Military to Cut 70,000

I have tons of respect for most of the guys in the military today but they are fulfilling a mission they probably shouldn’t.

Get out of Europe, get out of Korea immediately.

Draw down in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If we can’t do the mission without special forces advisers then it is not worth it. Stop fighting wars for other people.

[quote]Big Banana wrote:
I have tons of respect for most of the guys in the military today but they are fulfilling a mission they probably shouldn’t.

Get out of Europe, get out of Korea immediately.

Draw down in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If we can’t do the mission without special forces advisers then it is not worth it. Stop fighting wars for other people.[/quote]

You nailed it big banana. I think people are overestimating just how streamlined the military is. If you think we need a million and a half soldiers and dozens of costly overseas bases to protect us from the evil armies of Iran and North Korea then you are misguided.

Further, the war on terror is mismanaged. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be waged by soldiers trained in counter insurgency, not left to conventional soldiers. To expect a bunch of grunts to combat an insurgency and build nations is laughable. The consequences of these conflicts need to be weighed more heavily before we attempt them.

[quote]Big Banana wrote:
I have tons of respect for most of the guys in the military today but they are fulfilling a mission they probably shouldn’t.

Get out of Europe, get out of Korea immediately.

Draw down in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If we can’t do the mission without special forces advisers then it is not worth it. Stop fighting wars for other people.[/quote]

Yuppers.

I’d actually be for a complete fundamental restructuring of the military more along the lines of the IDF, with a unified command, eliminating much of the support redundancy as well.

We should have an elite, small, highly-skilled professional military, backed up by a large reserve just in case we ever need lots of bodies somewhere.

But like we’ve both said, that requires we stop playing empire.

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Good.

We need to stop empire building, and have a smaller, better-trained, more high-tech force.

We should also close/drastically reduce the of our bases in Europe and our presence in South Korea.

I don’t believe that our government exists to be a jobs program, the DoD is one of the worst for employing useless paper pushers, and promoting redundancy.[/quote]

Exactly. We’re first in military spending, and I do believe we spend more than the next nine countries on the list combined.

That’s the biggest cash cow in the country.

According to Ron Paul, the budget just to maintain for our overseas military presence is over one trillion dollars per year. One trillion…just to maintain. That’s twelve fucking zeros.

Wow…

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
According to Ron Paul, the budget just to maintain for our overseas military presence is over one trillion dollars per year. One trillion…just to maintain. That’s twelve fucking zeros.

Wow…[/quote]

Hell, that’d be more than enough to fund healthcare for every person in this country, wouldn’t it?

All you guys that hate welfare should be rooting for this. Military spending is undoubtedly the biggest piece of corporate welfare to ever go on in this country. And we don’t even see the benefit.

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

[quote]Dustin wrote:

[quote]Big Banana wrote:

Yup, money and politics.

The military is grossly bloated and cutting heads is easiest.

[/quote]

The military isn’t bloated at all. The Army, for instance, has very mobile, streamlined figting force.

The military industrial complex/Pentagon system is indeed bloated, but not the military per se.[/quote]

lol

I think the Navy has more admirals than ships.

Does anyone know this statistic?[/quote]

We have more General Officers right now than we did during WWII. Go figure.
The entire system is in need of pairing. I hope they start with GOs and CSMs. I also hope they cut the number of contractors by 70%.

There is NO reason the army spends a fortune to train and equip a soldier…only to have a contract company suck that soldier up.

[quote]Spartiates wrote:

[quote]Big Banana wrote:
I have tons of respect for most of the guys in the military today but they are fulfilling a mission they probably shouldn’t.

Get out of Europe, get out of Korea immediately.

Draw down in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If we can’t do the mission without special forces advisers then it is not worth it. Stop fighting wars for other people.[/quote]

Yuppers.

I’d actually be for a complete fundamental restructuring of the military more along the lines of the IDF, with a unified command, eliminating much of the support redundancy as well.

We should have an elite, small, highly-skilled professional military, backed up by a large reserve just in case we ever need lots of bodies somewhere.

But like we’ve both said, that requires we stop playing empire.[/quote]

I actually have NO problem with this idea. Understand it is going to mean a LOT more training for reserve/guard soldiers…and more deployments for them. Which is also going to mean we need better laws to protect their employment.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Good.

We need to stop empire building, and have a smaller, better-trained, more high-tech force.

We should also close/drastically reduce the of our bases in Europe and our presence in South Korea.

I don’t believe that our government exists to be a jobs program, the DoD is one of the worst for employing useless paper pushers, and promoting redundancy.[/quote]

Exactly. We’re first in military spending, and I do believe we spend more than the next nine countries on the list combined.

That’s the biggest cash cow in the country.[/quote]

I always hate that argument. I mean Canada spends nothing on defense…I wonder why? Same thing for most of Europe.

