Endorsement of Herman Cain

On May 21st, Herman Cain, the former Chairman&CEO of Godfather’s Pizza (America’s best pizza restaurant network), announced himself as a candidate for the Presidency.

I support him wholeheartedly, and hereby endorse him, for the following reasons:

1) He supports a strong defense.

2) He supports the FairTax and would advocate for it as President.

3) He has a specific, conservative, free-market plan for the economy – on taxes, spending, natural resources, Obama’s socialized medicine scheme, and outcompeting China.

4) He has a track record as a successful businessman who turned around two failing restaurant chains – Burger King and Godfather’s Pizza.

5) As a businessman, he’s able to admit publicly that he’s been wrong and to correct his plans and policies when he should.

6) He’s not hubrical and doesn’t pontificate about issues he doesn’t understand.

7) He would be amenable to getting the US out of Afghanistan.

8) He opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.

9) He’s an authentic conservative, not a flipflopper.

10) Last but not least, HE CAN WIN.

Bob Gates tries to have it both ways and thus discredits himself yet again

Yesterday, Bob Gates delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, during which he tried to have it both ways. On the one hand, just like he did during the Reagan Gala a few days earlier, he underlined the importance of a strong military and the need to protect modernization spending. He also cited statistics which prove that – as he said during the AEI speech – defense spending is not the cause of America’s fiscal woes: the defense budget for FY2011 constitutes only 3.5% of GDP and less than 15% of the total federal budget, and even total military spending constitutes only ca. 4.5% of GDP.

On the other hand, he falsely claimed that “defense spending must be part of the solution”, i.e. that defense budget cuts must be made in order to reduce the budget deficit. He said: “I have long believed — and I still do — that the defense budget, however large it may be, is not the cause of this country’s fiscal woes. However, as matter of simple arithmetic and political reality, the Department of Defense must be at least part of the solution.” This is false.

Defense cuts constitute no solution at all. Any budget plan calling for defense cuts would constitute no solution. It would be a damaging policy, not a solution. Defense spending – as Gates has acknowledged – is not the cause of America’s fiscal problem, so cutting it will not solve that problem; it would only weaken the US military.

Defense cuts, no matter how deep, would only slightly decrease the budget deficit – as Gates himself has warned time after time. As he has rightly warned, even cutting the defense budget by 10% would reduce the budget deficit by nothing more than a rounding error, yet it would be “catastrophic” for the military.

The FY2011 defense budget constitutes less than 15% of the FY2011 total federal budget, so even eliminating it entirely would not even significantly reduce, let alone eliminate, the annual budget deficit (1.65 trillion USD per year). Cutting the defense budget by 25% (as Barney Frank has proposed) would render the US military totally impotent, and yet, even if made from the FY2012 planned baseline (553 bn), would only slightly reduce the annual budget deficit – by 137.5 bn USD per year.

The federal budget can and must be balanced without defense spending cuts – by significantly reducing domestic spending, discretionary and nondiscretionary alike.

But that’s not the only ridiculous thing Gates has said. He has claimed that the US should keep three Army BCTs in Europe, even though the probability of a Russian invasion of Western Europe is almost 0% and the EU is capable (though unwilling) of defending itself.

Gates has claimed that Pakistan is a crucial ally fighting against AQ and the Taleban and that the money given to it was not wasted. The contrary is the truth. Proof:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/pakistans_military_elite_train.html

He has said that he understands those who believe that the only reason the nation faces tough choices in defense spending is that the Pentagon’s budget isn’t as large as it should be. “

Absent a catastrophic international conflict or new existential threat, we are not likely to return to Cold War levels of defense expenditures, at least as a share of national wealth anytime soon,” he said. “Nor do I believe we need to.”

The threats and potential adversaries the nation faces today are dangerous and daunting for their complexity, variety and unpredictability, Gates said. “But as a matter of national survival,” he added, “they do not approach the scale of the Soviet military threat that provided the political and strategic rationale for defense expenditures that consumed a significant portion of our economy.”

But Gates has offered a straw man argument. AFAIK, no one has argued for reinstating Cold War era levels of defense spending. Most analysts have argued only for raising the level of defense expenditures to 4% of GDP. Throughout all of the Cold War, except the late 1940s, America’s defense spending was higher than that. Throughout most of the Cold War, it was much higher than that. The FY2011 defense budget is woefully inadequate, and even the FY2012 DOD budget request is insufficient if the Heritage Foundation is to be believed.

And China is a bigger threat than the Soviet Union. It has the weapons to challenge the US across the whole spectrum of warfare – ground, aerial, naval, nuclear, cyber, and spacial. It has a much larger population and a much larger economy. It can challenge the US with regular and irregular weapons, while the USSR could only mount a conventional invasion of other countries and threaten the US with nuclear weapons.

Of course, China isn’t the only threat to the US. There’s also Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria. But Gates is a veteran in downplaying the capabilities of America’s enemies.

Gates then lied that:

“We cancelled or curtailed modernization programs that were egregiously over-budget, behind schedule, dependent on unproven technology, supplied a niche requirement that could be met in other ways, or that simply did not pass the common sense test:  A $200 billion future combat system for the Army that, a decade after IEDS and EFPs began to kill or maim thousands of our troops, was based on lightweight, flat-bottomed vehicles that relied on near-perfect information awareness to detect the enemy before he could strike.  Or a missile defense program that called for a fleet of laser-bearing 747s circling slowly inside enemy air space to get off a shot at a missile right after launch.”

Most of the programs he killed in 2009 and last year were not egregiously over-budget, egregiously behind schedule, dependent on unproven technology, nor meeting niche, narrow requirements. The F-22, MKV, KEI, CSARX, AC-X, Next Generation Bomber, and Zumwalt class programs were absolutely necessary and were designed to meet a wide range of missions. The MKV, for example, would’ve enhanced GBIs and and SM-3s.

As for the ABL program, although a B747 serves as a prototype for it, it envisions a fleet of laser armed Hercules planes flying OUTSIDE an enemy’s airspace and shooting his ballistic missiles shortly after launch – because that’s when they’re most vulnerable. The ABL plane seeks out the enemy missile’s weakest part – its fuel tank – and shoots it, thus causing it (and the whole missile) to explode. It is affordable and deserves taxpayers’ money. It offers the best chance of intercepting enemy missiles. It works well against TBMs (three successful tests in a row), but it also can intercept ICBMs, which have thinner skins than TBMs.

Gates has also falsely claimed that:

“At the same time, we made new investments in higher priorities related to the current wars and, in some cases, re-started efforts that filled a genuine military need for the future – such as a follow-on bomber for the Air Force, the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle, and a new Marine amphibious tractor.”

But the truth is that Secretary Gates closed the nascent NGB program in April 2009 – thus not allowing it to exist on anything other than drawing boards – and did not request any money for it until 2010. Even now, though, he requests too little funding and calls for too few bombers – 80-100 when the USAF needs hundreds. So Gates is behaving with the NGB program like Robert McNamara behaved with the ABM program: he has publicly acqueisesced to it, but he’s privately sabotaging it. As for the USMC’s amphibious tractor – he has cancelled that program.

