Rebuttal of Jack Hunter’s newest anti-defense lies and whitewashing of Ron Paul

In its opinion sections, the Daily Caller continues to publish whatever garbage leftist columnists send to it, including a recent utter garbage, written of course by the utterly-discredited leftist libertarian Jack Hunter, who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Firstly, it is ridiculous for him to lecture anyone on the true meaning of “conservatism” and the definition of who a conservative is, because he doesn’t understand these definitions himself and is NOT a conservative. Secondly, no, Ron Paul, as we shall see, is DEFINITELY not a conservative (let alone the most conservative presidential candidate), and calling him one is false and insulting to every REAL conservative, including myself.

Thirdly, despite Hunter’s claims that:

„Paul’s Pentagon cuts, which aren’t much different from what Sen. Tom Coburn has suggested, are necessary to streamline our military and tackle our debt problem.”

His cuts are very much different from what Sen. Tom Coburn has suggested (in terms of specifics – Paul provides no specific proposals in his budget plan, while Coburn does – the fact that Coburn’s proposals would be utterly disastrous is a different matter), and NO, they are NOT necessary to “streamline” the military and tackle the debt problem. It is unclear what Hunter means by “streamlinling the military”; if by that he means reforming it, he’s wrong, because 1) budget cuts are NOT necessary to reform the military and would actually impede the task; and 2) Paul has proposed NO specific reforms of the US military and the DOD, just a huge budgetary cut.
Hunter then used Tom Coburn as a shield for Paul:

“Coburn has allies besides Paul in this fight, or as National Review’s Jamie Fly writes:

FreedomWorks, a Washington-based group that purports to speak for the Tea Party movement, issued its own “Tea Party Budget” containing the recommendations of its debt commission. They suggested enacting defense-spending reforms previously proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn that would result in almost $1 trillion in savings over ten years.”

Coburn is an utterly discredited anti-defense libertarian, so if I were Hunter, I would not even mention his name. I’ve actually read and analyzed his proposals, and have written about them extensively (for example here and here). They would be utterly disastrous if implemented. He proposes to cut the USAF’s ICBM fleet by 200 missiles, from 500 to 300; cut the ballistic missile submarine fleet from 14 to 11; cut the carrier fleet and the number of carrier wings; cease the production of combat-proven (in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya) V-22 aircraft; unilateral cuts in the already-too-small nuclear stockpile; cancel the F-35’s B and C variants just as they are getting back on track; cancel the PTSS anti-ballistic-missile satellite EW program; delay the next-gen bomber program until the mid-2020s (when it will be too late); cancel the production of amphibious assault vehicles; implement many more damaging cuts; and do all of that for purely budgetary reasons, not because of any military factors, in isolation from any military issues. The cuts to the ICBM and SSBN fleets alone would dramatically reduce and weaken America’s nuclear deterrent and possibly even encourage a Russian nuclear first strike on the US.

Yet, as damaging as Coburn’s (and Paul’s) defense cuts would be, they would utterly fail to balance the budget. $1 trillion in defense cuts over a decade is $100 bn per year – just 1/15th of the annual budget deficit. This would mean unilateral disarmament in exchange for a tiny reduction of the budget deficit.
Hunter then lied further that:

“There’s a reason that Paul is the only presidential candidate who has been able to offer $1 trillion in cuts. He is the only candidate willing to address the black hole that is Pentagon spending. After entitlements, “defense” spending is the largest part of our budget. Still, Paul allows for a military budget four times the size of China’s and larger than President Bush’s 2005 military budget.
This is what Morris calls “dismantling the military.””

Firstly, the claim that “Pentagon spending” is a “black hole” is both false and insulting. It is a blatant lie, just like most of what Hunter writes. The DOD’s budget is NOT a black hole – it is always passed by Congress as a specific, limited amount of money – limited both in terms of the topline and in terms of what it can be spent on. It is not a “black hole”, but rather the #1 Constitutional DUTY of the federal government, as stated by the Constitution in its Preamble and the fourth section of its fourth Article:

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”

The Constitution actually PRIORITIZES national defense and elevates it above all other issues. Of the 17 enumerated prerogatives of the Congress stated in Art. I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution, 9 (i.e. more than half) deal with military matters.

Hunter even denies that the Pentagon budget is defense spending, calling it “defense” spending with a quotation mark. His claim that after entitlements, military spending is the largest part of the federal budget is technically true, but only because entitlements by themselves consume a full 58% part of the federal budget – leaving little money for everything else, including the military, which must content itself with a mere 19% share. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the Federal Government devotes just 19% of its budget to its #1 Constitutional duty. And as the military budget is whacked further and entitlements continue to grow on autopilot, these proportions will get even worse for the DOD and even better for entitlements.

The military budget is a tiny portion of federal spending – just 19% of the total, 4.51% of GDP (lower than it was throughout the entire Cold War except FY1948), and just $2,100 per capita, less than it was throughout the entire Cold War, including the Reagan years. Calling it a “black hole” is a blatant lie. Cutting defense spending is NOT necessary to balance the budget, as both the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Study Committee have shown.

Paul’s budget plan would allow for only a $501 bn defense budget, less than 3.5% of GDP and the lowest proportion since before WW2 (excluding the late Clinton years). Moreover, it allows for NO funding of the DOE whatsoever, not even for its defense-related programs, which presumes that they would be moved to the DOD. Their budget for the current FY is $17 bn under the FY2012 NDAA, so that would leave only $484 bn as a core defense budget, not $501 bn. This would be barely $3 bn higher than Bush’s FY2005 core defense budget (which was $481.08 bn adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars) and MUCH SMALLER than his TOTAL FY2005 military budget, which included GWOT spending (which was $87 bn in nominal dollars in FY2005 and whichPaul would end completely and immediately if it depended on him). Last but not least, under Paul’s plan, defense budgets would not, after FY2013, even keep up with inflation, which means they would be cut in real terms STILL further.

Moreover, whatever total figure the defense budget was in FY2005 – seven fiscal years ago – is totally irrelevant as to what it should be today. The defense budget must be determined SOLELY on the basis of the the threat environment of today and the one expected for tomorrow, not according to some past budgetary figure. But Hunter, as a guy totally ignorant about defense and budgetary issues, doesn’t understand that.

The claim that it would be four times larger than the PLA’s budget is also utterly false. China’s military budget for FY2011 was $185 bn; to be four times larger, Paul’s defense budget would have to be 4x$185 bn, i.e. $740 bn, which is not going to happen (and $740 bn is not needed, ca. $550 bn should be enough). But equally importantly, in China, things are 3-4 times cheaper than they are in the US, meaning that if PPP differences are accounted for, China already has a larger defense budget than the US.

Furthermore, let’s not forget that Paul is the chief GOP defender of the sequestration’s mechanism and its defense cuts totalling $1.065 TRILLION, which, if implemented, WILL gut the military.

