Freeper: "We wouldn't need a draft if Clinton hadn't dismantled 2/3...

[Jack_Dawson]

of the military."

My freeper "friend" (this is getting harder and harder to admit) just informed me of this. Does anyone have some hard info I can smack him down with?

[el_gato]

1. Tell your little buddy he just can't make shit up

Typical right wing tactic, just make shit up and pretend it's true.

What a dumbass.

Did you even challenge him to prove his bullshit?

[noahmijo]

2. No problem

Liar: The yellow belly patriot Dick Cheney, now the Republican vice presidential nominee, continues to tour the country claiming that Bill Clinton and Al Gore have destroyed America's military readiness. This is absurd and Cheney knows it. Even the Pentagon has refuted Cheney's assertions! Furthermore, history shows that, it was Cheney who downsized the U.S. military by a good 25%, while serving as Defense Secretary under George Bush Sr. This was done for a number of reasons, among them:

attempt to try to curb some of the flow of red ink and triple digit deficits brought on by a reckless tax policy implemented during the Reagan years
the fall of the Soviet Union
the end of the cold war
the destruction of the Iraqi army, which had been the fourth largest standing army in the world
Cheney knows the truth behind the downsizing because he instigated it! He also knows that the American people do not need a "cold war" size army. It is too expensive and worthless, and Cheney knows it. For him to now tour the country claiming that Clinton and Gore did all the downsizing is simply an outright lie, and that makes Dick Cheney a liar!

http://home.att.net/~vlaszlo/bush_cheney_2.htm

2. We wouldn't need a draft if numbnuts hadn't started a bullshit war in Iraq to begin with!!!!!!!

3. So was it the Republicans or the Democrats, liberals or conservatives that helped prop up the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Queda in the 80's in Afghanistan?



Go smack that bitch down.

[PsN2Wind]

20. Really like the picture

in your threads of "Brush-clearing Bush" with that cute little chainsaw like they hang on babies cribs in Oregon.

[Timefortruth]

3. I can't find a link, but Bush Sr. cut more divisions than Clinton.

Can anyone locate that information?

[MrBenchley]

4. So what's keeping him from volunteering?

It's not like recruiting booths are noticeably clogged with young right wing buffoons now...

[calico1]

5. Good point. We won't need the draft

if all the freepers sign up. So if they believe in this war, the question is, why don't they? Sure is easy to support a war as long as you or your loved ones aren't the ones doing the fighting.

[MrBenchley]

17. Sounds good to me...

Freepers--your fuehrer needs you!

[JHB]

6. The sort of hard info he needs to be smacked down with...

...can be found at a lumber yard. What we can give here at DU will likely just bounce off him.

Make him prove it.

[LanternWaste]

7. The last paragraph is the clincher...

A few salient points...

"President Bush's Department of Defense (DOD) budget increase of $14.2 billion (4.8%) over FY 2001 levels is essentially identical to the increase proposed by President Clinton in January. Although President Bush's DOD budget of $310.5 is $100 million above President Clinton's January budget, it includes the transfer of the Maritime Security Program - a program authorized at $100 million a year - from the Maritime Administration to the DOD. As a result, the net "increase" above the Clinton budget is zero."
DoD Newsletter- March, 2002.



December 12, 1994
"President Bill Clinton on December 1 recognized publicly what others have long known: America's armed forces are woefully underfunded to perform the missions that have been assigned to them. Clinton announced a plan to ask Congress for some $2 billion in supplemental appropriations for defense in fiscal 1995. He also outlined an additional $25 billion for the six years from 1996 through 2001."
Heritage.org


NY Times
January 18, 1999
President Clinton has agreed to an $124 billion increase in defense spending over seven years, thereby, jeopardizing his earlier commitments to education, social security, medicare, and programs for the poor.

