Bush Wishes He Were a Soldier in Afghanistan

[Doug]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush got an earful on Thursday about problems and progress in Afghanistan where a war has dragged on for more than six years but been largely eclipsed by Iraq.

In a videoconference, Bush heard from U.S. military and civilian personnel about the challenges ranging from fighting local government and police corruption to persuading farmers to abandon a lucrative poppy drug trade for other crops.

Bush heard tales of all-night tea drinking sessions to coax local residents into cooperating, and of tribesmen crossing mountains to attend government meetings seen as building blocks for the country's democracy-in-the-making.

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

See here.

==============
One blogger commented: "Every time the president talks like this, which is often, he has no idea how insulting it is."

[Dardedar]

DAR
I wish he was too.

[Phalcon]

Right. And the CIA should waterboard him for the Iraq blunder, a war now estimated to cost in excess of 3 TRILLION dollars, and the main reason our economy is in the tank now. CSPAN will re-run The Three Trillion Dollar War- The true cost of the Iraq Conflict tonight at at 6 or 7pm. Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Linda Bilmes, who co-authored the book, present a stunning indictment as they detail the lies, coverups, and mismanagement of the Bush administration.

Now I'm all for taking out the Islamic terrorists, and I have no love lost for Islam (or most other religions either, for that matter), but invading Iraq was bad strategy on several counts, and the mismanagement of our military, like most everything else under Bush, has been disastrous by incompetents like Rumsfeld, Rice, Gates, Chertoff, et.al.

Not that Congress has it's hands clean either, and the Democrats have also been guilty of this stupid war, of giving Bush what he wants, and of covering up the truth.

Bill Clinton and Bush-43 have both caused great harm to the American military and put us all in great danger. Also, the all-volunteer military, and the privatization of how we wage war, have both caused serious damage to our national defense capabilities.

They are blunders having the most grave consequences: driving up the cost of war astronomically, and divorcing the military (and thus the direct human consequences of war) from the average citizen.

Congress is also to blame here. When you have a draft, then a good segment of the population has a more direct stake in any war, and it is much harder, politically, to maintain a foolish adventure, or one that is mainly for the benefit of an elite.

If we still had the draft, the Iraq War might not have even been started, and I doubt it would still be going on five years later - at lease not without all hell breaking loose on the home front.

To most people today, the war is not something that touches them personally, and the cost has been concealed from them. They are not called upon to sacrifice directly, and the economic cost is hidden - until, that is, the economy, as a result of the war, is in big trouble, like today.

With the draft, all citizens are more involved, and have a direct interest in any decisions about going to war, and will also be more directly involved with their elected representatives about such decisions. It's called democracy. An all-volunteer army is too much like a paid mercenary army, in which the average citizen feels he has less stake (After all, "they volunteered.") It's a REAL bad idea, and it drives up the economic cost to the point of making a protracted war untenable.

[Phalcon]

I do want to add, however, that the U.S., in my humble opinion, has a moral duty to Iraq.

We invaded the place, and overthrew the existing order. That is a fact.

There is a moral truth to the statement, "You break it, you own it (or fix it)."

How to get out of there without the place descending into hell - of course, it's not far from hell as it is - that's the problem.

I remember one teenage Kurdish girl in western style bluejeans, sittiing in an outdoor cafe in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, who was asked by a reporter how the Sunni and Shia in the southern part of the country could stop fighting each other and arrive at an understanding of democracy that would lay the groundwork for a new country with peace and prosperity, and she replied, "It would help if they got over that whole Islam thing."

Smart girl.

I don't have any easy answers as to how to achieve that goal and get our people out of there... I just know we've got to make a start, and the sooner the better.

[Doug]

Bill Clinton and Bush-43 have both caused great harm to the American military and put us all in great danger. Also, the all-volunteer military, and the privatization of how we wage war, have both caused serious damage to our national defense capabilities.