Gates then said that:

“The goal is that any new weapons system should meet benchmarks for cost, schedule and performance while minimizing “requirements creep” – the kind of indiscipline that leads to $25 million howitzers, $500 million helicopters, $2 billion bombers, and $7 billion submarines. “

But there have never been any $2 billion bombers or $7 billion submarines. Even a single B-2 didn’t cost $2 bn – even if you include R&D costs, in which case the unit cost is $1.2 billion. And they would’ve been much cheaper if the Air Force had received the 132 planned B-2s instead of the 21 it got. The decision to end the production of B-2s did not save taxpayers a single cent. As for submarines – the planned unit cost of next generation SSBNs was indeed, initially, $7 bn per unit, but that has been brought down to $5 bn per unit and would’ve been brought down even further, to $2 bn per unit, if the DOD had chosen the Virginia class design as the basis for the SSBNX design, because the DOD would’ve skipped the R&D phase this way.

Gates also tried to defend Obama’s indefensible call for further radical defense budget cuts:

“What’s being proposed by the President is nothing close to the dramatic cuts of the past.  For example, defense spending in constant dollars declined by roughly a third between 1985 and 1998.  What’s being considered today, assuming all $400 billion comes from DoD over 12 years, corresponds to a projected reduction of about 5 percent in constant dollars – or slightly less than keeping pace with inflation.”

The truth is that these cuts WOULD be dramatic. They would be large, in nominal terms and per year alike. Obama has proposed to cut defense spending by $400 billion over the next 12 FYs, i.e. by about $33 bn per fiscal year. As Gates has acknowledged, mere efficiencies will not produce enough savings. To meet this arbitrary goal, which was dictated before any review had taken place, the DOD will have to weaken the military itself, e.g. by giving up some crucial capabilities.

So Gates is lying.

During the 1970s, defense spending shrank from ca.$500 billion in FY1968 to slightly over $320 billion in FY1981, that’s true. During the 1990s, defense spending was more than halved. But these defense budget cuts proposed by Obama WOULD be dramatic, and Obama has proposed to impose them on top of the cuts he has already administered. Gutting the US military is Obama’s goal. These cuts would not weaken the military accidentally; they are DESIGNED to gut the military.

Gates has once again done the DOD and the US military a great disservice by defending and rationalizing defense cut proposals. His words will undoubtely be cherry-picked and used by liberals, libertarians, and other opponents of a strong defense.

Gates has flip-flopped even faster than I predicted he would. In April, after Obama delivered his ridiculous speech, I wrote:

“When Obama first announced his plan to cut defense spending by $400 bn over the next 12 FYs and gut America’s defense completely (a process he begun in 2009), on April 13th, 2011, I asked publicly how Robert Gates would respond. Gates has spoken out against further defense cuts, especially significant ones, calling them “math not strategy”, so I asked whether Gates would oppose Obama or flip-flop again (as he has done many times as SECDEF). Of course, I suspected what the answer would be: that he will flip-flop again and insist that Obama’s new round of defense cuts (motivated by the need to find money to finance Obama’s bloated socialist domestic programs at the cost of America’s defense) is justifiable.

Gates has not yet said so, but he has already begun to weaken under Obama’s pressure, and he’s now acqueiescing (spl?) to Obama’s defense cut demands.”

The answer is clear now: Yes, Secretary Gates has flip-flopped. He’s now rationalizing the very defense cuts he originally opposed and warned against.

And so, he has utterly discredited himself yet again, thus proving that he’s the absolutely worst Secretary of Defense America has ever had.

Andy Maheshwari fails to refute my arguments

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Looks like some ‘declinism’ proponents can’t get anything right.

2 days ago, AT (a widely-known conservative e-zin to which I occassionally contribute) published an article written by Andy Maheshwari, a proponent of the thesis that America is in a decline spiral while China is destined to become the world’s top dog. He backed up his assertion with false arguments, such as the idea that China’s high-speed rail network makes its infrastructure superior to America’s, that military spending is bankrupting the US (a common myth), etc.

In a blogpost written and published yesterday, I debunked some of his arguments (the most ludicrous ones), remaining firm, but polite.

But it wasn’t more than several hours before Mr Maheshwari hastily wrote an angry response full of factual errors and offensive statements (e.g. accusations that I’m unable to think, let alone to think logically) in which he does not title me “Mr Mazurak”, and calls me simply “Mazurak”, instead. Yet, he called my refutal a “juvenile response”.

But let’s ignore his arrogant style, his angry tone, and his offensive statements. Let’s debunk only his factual errors. The problem is: they are legion. Like his original article, his response to my refutal is full of factual errors.

So, his first claim is:

“1. Mazurak starts by casting aspersions onChina’s official fertility rate of 1.8 children/woman by quoting CIA’s estimates of 1.54 children/woman. On what grounds Mazurak believes CIA is supreme authority instead of official Chinese census? In my article I quotedChina’s official census numbers. This does not make it a “factual error” which “begs correction”. Mazurak’s accusation that I am so naïve and un-informed that I do not even know the basic facts of replacement fertility (2.1 children/woman) is childish. I never contested China’s gradual aging. Why he would resort to such non sense is not clear.”

But I never accused him of not knowing the population replacement rate (2.1 CPW), I merely underlined it to underline the huge demographic crisis (yes, crisis – to call it anything else would be an understatement) that awaits China some 20-30 years from now. As for official Chinese data – why does Mr Maheshwari claim that the Chinese government is a trustworthy source of information, and why does he discount the CIA as less credible? The Chinese government routinely falsifies statistics on many issues (as do other Communist governments), so why believe it on demographics? China routinely falsifies its statistics on military spending, so why not falsify demographic data, too?

BUT even if Chinese data is correct, the Chinese total fertility rate is still well below the population replacement rate (2.1 CPW).

Almost every demographer admits (as does Fareed Zakaria) that China will, someday, face the 4+2+1 crisis: one child will have to support two parents and three grandparents. Or, as Mark Steyn has correctly said, “China (…) will get old before it gets rich”. The UN predicts that by 2050, America’s median age will be 36 but China’s will be 44 and Europe’s will be 53.

Then, Mr Maheshwari wrote:

“2. Total Population: We must consider [the] total population, not just birth rate.”

But I didn’t mention the birth rate at all. I mentioned the total fertility rate, which is a different thing: it shows how many children, on average, does a Chinese woman give birth to during her lifetime.

Mr Maheshwari then invoked Europe’s demographic problems, which I never denied (and never even mentioned). Why did he mention them is not known. They were, in any case, irrelevant to my blogpost, which pertained exclusively to the US and Asia. The US will fare very well without Europe, I can assure Mr Maheshwari of that. Fewer Europeans translates into fewer noisy complainers.

He also mentioned American nuclear families and contrasted them with Chinese and Indian multi-generational households, saying that “individualism works only if you are fruitful and multiply”.

Well, Americans ARE multiplying – at a rate of 2.06 children per woman (per the CIA World Factbook) – and also get a million working-age immigrants (who are desperate to find a job) every year. Just a decade ago, America’s population was less than 300 million people. Today, if the 2010 US Census is to be believed, the populace is 308 million people and the CIA World Factbook says it’s 312 million people. Unlike China, the US doesn’t have to fear a demographic death spiral. It should rather be worried about how to accomodate such a huge populace, and whether the current immigration rate is sustainable. (Hint: it is not.)

Of course, not all Americans are multiplying: most urban women have 0 kids or only one child. But small town/rural women are procreating and it’s normal for a rural American female to have at least 2 children. Thus, urban liberal women are dying out, while rural conservative women are multiplying, which is good news for me as a conservative.