Cutting defense spending significantly to balance the budget would be a foolish mistake. It would be penny-wise and pound-foolish. It would save little money in the short-term and zero in the long term, because eventually, America’s military weakness would encourage aggression and launch America into another war that would be costly in terms of both money and blood. America’s current military spending, at 4.51% of GDP, is a small and worthy investment in preventing war.

As George Washington rightly said, “timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.” He was also right to warn of “the uncertainty of procuring a warlike apparatus at the moment of public danger.” It’s much better to prepare for war and to prevent it rather than arming yourself post factum, when war has already begun.

Last but not least, if Paul is going to implement Tom Coburn’s defense cuts proposals, or anything similar, that IS going to gut the military for the same reasons I listed in my critiques of Coburn’s proposals, while failing to reform the DOD. So Dick Morris was right – Ron Paul DOES want to dismantle the military – as does veteran pacifist Barack Obama (who is, like Paul, an ardent supporter of the sequestration mechanism). That is a fact.
Then, Hunter invoked Russell Kirk: “But since we’re discussing conservatism, let’s take a look at what Russell Kirk had to say about this subject.” He quoted Kirk’s objections to Operation Desert Storm.

Kirk had reasons for his concerns. But with regard to Desert Storm, they were unfounded. That operation was limited in scope and objectives. Its only goal was to kick Saddam Hussein’s military out of Kuwait and cripple it. Once these goals were achieved, President Bush the Elder brought US troops back home. He didn’t say “Oh, let’s go further, take Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein, because the opportunity has presented itself!”

Conducting Desert Storm was the RIGHT thing to do. There was no way that the US could’ve tolerated Saddam’s drive to dominate the entire Middle East and his threat to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest reservoir of oil. It had NOTHING to do with 9/11, which was perpetrated by Al-Qaeda, which was hostile to Saddam Hussein.
But don’t waste your breath telling that to Hunter, who bombastically (and falsely) claims that

“For basically every position Morris calls “liberal” or “radically left-wing” you can find some of the most prominent and respected names in American conservatism agreeing with Paul.”

Which is a lie, because there are many issues (e.g. defense, foreign policy, abortion, traditional marriage, etc.) on which there isn’t a single prominent, respected conservative who agrees Ron Paul. This is ESPECIALLY visible on the issue of defense, which is understandable that in order to be a conservative you MUST support a strong defense and generous funding for it. Providing generous, adequate funding for a strong defense, not constraining it with disarmament treaties, making sure that the military is adequately trained, housed, AND equipped with the most modern and most lethal weapons America can produce – this is an INTEGRAL, IRREMOVABLE part of conservative philosophy (as opposed to libertarianism) and is the biggest difference that distinguishes us conservatives from libertarians (including Ron Paul).

“Morris’s mistake is definitional. What Morris calls “conservatism” is simply the current conventional Republicanism. One does not necessarily equal the other. Ask Barry Goldwater. Ask Ronald Reagan. Ask Ron Paul.”

Ron Paul is not an authority on anything, let alone on the definition of conservatism, because he’s not a conservative. As for Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan – both of them fervently supported a strong defense and a hawkish foreign policy; Goldwater’s policy might’ve even been a little too hawkish (in 1964, he said he would drop a nuclear bomb on Northern Vietnam). Both of them would’ve strongly opposed, and campaign against, Ron Paul if they were alive today (sadly, they’re not).

Moreover, defense spending and the war in Iraq are hardly the only aspects of foreign policy on which Paul is completely at odds with conservatism and conservatives – he’s completely at odds with us conservatism on the entire FP spectrum.

So whom does Hunter quote as an authority on conservatism and its history? None other than the extremely-leftist, anti-defense, anti-Republican, Soros-supported J Street propagandist Peter Beinart of the liberal TDB:

“Here’s where Morris and Gingrich really show their ignorance. Writes The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart (…)”

Not that I care about what Beinart says, but I’ll refute just one of his Coolidge quotes, namely that “The people have had all the war, all the taxation, and all the military service they want.”

In fact, the public does not support defense cuts: according to multiple polls conducted last year, 57% of Americans oppose any such cuts, and 82% opposed any defense cuts by the Super Committee and the sequester. Military service is voluntary in the United States, yet more people join the military’s ranks than the DOD can accept.

Hunter then lied, trying to whitewash his boss, that:

„Much has been made about the fact that Paul criticized Reagan in 1988 and bolted to run third party out of disgust with the Republican Party. Yet, Paul’s beef was not that he was against the Reagan Revolution, only that it had failed to live up to its promise in terms of shrinking government. Paul was one of only four congressmen to endorse Reagan in 1976. So Paul was one of Reagan’s earliest supporters — and later his criticism was that Reagan wasn’t “Reagan” enough.”

That is utter garbage. That is NOT what Ron Paul was saying at the time. What Paul REALLY criticized and bashed Reagan for were, almost exclusively, his defense buildup and his staunchly anti-Communist global foreign policy. THAT is what Paul bashed Reagan for. THAT is what most of Paul’s farewell letter to the GOP in 1987 was about. Paul, of course, repeated the “defense is a big government project” lie in his letter a few times, and Hunter repeats it like a robot to this day. But it doesn’t change the fact that Hunter’s claim was a lie. Paul couldn’t care less about the size and scope of government; all he cared about was gutting America’s defense.

As for the false claim that the Reagan Revolution “had failed to live up to its promise of shrinking government”, it’s also a lie. Ronald Reagan cut the EPA’s budget by 22% in his first year and reduced spending as a share of GDP, while massively cutting taxes, abolishing wage and price controls, deregulating the oil and railroad industries, abolishing the ban on nuclear fuel recycling, eliminating tons of needless regulations, laying off thousands of bureaucrats in the DOD and further thousands in other agencies, reforming welfare programs, etc. Of course, he did not achieve everything he had hoped for, e.g. abolishing the Education Department and the DOE, which he always advocated. But there is a limit to what a President can achieve without the Congress on his side. Throughout his entire tenure, Reagan was fought fiercely by a House (and from 1987, a Senate) dominated by liberal Democrats such as Tip O’Neill. Reagan was merely a President, not a dictator.

Nonetheless, Ron Paul, together with his buddies Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell, slandered Ronald Reagan in the worst possible terms. Leaving aside Paul’s slanderous 1987 letter and his infamous 1988 interview with the Dallas Morning News, Rothbard and Rockwell, with Paul’s tacit approval, called Reagan a “warmonger” and called on the Congress to impeach him and remove him from office. When Reagan left office – but with all honors and with a high popularity rating – Rothbard called him a cretin and claimed that his tenure was “eight dreary, miserable, mind-numbing years”. This was the same Rothbard who was Paul’s intellectual father.

„To this day, Paul remains to the right of Reagan on government size and scope — hardly a “left-wing” position.”

No, he does not and he never was. Ron Paul is to the left of Reagan on these issues. He supports massive pork projects and defends them. He supports transferring tons of money out of the defense budget and into entitlement programs to appease the entitlement class. He also believes that states have the right to impose Big Government and any violations of individual liberties on their citizens – even those perpetrated by the California state government. He’s PERFECTLY FINE with Big Government – as long as it is imposed by states and not the federal government. To those who object, he says “leave your state”. In that regard, he’s indistinguishable from other Big Government Republicans like Mitt Romney.

