Rebuttal of Obama’s blatant debate lies

During the third presidential debate, Barack Obama stated a lot of blatant lies to cover up his sordid foreign policy record. Here’s a rebuttal of some of them:

1) He claims that ship numbers don’t matter because today’s ships are more capable and because the Navy has carriers and submarines today. But during the Reagan years (when the Navy was more than twice as big as it is today), the USN had far more carriers and submarines than today, and the Pacific Fleet alone was larger than the USN is today. Even during the Clinton years the Navy had more ships than today.

Furthermore, and most importantly, ship numbers matter a great deal, because a single ship, no matter how capable, can only be in one place at any given time. Yet, today’s Navy only has 284 ships, not even close to enough to meet even today’s requirements: the Navy today can meet only 59% of Combatant Commanders’s needs for ships and only 61% of their needs for submarines.

And earlier this year, when CENTCOM commander Gen. James Mattis requested a third carrier group to be deployed to the Gulf, he was refused, because all other available carriers were needed in the Pacific.

Moreover, as two independent studies – one by the bipartisan QDR Independent Review Panel and another one by the CNAS – have found – the Navy needs 346 ships to execute all of its missions, not the meagre 284 it has today.

Furthermore, under Obama’s own plans, even if sequestration does not proceed, the USN’s cruiser, destroyer, and submarine fleets will decline precipitously below today’s already-inadequate levels, as documented by Ronald O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service. Moreover, comparing ships to “bayonets and horses” and thus implying that warships are relics of the past is not just wrong, it’s demeaning for the Navy. So Mitt Romney is right: the Navy DOES need a lot more ships than it has today.

2) He claims that when he sits down with the Joint Chiefs, he gives them what is needed to protect America. This is utterly false. Obama has only weakened the military, and significantly so. He has cut the defense budget significantly, killed over 50 crucial weapon programs, and used the defense budget as a piggybank for his domestic pet projects. In 2009, Obama ordered the DOD to kill over 30 crucial weapon programs, including the F-22, the Zumwalt class, the AC-X, the CSAR helicopter, the MKV, the KEI, and many others. In 2010, he signed, and rammed through a lame-duck Senate, the unequal New START treaty, which obligates only the US (not Russia) to cut its nuclear arsenal deeply. In January 2011, his administration announced another $178 bn in defense budget cuts and “efficiencies”.

And on April 13th, 2011, he demanded another $400 bn in defense budget cuts without even telling his own Defense Secretary or the Joint Chiefs.

In the summer of 2011, in the debt ceiling deal negotiations, he demanded massive defense budget cuts and got them – in the form of first tier BCA-mandated defense budget cuts ($487 bn) and a $600 bn sequester (which was HIS idea, not House Republicans’, contrary to his blatant debate lie, as confirmed by Bob Woodward’s newest book).

And now, Obama threatens to veto any attempt to cance sequestration, and to let it proceed, unless Congress agrees to his demands of massive tax hikes. In other words, he’s holding the US military hostage to his tax hikes agenda. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIixemuEe1s)

The fact is that Obama couldn’t care less about the military’s needs. He cares only about gutting America’s defense and finding the money for his unconstitutional domestic pet projects.

3) Obama claims that Romney would take America’s foreign policy back to the 1980s because Romney called Russia “America’s #1 geopolitical foe.” But Romney does not advocate a return to the Cold War. He advocates a more realistic, sober policy towards Russia, instead of the craven appeasement of the Kremlin that Obama has pursued for the last 3.5 years (the utterly failed “reset” policy).

Russia has repayed this craven appeasement with bomber exercises off the coasts of Alaska and California (whereby the Russians said they were “practicing attacking the enemy”, i.e. the US) without prior notification as required by the New START treaty, providing continued diplomatic protection to the regimes of Syria, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and Belarus (and providing the first two with modern weapons), threatening to use nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles against America and its allies, increased espionage, and an arms race against the US, driven by Putin’s hostility towards America as well as his desire to restore Russia’s superpower status. And with booming oil revenue, he has more than enough money to do that.

Russia has also harassed America’s ambassador to that country, expelled USAID from its soil, and withdrawn from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, thus showing further its hostility towards the US.

Russia is no friend of the US. It’s a foe.

