We're paying for Clinton's mismanagement

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

 

[Ozoned]

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

This thread is about Clinton. Try to keep up...

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

With respect to...?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

With respect to...?

With respect to any decision that actually had any impact on the country?

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

With respect to...?

With respect to any decision that actually had any impact on the country?

Do you means as egregious as Clinton's decimating of the military?

 

[BBond]

latimes.com: Cheney acknowledges defense cuts began on his watch

By Michael Finnegan/Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 24, 2000
Web posted at: 12:43 p.m. EDT (1643 GMT)

BAKERSFIELD, California (Los Angeles Times) -- Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential nominee, acknowledged Wednesday that military cutbacks began during the Bush administration but said further cuts under President Clinton had "gone too far."

In his first campaign appearance to showcase his background as secretary of Defense, Cheney renewed his call for a military buildup, but he also took responsibility for setting the downsizing in motion a decade ago under President Bush. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, "everybody understood" that the U.S. military had to shrink, Cheney told cadets in the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps at Bakersfield High School.

"We were victorious in the Cold War, and in the aftermath of that, we did in fact significantly reduce the overall size of the U.S. military," Cheney said. "But I think we've gone too far with it. I think we've shrunk the force now at the same time we've been adding commitments, and so we're stretched pretty thin."

He said Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, would reverse the trend.

"If Gov. Bush and I are successful in our campaign, it would be our expectation to do a thorough scrub of our commitments around the world, decide which ones are really priority," he said.

Cheney's remarks came a day after Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, told veterans in Milwaukee that he was "proud we finally reversed the defense cuts begun in the previous administration."

Cheney said a new Bush administration would invest in high-tech upgrades of weapons and equipment, raise military pay and improve housing and education. Cheney appeared before the cadets on the second day of his first West Coast campaign swing. On Wednesday evening, he attended two fund-raisers near Santa Barbara for the California Republican Party's Victory 2000 Committee. Today, he and his wife, Lynne, plan to campaign in Oregon and return home to Jackson Hole, Wyo.

At the ROTC event, Cheney recounted his role as Defense secretary during the Persian Gulf War in a speech emphasizing the value of "character" in the military. He recalled the two-man crews of Apache helicopters that he dispatched to destroy Iraq's early-warning defense systems. "In fact, the integrity of the operation depended upon those soldiers and airmen being just as effective, and just as committed, and just as dependable and reliable as anybody else up and down the chain of command."

His intent, said Gerald Parsky, chairman of the Bush-Cheney California campaign, was partly to evoke doubts about Clinton's character.

Cheney's visit to Bakersfield, a Republican stronghold, offered him the chance to voice conservative views that he has generally downplayed as Bush strives to court moderate voters. At the high school, an ROTC cadet asked Cheney about prayer in public schools.

"I do think there's an appropriate place in our public institutions and gatherings for prayer," Cheney said.

Another cadet asked him about gun control. "I'm more interested in enforcing the existing statutes than I am in adding additional restrictions that might restrain law-abiding citizens," he said.

 

[Ozoned]

You know, Riprorin, they do have a point. You remember the "new tone" thing? Where Bush thought he could get along with the Left wing nutcases? That was a bad decision, I guess. Heh heh..

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

With respect to...?

With respect to any decision that actually had any impact on the country?

Do you means as egregious as Clinton's decimating of the military?

No, any level of 'screwed up' will be suffice.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
You know, Riprorin, they do have a point. You remember the "new tone" thing? Where Bush thought he could get along with the Left wing nutcases? That was a bad decision, I guess. Heh heh..

Not a bad decision. Just another Bush administration outright fabrication.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

With respect to...?

With respect to any decision that actually had any impact on the country?

Do you means as egregious as Clinton's decimating of the military?

No, any level of 'screwed up' will be suffice.

Going to the UN was mistake. He should have ignored them like Clinton did.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Riprorin
FACT #1. The size of the U.S. military has been cut drastically in the past decade.

Between 1992 and 2000, the Clinton Administration cut national defense by more than half a million personnel and $50 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. 14 (See Table 1.) The Army alone has lost four active divisions and two Reserve divisions. Because of such cuts, the Army has lost more than 205,000 soldiers, or 30 percent of its staff, although its missions have increased significantly throughout the 1990s.

In 1992, the U.S. Air Force consisted of 57 tactical squadrons and 270 bombers. Today the Air Force has 52 squadrons and 178 bombers. The total number of active personnel has decreased by nearly 30 percent. In the Navy, the total number of ships has decreased significantly as well. In 1992, there were around 393 ships in the fleet, while today there are only 316, a decrease of 20 percent. The number of Navy personnel has fallen by over 30 percent.