Next, bullet trains. Mr Maheshwari has apparently read none of the studies I’ve cited, and still claims that bullet trains work great in Asia and Europe. He cited the Japanese and French high-speed-rail networks.

First, Japan. During the early 1960s, railroads were the only widely-available mechanized means of transport in Japan. But after the first Shinkansen lines were opened, railroads’ share of the passenger market began to decline and by the 1990s it collapsed to a dismal percentage. It still remains small. Data per Randal O’Toole of the CATO Institute.

As for France: the 100 million passengers figure pertains to the TGV fleet’s entire 26 year period of operation from 1981 to 2007. 100 million passengers divided by 26 years is less than 4 million passengers per year! Moreover, in France, the only profitable high-speed rail line (LGV) is the Paris-Lyon-Marseille line, which connects France’s 3 biggest cities. Other LGV lines are unprofitable. Furthermore, French and German travel patterns are not much different from American ones: 77% of Frenchmen and Germans travel by car, and less than 10% by train. In the EU-15 countries (the countries which were members of the EU before 2004), the COMBINED passenger market share of trains and buses is a dismal 8%! And this despite the onerous taxes on motorists and huge subsidies for railroads. The fact that Japan and Europe have wasted tens of billions of euros and yen on HSR proves nothing. Their subsidies to railroads are generous, but they’re utterly uneconomical.

Mr Maheshwari, “a total waste of money” is a generous term for high speed rail. This technology has failed abysmally to prevent railroads’ decline, just like you’ve failed abysmally to refute any of my points.

For unknown reasons, Mr Maheshwari claims that ”Mazurak fraudulently claims I advocate high speed rail for US.”

I never made that claim. I merely said that he has advertised HSR as “proof that China is building worthy stuff”. As the evidence I’ve cited in both refutals shows, it is not worthy stuff, not even for China.

As for the cost of the Iraqi and Afghan wars:

Mr Maheshwari cited the ludicrous claims of the utterly-discredited liberal pseudoeconomist Joseph Stiglitz as “evidence” that the Iraqi and Afghan wars cost $3-6 trillion and the Iraqi war itself cost $3-4 trillion. This false claim, which Stiglitz has repeated again and again, and which he has “revised” upwards (i.e. falsified still further to exaggerate it even further), has already been refuted on AT long ago, by Randall Hoven, yet Mr Maheshwari claims that Stiglitz’ figures are credible. The truth is that they are blatant lies; the CBO says that the cost of the Iraqi war through August 2010 was $709 bn (over 8 fiscal years), so Stiglitz’ lowest figure was 323% off the mark.

Says Hoven: “The correct answer to my question, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is $709 billion. The Iraq War cost $709 billion. Why Carville, Bilmes, and Nobel-winning economist Stiglitz thought the answer was $3 trillion is anybody’s guess. But what’s a 323% error among friends?

The CBO breaks that cost down over the eight calendar years of 2003-2010. Below is a picture of federal deficits over those years with and without Iraq War spending. (…) The sum of all the deficits from 2003 through 2010 is $4.73 trillion. Subtract the entire Iraq War cost and you still have a sum of $4.02 trillion.”

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So yes, the claim that the GWOT cost $3-4 trillion is a blatant lie – one already disproven on AT long ago. Unless one believes the CBO is deliberately lying and is less credible than an utterly-discredited liberal economist with an axe to grind.

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As for the human cost: it’s been dramatic indeed, and as I wrote earlier, I oppose the Iraqi, Afghan, and Libyan wars. But as tragic as these human costs are, they are not even comparable to the costs of most previous wars waged by the US, including the War of 1812 (which James Madison started with the applause of Thomas Jefferson), the Civil War (620,000 KIA, hundreds of thousands of soldiers wounded, not even counting civilians), WW1 (114,000 Americans killed), WW2 (400,000 Americans killed, millions wounded), the Korean War (over 50,000 KIA), and the Vietnam War (59,000 KIA). Compared to these conflicts, the Iraqi and Afghan wars were nothing. The Civil War ruined half of the country, and the Vietnam War caused a second Civil War in cities and on campus. Moreover, Maheshwari has utterly failed to mention that I opposed, and continue to oppose, the Afghan, Iraqi, and Libyan wars.

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Trying to exaggerate America’s military spending – like its other opponents – Mr Mehashwari wrote: “Counting only “Defense” budget is fraudulent and deceptive. You must count State Department, foreign aid largesse, Veterans benefits, military retirement etc.”

Firstly, the State Department’s budget includes the foreign aid budget. Both of them have nothing to do with the DOD (the DOS frequently quarrels with the latter). But let’s lump them and veterans’ benefits together with military spending, just for the sake of the argument.

According to official government data, in FY2010, America’s total military spending was $664 bn; the DOS’ budget was $27 bn; the VA’s was $53 bn; the DOE’s defense-related programs cost $16 bn. In total, that’s $760 bn, i.e. 21.(11)% of the total FY2010 federal budget ($3.6 trillion) and just 5.19% of GDP. And that is only if you count all of these nonmilitary items – the DOS, foreign aid, and veterans’ benefits.

Mr Mehashwari invoked the anti-military, utterly discredited NY Slimes newspaper (known for blatant lies about military affairs, the Middle East, and John McCain’s sex life) as credible sources of information, ignoring the fact that fewer and fewer people believe or read the NYT, with its readership shrinking precipitously. By the way, its defense budget and total military budget numbers are factually incorrect.

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Despite Mehashwari’s claim, the Founding Fathers were not pacifists or noninterventionists. Most of them (including George Washington, John Adams, John Jay, and James Madison) supported a strong defense, and they even included a commandment for the Feds to provide for it in the Constitution. George Washington urged the Congress to “provide for the common defense”. They weren’t halcyon noninterventionists, either. Thomas Jefferson, often invoked as a leading noninterventionist, was the first US president to intervene abroad, in North Africa. His successor, James Madison, invaded Canada, putatively to punish the British for wrongdoings, and in reality because the War Hawks demanded Canada’s conquest. In 1812, Jefferson promised that the conquest of that country would be “a mere matter of marching”, although things turned out quite differently.

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Robert Taft was an isolationist, not a conservative, and George Kennan was the author of the containment strategy, which involved a system of alliances and bases around the USSR – the ones which Mehashwari now decries as obsolete (most of them are). In any case, the claim that America is an empire is a blatant lie, as I proved on another occasion on AT.

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Mr Maheshwari then invoked an utterly discredited book my Seymour Melman as proof. Well, if that’s where he gets his information from, I’m not surprised he makes ludicrous claims. Like the claim that America’s military spending causes a huge human and industrial cost (military spending does not cause huma costs – war decisions do) and is cancerous for the economy. It’s actually a tiny fraction of America’s economy, and the cost of the GWOT and overseas bases is a rounding error in America’s GDP. Military spending actually benefits the economy, as it brings about orders for products and thus “creates” jobs.

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He then debunked a straw-man argument, which I never made: “Can anyone seriously believe Mazurak’s non-sense that technologically advanced South Korea with twice the population and 40 times the economy of third-world North Korea needs US to defend itself?” I never made such a claim. But North Korea has nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which South Korea does not, and the South – like Japan – needs American troops as a psychological REASSURANCE that, if push comes to shove, the US will defend it from the DPRK and its ally China. Likewise, Japan doesn’t have nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles. American troops are needed there as a visible sign that the US stands by them. Both of these countries have smaller economies, and vastly smaller militaries and defense budgets, than Communist China, a sworn enemy of Japan.

