NATO AIR
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- #41
GunnyL said:Y'know, I used to enjoy most of your posts. Sems lately they've been rather tainted with radical leftism.
Deployment get to you?
I wouldn't call Ralph Peters a radical leftist by any means. The problem here is that any valid criticism of the Pentagon, Bush or the war effort has become "defeatist" or "leftist". This is utterly wrong. Our leaders are leading the nation down the wrong path, especially our military. It isn't about whether the war in Iraq was the right decision (it was) but the aftermath, and the fact that no one has paid for or even faced up to what they did wrong, and in the case of Rumsfeld, the horrendous damage done to the war effort and the military by his bonehead decisions and arrogance. I'm not the only one to say this, plenty of neo conservatives and conservatives from Elliot Cohen to Bill Kristol have said much of the same thing, in often even harsher terms.
Our QDR is pathetic. Instead of bold leadership, we have more of the same, driven by a defense industry that is run amok, desperate to use China's rise as an excuse to purchase every expensive weapons system under the sun with little regard for what we really need.
We're dealing with failed states here. You think its bad now? Imagine three-four years from now when we have a Syrian civil war to handle, perhaps even a Saudi civil war as well. Hell, what if Pakistan goes to shit? How will our big ticket weapons systems designed for war with the Soviets going to help us then? What good is an F-22 when you need 100,000 ground troops in Syria?
Look at South America.... Chavez is destablizing every country down there, and may very well end up tottering Colombia over the edge.
If we succeed in Iraq and in the broader Middle East in the next five-ten years (which I sincerely, sincerely hope we do, and we very well might, if we play our cards right and keep our resolve in Iraq), we will end up pushing these terrorists into Africa, where there will be more failed and failing states for us to invade, attack and stabilize.
So what I'm saying is, EVERY sign points towards a great need for more ground troops, not for Iraq but for the future, towards a great need for vastly expanded intelligence, civil affairs and special forces (which to Rummy's credit, 8,000 more are on the way according to the QDR, but 1 out of 3 ain't cutting it), towards a real die-hard push towards a boots on the ground mentality, not a pie in the sky razzle and dazzle show.
Yet this is not what we're getting. We're getting a military outlook that literally salivates towards conflict with China, or foolishly trying to contain China, while ignoring the great opportunities we have to remake the Navy for the war on terror and the great arc of instability that we will be dealing with around the world.