Now that begs the question of course: SHOULD we be the World’s police force?

I dont know. But I do know that China, Russia, N Korea = a really big fucking problem.

For the life of me, I dont understand why we dont turn Russia into an ALLY. There is no logical reason for us to be at odds. We should also toss about 12,000 cruise missles into Iran, but thats another story.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
According to Ron Paul, the budget just to maintain for our overseas military presence is over one trillion dollars per year. One trillion…just to maintain. That’s twelve fucking zeros.

Wow…[/quote]

Hell, that’d be more than enough to fund healthcare for every person in this country, wouldn’t it?

All you guys that hate welfare should be rooting for this. Military spending is undoubtedly the biggest piece of corporate welfare to ever go on in this country. And we don’t even see the benefit.[/quote]

That 1 Trillion figure has to be wrong…

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Good.

We need to stop empire building, and have a smaller, better-trained, more high-tech force.

We should also close/drastically reduce the of our bases in Europe and our presence in South Korea.

I don’t believe that our government exists to be a jobs program, the DoD is one of the worst for employing useless paper pushers, and promoting redundancy.[/quote]

Exactly. We’re first in military spending, and I do believe we spend more than the next nine countries on the list combined.

That’s the biggest cash cow in the country.[/quote]

More than everybody else combined.

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
According to Ron Paul, the budget just to maintain for our overseas military presence is over one trillion dollars per year. One trillion…just to maintain. That’s twelve fucking zeros.

Wow…[/quote]

~$2 million per minute spent overseas

Yeah, super-wow!

[quote]Valor wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
According to Ron Paul, the budget just to maintain for our overseas military presence is over one trillion dollars per year. One trillion…just to maintain. That’s twelve fucking zeros.

Wow…[/quote]

Hell, that’d be more than enough to fund healthcare for every person in this country, wouldn’t it?

All you guys that hate welfare should be rooting for this. Military spending is undoubtedly the biggest piece of corporate welfare to ever go on in this country. And we don’t even see the benefit.[/quote]

That 1 Trillion figure has to be wrong…[/quote]

Our military budget is 1.2 trillion dollars a year. That 1 tillion line includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ron Paul has said that by closing the bases over seas it would be a roughly 400-500 billion dollar cut per year. Do we really need to be in Germany and Japan? We have over 700 bases in over 130 countries. That has to be very expensive to operate.

Just think if we cut the bases and used that money on the debt, and by getting out of the wars and by cutting useless departments we would also have a balanced budget. The economic boom that would follow would dwarf the roaring 20’s.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
According to Ron Paul, the budget just to maintain for our overseas military presence is over one trillion dollars per year. One trillion…just to maintain. That’s twelve fucking zeros.

Wow…[/quote]

Hell, that’d be more than enough to fund healthcare for every person in this country, wouldn’t it?

All you guys that hate welfare should be rooting for this. Military spending is undoubtedly the biggest piece of corporate welfare to ever go on in this country. And we don’t even see the benefit.[/quote]

Why yes it would, the resulting economic boom and the freeing of the health care system(buy across state lines, buy drugs from all over the world) would cause health care prices to fall while the rising tides lift everyone.

Local taxes would fall significantly without health insurance costs rising by 20 percent every year as well. Or at least be used for something else, being as taxes never really “fall.”

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Local taxes would fall significantly without health insurance costs rising by 20 percent every year as well. Or at least be used for something else, being as taxes never really “fall.” [/quote]

The taxes would go to paying off debt, which causes a strengthend economy, thus people do even better, thus making more money for paying off debt and the process continues till you get a surplus.

Its probably a good thing to cut some of the fat off the military, they can start by getting rid useless mos’s keep a decent size force of infantry and special operations forces. Im sure theres a ton of ways to help save money and the economy besides cutting the military to bare bones IE we could start at congress and their ridiculous salaries and earmark and pork barrel spending. Lets see what else all the money that is spent on illegal immigrants. Stop outsourcing all of American jobs so china can boost their economy and build their military.

I don’t know much about the US Military, but I remember hearing about them going crazy shooting off million dollar missiles like it was tank wars, that might be a good start.

I’d like to see them pay the current guys a bit more too. Cut the morons and get an intelligent fighting force and pay them well enough that maybe people who have other options join the military instead of only those with few other choices.

I totally agree. A few years ago recruiters were havin a heck of a time to get people to join so they started giving out huge bonuses like 30 to 50k standards were lowered quality of troops weren’t as great but the military needed people to fill uniforms. As far as spending is concerned usually the only time the military gets funding for advanced technology and equipment is during wartime anyways, so it kind of makes sense that they would spend their ass off to try and get the equipment guys need to fight a war.