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Another straw man claim: “And is it sensible to station troops in Korea, Japan, Europe and dozens of other regions 65 years after WWII?” But I never claimed it’s wise to keep them in Europe and the Middle East. I’ve repeatedly called for withdrawing them from both regions. As for Korea and Japan – it is wise to station troops there for as long as China and North Korea – longtime allies – threaten Japan, South Korea, and/or the US.

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Mr Maheshwari apparently wishes to see greater federal spending on “the infrastructure” and “education”, combined with massive military spending cuts. But that would be a suicide. Military spending cuts will never balance, or even significantly reduce, the budget deficit.

Federal spending on “the infrastructure” and “education” is actually actively damaging, because it comes with strings attached and therefore enslaves state and local governments to the Feds, which allows the Feds to issue a myriad of diktats every year, all of which make the infrastructure and American schools worse, not better. And the federal government is actually the most wasteful, least efficient distributor of infrastructure and education funds.

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As President Reagan and many others have observed, American schools have deteriorated significantly since the federal government became involved with them. Before the 1970s, every child was graduating knowing how to read, write and count, and very knowledgeable about history, geography, and science. Today, most HS graduates can’t pass a university entrance exam, and 20% of Americans can’t find the US on a world map.

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The US spends more on education – in absolute numbers and per student – than any other country in the world, yet its students rank dismally in PISA rankings. The solution is not to cut defense spending and pump more money into schools. The answer is to end federal meddling with (and spending on) education and reserve that issue to state and local governments and to parents.

Mr Maheshwari asks whether the US would allow China to put troops on the US-Mexican border, rebuild New Orleans, and send American HS dropouts and drug addicts to schools and workplaces. The US doesn’t need China for that. The US-Mexican border would quickly calm down if a fence would be built and if the War on Drugs was ended. New Orleans has been (mostly) rebuilt, and hosted the 2008 Canada-US-Mexico Summit. As for HS dropouts and drug addicts – this is none of the federal government’s business. The private sector is the best job creator, parents are the best educators of children, and the number of drug addicts would shrink greatly if the War on Drugs was ended.

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The federal government’s job is to protect the country, not to spend money on HS dropouts and drug addicts.

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Mr Maheshwari is clearly ignorant of this. He asks,  ”Why shouldn’t our young people rebuild America instead of squandering it all in foreign wars and bases?” By “it all”, he probably means America’s national wealth. But, as I proved earlier, only 4.6% of America’s national wealth is spent annually on the military, and most of it is not squandered, but rather spent on America’s defense; less than 25% of it is spent on Afghanistan, Iraq, unneeded bases, and Libya. Plus, as I said, rebuilding America is the job of state and local governments (and the private sector), not the federal government, and America’s infrastructure is the best in the world. Mr Maheshwari also ignores the Constitution, which COMMANDS the federal government to provide for the common defense (vide Art. IV) but reserves all issues –  except those explicitly authorized to the federal government – for state governments and the people. Defense is a Constitutional obligation of the federal government. The infrastructure is not, and neither is education. Both of them are reserved to the states and the private sector.

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The federal government is the worst possible financier and manager of education and the infrastructure. Parents, the private sector, local governments, and state governments would manage it best and should pay for them. And the idea that Americans have to choose between a strong military on the one hand, and good schools and high-quality infrastructure on the other hand, is ludicrous. The US can afford to have all three – there’s no need to cut defense spending to provide for schools and the infrastructure – but these must be provided by the entities best suited to provide them: defense by the federal government, and the rest by state and local governments and the private sector.

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Mr Mehashwari concluded his article thus:

“In India there is an old saying “Vinaash Kaale Vipreet Buddhi”, “when the time of destruction approaches, the intellect becomes self-destructive”. Mazurak’s warped thinking and attacks are provocative, but without any merit. Instead of attacking my article, Mazurak and his readers should think hard whether the founders were right, and who has America’s best interests at heart. If readers still get brainwashed in Mazurak’s lullabies, it will be a tragedy for US and all of us.”

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My statements are not lullabies, they are statements of fact. As for my “attacks” – I attacked his claims, not himself. I attacked them because they’re factually wrong. The Founders were right, but the Founders did not support pacifism nor noninterventionism, and most of them supported a strong defense. Instead of lecturing me about the Founding Founders, he should study their biographies and their statements.

In any case, defense spending (or even total military spending) is not a threat to the Republic, its economy, or its public finances. Total military spending constitutes only 4.6% of GDP. It’s hardly a threat to the US economy.

China is not America’s banker

China is not America’s banker, contrary to what many people have claimed. They’ve also claimed that because China is supposedly America’s banker, America must continue the Kissingerian policy of appeasement towards China. But they’re wrong.

China is not America’s banker. China must buy American T-bonds because it cannot buy anything else. It cannot buy the T-bonds of other countries, nor gold, nor anything else. The huge amount of money that China earns every year on exports is so big that it can be invested only in American T-bonds.

America doesn’t need to ask China to buy US T-bonds, because it could ask someone else to do so (e.g. Japan). Most of America’s public debt is NOT owed to China. 40% of it is owed to the Federal Reserve and other governmental agencies; i.e. this part is owed by one part of the US government to another. Of the other 60% part, only a small part is owed to China. Most of the foreign debt owed by the US to foreign countries is NOT owed to China.

Also, America is China’s biggest export market. The US can buy cheap products from emerging countries other than China (e.g. Vietnam, India), so it doesn’t need China as a producer. (If the Congress instituted protective tariffs, America wouldn’t need any imported products from anyone, except fuels, and the American industry would rebound.) But China cannot survive without America as an export market. 17.7% of China’s export goes to the US. America is China’s biggest export market. China’s total exported cargos, as of 2008, were worth $1435 bn. 17.7% of 1435 bn is $253.995 bn. Only an economic suicider would give up such a huge amount of money. And China would do so if it ruined the US economy (e.g. by selling its stock of American T-bonds).

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html

America doesn’t need China. But China needs America.

Russia threatens to withdraw from New START and launch a new Cold War

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110518/wl_afp/russiaeuusmissiledefensepoliticsmedvedev_20110518102509

For years, liberals like Obama, Clinton, Gates (the worst SECDEF America has ever had), and McFaul have been assuring the American people that Russia is no longer a threat to the US, that it’s a solid partner of the US, and that there’s no reason to fear it. They’ve also sabotaged many crucial defense programs which were designed, inter alia, to protect the US from Russia.

In 2009, they gave up plans to deploy missile defense systems in Europe and signed a disastrous New START treaty (unfavorable to the US, favorable to Russia) to appease the Kremlin. They got no concessions in return, but at least they were able to claim they had “repaired relations with Russia”, or so they thought.

Well, they were wrong, because just like Adolf Hitler, Putinist Russia cannot ever be appeased, so a country can never make sufficient concessions to satisfy the Kremlin.

When the New START treaty was signed, President Medvedev and Foreign Minister Lavrov repeatedly warned that developing American missile defenses or deploying US missile defense elements in Europe would be a violation of the treaty and would cause Russia to withdraw from it.