Hunter then shamefully used Ronald Reagan, whom his boss and his buddies regularly slandered throughout the 1980s and later, as cover for his lunatic boss:

“But where Paul did admire Reagan in the mid-to-late ’80s is where Newt Gingrich and other Republican hawks most certainly did not. When Paul says today that we should always exhaust all diplomatic efforts before going to war — with Iran, for example — Paul’s Republican critics call him “weak” or an “appeaser.” They said the same about Reagan. When Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, Gingrich called it “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Chamberlain in 1938 at Munich.””

Firstly, Ron Paul never admired Ronald Reagan, especially not during the mid-to-late 1980s, when he constantly spat on him together with his buddies Rothbard and Rockwell. Secondly, Ron Paul is not saying „exhaust all diplomatic efforts before going to war” – he’s saying „no wars ever, not even if America is attacked, because America is always to blade for all of the world’s problems”, as evidenced by his opposition to going to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and his criticism of the US entering WW2. All of his rivals, on the other hand, are saying „exhaust all non-war options, but IF these efforts fail, we MUST be ready to go to war with Iran IF NEED BE.” As George Washington said, „to be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of keeping the peace.”

Thirdly, it is absolutely ridiculous to compare the rational, and, by Soviet standards, liberal Gorbachyov (Hunter can’t even get his name right) to the irrational mullahs ruling Iran, led by Ali Khamenei, and their irrational puppet speaker Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Gorbachyov was willing to make significant concessions and to liberalize the Soviet society. More recently, he has called for free elections and for Putin’s immediate resignation. He did not try to use force to keep Warsaw Pact states subjugated; he agreed to a peaceful dissolution of the Pact. OTOH, the irrational Iranian mullahs are suicidal and fanatical. They have repeatedly stated their desire to attack Israel and the US. They are co-responsible for 9/11 and are the bigest sponsors of Islamic terrorism in the world. If Reagan were President today, he wouldn’t have tried to reason with them. He would’ve dealt with them the same way he dealt with Colonel Qaddafi:

“Despite our repeated warnings, Qaddafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of terror. He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong. I warned that there should be no place on Earth where terrorists can rest and train and practice their deadly skills. I meant it. I said that we would act with others, if possible, and alone if necessary to ensure that terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere. Tonight, we have.”

Wasn’t it the Libyan intervention that caused Rothbard and Rockwell to call Reagan a “warmonger” and call for his impeachment?

In any case, Hunter’s pathetic attempt to use Ronald Reagan as a cover for his boss and claim that Paul was a “Reagan admirer” is false and insulting. As are his lectures about the meaning of conservatism and the claim that Paul is a conservative and the most conservative Presidential candidate in the last 50 years – an honor that belongs undisputably to Reagan. Yet, Hunter not only falsely claimed that Reagan was merely “arguably the second most conservative candidate”, he claimed that Ron Paul advocates “strict constitutionalism:

“It could be reasonably argued that Reagan was the second-most conservative person to run for president in the last 50 years after Paul, whose strict constitutionalism no doubt continues to create controversy.”

That is also a blatant lie. Ron Paul is no adherent to constitutionalism. If he was, he would’ve accepted the ENTIRE Constitution as it is, instead of cherry-picking parts of the Constitution that he likes and rejecting those that he doesn’t like, such as the Constitutional authorizations of, and REQUIREMENTS FOR, a strong defense – which Ron Paul ardently opposes – and the Fourteenth Amendment, which incorporated the Bill of Rights against the states, thus protecting individual liberties. Paul ardently opposes both, which means he’s no constitutionalist and no adherer to the Constitution.
Ron Paul is not a conservative. Not by a long-shot. As Dick Morris has said, he’s an ultra-left wing politician who merely happens to agree with conservatives on a few issues.

But even a blind pig will find an earful of corn once in a while.

If you support defense cuts – let alone those massive defense cuts that Paul and Coburn advocate – you are not a conservative. Not by a long shot.

If you support a foreign policy of isolationism or appeasement, you are not a conservative.

If you believe that Big Government and abortion on demand are okay, as long as they’re imposed by state governments, you are most certainly not a conservative.

Mr Hunter, your lectures about conservatism could not be further from the truth.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/30/ron-paul-is-the-most-conservative-presidential-candidate/

http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=7046

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Jack Hunter’s rehashed old lies about defense spending

Official Ron Paul Propagandist Jack Hunter has not given up in his vain effort to redefine conservatism as anti-defense libertarianism. He’s still ranting against defense spending like a 7-year-old child, claiming that you must support deep defense spending cuts if you want to be called a conservative.

Utter garbage written of course by the Official Ron Paul Propagandist, who is completely ignorant about foreign policy and defense issues. I’ve refuted his blatant lies many times on this website and on my blog, yet, unrepetantly, he comes back and repeats his old lies like a machine or a Soviet press spokesman.

He claims that

“As the Founders understood well, it is hard-to-impossible to preserve limited government at home while maintaining big government abroad. History and experience tell us that one always begets the other. This certainly rings true as we spend trillions of dollars on domestic programs that we match with trillions more overseas.”

The claim that robust funding for defense and other strong-defense policies represent “big government abroad” is a blatant lie, just like most of what Hunter writes. He claims a few paragraphs later that:

“Unfortunately, unlimited Pentagon spending remains the big government too many Republicans still love.”

Pentagon spending is NOT “big government”, it is not a big government program, and it is not anti-conservative. Providing robust funding for the US military is compatible with, and is actually an INEXCISABLE PART, of the conservative ideology, as I have proven in this AT article. Funding defense generously is, and has ALWAYS been, a part of conservative philosophy and a belief of the American conservative movement. If you don’t support it, YOU ARE NOT A CONSERVATIVE, PERIOD. If you support defense cuts, you are not a conservative and have no right to call yourself one, period.

The Constitution REQUIRES a strong defense and clearly prioritizes this issue above all others. Of the 18 enumerated prerogatives of the Congress listed in Art. I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution, 9 (i.e. 50%) pertain to war or to national defense. Among them are the prerogatives to provide for and maintain a Navy; to raise and support Armies; to punish piracies; to make rules for the Land and Naval Forces of the
United States; to declare wars; to organize and discipline the militia; to provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States. Moreover, Art. IV, Sec. 4 of the Constitution obliges the federal government to provide for America’s defense: “The United States shall guarantee to each state in this Union a Republican form of government, and protect each of them against invasion…”

And the claim that Pentagon spending is “unlimited” is also a blatant lie. For starters, DOD spending is never “unlimited”, because very DOD budget authorized by Congress is for a very specifc, limited sum of money. On top of that, defense spending (and total Pentagon spending) has been SHRINKING for the last 2 years. In FY2010, it was $564 bn and almost $700 bn, respective. In FY2011, it was $529 bn and $688 bn. The recently-passed FY2012 NDAA authorizes only $645 bn for the DOD (plus another $17 bn for the DOE’s defense-related programs), and of that, only $526 bn will be the core defense budget, the rest being spending on Afghanistan. The FY2012 Defense Appropriations Act would authorize even less, $518, as a core defense budget, as a part of a $633 bn total military budget.