In 1992, the Marine Corps consisted of three divisions. The Corps still has three divisions, but since 1992, it has lost 22,000 active duty personnel, or 11 percent of its total. The Clinton Administration also cut the Marine Corps to 39,000 reserve personnel from 42,300 in 1992.

Link

Can't blame Rumsfeld for Clinton's bungling.

Wow, can't wait for the spin to 2008. At this rate the RRR FLL's will still be blaming Clinton in 3004.

And we're not supposed to blame Clinton for 8 years of decimating the military because...?

That little thing called 'integrity'.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Pandaren
That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You need to stop trolling. You sound like people asking for handouts because "the white man kept me down" all those years ago.

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Can't blame Rumsfeld for Clinton's bungling.

You're right. This entire thread is a troll. Disgusting.

 

[justly]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
What we need is someone who served in the military under Clinton and the prior two administrations to comment on this. I sometimes find first hand information very helpful.

In January 2003 I retired after serving 20 years in the US Navy.

Personel cutbacks where targeted at the most knowlagable level of technitical positions, and happened much to rapidly in the Navy durring the Clinton administration. Instead of reducing the number of new enlistees and allowing for a gradual reduction these cutbacks removed so much of the experianced technical work force that the remaining knowlagable people often where forced to pick up administrative tasks that they where not fully trained for, oversee twice as many unqualified personel while still doing their normal tasks. Quite often this resulted in equipment failures due to inadiquate supervision/insufficent training, lack of disipline, and personnel without adequate experiance being advanced to positions and paygrades that had been vacated by the cutbacks.

One of the things that really stuck with me was seeing a article in a Navy times magazine where an active duty member made a comment about how nice it was to learn things about their job from a reservists that was there for his two week obligation. To really understand the irony of this you need to realize that reservists are there to stay up to date with what has changed, NOT to teach an active duty member about his job.

Of course I can only confirm what I had personal knowalage of, either through my own commands or with conversations with people from other commands but I have no reason to believe what I saw was an isolated problem.


Has anyone else here got any FIRST HAND KNOWLAGE OF THE MILITARY durring Clintons administration???

 

[Kibbo]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Kibbo
Even with the Clinton-era cutbacks, your nation spent more on their military than the next 10 (IIRC) nations combined.

Yes, but we have more than 1 running tank.

If no other nation has more than one running tank, why do you need so many?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Kibbo

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Kibbo
Even with the Clinton-era cutbacks, your nation spent more on their military than the next 10 (IIRC) nations combined.

Yes, but we have more than 1 running tank.

If no other nation has more than one running tank, why do you need so many?

Most nations have more than 1 running tank. Several have thousands of them...

 

[nageov3t]

Can't blame Rumsfeld for Clinton's bungling.

watch me

Rumsfeld and Co severely underestimated what they were getting themselves into when they decided to fight two wars simultaneously. hindsight is 20/20, but even at the time, a lot of us were saying that we should finish our obligations in Afghanistan before throwing ourselves into Iraq.

 

[wiin]

Pandaren said:

That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You must know something that the rest of us don't.

America's military is made up of volunteers. You can't just grab somebody from the street and place them in the military. All those people criticizing rumsfeld and the bush administration are the same people
who did nothing to stop clinton from decimating the military. This is what rumsfeld was referrng to when he said that you go with what you have.


Inhofe says Clinton's cuts made Iraq mess

"Eight years of Bill Clinton decimated the military to almost half of what it was in 1990," he said during a stop in Muskogee.

Clinton Cut the Military

RUSH: In 1992, total active military personnel, 1,913,750. Total active military personnel the year 2000, eight years later is 1,371,000, a reduction of nearly 600,000 active military personnel during the eight years of Bill Clinton. That's just the personnel side of the story.

 

[villager]

Originally posted by: wiin
Pandaren said:

That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You must know something that the rest of us don't.

America's military is made up of volunteers. You can't just grab somebody from the street and place them in the military. All those people criticizing rumsfeld and the bush administration are the same people
who did nothing to stop clinton from decimating the military. This is what rumsfeld was referrng to when he said that you go with what you have.


Inhofe says Clinton's cuts made Iraq mess

"Eight years of Bill Clinton decimated the military to almost half of what it was in 1990," he said during a stop in Muskogee.