Recently, Medvedev has AGAIN threatened that Russia will withdraw from the treaty if such elements are deployed. He has also threatened a new Cold War and a nuclear weapons buildup if that happens. He has demanded that the West beg RUSSIA for permission to deploy such systems AND to operate them (so e.g. if Iran launches a Musudan-ri IRBM at Europe, American personnel would have to beg Russian officers or Russia’s Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, for permission to use these systems).

The latter threats are not credible, because Russia cannot afford to carry them out, but the former threat is credible. (And if it’s carried out, good riddance to that treaty, which isn’t even worth the paper it is printed on!)

But they do show that a country can never successfully appease Russia or make sufficient concessions to satisfy the Kremlin. So appeasing Moscow is pointless.

The Moscow Kremlin

The Moscow Kremlin (usually called “The Kremlin”) is a large palace complex. So I’ve compiled this list of the most important buildings of the Moscow Kremlin:

1) The Kremlin Senate building

The Senate building is the one which you can see during military parades’ transmissions by Russian TV stations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEn9A1ugHAo

This building was built during the 18th century. There is a Russian flag flying over that building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlin_Senate

2) The Grand Palace

Formerly the residence of pre-1689 Russian tsars, the Grand Palace is the building closest to the Moskva river. You can see it during the prologues of Russian/Soviet military parades, and many TV reporters use the Grand Palace as a background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grand_Kremlin_Palace,_Moscow.jpg

3) The Spasskaya Tower (the Tower of the Savior)

This is the tower near the Red Square on which there is a huge clock and inside which there are bells. At the base of the Tower is the Spasskaya Gate (the Gate of the Savior), through which vehicles can enter and exit the Kremlin’s grounds. The Russian Minister of Defense departs this gate every May 9th, shortly after 10:00AM Moscow Time (GMT+3) to begin the review of the troops of the Moscow Garrison before the Victory Day Parade.

Why Russia is no friend of America

(Originally posted on AT)

G. Murphy Donovan argued earlier this year on AT that Russia is such a great partner of the United States that it could be admitted to NATO. To back his assertion up, he provided a number of “reasons”, including Harley Davidson motorbikes, Russian women and such.

One of the commenters, Dean from Ohio, dubbed this

“This is the nuttiest assertion I have ever read on AT. The Russians have never been a free people, and have no conception of it. Their polity has been tyranny for 980 years of the last 1,000. (…) Russia and China are strategic adversaries.”

Donovan argues that Russia, with a balanced budget, very low public debt, and huge reserves of oil and natural gas, is a rich uncle the US could use. Does he really want the US to be dependent on Russia for loans and fossil fuels? Isn’t America already exposed as it is beholden to the OPEC cartel and to China and Japan? He wants the US to be dependent on Russia for both money and fossil fuels?

(The US wouldn’t need to borrow money nor import oil from anyone if it radically reduced domestic federal spending and opened its vast fossil fuel reserves to drillers, but that’s another story.)

The Russian economy is a colossus with feet of clay; it is more dependent on revenue from oil and NG than it was during the 1990s or than the Soviet economy was during the Cold War. Ditto the Russian federal budget, which is based on the assumption that oil costs no less than 60 USD per barrel.

Donovan has suggested that female Russians should be admitted to the West visa-free and duty-free. Apparently, he hasn’t heard that the Kremlin uses Russian ladies as spies-seducers. (Western men, beware.) Anna Kushchenko (Chapman) is the best known example.

While praising Russian women, he has slandered their American and Western European counterparts:

“Most female athletes in Europe and America look like East German weightlifters or Madeline Albright.  Russian girls, on the other hand, have changed the viewing habits of millions worldwide.”

Perhaps he has never seen Katie Hoff, Natalie Coughlin or Janet Evans. Nor has he seen any of the beauties presented every year during Miss USA competitions. Another American beauty queen, Alexandria Mills, is the current Miss World. And besides them, there are legions of other beautiful women in the US. If Donovan hasn’t seen them, that means he hasn’t looked for them.

Why would he slander is female compatriots is a mystery.

Of course, which country has beautiful women is irrelevant to foreign policy. Donovan argues that because the US and Russia have pretty much “cornered the megaton market”, a „nuclear-near-monopoly” should be created by admitting Russia into NATO.  Problem is that, as has been documented on AT mutiple times, Russia is an opponent, not ally, of the US, and is actively working to harm the US in many ways. This is because Russia’s current rulers, most of whom are KGB thugs like Vladimir Putin and Sergei Ivanov, believe that whatever is bad for the US is good for Russia.

It has been selling weapons (including missiles, fighterplanes, SAMs and Kalashnikov rifles) to America’s enemies, including Iran, Venezuela, and Syria, and shielding them (as well as North Korea) from serious UNSC sanctions. It has been selling tons of weapons to Communist China, the biggest threat the US is facing right now. It still backs the regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, thus maintaining anti-American outposts in the USA’s backyard. A real friend doesn’t behave like that. And its own defense doctrine presents NATO as Russia’s principal enemy.

Donovan asserts that “grand ideas like capitalism and democracy (of a sort) are thriving in Russia — in Western Europe, not so much.” This is utter gibberish. Russia’s current economic system is statist, government-directed pseudocapitalism similar to that maintained by European countries. Important economic decisions are made by Putin himself, not by entrepreneurs. Privately-owned corporations are forced to operate under vast, unclear, selectively-enforced regulations and a biased, corrupt judiciary. State-owned corporations are managed directly by Putin himself, and by meddling with them, he has worsened their financial situation. Gazprom, for example, has a 50 bn debt, equal to one year’s turnover of that company. Most of the managers of state-owned enterprises are Putin’s cronies and their sons, as reported by Boris Nemtsov.

Donovan furthermore wrote, “Today, America has more in common with Russia than it does with many nations in Europe.” Unless he meant Eastern European countries, with which the US indeed has little in common, he’s wrong.

America is a libertarian democracy which guarantees individual liberties to a greater degree than any country in the world. Russia is an authoritarian thugocracy run by Vladimir Putin, with every civil liberty listed by the Russian constitution only tolerated by him to the extend it doesn’t inhibit him from ruling the country. Dissenters are jailed (like Boris Nemtsov) or assassinated (like Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko). The US is a federal republic where most prerogatives are reserved to the states and the people, and they have the means to defend their rights in federal courts. Russia is a federation only on paper; most of its federal subjects (oblasts, federal cities and krais) are ruled directly from the Kremlin, and Putin meddles with Russian republics. In some, though (e.g. Chechnya and Ingushetia), neither the Russian law nor the Russian government rule.

In the US, all people are equal regardless of ethnic origin or religion. In Russia, the Kremlin-backed Nashi thugs are persecuting ethnic minorities under the “Russia for Russians” slogan.

In the US, the people are the superiors of the government, which is subservient to them. The Tea Party movement has shown this by engineering the biggest GOP House election victory in many decades. As Ronald Reagan said,”We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.”

In Russia, the government is the superior of the people and owns them. It can order them to do anything and confiscate anything from them.

The US was founded on the basis of, and because of, the belief that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments should be derived only from the consent of the people. America has always been a Democratic Republic, whereas for all of its history except the 1990s, Russia has been an authoritarian or totalitarian state, whether under the Tsars, the Bolsheviks, or now under Putin.

Say what you want to say about America’s Western European partners, but most of them still believe in the same ideals Americans believe in: democracy, human rights, and political pluralism.