The total amount of money authorized by the FY2012 NDAA amounts to a tiny, pathetic, small 4.5% of America’s GDP (which is $14.66 trillion), a Carteresque level of military. The core defense budget ($526 bn) amounts to a microscopic 3.59% of GDP, the smallest share since WW2 excepting the late 1990s. The claim that Pentagon is “vast” or “unlimited” is a blatant lie.

“The Founders’ talk of “entangling alliances” requiring “standing armies” was recognition of the inherent dangers of war — and especially permanent war.”

Garbage. Firstly, many of Founding Fathers supported standing armies, at least as a necessary thing. George Washington is on record saying that “to be prepared for war is one of the effective means of keeping the peace and admonishing the Congress in 1790 that:

“Among the many interesting
objects which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common
defence will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most
effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed
but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite:
And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories,
as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for
military supplies.”

James Madison asked in 1788: “How could a readiness for war in times of
peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the
preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?”

During the Constitutional Convention, when one participant proposed a limit on a standing army to just 3,000 men, the others proposed a provision that any invading army also be limited to just 3,000 men. And so, the issue died.

Furthermore, the claim that alliances and standing armies cause “the inherent dangers of war, and especially permanent war”, is also a blatant lie. A strong defense and strong alliances PREVENT WARS, they don’t provoke them, a lesson that Paul and Hunter evidently have not learned yet and will never.learn. It is the ROK-US alliance, and America’s nuclear umbrella, that has kept South Koreans safe and free for the last 58 years. Starting, by the way, with President Eisenhower. And yet, Hunter still fakes Eisenhower’s farewell address into something it was not:

“President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the “military-industrial
complex” reflected the same concerns within a 20th-century, post-WWII
context.”

Dwight Eisenhower is often cited as a president who,
wary of the “military-industrial complex”, wanted to dismantle this large
standing military and enact dramatic defense cuts. His Farewell Address is
often cited by opponents of a strong defense as “proof” that a large standing
military and defense spending threaten the US economy and Americans’ civil
liberties. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one reads the actual
text of Eisenhower’s farewell address, it is clear that what Eisenhower meant
was that the US defense industry should never be allowed to skew the democratic
political process, nor to turn the federal government into a cash cow. During
the same Farewell Address, Eisenhower stressed the need for a strong defense,
saying that “our arms must be mighty, ready for constant action, so that no
aggressor will risk his self-destruction.”
Eisenhower’s speech is therefore the opposite of what defense critics claim it
is: a call for a strong defense. Here’s the full relevant quote,
which you can read and judge for yourself (emphasis added):

“Now this conjunction of an immense
military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American
experience. The
total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every
city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize
the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend
its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved.
So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The
potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this
combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take
nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the
proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with
our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper
together.”[1]

If one reads the entire speech, rather than just one sentence quoted out
of context, it is clear that Esienhower did not call for any defense cuts. What
he did do was to warn the citizenry to “compel the proper meshing” of the
defense establishment with “our peaceful methods and goals”, and not to allow it to subvert America’s ordinary
democratic political process, “so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Hunter then falsely claims that:

“During the Reagan era, when we were fighting a global superpower that
possessed thousands of nuclear weapons, this made sense. It does not
make sense anymore.”

Garbage. A strong defense and robust funding for it ALWAYS make sense. It is also always needed, because there is always an evil person preying upon others. In the current world, with Communist China, Putinist Russia, North
Korea, Iran, and a multitude of terrorist organizations threatening the US, a strong
defense is needed more than ever – even more so than during the Reagan era. Peace
won’t keep itself. Peace depends on a strong defense, and that, in turn, depends
on adequate funding, not a tiny budget of 3.5% of GDP.

“Today, we are fighting individuals, or collections
of individuals, with infinitely less military capabilities and no
particular attachments to nation-states. Ask yourself this: What,
exactly, does having thousands of troops stationed in Afghanistan do to
prevent some sick individual from trying to blow up his underwear on an
airplane?”

That is also garbage, which minimizes threats
to America’s security and is designed to lull the American people into a false sense
of security. Terrorist organizations and the Taleban are not the only threats facing
the US, or even the most dangerous ones. China, Putinist Russia, and North Korea
are the biggest threats. These countries have nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles
capable of reaching the US, and tons of conventional weapons. China is pursuing
a military buildup at a neck-breaking pace, and Russia is now rebuilding and reforming
its own military. North Korea is compensating for its outdated Soviet weapons with
ballistic missiles of increasing range and tons of weapons of mass murder. Making
light of these threats is criminally irresponsible.

Thousands of troops stationed in Afghanistan
won’t prevent people from detonating bombs on a plane, but they are denying, and
will continue to deny, sanctuary to Al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Afghanistan is not
the most important battleground, anyway. Plus, there is no such person as a stateless
terrorist. Every terrorist organization in the world is supported by a state. Hamas
and Hezbollah, whom Ron Paul glorifies, are sponsored by Iran. Al-Qaeda was, prior
to the US invasion of Afghanistan, sponsored and harbored by the Taleban government
of that country. Recently, a judge has found that Iran and Hezbollah were co-responsible
for 9/11.

“Which brings us to conservatism’s fate. Want to know why Paul is the
only GOP presidential candidate who has proposed substantive spending
cuts — $1 trillion in the first year? It’s because only Paul addresses
Pentagon spending, the largest portion of our budget after entitlements.”

That is also 100% false. Firstly, Ron Paul is not the only one
who proposes substantial federal spending cuts – Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and
Newt Gingrich also have proposed them, with Bachmann introducing legislation in
Congress (she supports the abolition of the Edu Department and the EPA), Gingrich
supporting a $700 bn annual spending cut plus another $120 bn per year cut to entitlements,
and Rick Perry outlining his own plan to cut federal spending from 24% to 18% of
GDP and eliminate 3 Cabinet Departments (the ED, the DOE, and the DOC). The claim
that only Paul supports defense spending cuts or tackles defense spending is also
a blatant lie: Huntsman supports deep defense cuts too, Bachmann also supports some
DOD cuts, and Perry demands a full audit of the DOD. Moreover, as I said earlier,
if you support defense cuts, YOU ARE NOT A CONSERVATIVE, PERIOD.

“Paul
continues to make the same argument that former Chairman of the Joints Chief of
Staff Mike Mullen has made: that our debt is the greatest threat to our
national security.” Again, Hunter quotes other pe ople selectively and out of context.
Mullen has also said that „cuts [to the defense budget] can reasonably only go so
far…” and that that there’s a limit to what cuts the DOD can tolerate; and that
America’s current military spending, 4.5% of GDP, is actually a bargain price.