Clinton Cut the Military

RUSH: In 1992, total active military personnel, 1,913,750. Total active military personnel the year 2000, eight years later is 1,371,000, a reduction of nearly 600,000 active military personnel during the eight years of Bill Clinton. That's just the personnel side of the story.

Didn't Clinton have a GOP congress for 6 years? In any case who complained about the military size until Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq? Did not Bush say the occupation of Iraq would be short and easy?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: villager

Originally posted by: wiin
Pandaren said:

That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You must know something that the rest of us don't.

America's military is made up of volunteers. You can't just grab somebody from the street and place them in the military. All those people criticizing rumsfeld and the bush administration are the same people
who did nothing to stop clinton from decimating the military. This is what rumsfeld was referrng to when he said that you go with what you have.


Inhofe says Clinton's cuts made Iraq mess

"Eight years of Bill Clinton decimated the military to almost half of what it was in 1990," he said during a stop in Muskogee.

Clinton Cut the Military

RUSH: In 1992, total active military personnel, 1,913,750. Total active military personnel the year 2000, eight years later is 1,371,000, a reduction of nearly 600,000 active military personnel during the eight years of Bill Clinton. That's just the personnel side of the story.

Didn't Clinton have a GOP congress for 6 years? In any case who complained about the military size until Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq? Did not Bush say the occupation of Iraq would be short and easy?

I dont think he ever advertised it to be short and easy.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Pandaren
That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You need to stop trolling. You sound like people asking for handouts because "the white man kept me down" all those years ago.

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Can't blame Rumsfeld for Clinton's bungling.

You miss the point. The point is that had it not been for eight years of Clinton, Bush wouldn't have had to rebuild the military!

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: Pandaren
That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You need to stop trolling. You sound like people asking for handouts because "the white man kept me down" all those years ago.

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Can't blame Rumsfeld for Clinton's bungling.

And you think you can rebuild the military overnight, especially during war time?

Hahaha.

They had 4 years to rebuild the military. Clinton didn't reduce the training or technical expertise (as far as I can tell), he just reduced manpower. In fact, I've seen numerous sources suggest that our military was intentionally moving towards a smaller, more mobile and better trained force instead of the traditional cold war approach.

Either way, that leaves two open questions...well, actually three:

1) Why wasn't the Bush administration able to increase numbers in the military over the 4 years they were in charge in order to undo the decreases of Clinton's administration? I know Clinton had 8 years to cut the military, but can we still place all the blame on him when Bush has had 4 years to fix it?

2) Has anyone actually shown this wasn't part of a plan and that our CAPABILITY has really been reduced? Are we "paying" for anything, or would we have problems even without Clinton's cuts. I know the answer seems obvious here, but there's more to a military than numbers....just think about it a little bit.

3) Isn't this just a 20/20 hindsight criticism? Given the situation during Clinton's terms, was there a reason we NEEDED a more powerful military? In other words, assuming reduction in troop levels has been a problem, would it even have been possible to plan for that during Clinton's terms, or was he making a decision everyone agreed with AT THE TIME? You use the word mismanagement in the title, but would anyone have identified it as mismanagement at the time?

Edit: I have also heard that our military is intended more as a quick reaction force, NOT an occupying force. Just something to keep in mind, maybe Bush is trying to jam a round peg into a square hole, eh?

Actually Clinton did reduce training and technical expertise. Many seasoned combat veterans refused to serve the Clinton administration and didn't re-up or retired. Remember the fiasco that Clintons new Janet Reno made of Waco?

 

[Phokus]

After bush's ridiculous invasion of iraq, expect the number of people who are interested in joining the military to drop to record lows.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Phokus
After bush's ridiculous invasion of iraq, expect the number of people who are interested in joining the military to drop to record lows.

And not many Democrats!

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
Riprorin:

I have a single question for you and nobody else.

Has Bush ever screwed anything up?

With respect to...?

With respect to any decision that actually had any impact on the country?

Do you means as egregious as Clinton's decimating of the military?

Wow, did Clinton really kill every tenth soldier? I didn't know, thanks.

 

[justly]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: Pandaren
That isn't the issue. The issue is that Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld haven't done enough to bring the military back up to speed.

You need to stop trolling. You sound like people asking for handouts because "the white man kept me down" all those years ago.

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Can't blame Rumsfeld for Clinton's bungling.

You miss the point. The point is that had it not been for eight years of Clinton, Bush wouldn't have had to rebuild the military!

Thank you Condor