posted on Feb, 8 2006 @ 09:46 PM
Although I tend to lean Conservative in my political viewpoints, I am neither a Repub or a Democ...but this new budget worries me.
Not because anything is cut (the more that's cut the better, I am all for the privitization of EVERYTHING) but because so much is spent.
On the one hand, yes the US is in a very serious strategic situation right now. Something like 75% of our deployable force is already in the Middle
East, which makes us very vulnerable elsewhere.
Thanks to defense budget cuts and criminally lax security procedures during the Clinton administration (not entirely Bill's fault, there was an
attitude of "Who can touch us?" in the military during the 90's, so security on secret projects like those in Los Alamos were not what they should
have been) our most potent projector of strength, the US Navy has been woefully reduced from it's mighty state during the Reagen , Bush Daddy
regimes.
Chinese spies took alot of defense secrets back to China, and in corroboration with their new friend Putin's Russia, have developed new weaponry that
is alarmingly up to par with our own.
(The shooting down of a US F-117 Nighthawk Stealth fighter over Serbia by a Russian Missile prototype comes to mind)
Bush sees things from a strategic perspective, and even though we could argue all day over how the "war on terror" got started (As in was it really
a conspiracy for oil or not), that is honestly irrelevant.
Even during the so called golden years of the Clinton admin, the US was and always will be the target of those nations who have the most to gain by
our downfall.
The recent (last several years) defense treaty between Russia and China opens a new era of unparralelled military and scientific cooperation between
the two nations.
And although China is moving towards a capitalistic free market society, they still maintain the trappings of a totalitarian regime much like Nazi
Germany did in 1933. Not that China is Nazi Germany, but any American Pres worth his own Presidential seal must look with a certain amount of
guardedness to the new Chinese superpower.
The new budget reflects that. It does not allow for a war with Iran. Iran does not need the massive build up in Ships, subs, fighter jets, tanks and
the extra funding to recruit more soldiers, that slot is reserved for a nation with the potential to actually hurt the US in a real war, China and
Russia.
To be honest, the "War" in Iraq isn't really a war at all.
I know, I know, tell that to the families who have lost loved ones. Beleive me, with a best friend as a US Marine who has seen MUCH combat, I
sympathize. But realistically this is merely a police action. Our casualties are extremely light compared to previous wars such as Korea, VietNam and
WWII and although the expenditure in funds is massive, it is nothing compared to what a real war would be like.
Remember, the war in Iraq was fought to remove Hussein from power so as a Saudi freindly regime could be installed in Iraq. Never underestimate the
Machievellian trappings of the Royal House of Saud.
This budget refelcts the very real fear by many in the highest echelons of power in our government (and I mean higher than our pres, the pres is just
a figurehead really, he has no real power) of the possibillity of armed conflict with the new power bloc of Russia and China.