think I’ll do a piece on it tomorrow.
Yet, there’s always money for this nonsense:
(courtesy Moonbattery and Hillbuzz)
http://hillbuzz.org/2011/07/30/welfare-fraud-exposed-by-judge-judy/
Jeez, I wish hadn’t watched that. Things are worse than I thought.
Oh-my-God.
We Bible believers have been waiting for God to smite the US, expecting some massive event. Instead, it’s becoming obvious it’s going to be a slow smite, day by day, inch by inch until the big smackdown. Obama has raised the debt 1.9 and now 2.4. 4.3 trillion dollars in 3 years.
Can I recommend a book to your blog readers? It’s called One Second After. The book freaked me out more than reading The Exorcist did, and I was 12 when I read that book. We are going to gut our military and leave ourselves wide open for an EMP attack within the next 10 years. And if the terrorists can’t figure out how to build the nuke, I’m sure Russia or China will be glad to supply it, let us wipe each other out over 6 months, then move in from the east and the west and grab all the resources.
I’d rather we just default now.
barkleypontree.blogspot.com
From 2000 to 2009 the US, in grants and credits, gave the Middle East $78,006,000
In 2008 the figure was $10,787,000,000
In 2008 the US gave $131,724,000,000 to the world, of that the Middle East (Census Bureau Chart was not more specific) got $33,486,000,000
We are a giving nation. These numbers do not reflect the private donations, UN monies, IMF funding, or income from other sources. Why are we giving so much aid to countries that already have national resources that are highly sought commodities? That is to say, oil is the highly sought commodity.
Let’s look at some of these numbers in closer detail at
msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/08/we-pay-our-enemies.html