That does not mean that Russia can never be America’s friend or even ally. During the War of 1812, Russia helped mediate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended that war. During the Civil War, as Oliver W. Holmes wrote, “Russia was America’s friend even when the world was our enemy”, and refused to recognize the Confederacy while Britain and France planned to recognize it as an independent state. During WW2, the US and the Soviet Union were allies (albeit only for pragmatic reasons). And Russia was quite friendly towards the US during the 1990s, albeit chiefly because it was weak.

Nonetheless, a Russia governed by men like Putin and Ivanov, with an anti-American foreign policy, cannot be a partner, let alone an ally, of the US. If, and only if, the Putin regime collapses someday and is replaced by a pro-American government, a Russo-American alliance can be formed. 

G. Murphy Donovan recently argued on AT that Russia is such a great partner of the United States that it could be admitted to NATO. To back his assertion up, he provided a number of “reasons”, including Harley Davidson motorbikes, Russian women and such.

One of the commenters, Dean from Ohio, dubbed this

“This is the nuttiest assertion I have ever read on AT. The Russians have never been a free people, and have no conception of it. Their polity has been tyranny for 980 years of the last 1,000. (…) Russia and China are strategic adversaries.”

 

Donovan argues that Russia, with a balanced budget, very low public debt, and huge reserves of oil and natural gas, is a rich uncle the US could use. Does he really want the US to be dependent on Russia for loans and fossil fuels? Isn’t America already exposed as it is beholden to the OPEC cartel and to China and Japan? He wants the US to be dependent on Russia for both money and fossil fuels?

 

(The US wouldn’t need to borrow money nor import oil from anyone if it radically reduced domestic federal spending and opened its vast fossil fuel reserves to drillers, but that’s another story.)

 

The Russian economy is a colossus with feet of clay; it is more dependent on revenue from oil and NG than it was during the 1990s or than the Soviet economy was during the Cold War. Ditto the Russian federal budget, which is based on the assumption that oil costs no less than 60 USD per barrel.

 

Donovan has suggested that female Russians should be admitted to the West visa-free and duty-free. Apparently, he hasn’t heard that the Kremlin uses Russian ladies as spies-seducers. (Western men, beware.) Anna Kushchenko (Chapman) is the best known example.

 

While praising Russian women, he has slandered their American and Western European counterparts:

 

“Most female athletes in Europe and America look like East German weightlifters or Madeline Albright.  Russian girls, on the other hand, have changed the viewing habits of millions worldwide.”

 

Perhaps he has never seen Katie Hoff, Natalie Coughlin or Janet Evans. Nor has he seen any of the beauties presented every year during Miss USA competitions. Another American beauty queen, Alexandria Mills, is the current Miss World. And besides them, there are legions of other beautiful women in the US. If Donovan hasn’t seen them, that means he hasn’t looked for them.

 

Why would he slander is female compatriots is a mystery.

 

Of course, which country has beautiful women is irrelevant to foreign policy. Donovan argues that because the US and Russia have pretty much “cornered the megaton market”, a „nuclear-near-monopoly” should be created by admitting Russia into NATO.  Problem is that, as has been documented on AT mutiple times, Russia is an opponent, not ally, of the US, and is actively working to harm the US in many ways. This is because Russia’s current rulers, most of whom are KGB thugs like Vladimir Putin and Sergei Ivanov, believe that whatever is bad for the US is good for Russia.

 

It has been selling weapons (including missiles, fighterplanes, SAMs and Kalashnikov rifles) to America’s enemies, including Iran, Venezuela, and Syria, and shielding them (as well as North Korea) from serious UNSC sanctions. It has been selling tons of weapons to Communist China, the biggest threat the US is facing right now. It still backs the regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, thus maintaining anti-American outposts in the USA’s backyard. A real friend doesn’t behave like that. And its own defense doctrine presents NATO as Russia’s principal enemy.

 

Donovan asserts that “grand ideas like capitalism and democracy (of a sort) are thriving in Russia — in Western Europe, not so much.” This is utter gibberish. Russia’s current economic system is statist, government-directed pseudocapitalism similar to that maintained by European countries. Important economic decisions are made by Putin himself, not by entrepreneurs. Privately-owned corporations are forced to operate under vast, unclear, selectively-enforced regulations and a biased, corrupt judiciary. State-owned corporations are managed directly by Putin himself, and by meddling with them, he has worsened their financial situation. Gazprom, for example, has a 50 bn debt, equal to one year’s turnover of that company. Most of the managers of state-owned enterprises are Putin’s cronies and their sons, as reported by Boris Nemtsov.

 

Donovan furthermore wrote, “Today, America has more in common with Russia than it does with many nations in Europe.” Unless he meant Eastern European countries, with which the US indeed has little in common, he’s wrong.

 

America is a libertarian democracy which guarantees individual liberties to a greater degree than any country in the world. Russia is an authoritarian thugocracy run by Vladimir Putin, with every civil liberty listed by the Russian constitution only tolerated by him to the extend it doesn’t inhibit him from ruling the country. Dissenters are jailed (like Boris Nemtsov) or assassinated (like Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko). The US is a federal republic where most prerogatives are reserved to the states and the people, and they have the means to defend their rights in federal courts. Russia is a federation only on paper; most of its federal subjects (oblasts, federal cities and krais) are ruled directly from the Kremlin, and Putin meddles with Russian republics. In some, though (e.g. Chechnya and Ingushetia), neither the Russian law nor the Russian government rule.

 

In the US, all people are equal regardless of ethnic origin or religion. In Russia, the Kremlin-backed Nashi thugs are persecuting ethnic minorities under the “Russia for Russians” slogan.

 

In the US, the people are the superiors of the government, which is subservient to them. The Tea Party movement has shown this by engineering the biggest GOP House election victory in many decades. As Ronald Reagan said,”We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.”

 

In Russia, the government is the superior of the people and owns them. It can order them to do anything and confiscate anything from them.

 

The US was founded on the basis of, and because of, the belief that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments should be derived only from the consent of the people. America has always been a Democratic Republic, whereas for all of its history except the 1990s, Russia has been an authoritarian or totalitarian state, whether under the Tsars, the Bolsheviks, or now under Putin.

 

Say what you want to say about America’s Western European partners, but most of them still believe in the same ideals Americans believe in: democracy, human rights, and political pluralism.

 

That does not mean that Russia can never be America’s friend or even ally. During the War of 1812, Russia helped mediate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended that war. During the Civil War, as Oliver W. Holmes wrote, “Russia was America’s friend even when the world was our enemy”, and refused to recognize the Confederacy while Britain and France planned to recognize it as an independent state. During WW2, the US and the Soviet Union were allies (albeit only for pragmatic reasons). And Russia was quite friendly towards the US during the 1990s, albeit chiefly because it was weak.

 

Nonetheless, a Russia governed by men like Putin and Ivanov, with an anti-American foreign policy, cannot be a partner, let alone an ally, of the US. If, and only if, the Putin regime collapses someday and is replaced by a pro-American government, a Russo-American alliance can be formed.

And by the way, this is the truth about Putinist Russia (also posted on AT):

“Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, spoke out aggressively the day after the Domodedovo disaster.  He called for imposing severe new limits on jury trial rights, so that now only those accused of capital crimes will be tried by their peers. 
As if to emphasize his point, the judge who tried businessman and opposition political leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky almost simultaneously announced that Khodorkovsky had just been convicted again, again without a jury, of the same alleged tax evasion crimes that he had already served many years in prison for.  Double jeopardy? Another frivolous Western innovation for which Russia has no use.