“As for national
security concerns, Paul’s $1 trillion in cuts still allows for a defense budget
four times greater than China’s and larger than even President George W. Bush’s
2005 defense budget.”

FALSE. Firstly, China’s military budget for FY2011 is something on the order
of $180 bn (no one knows how much exactly for sure, because the PLA greatly understates
its budget and has many off-budget income sources such as factories and farms),
so for the US defense budget to be 4 times larger than the PLA’s, it would have
to be $720 bn. Paul would provide only $501 bn in FY2013, i.e. less than 3 times
the PLA’s budget. Furthermore, in China, things are several times cheaper than in
the US, so Paul’s defense budget would actually be significantly smaller smaller
than the PLA’s budget if PPP differences are accounted for. Furthermore, we don’t
know what exactly Paul’s meagre, tiny defense budget, which would amount to less
than 3.5% of GDP, would be spent on. Furthermore, it would be SMALLER than Bush’s
FY2005 core defense budget (if one includes the DOE’s defense-related programs).

“This is how drastically Pentagon spending — along with all government
spending — has grown under President Obama. Cries from the GOP field that Obama
is “weakening” our defense with “cuts” mirrors liberal shrieking about
conservatives hurting the poor or seniors by reforming welfare or entitlements
(just ask Paul Ryan).”

Gibberish.
Pentagon spending has NOT grown drastically under President Obama. Since FY2010,
it has been CUT, not increased. Obama slightly increased defense spending in FY2010
from FY2009 levels, and since then has only been SLASHING them: $529 bn in FY2011,
$518-526 bn in FY2012. And yes, Obama IS weakening America’s defense with big cuts.
In FY2010 and FY2011, he ordered the closure of over 50 crucial weapon programs
to pay for the Afghan war. In April 2010, he signed the New START treaty which orders
massive cuts to the US nuclear deterrent and places strict limitations on America’s
missile defense. In January 2011, he ordered Bob Gates to cut defense spending by
$178 bn. April 2011, he cut defense spending in real terms under the CR and ordered
a further $400 bn in defense cuts. Now he’s pledging to veto any bill that would
spare the DOD from the impact of the sequester, which would cut the CORE defense
budget (NOT GWOT spending) by $1.065 trillion over the next decade. Obama has SIGNIFICANTLY weakened America’s defense
with irresponsible defense cuts. That is a FACT.

And so we come to Hunter’s
final statement, which is basically a rehashment of his old lies:

“Big-government
advocates always claim that any changes or reductions in the status quo would
be catastrophic. Conservatives always argue that not only can we no longer
afford such spending, but that reducing big government will be better for all
parties involved in the long run. Republicans can remain doubtful about whether
Paul’s foreign policies will actually make us safer (they will, if our own
intelligence and military members are to be believed). But they cannot doubt
that Paul’s foreign policy addresses a cost we can no longer afford (our
current foreign policy and related spending costs about $1.2 trillion annually,
roughly our entire deficit).

To disqualify Paul because of his foreign policy views is to
also disqualify any chance of actual spending cuts. Until conservatives learn
this lesson and begin to apply their limited-government philosophy
comprehensively, conservatism itself will largely remain a moot point.”

These claims are blatant lies. As stated earlier, robust funding is not only compatible with
conservative ideology, it is an integral, inexcisable, irremovable part of conservative
philosophy. In other words, conservative ideology REQUIRES generous funding for
defense. The claim that those who don’t support massive defense cuts are not “conservatives”
is a lie, just like the claim that conservatism will remain “a moot point” until
large-scale defense cuts occur. Limited government does not require defense cuts.
And we conservatives need no lessons from you, Jack, or from your despicable mentor
Ron “Blame America First” Paul. Neither you nor your despicable mentor are conservatives,
and you have nothing to teach us. In fact, it is YOU who needs to learn some lessons.
Like the lesson of the 1930s, that isolationism causes war rather than prevent it,
and the lesson of the 1970s, that defense cuts and a weak defense INVITE war instead
of preventing it. But you’re so stupid and so blinded by your libertarian anti-defense
ideology that you’ll never learn these lessons.

“Republicans can
remain doubtful about whether Paul’s foreign policies will actually make us
safer (they will, if our own intelligence and military members are to be
believed).”

No, they will not. Defense cuts, appeasement of America’s enemies, dumping
America’s allies, and isolationism will only make America less safe and invite war.
And who are our “military members”? A small anonymous sample group chosen for polling
purposes? I know many members and veterans of the military who actually believe
that STRONG DEFENSE POLICIES and strong alliances will keep America safe. People
like Nick Popaditch, Paul Krumenacker, Allen West, and Duncan Hunter. As well as
the over 100 veterans who have endorsed Rick Perry for President, including three
Medal of Honor recipients (Dakota Meyer, Michael Thornton, Jim Livingston), one
Navy Cross recipient Marcus Luttrell, and one Purple Heart recipient Daniel Moran.

“But they cannot doubt that Paul’s foreign policy addresses a cost we can
no longer afford (our current foreign policy and related spending costs about
$1.2 trillion annually, roughly our entire deficit).”

That is a blatant lie which Hunter has borrowed from the utterly
discredited Bruce Fein. The total military budget for the current fiscal year is
$662 bn, and the DOS has a budget of roughly $56 bn, which amounts to a total “foreign
policy” budget of $718 bn, way less than the $1.2 trillion that Hunter claims. His
figure is a blatant lie. Moreover, the defense budget is NOT responsible for America’s
fiscal woes.

Finally, your claim that “The only GOP candidate offering the kind of cuts the tea party has said it desires is Ron Paul” is also patently false, as proven above.

[1] D. D. Eisenhower, Farewell
Address to the Nation, 1961, text available at the American Rhetoric
website, http://www.americanrhetoric.co…. Retrieved on December 21st, 2011.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/19/why-conservatives-must-adopt-ron-pauls-foreign-policy/

Jack Hunter’s new lies about defense spending

Ron Paul’s official blogger (and self-described “humble servant”) Jack Hunter, who has been caught lying about defense and foreign policy issues several times before, has not given up and is still spreading lies.

And, as I expected, even the massive defense cuts which the sequester will make (now that it has been triggered) do not satisfy the opponents of a strong defense. They now falsely claim that these will not be cuts at all, merely reductions of the projected rate of growth of defense spending. That is a blatant lie, because defense spending WILL BE CUT in real terms from FY2011 levels WITH OR WITHOUT THE SEQUESTER.

Here’s Hunter’s newest article.

This entire article, just like most of what Hunter writes, is a litany of blatant lies. I’ll respond to only a part of it:

“I stress the word “perceived,” because when it comes to Pentagon spending, too many Republicans still behave exactly like liberal Democrats.”

 Gibberish. What some, if not many, Republicans recognize is that the DOD is NOT responsible for America’s fiscal woes, constitutes just 17% of the total federal budget, and is tasked with the #1 Constitutional function of the federal government: defending America.