DOUG
Not Bill. He downsized the military and it was the right thing to do. We weren't planning on invading a country for no reason. National defense against terrorists does not require an army, it requires police work.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Right. Bill did a lot in the "modernization" and efficiency areas of the military. He was redesigning it from a massive WWII type organization to a collection of strike forces that could mobilize instantly and deal with any emergency anywhere in the world. W "used it up and wore it out" and if we don't get them home for repair, we're going to end up "doing without". However, W didn't do this through incompetence. It was deliberate. Follow the money. That much money being shoveled into CEO pockets from Blackwater to Halliburton, etc is never done by either accident or incompetence. (Which is why we SHOULD be able to hit W & Co with fraud after 1/20/09. I hope there are lawyers preparing the briefs now.)

[Dardedar]

Bill Clinton and Bush-43 have both caused great harm to the American military and put us all in great danger. Also, the all-volunteer military, and the privatization of how we wage war, have both caused serious damage to our national defense capabilities.

DOUG
Not Bill. He downsized the military and it was the right thing to do. We weren't planning on invading a country for no reason. National defense against terrorists does not require an army, it requires police work.

DAR
Bill gave the military everything they wanted. He also has the distinction of never sending a soldier in to combat who didn't come back. GW has the distinction of causing the deaths of more Americans (via his illegal 3 trillion dollar war) than Osama did and he was trying to kill them on purpose.
As others mentioned, much of the modernization and downsizing was in long term planning that predated Bill. It was a done deal, what the military wanted, and long over due.

As I have noted before here:

***
COMBAT READINESS

Under Clinton:
All Active Duty Army Divisions Were Rated At The Highest Readiness Levels

Today under Bush:
Not A Single Active Duty Or Reserve Brigade In The U.S. Considered “Fully Combat Ready.”


The idea that the military suffered under Clinton is an oft repeated, completely bullshit rightwing talking point (like the idea that the Clintons are connected with a trail of bodies) that does not hold up under scrutiny.

The US, with their 5% of the world population, spends more money on the military than the rest of the world combined, and yet they are more afraid than most of the world. Listening to Americans regularly speak of "being in great danger" because there isn't enough military, or support for the military, is really quite amazing.

How Much Military Spending is Enough?

How does that stack up with the other countries? The vast excess that the US lavishes on its military is utterly obvious to anyone, just by looking at the chart. Getting down to "brass" tacks, the projected 2004 US military spending exceeds the annual totals for the next 21 countries, that spend more than Sweden's $4.5 billion. Considering this war year, if one takes the FY 2003 budget request for $396.1 billion ($379.3 billion for the Defense Department plus $16.8 billion for the nuclear weapons functions of the Department of Energy), and adds to that the $74.7 billion down payment on the Iraq war, much (all?) of which will be spent before October, the US spending for FY 2003 comes to $470.8 billion. The totals for the rest of the countries listed by the CDI, all the way down to that military powerhouse, Luxembourg, with a $0.2 billion annual budget, adds up to only $451.8 billion.

In summary, the US is spending more for its military this year than THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED.

How much is enough? If the purpose of our military expenditures is to defend the country, the answer is, a great deal less than we spend now. If our goal is to be able to invade, conquer, and take over any country that our "leaders" decide they don't like, then no amount may be enough.

How much could we afford to cut? Put aside the policy wonks and their arcane debates about how many wars to fight at once, how many ships and subs we need, or how many of what kind of new plane or weapon to buy. Just by looking at the chart, it's abundantly clear that as long as our defense spending isn't vastly more wasteful than that of any potential adversaries, we can easily cut our military spending by at least half, and retain vast military pre-eminence for the forseeable future.

At $200 billion per year, we would still be spending more than three times as much as Russia, which has been declared our "friend". That amount would be over four times China's budget, with which we are not in conflict (although some of the neocon cheerleaders for the Iraq war have been trying to pump up China as a potential adversary). Combining a US budget of $200 billion with that of reliable allies (when they don't think we've gone berserk) Japan, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, the total is $355 billion, completely dwarfing the military expenditures of any other single nation.

And, what about the "Axis of Evil", and "rogue" states, in general? Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, and Syria (hell, throw in Cuba and Sudan, for good measure), have a combined annual military spending of $11.9 billion that they can ill afford. There is no rational basis for claiming that the US, by itself, has to outspend those countries by more than a factor of 50 in order to be safe from them.