By Martin McLaughlin
5 January 1999
The Clinton administration will propose the biggest increase in Pentagon spending since 1984, at the height of the Reagan military buildup, in the budget it submits to Congress next month. Clinton announced the huge rise in military spending in his weekly radio speech January 2
World Socialist Website



June 30, 2003
By Steven J. Nider

...in fact, the Clinton administration actually spent more money on defense than the previous administration of President George H.W. Bush. The smaller outlays during the first Bush administration were developed and approved by then-Defense Secretary Cheney and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. The Clinton administration did not coast on Reagan-era procurement funding. During the 1990s, the Pentagon invested more than $1 trillion in developing and procuring new weapons and information technology that gave U.S. forces such an unprecedented advantage in the last two U.S. military campaigns. But more significant than the budget increases was the shift that occurred in the mid-1990s. That shift involved much greater emphasis on precision weapons, sensors, robotics, advanced communications, training, readiness, and orienting the intelligence community toward direct support of military operations. It was that shift that produced the superb military that not only swept through Iraq at a rate that defied historical precedent, but used its awesome force with unprecedented precision and effect, unprecedented low collateral damage, and unprecedented low casualty rates. It was the American Revolution in Military Affairs begun in the Clinton administration that was unveiled in Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom.
ndol.org (New Democrats OnLine)

[Qutzupalotl]

10. Thanks!

[smiley_glad_hands]

8. Those cuts were made by Bush 1. eom

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. And, the military is useless against insurgents.

For all their super expensive high tech weaponry that looks so cool on TV, they can't control a 3rd world nation that doesn't want them there.

They're trying to fight off mosquitoes with sledgehammers.

Meanwhile we're being bankrupted so the generals can have new toys.

[Aviation Pro]

11. Tell him the drawdown started....

In 1987 and really gained momentum during the first Bush presidency. This should make him implode.

[InfoMinister]

12. Post-Cold War Budget Cuts By Bush Sr.

Dick Cheney and others are on record talking about cutting these programs after the cold war.

[K-W]

13. We wouldnt need a draft if we werent in an unecessary war.

We had more than enough military after Clinton for a competent president.

How did Clinton know he needed to increase the army to rediculous proportions because Bush was going to run us into wars we have no business being in.

[ComerPerro]

14. We wouldn't need a draft if

frat boys would actually enlist and go to Iraq rather than "protest" by stealing Kerry signs and showing up to Dem events with "support the troops" signs.

[CarolynEC]

15. You might also remind him...

... that Bill Clinton's name does not appear on the presidential ballot this year.

And you could add:

Quit making excuses for your miserable failure of a president, you ridiculous nitwitted dumb-ass!!

(Or words to that effect. :) )

[ParanoidPat]

16. Show him this.......

.......http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/cheney.htm :evilgrin:

Richard B. Cheney
March 21, 1989- January 20, 1993
17th Secretary of Defense
Bush Administration

<Snip>

When Cheney's FY 1990 budget came before Congress in the summer of 1989, the Senate Armed Services Committee made only minor amendments, but the House Armed Services Committee cut the strategic accounts and favored the V-22, F-14D, and other projects not high on Cheney's list. The House and Senate in November 1989 finally settled on a budget somewhere between the preferences of the administration and the House committee. Congress avoided a final decision on the MX-Midgetman issue by authorizing a $1 billion missile modernization account to be apportioned as the president saw fit. Funding for the F-14D was to continue for another year, providing 18 more aircraft in the program. Congress authorized only research funds for the V-22 and cut SDI funding more than $1 billion, much to the displeasure of President Bush.

In subsequent years under Cheney the budgets proposed and the final outcomes followed patterns similar to the FY 1990 budget experience. Early in 1991 the secretary unveiled a plan to reduce military strength by the mid-1990s to 1.6 million, compared to 2.2 million when he entered office. In his budget proposal for FY 1993, his last one, Cheney asked for termination of the B-2 program at 20 aircraft, cancellation of the Midgetman, and limitations on advanced cruise missile purchases to those already authorized. When introducing this budget, Cheney complained that Congress had directed Defense to buy weapons it did not want, including the V-22, M-1 tanks, and F-14 and F-16 aircraft, and required it to maintain some unneeded reserve forces. His plan outlined about $50 billion less in budget authority over the next 5 years than the Bush administration had proposed in 1991. Sen. Sam Nunn of the Senate Armed Services Committee said that the 5-year cuts ought to be $85 billion, and Rep. Les Aspin of the House Armed Services Committee put the figure at $91 billion.