“The truth is that we don’t need to spend as much on defense as we’re spending now.”

That is not “the truth”, that is your opinion, and it’s fallacious. My opinion is that the US is spending about the right amount of money on defense.

“We’re spending more on defense than at any time since World War II”

That is a blatant lie. The US is NOT spending more on defense than at any time since WW2. America’s current defense budget amounts to just 3.5% of GDP (defense’s lowest share of America’s GDP since FY1948, excluding the late Clinton years) and less than 15% of the total federal budget (also the smallest share since the late 1940s, this time even INCLUDING the late Clinton years). In real terms, the current defense budget (for FY2012), $513 bn, is vastly SMALLER than the Reagan-era budgets for FY1987 ($606 bn in today’s money), FY1988 ($570 bn), and FY1989 ($573 bn). Even including spending on Iraq and Afghanistan won’t help you, Mr Hunter: the military’s share of the pie then raises to just 4.6% of GDP and 17% of the total federal budget, exceeding Reagan era levels only in raw dollar terms (and only by $24 bn).

“and almost as much as every other nation combined.”

That is also a blatant lie. According to the SIPRI, the US is responsible only for 42.8% of global military spending, COUNTING spending on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the DOE, even if one accepts understated figures for China and Russia.

“Senator Tom Coburn has suggested that if we are going to start cutting, the Pentagon is the most logical place to start precisely because it is the most wasteful.”

Wrong. The DOD is not the most wasteful government department; the DHHS (which manages entitlement programs and pays $180 bn a year to crooks) is. Moreover, the idea that the Congress should start cutting spending by cutting spending on the government’s #1 Constitutional DUTY is both morally repugnant AND wrong AND against the Constitution.

“But even more importantly, these “devastating” automatic cuts that are supposed to happen aren’t really cuts. As Senator Rand Paul explained on CNN the day the super committee failed:

This may surprise some people, but there will be no cuts in military spending because we’re only cutting proposed increases. If we do nothing, military spending goes up 23% over 10 years. If we [make these cuts], it will still go up 16%.”

The only problem with this claim is that it is a blatant lie. Even WITHOUT the sequester, the defense budget will be cut IN REAL TERMS (not just in terms of spending growth) by $17 bn in FY2012 (from $530 bn in FY2011) and further in every fiscal year afterwards. WITH the sequester, the defense budget will be cut by over 20% – a whopping 20% – IN REAL TERMS. The defense budget will NOT see any spending growth for at least the next decade – WITH OR WITHOUT THE SEQUESTER. Meanwhile, GWOT/OCO spending is scheduled to go down in every FY automatically and zero out in FY2015, as US troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. Proof:

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=ab5d8376-1144-409f-b7bf-b8f91f66a9fb

Why are Rand Paul and Rush Limbaugh propagating those lies? Paul is a libertarian liar, and Limbaugh is an ignorant radio talk show host. They don’t care about the truth. Yes, El Rushbo, the conservative hero, is in fact an ignorant guy and an abject liar.

“Added Limbaugh:

Defense spending is going up even with sequestration … You understand the current services baseline budgeting, and even you are shocked to realize now that there is no real cut from a baseline of zero in defense spending.“

 Again, that is a blatant lie which has utterly discredited Limbaugh. Defense spending will be cut IN REAL TERMS, WITH OR WITHOUT THE SEQUESTER. With the sequester, defense spending will be cut IN REAL TERMS by over 20%. Proof:

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=ab5d8376-1144-409f-b7bf-b8f91f66a9fb

“In Graham’s defense, his view on defense spending seems to be the dominant one in the Republican Party today.”

Wrong again. If this was a dominant opinion professed by Republicans, they would not have meekly agreed to the previous 6 rounds of defense cuts nor to the debt ceiling deal which created the sequester in the first place. On Tuesday night’s debate, only two candidates condemned the cuts the sequester will make, while 3 others promised FURTHER cuts ON TOP OF the ones that the sequester will make.

“The problem is there’s simply no way to actually do what every Republican loves to talk about — limiting government, balancing budgets, cutting waste — without reducing defense spending.”

That is also a blatant lie. The budget can be balanced without cutting defense spending. As the Republican Study Committee and the Heritage Foundation have both proven with their budget plans, both of which would balance the budget by FY2020 without any defense cuts. And the claim that limited government can’t exist without defense cuts is also a blatant lie. A strong military and generous funding for it are perfectly consistent with conservative philosophy. They, in fact, irremovable PARTS of conservative philosophy. Conservatism calls for limited government, low taxation, preserving Christian values, and a strong military. None of these parts can be removed from this ideology. You either accept 100% of it or you don’t accept it at all. Furthermore, the Constitution REQUIRES the federal government to provide for a strong defense – although you, as a cafeteria constitutionalist, couldn’t care less about the Constitution.

“After entitlement spending, defense spending is the second largest part of our budget.”

 Technically true, but entitlement spending alone consumes a full 56% of the federal budget, with another 6% being used to pay interest rates on the debt. Military spending amounts to less than 19%.

“You could feasibly gut the entire entitlement system and not touch Pentagon spending, but what politician is going to tell America’s seniors they must do without so Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and God-knows-where-else can have more?”"

 The Libyan War is over, and the Iraqi war will be over by this year’s end. Plus, the sequester will make cuts to the CORE defense budget – which pays for defending AMERICA ITSELF – for the feeding, salarying, equipping, housing, maintaining, and training the military, not for wars of nationbuilding. It will make whopping cuts to the core defense budget. And the idea that defense spending should be cut before entitlements is morally repugnant, wrong, un-conservative, and against the Constitution.

“If my fellow conservatives want to know why the GOP has failed to cut government spending, look at Lindsey Graham. Then take a look at all of the other Republicans who agree with him.”

Go to hell. You have no right to call us conservatives “my fellow conservatives.” You are not one of us. You are not a conservative. You are a leftist, anti-defense libertarian and a Ron Paul cultist. You are not a conservative, have never been, and never will be. You are an utterly discredited libertarian liar. A true conservative SUPPORTS a strong defense and robust funding for it, while being mindful that waste in any government department – especially one tasked with defending America – is inexcusable and needs to be excised. Robust funding for defense is perfectly in line with, and constitutes a part of, conservative ideology. CUTTING defense is a tenet of liberal and libertarian ideologies. Go to dailypaul.com and lewrockwell.com and write your libertarian garbage there. You are not a conservative.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/23/why-republicans-cant-cut/

UPDATE: Joseph Lawler of the American Spectator, in an AmSpec blogpost titled “Perspectives on the sequester”, has proven that because the sequester will kick in, defense spending will be cut IN REAL TERMS – not just in raw dollar terms, but also as a percentage of GDP – to historic lows not seen in decades, and that it would have been cut IN REAL TERMS to historic laws even WITHOUT the sequester as a consequence of the debt ceiling deal: http://spectator.org/blog/2011/11/23/perspective-on-the-sequester

Under so-called “baseline budgeting”, military spending would ALSO decline to historic lows. Specifically:

1) Under baseline budgeting, without the debt ceiling deal, military spending would shrink from 4.5% of GDP in FY2011 to 3.0% of GDP in FY2021.