Russia’s leadership is, in other words, just as in Soviet times unable to respond to failure with any means other than repression.  The USSR’s inability to acknowledge fault and reform brought it to ruin.  Now, history is repeating itself.

(…)  Studies show Russia becoming more corrupt, less economically competitive and progressive, and far more violent and undemocratic.  Race riots recently swept through Moscow, and it was clear the virulent nationalism that has been Putin’s bedrock ideology was fanning their flames.
 

Putin now hires and fires governors and mayors at will.  He owns and operates all the national television broadcasters, he executes journalists who do not toe his line, and he jails anyone, like Khodorkovsky, who stands even the slightest chance of challenging him politically. Slowly but surely, he is abolishing civil rights throughout the criminal justice system, and using any sign of disorder as an excuse for further and more draconian crackdowns.
Yet for all that, Putin is vulnerable just as were his Soviet ancestors, because his misguided policies undermine economic and political stability.  Yet Putin has found himself with the great good fortune of Barack Obama’s election as president.  Obama does not care at all how bad things get in Russia, how badly American values are trampled or how American national security is undermined. He cares only about gathering propaganda opportunities, like his sham nuclear treaty with Russia, and is willing to sacrifice all to that god — especially now that his domestic policy agenda is unraveling like a cheap suit.”

(http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/moscows_blizzard.html)

 

It’s ridiculous to claim that Russia shares the same values as the US, or that it can be a partner of the US, or that it should be admitted to NATO.

The 2nd Amendment DOES apply to the states.

http://rightwingnews.com/#post8971

„After a bit of background on the case at the heart of the article,McDonald v Chicago, and told that the Heller case left open the question of whether the 2nd Amendment applies to States, we get to the heart of the liberal idiocy.

„To most, it might seem illogical that the Bill of Rights would apply only to actions of the federal government, but that was its intent. Over the years, the court has said most of it applies — or in the court’s language is “incorporated” — through the 14th Amendment.”

Only in Liberal World. Certainly, the 1st appears to apply only to the federal government, as it starts out “Congress shall make no law…”, which is, arguably, applicable to the federal Congress only. That said, Amendments 2 through 8 do not have any qualifiers that would make them appear to be for the federal government only. Are we to believe that only the feds have to offer fair and speedy trials? That they are the only ones who cannot engage in “cruel and unusual punishment”? That the “right to be secure….” applies only to the folks working out of Washington? Imagine a State deciding that their law enforcement officers could simply enter any house and detain any person they wanted on a whim. Do you think the liberals at the Washington Post would be wetting their panty shields as they scream about 4th Amendment Rights?

Interestingly, the two other Amendments that do apply specifically to the Federal government are two that, along with the 2nd, the Left would love to see go away, because the Left hates that any power might go to the States and the People. The Framers felt it was necessary to put not one, but two Amendments, the 9th and 10th, in the B0R to reign in the potential of the federal government, so they didn’t do something like, oh, say, require people to have health insurance or face a fine and/or jail.”

Amazingly, Chicago liberals defend states’ rights and cities’ rights if they’re forced to defend their gun bans:

“”Handguns are used to kill in the United States more than all other weapons, firearms and otherwise, combined,” Chicago Corporation Counsel Mara S. Georges wrote.

She argued that the Court should leave it up to the states and cities to regulate handguns.

“The genius of our federal system ordinarily leaves this type of social problem to be worked out by state and local governments, without a nationally imposed solution excluding one choice or the other,” Georges wrote.” – http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-hears-chicago-gun-ban-case/story?id=9780703

„After a bit of background on the case at the heart of the article,McDonald v Chicago, and told that the Heller case left open the question of whether the 2nd Amendment applies to States, we get to the heart of the liberal idiocy

„To most, it might seem illogical that the Bill of Rights would apply only to actions of the federal government, but that was its intent. Over the years, the court has said most of it applies — or in the court’s language is “incorporated” — through the 14th Amendment.”

Only in Liberal World. Certainly, the 1st appears to apply only to the federal government, as it starts out “Congress shall make no law…”, which is, arguably, applicable to the federal Congress only. That said, Amendments 2 through 8 do not have any qualifiers that would make them appear to be for the federal government only. Are we to believe that only the feds have to offer fair and speedy trials? That they are the only ones who cannot engage in “cruel and unusual punishment”? That the “right to be secure….” applies only to the folks working out of Washington? Imagine a State deciding that their law enforcement officers could simply enter any house and detain any person they wanted on a whim. Do you think the liberals at the Washington Post would be wetting their panty shields as they scream about 4th Amendment Rights?

Interestingly, the two other Amendments that do apply specifically to the Federal government are two that, along with the 2nd, the Left would love to see go away, because the Left hates that any power might go to the States and the People. The Framers felt it was necessary to put not one, but two Amendments, the 9th and 10th, in the B0R to reign in the potential of the federal government, so they didn’t do something like, oh, say, require people to have health insurance or face a fine and/or jail.”

The truth is that – as RWN has correctly pointed out – the 2nd Amendment (like all parts of the Bill of Rights except the First and Tenth Amendment) does not contain any qualifiers that would make it apply to the federal government (e.g. the phrase “Congress shall make no law…”). Therefore, it applies not only to the federal government, but also to state and local governments.

Rebuttal of the “the DOD doesn’t want it” argument

Oftentimes, when some lawmakers want to maintain, insert, or reinstate funding for a crucial defense program (usually a crucial weapon program) which Leftists oppose, they and the media use the false “the DOD doesn’t want it” argument. We hear it often.

We heard it during the early 1990s, when a small number of conservatives tried to defend programs that the first Bush Admin and its idiot Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney, closed over 100 crucial weapon programs and tried to kill the V-22 program. The liberals and the media claimed shouted “Why the hell are you trying to enforce these programs on the DOD? The DOD doesn’t want them!”

We heard it during the later part of the 1990s, when the Clinton Administration implemented even deeper defense cuts (including weapon program cuts), thus rendering the US military impotent. Conservatives defended the B-2 program and other crucial weapon programs, yet liberals and the media opposed them, saying “the DOD doesn’t want them”.

And we heard it in 2009 and 2010, when the Obama Administration and it’s lousy Defense Secretary, Bob Gates, closed over 30 crucial weapon programs. We conservatives defended these programs and urged the Congress to fund them. But liberals, libertarians, and the media condemned us, maligned these programs, and called on the Congress to close them, claying that “the DOD doesn’t want them”.

Each case, it didn’t matter to the Presidents, the Administrations, the SECDEFs, the media, liberals, or libertarians, that these defense programs were crucial. They wanted them to be closed and the resulting savings reinvested in domestic boondoggles like welfare programs – and each time, this is what happened. They merely used the false “the DOD doesn’t want it” argument.

They used it like a shield that was supposed to block any funding for any programs the particular leadership of the DOD at a particular time doesn’t like. It’s an argument that is supposed to stop all discussion and justify any defense cuts, including any program closures.

But it’s a false argument, for the following reasons:

1) The DOD is not infallible, and neither is any other federal agency. They are sometimes wrong.