Also, you have probably heard the TV pundits talking about the Iraquis fighting "asymmetrical warfare". If you have a good monitor, and squint hard, you might be able to see, down near the bottom, Iraq's annual military budget of $1.4 billion. That's the same amount that the Pentagon spends in -- A DAY. That's right, folks, Iraq, our mighty adversary, that threatens the entire free world, spends 1/3 of one percent of what we spend for military purposes.

How Much Military Spending is Enough? 2003

[Doug]

In summary, the US is spending more for its military this year than THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED.

DOUG
Yes, but this is somewhat misleading. Just as the U.S. spends more on health care yet we have a pathetic health care system in the U.S., much of the money spent on military funding is wasted, used only to make manufacturers rich. A lot of the crap our military buys is completely ineffective--and overpriced.

China has a much larger military and spends very little on it. Don't tell Bush, though. He'd probably try to outsource our military to China.

[Dardedar]

In summary, the US is spending more for its military this year than THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED.

DOUG
Yes, but this is somewhat misleading. Just as the U.S. spends more on health care yet we have a pathetic health care system in the U.S., much of the money spent on military funding is wasted, used only to make manufacturers rich. A lot of the crap our military buys is completely ineffective--and overpriced.

DAR
You don't think other countries have a lot of military funding that is wasted? Military funding that makes a lot of manufacturers rich? I am sure they do. But since the spending of any other country (or even a combination of ten countries) is dwarfed by the size of US spending (see chart above), the waste and pork also dwarfs that of other countries.

China has a much larger military and spends very little on it.

DAR
Now that is somewhat misleading and also not true anymore. All things being equal, China has over three times the population of the US so it might seem appropriate for them to have a larger head count in the military. But head count doesn't count for nearly as much as it used to and China has been cutting back on the number of people in their military for decades. Considering they are almost in second place in spending, in the world, I wouldn't say they spend "very little." Unless you figure it per capita, then it is.

Note:

Cutbacks make China's army responsive
(chinadaily.com.cn/Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-09

China's military has cut back its troops by 200,000, the official newspaper of the People's Liberation Army said on Monday.

The Liberation Army Daily said the two-year program to slim China's military was finished on schedule at the end of 2005, and troop numbers were down to 2.3 million.

China had 2.5 million serving military in 2003 when the cuts started. In 1987, it had about 4.2 million.

The reforms included reducing layers in the command hierarchy, cutting non-battle units such as schools and farms, and rearranging officer duties.

...

"Our military is marching toward the goal of an appropriately sized, structurally balanced, lean, command-responsive fighting force."

After the cutbacks, the proportion of military serving in the infantry had fallen to a "historic low," while the share in the navy, air force and Second Artillery Corps -- which maintains China's nuclear missiles -- had risen, the paper said.

...

China's military budget in 2005 was about $30 billion, a 12.6 percent rise on the previous years.

The Liberation Army Daily said more reforms to China's military were planned for 2006, including further reducing officer numbers.

In order to concentrate on economic development and improve the quality of the Chinese military forces, China decided to cut the size of its military forces by 1 million in 1985. By the end of 1987, the cut was completed, bringing the size of the Chinese military forces down to 3.238 million.

And by the year 1990, the size of the miliary forces was further trimmed down to 3.199 million.

In 1997, China announced it would cut another 500,000 troops in three years, and the number of the Chinese military was down to 2.5 million after that cut.

And in 2003, another cut of 200,000 would be made in two years, and the size was lowered to 2.3 million at the end of 2005.

LINK

DAR
According to wiki:

"As of April 2007, about 1,426,700 people are on active duty in the [US] military with an additional 1,458,500 people in the seven reserve components."

Those two numbers add up to 2.8 million. Plus the US probably has a massive number of retired it can pull upon if really needed. I don't know if China has a reserve but those in the US reserve (Guard etc.) have found that they get sucked into Iraq just as if they were in the active.

The China budget in '05 of "$30 billion" is somewhat contested since the numbers from China aren't quite trusted. It might be more like $50 billion. But then, the US military has $2 trillion it can't even account for in the last two decades or so. $30 billion is only 2.5 months in Iraq AND that isn't even counted in the US military budget. The war is paid for with special off budget funding (borrowed from China).

D.