2) Under the terms of the debt ceiling deal but without the sequester, military spending would be cut significantly below the baseline, with the big cuts starting in FY2016 and widening in every successive FY, taking military spending down to 2.75% of GDP (a level not since since the 1930s!) in FY2021.

3) Under the terms of the debt ceiling deal and with the sequester, which was triggered on November 23rd, military spending will be cut significantly below the baseline starting in FY2013, with the cuts widening in every successive fiscal year, shrinking military spending down to 2.5% of GDP – less than what South Korea spends on its military – in FY2021.

The source: the Bipartisan Policy Center, reposted on the American Spectator’s website by Joseph Lawler (http://spectator.org/blog/2011/11/23/perspective-on-the-sequester).

Jack Hunter is spreading the lie that America is an ‘empire’ and wants to ‘confront’ it

Official Ron Paul campaign blogger Jack Hunter has written yet another garbage article, this time one propagating the myth (also embraced and propagated by senior Ron Paul adviser Bruce Fein on Sep. 20th) that America is an empire, titled Confronting the American Empire.

This article is a litany of lies, just like almost everything else Hunter writes. It’s clear that Hunter, with one exception, NEVER writes articles about anything other than foreign policy and military spending, and is capable of only attacking both (in a ridiculous manner).

Now he is again trotting out the lie (popular among libertarians) that America is an “empire”. But I thoroughly debunked it earlier this year on AT, in my article titled America is not an Empire.

America is NOT an empire. America is a liberator that liberates oppressed populations and defends countries that are threatened by wannabe aggressors. As General Colin Powell has said, the US has, in its history, conquered just enough land to bury its war dead. An empire does not behave in such a manner.

Ron Paul’s claims about the number of American bases and troops abroad has been debunked thoroughly, but it’s worth adding that the majority of these “bases” are tiny military installations. It’s also worth adding that closing America’s bases abroad and bringing troops back home to the US wouold cost much more than keeping them where they are, because the host countries co-pay to keep those troops on their soil and to maintain those bases.

As for David Stockman’s blatant lie that:

“The Cold War is long over … The wars of occupation are almost over and were complete failures — Afghanistan and Iraq. The American empire is done. There are no real seriously armed enemies left in the world that can possibly justify an $800 billion national defense and security establishment, including Homeland Security.”

First of all, the Afghan and Iraqi wars are not wars of occupation, they are wars of liberation. Stockman’s use of the term “wars of occupation” reveals the fact that he’s a traitor. The US does not spend $800 bn a year on defense, wars, or “security”. The FY2011 budget of the DOD is $688 bn, and the budget of the DHS is ca. $46 bn. Combined, that is $734 bn, a far cry from $800 bn. As for his denial that there are any “real seriously armed enemies in the world” – only an idiot, an ignorant person, or a liar could say something like that. There are several well-armed enemies in this world, some of whom are peer competitors (China and Russia), some are rogue states (Iran, NK, Venezuela), and some are well-armed terrorist organizations (AQ, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Haqqani network, al-Shabab, FARC). Stockman is an utterly discredited liar. Just like Jack Hunter.

Yet another laughable screed by Jack Hunter

Anti-defense liberal Jack Hunter has written yet another laughable screed at the DailyCaller.

This post is yet another laughable screed designed to cover up the fact that Ron Paul is weak on foreign policy and defense issues. This one, however, is deeply offensive to me, because in this one, the Offical Ron Paul Blogger claims Reagan’s mantle for Ron Paul and claims that Paul’s foreign policy of appeasement, isolationism, and unilateral disarmament is thoroughly Reaganesque (his screed is titled “Ron Paul’s Reaganesque foreign policy). Nothing could be further from the truth.

Don’t take my word from it. Read Ron Paul’s own resignation letter to Reagan and the GOP from 1987, in which he denounced Reagan’s foreign and defense policies in the strongest possible terms, saying that Reagan’s FP was “unconstitutional” and denouncing his defense spending as well as “spending on… warfare”. That same year, Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell denounced Reagan as a “warmonger” and called on the Congress to impeach him and remove him from office. And, throughout the 1980s, Ron Paul OPPOSED Reagan’s defense spending hikes, funding for the Nicaraguan contras, funding for other freedom fighters worldwide (e.g. the Solidarity trade union in Poland), and any interventions anywhere, including the interventions in Lebanon, Grenada, and Libya, as well as the shootdowns of Libyan aircraft in the Gulf of Sidra in 1981 and 1989. Lew Rockwell has recently said that “Ron Paul is not a Reaganite; he is much better than that” and denounced the B-1 bomber (which Ron Paul opposed) as a “killing machine”.

Today, Ron Paul supports MASSIVE defense cuts, to the tune of at least $1 trillion over a decade (including the elimination of the entire USAF bomber fleet), withdrawal of all American troops from all foreign countries (including staunch allies like Japan and South Korea, to whose defense Reagan was pledged), total isolationism (no interventions anywhere, not even if it’s necessary, and yes, Paulbots, sometimes it is necessary), and dumping all of America’s allies, as well as appeasing America’s enemies. He also opposed the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

So Ron Paul’s foreign policy is not only not Reaganesque, it’s the total OPPOSITE of the foreign policy that Ronald Reagan supported.

Now, what was Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy, actually?

For starters, I welcome the admission by Hunter and J Street propagandist Beinart that Ronald Reagan was not really a promiscous interventionist at all. That’s some progress. Beinart’s recitation of Reagan’s scant record of military interventions is 100% true.

But both Hunter and Beinart have omitted the biggest difference between Reagan’s foreign policy and Paul’s: Reagan supported (and actively fought for – before, during, and after his 8 years as President) strong defense as a means of both protecting America and preventing wars. Ron Paul opposed it at the time and opposes it now, as does Lew Rockwell. Throughout Reagan’s 8 years as President, Ron Paul fought against his defense policies. But how can one be surprised when Paul’s self-admitted biggest intellectual influence, Murray Rothbard, claimed that

“The United States was solely at fault for the Cold War and Russia was the aggrieved party.”?

As the Roman proverb goes, si vis pacem, pare bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. Or, as George Washington said, “To be ready for war is one of the most effective means of keeping the peace.” Reagan invoked Washington’s words during the 1980s. Throughout that decade, even though liberals (and Ron Paul) were fighting tooth and nail every day against his defense budgets and defense policies, Reagan held firm and frequently spoke in defense of a strong defense and In Defense of Defense Spending, which is the title of my book on the subject. The Congress, including Ron Paul, repeatedly called on Reagan to cut defense spending as a means of balancing the budget, but he continually refused. At least twice, he delivered nationally-televised speeches to the public about why his defense budgets were necessary and why it would have been foolish to cut them. He explained, in simple terms that everyone could understand, why robust funding was necessary to rebuild the US military and counter America’s enemies. He countered anti-defense propaganda. He and his administration’s officials did, with words and deeds, more for the cause of a strong defense than anyone else during the last 50 years.