2) Just the fact that the DOD doesn’t want something doesn’t mean that this something is not needed, or that the DOD is right. Every issue should be objectively analyzed on a case-by-case basis. If something is needed, it should be funded, even if the DOD doesn’t want it.

3) It’s actually irrelevant what the DOD doesn’t want when it’s controlled by anti-defense liberals (such as Bob Gates) and when it is a part of a liberal, anti-defense Administration, such as the Obama Administration.

4) Members of Congress should think critically for themselves, and should do their own research.

5) It is a Constitutional DUTY of both the Executive and the Legislative Branch to provide for the common defense and protect each state against invasion (vide Art. IV of the Constitution). It is therefore a Constitutional duty of the Congress to scrutinize the budget and program decisions of the DOD and to correct any mistakes that the DOD makes.

6) Historically, when the Congress wanted to impose programs or weapons on the DOD which the Pentagon didn’t want, the Congress was almost always proven right. For example, the DOD wanted to end the production of F-117s prematurely, but Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) insisted on purchasing additional F-117s. He was right, because F-117s were, during the Gulf War, the only aircraft other than B-1s which were able to defeat Baghdad’s dense SAM/AAA network. After 9/11, the Congress urged the DOD to arm Predators. It was right, because nowadays, it’s hard to fight the Afghan war without Predators. And so forth.

7) History has shown that deferring to an Administration – ANY Administration – on defense issues is a bad mistake.

The Congress should NEVER defer to ANY Administration on defense issues. It should think critically for itself, do its own research, and make the right decisions for the country and the military, even if the DOD doesn’t want this or that weapon program. It should fully fund every defense program which is truly needed, even if some defense program are not wanted by the DOD. It is the Congress to whom decisions what to fund, and how generously, are entrusted by the Constitution. Congress should not delegate its responsibilities to the Executive Branch.

Does Panetta’s nomination mean deeper defense cuts?

The American Thinker and the Associated Press are warning that Panetta’s nomination may mean even deeper defense cuts than what Obama has already proposed (400 bn over the next 12 FYs).

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/does_panetta_nomination_mean_d.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PENTAGON_PANETTAS_CHALLENGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-28-03-07-28

On the other hand, one CSBA analyst quoted by the AP says that Panetta might actually be an asset, not an enemy, for the DOD, because of his experience as House Budget Cmte. Chairman, as OMB Director, and as WH Chief of Staff, his negotiating skills (he was involved in both the 1990 budget talks and the 1996 budget talks), and his connections (he knows people in the OMB and in the WH).

Similarly, Nick Schwellenbach of the Project of Government Oversight claims that Panetta “will go to the mat for them” (the DOD) when it comes to budgetary battles. Says the “Danger Room” blog:

“Nick Shwellenbach, director of investigations for the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, says a “huge pro” for Panetta is his OMB tenure. “He’s relatively well-equipped to fight the titantic defense budget battles to come. Plus, he’s got the confidence of the President,” Schwellenbach says. “His track record at CIA should inspire some confidence at DOD that he’ll go to the mat for them.” Lose the confidence of one constituency or the other, and he’ll face “increasingly unmanageable problems” in the Pentagon and Congress.”

Perhaps. But it depends on what Panetta’s personal opinions are and how he will use his skills. If he sincerely believes that the DOD cannot afford further significant budget cuts, maybe he will use his negotiation skills to convince Obama and the Congress to limit defense cuts and not to cut defense spending by any significant margins. On the other hand, if he believes the defense budget is too big, or if he intends to be a mere lapdog of President Obama, the defense budget will be severely reduced – unless Republicans act courageously to STOP ANY FURTHER DEFENSE CUTS, as they should.

It’s important to note that those who want to cut the defense budget don’t really care about the budget deficit.  They couldn’t care less about it. They don’t want to balance the budget, they just want to gut the military and redirect money towards socialist domestic programs (entitlements, welfare programs, highways that states don’t even want, etc.). They’ve never cared about the budget deficit; otherwise, they would’ve never defended domestic programs from budget cuts.

Those who are after the defense budget have been after it for a long time. The current budget crisis is merely a pretext for them.

If Panetta wants to use his skills for a good cause – to protect the defense budget from further cuts, he should make that point, and also the 6 points stated here:

http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/why-defense-spending-should-be-exempted-from-cuts-in-one-post/

He should also remind the Congress, the President, and the public that:

1) Defense spending has already been significantly reduced, by $37 bn, from $550 bn in FY2010 to $513.1 bn this FY, i.e. from a barely-adequate overall level to a totally inadequate level. As testified under oath by Sec. Gates and JCS Chairman Admiral Mullen, this cut has already done significant harm to the military.

2) Defense spending (not including spending on Iraq and the Afghan war, which have NOTHING to do with America’s defense) is at its lowest ebb since FY1948 (excluding the last Clinton years) – 3.50% of America’s GDP ($14.620 trillion today, according to the IMF). It’s TOO LOW to fund America’s legitimate defense needs (not appettites, but legitimate defense needs).

3) Even despite the current budget crisis – the gravest America has witnessed since 1945, when America’s public debt stood at 125% of GDP – America CAN afford to spend $553 bn per year, and even more than that, on defense – if defense is prioritized (as it should be, according to the Constitution, the wishes of the Founding Fathers, and common sense) and socialist domestic programs are abolished or at least significantly reduced, and if all unconstitutional programs are abolished. Of course, these will have to be abolished or at least significantly reduced regardless of whether the defense budget is cut or not – because this is the only way the federal budget can be balanced.

4) Defense cuts, no matter how large, would not balance the federal budget nor even significantly reduce the annual budget deficit. The FY2011 budget deficit is $1.65 trillion; the core defense budget for FY2011 is $513 bn and even the entire military budget for FY2011 is $673 bn, which means that even if the DOD was abolished entirely, there would’ve still been an almost $1 trillion dollar annual budget deficit.

5) That defense cuts at this particular time would be particularly foolish, given the numerous, strong enemies the US is facing right now: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. The London-based Intl Institute for Strategic Studies released a warning not to cut defense spending to Western democracies earlier this month:

6) That although defense corporations do profit from the annual defense budget, this fact is totally irrelevant, because:

a) it misses the point. The purpose of a defense budget is to provide for a strong defense, including to develop and purchase the weapons the military needs. Someone has to produce them, and someone has to earn money for them. The role of the federal government is not to starve the defense industry nor to subsidize it, but rather to buy whatever weapons the military needs.

b) someone profits from ANY government contract, whether it’s issued by the DOD or any other government agency. It’s just a question who exactly benefits. When the DOE, the DOT, or the DHS issues a contract for something, some companies profit from it. The American industry is almost completely privately-owned, so regardless what government agency buys what and issues a contract to whom, some company profits from it.

7) That a majority of Americans oppose defense cuts, so the Congress should heed the wishes of the public, which elected both houses of Congress. (http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-reveals-americans-are-still-in-deep-denial-about-the-deficit-2011-4; http://yhoo.it/gdjSal)

If Panetta is really willing to “go to the mat” for the DOD when it comes to budget battles, he’ll be more than welcome. If he will fight for (or negotiate) adequate defense budgets, he’ll be a significantly better Secretary of Defense than Robert Gates. If, on the other hand, he slavishly accepts Obama’s defense cuts, he’ll prove himself to be even worse than Gates, which is very hard, but not impossible, to accomplish.