Over Cheney's four years as secretary of defense, encompassing budgets for fiscal years 1990-93, DoD's total obligational authority in current dollars declined from $291.3 billion to $269.9 billion. Except for FY 1991, when the TOA budget increased by 1.7 percent, the Cheney budgets showed negative real growth: -2.9 percent in 1990, -9.8 percent in 1992, and -8.1 percent in 1993. During this same period total military personnel declined by 19.4 percent, from 2.202 million in FY 1989 to 1.776 million in FY 1993. The Army took the largest cut, from 770,000 to 572,000-25.8 percent of its strength. The Air Force declined by 22.3 percent, the Navy by 14 percent, and the Marines by 9.7 percent.

The V-22 question caused friction between Cheney and Congress throughout his tenure. DoD spent some of the money Congress appropriated to develop the aircraft, but congressional sources accused Cheney, who continued to oppose the Osprey, of violating the law by not moving ahead as Congress had directed. Cheney argued that building and testing the prototype Osprey would cost more than the amount appropriated. In the spring of 1992 several congressional supporters of the V-22 threatened to take Cheney to court over the issue. A little later, in the face of suggestions from congressional Republicans that Cheney's opposition to the Osprey was hurting President Bush's reelection campaign, especially in Texas and Pennsylvania where the aircraft would be built, Cheney relented and suggested spending $1.5 billion in fiscal years 1992 and 1993 to develop it. He made clear that he personally still opposed the Osprey and favored a less costly alternative.

<More>

[redpepper]

18. Ain't gone to be any draft ,

Even if bushwick returns to the white house.

[Redleg]

19. Not anywhere near 2/3 of army was cut during Clinton.

Many of the cuts made during Clinton years were planned by Bush I as part of the peace dividend. The fact is that Rummy the dummy discussed wanting to cut two more army divisions (we have only 10 active divisions right now) just before Sep. 11 2001.

It always comes back to Clinton for those reprobate bastards, doesn't it?

[Disturbed]

21. Rethug Lies.

These scum lie about everything that they think will make people vote for their Neo Fascist Regime or not vote at all. They rely on the concept that most people do not check up on their lies and just accept their lies as facts.

[deadparrot]

22. You don't have to do anything. Just smile nice and say "prove it."

[LondonReign2]

23. Here's what you need

http://www.cfr.org/pub5962/lawrence_j_korb/thank_clinton_for_a_speedy_victory_in_iraq.php
(updated to a working link)

As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted, the battle plan that led to the American success was that of General Tommy Franks, an Army officer appointed to head the Central Command by the Clinton administration. More important, the military forces that executed that plan so boldly and bravely were for the most part recruited, trained, and equipped by the Clinton administration.

The first Bush defense budget went into effect on Oct. 1, 2002, and none of the funds in that budget have yet had an impact on the quality of the men and women in the armed services, their readiness for combat, or the weapons they used to obliterate the Iraqi forces.
<snip>

The Clinton administration actually spent more money on defense than had the outgoing administration of the first President Bush. The smaller outlays during the first Bush administration were developed and approved by Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who were then serving as secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff respectively.
<snip>

Not only did Clinton spend a large amount of money on the military; most of it was spent wisely. In the first Persian Gulf War, less than 10 percent of the bombs and missiles that were dropped on Iraq were smart weapons. That number jumped to 70 percent during this war because the Clinton administration ordered large quantities of upgraded munitions that made these ''dumb'' weapons smart. The Clinton administration also invested heavily in the technology that gave the on-scene commanders a much more vivid picture of the battlefield than a decade ago.

It was the Clinton administration that improved the accuracy of the Tomahawk cruise missile and upgraded the Patriot missile, which was so much more effective this time than the original Patriot in the first Persian Gulf War. The Clinton administration also kept the quality of our military personnel high by closing the gap between military and private sector compensation, a gap that the first Bush administration had allowed to grow, and improving retirement and health benefits for military retirees.

--Lawrence J. Korb, director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, was assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

[DrWeird]

24. We wouldn't need a draft...

if Bush hadn't started a senseless war, and the chickenhawks who supported it enlisted.

[Haruspex]

25. We wouldn't even be talking about a draft...

if it wasn't for the fact that it is the Democrats that have authored House Bill 163. Namely Congressman Charles Rangel and other leading Democrats.

Regards

[Hobarticus]

26. Those were cuts put in place by CHENEY, Bush Sr's Sec of Defense!

Clinton had nothing to do with those.

Freeper dumbass.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

27. You should have asked him for proof

That would have thrown him