Indeed, Reagan has set the bar very high, and I’m badly disappointed that there is no Reagan now to fight for the cause of a strong defense and against defense cuts. Maybe Sarah Palin will do that, if she jumps into the race. Her foreign policy opinions are actually closest to Reagan’s, compared to all other candidates.

And what about the INF Treaty?

Throughout the 1980s, the US demanded the removal of Soviet IRBMs from the European continent and the signing of a verifiable INF Treaty. However, since 1983, the Soviet Union was placing an unreasonable condition: cancelling the SDI. The 1985 and 1986 American-Soviet summits ended with nothing because Reagan refused to give up the SDI. Liberals blamed him. However, Reagan held firm, and eventually the INF Treaty was signed (in 1987) WITHOUT a cancellation or even a slow-down of the SDI. In other words, Reagan won, and Gorbachev lost. The Soviet Union got NOTHING. The Treaty only ordered the elimination of all American and Soviet IRBMs. It did not say anything about the SDI. And as a result of that treaty, the USSR had to dismantle twice as many missiles as the US.

Compare that record to that of Obama, who sold missile defense to Russia in 2010 in return for a New START treaty unfavorable to the US.

Yes, a few conservatives denounced Reagan as an appeaser, but I don’t think anyone makes these ridiculous claims now.

True, he would’ve probably opposed the Iraqi and Libyan wars as well. Two of his most important Cold War era allies, William Buckley and General William Odom, opposed the Iraqi war. But the Iraqi and Libyan wars are hardly the only disagreements Ron Paul has with mainstream Republicans on the issue of foreign policy.

So, in short, Ron Paul’s foreign policy is the OPPOSITE of Reagan’s. Ronald Reagan never supported, and would have never supported if he were alive today, a policy of defense cuts, withdrawal from the world, isolationism, and appeasement. Reagan supported a strong defense, defending America’s loyal allies, standing up to America’s enemies, both Communist and Islamist, and intervening military abroad when (albeit ONLY when) necessary.

Jack Hunter’s newest anti-defense screed

Liberal blogger Jack Hunter, who is the Official Ron Paul Blogger and often writes anti-defense screeds at the Daily Caller, has written another anti-defense piece of garbage, blaming ONLY the US military for America’s fiscal woes and calling on the Congress to cut military spending to pay for Hurricane Irene. He has also endorsed the plan to cut defense spending by 850 bn bucks over a decade.

Here are the FACTS:

1) Hunter claims that “Conservatives used to explain away Bush’s irresponsible spending by saying, “Well, we are fighting two wars.” The implication was that reasonable people understand that wars cost money.” No, that’s not what conservatives were saying at the time. In fact, some conservatives, like me, OPPOSED Bush’s big government programs and big spending. What Bush’s apologists were saying at the time was that this spending was “needed” to, supposedly, repair America’s infrastructure, improve its education system, and finance Bush’s prescription drug entitlement. Regardless, the vast majority (ca. 90%) of Bush’s spending hike went to DOMESTIC SPENDING, not military spending. So Hunter is lying.

2) John Adams is LYING. America’s current (FY2011) core defense budget is 528.9 bn USD, not 549 bn bucks, which means it’s over 20 bn dollars smaller than what he claims it is. (549 bn bucks was the REQUESTED sum, which was never authorized or appropriated.) Moreover, he’s deliberately lying about the hike of the defense budget over the last 10 FYs by NOT ADJUSTING the FY2001 budget (which was passed and signed into law in calendar year 2000) for inflation, which greatly distorts dollar figures and erodes the value of the dollar over time. $297 bn in CY2000 dollars is $389.66 bn in CY2011 dollars. This means that defense spending has increased over the last 10 fiscal years by only $140 bn (over 10 fiscal years!), far less than what Adams claimed. The fact that Adams has used a distorted figure unadjusted for inflation discredits him by itself, because it shows that he’s willing to falsify figures and lie for political reasons.

3) The claim that the only people opposing the proposed $850 bn defense spending hike are supporters of DOD business-as-usual is a blatant lie. I, for one, don’t work at the DOD nor in the defense industry, and have never worked for either. My districts does not have any military bases or weapon factories. My only concern is to ensure that the US military willl be unquestionably the strongest military in the world, capable of defend America and its allies.

4) The claim that cutting defense spending by a whopping $850 bn will not harm the military is a blatant lie, as testified UNDER OATH by ALL FOUR service Vice Chiefs and Obama’s own nomineee for Chairman of the JCS, as well as stated by SECDEF Leon Panetta. It’s also debunked by common sense. $850 bn would be $85 bn per year, on average. To make such budget cuts, the DOD would have to either halve the military’s size or completely stop modernization and all RnD projects. This would be a disaster, as confirmed by SECDEF Leon Panetta and many other experts.

5) As the Heritage Foundation has proven, even ELIMINATING MILITARY SPENDING COMPLETELY would not even cut, let alone eliminate, the budget deficit. Even if military spending were to be ELIMINATED ALTOGETHER, total federal spending would still be rising rapidly every ear, and with it, the public debt. Source: http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/defense-spending-entitlement-spending-problem

6) Hunter claims that: “Something doesn’t compute. We know that wars cost money, which was the conventional Republican reasoning behind why Bush spent so much of it.” But it wasn’t. That was not the reason Republicans gave at the time.

7) In case Hunter hasn’t noticed, the Libyan war is over, and the last American troops are scheduled to leave Iraq on December 31st.

8) Eric Cantor has never said that military spending will be or should be off the table. In fact, he has said the opposite, which is one of the reasons why I oppose him and am trying to recruit a primary challenger against him.

9) The fact is that military spending is NOT bankrupting America and is not “unsustainable”. It accounts for just 4.6% of America’s GDP and less than 19% of the total federal budget. The core defense budget – the 528.9 bn dollar sum – amounts to just 3.61% of GDP and less than 15% of the total federal budget.

10) Jack Hunter’s entire ridiculous screed is proof that he opposes ONLY military spending, and no other kind of spending, and that it’s the only kind of spending he wants to see cut. (Of course it’s not surprising to see the Official Ron Paul Blogger write something like this – his boss has also singled out MILITARY SPENDING ONLY for cuts.) On this website, Hunter NEVER calls for cuts to any kind of spending other than military spending, never protests against civilian spending, and never decries any civilian agency or its policies. He rails ONLY against military spending. It’s the ONLY kind of federal spending he has singled out for cuts. All of his screeds are, without any exceptions, rants against military spending and military spending ony. He never protests against anything else. This fact proves that Hunter is NOT a conservative and not even a libertarian, but rather an anti-defense liberal trying to drive a wedge between fiscal conservatives and defense conservatives and promoting fissures in the Republican coalition. Many of Ron Paul’s supporters are such people. Hunter’s conservative credentials are nonexistent and have always been.