Romney’s plan is to treat Russia according to its ACTIONS, not according to Obama’s naive, childish dreams about “reset” and friendship with a KGB-thug-led Russia which sees itself as America’s enemy and practices attacks on the US. He will not start a new Cold War with Russia, but he will not cave in (or pledge any “flexibility”) to Russia either. For the first time ever, Putin will have to deal with a tough US president, not three successive appeasers (Clinton, Bush, and Obama).

4) Obama claims that Romney wants to add $2 trillion to the defense budget over the next 10 years. This is also patently false, as I have already documented here. To wit:

First, some simple math. Adding $2 trillion to defense over the next decade means adding $200 bn every year on average. If, in one year, the increase is smaller than the $200 bn average, increases in later years would have to be higher.

Spending $8.3 trillion on defense over the next decade would mean spending $830 bn every year, on average, on defense.

Mitt Romney does not propose anything even close to that. His proposals are far more modest, and very modest by historical standards.

Let’s start with the size of today’s (FY2012) base defense budget. It amounts to $531 bn, i.e. 3.47% of America’s GDP (which is $15.29 trillion) and less than 15% of the total federal budget. Obama’s proposed FY2013 base defense budget amounts to $525 bn, i.e. 3.43% of GDP.

(The Overseas Contingency Operations budget, i.e. the war costs, are planned to be $88.5 bn in FY2013, FY2014, and FY2015 before the US withdraws from Afghanistan, but they’re separate from the base defense budget; in any case, Mitt Romney’s pledge, and his detractors’ false claims, pertain to the base defense budget, so we’ll look only at that one for the purposes of this analysis.)

A 3.47% of GDP base defense budget means that, excluding the late 1990s, America is now devoting less (as a percentage of GDP) of its own wealth to its national defense than at any time since FY1941.

Mitt Romney’s plans

As stated above, Gov. Romney proposes to raise the base defense budget to 4% of GDP.* As stated above, America’s GDP is currently $15.29 trillion, so 4% of it would amount to $611.6 bn, or just $86.6 above what Obama plans for FY2013.

How the base defense budget would grow thereafter would be determined by how fast the US economy would grow, since Gov. Romney pledges to peg the defense budget to the economy’s size. If the economy doesn’t grow, neither will the defense budget; if it grows slowly, so will the defense budget.

Even if it grows at a fast pace like 4% per year, the defense budget would, as a simple mathematical consequence, also grow only by 4% per year under Romney’s plan.

Let’s assume, for example, that next year, the economy grows by 4%, from $15.29 trillion to $15.9016 trillion. Assuming even such luck with economic growth (i.e. a rapid recovery), the base defense budget, as a 4% fraction of GDP, would still amount only to $636.064 bn in FY2014. But that’s totally dependent on the economy growing rapidly. Even then, under such optimistic economic growth assumptions, the FY2014 base defense budget would still be only  $103 bn per year higher than Obama’s plan for FY2014 (which is 533.6 bn, see Figure 1-3 on page 1-3 of this DOD document).

And remember, they claimed Romney wants to increase base defense spending by $200 bn on average! Which only shows how badly wrong they are.

But let’s assume optimistically that within the next five years, by 2017, the economy grows to $17 trillion (a highly unlikely scenario). Even if that happens, that would still leave defense spending, as a 4% of GDP item, at $680 bn in FY2017 or FY2018. By comparison, Obama plans to spend $567.3 bn in FY2017 on defense. (See this DOD document, page 1-3, Figure 1-3.) The difference is $113 bn, far short of the $200 bn difference the Obama camp and its liberal allies claim.

Romney should pound Obama on sequestration and previous defense cuts

When Barack Obama visited Virginia on his propaganda tour this week, Mitt Romney and other Republicans rightly pounded Obama for his massive defense cuts, including sequestration. However, they did not appear to do so effectively enough, because Obama retains a lead over Romney in Virginia.

Yet, it will hit the military, the defense industry, and the entire Nation hard on January 2nd, 2013, if it is not cancelled. Over 103 bn dollars will be cut out of the base defense budget if it isn’t. The consequences for Virginia would be, inter alia, the following:

1) Every shipbuilding program would have to be cut deeply by the same percentage. And, as Secretary Panetta says, since you can’t buy 3/4s of a ship, that means no warships could be bought at all.

2) At least one, and perhaps more than one, carrier group would have to be eliminated.

3) The Virginia-based Northrop Grumman can forget about the opportunity to build a next-generation long-range-bomber for the Air Force.

4) The Navy can forget about adding the Virginia Payload Module to its submarines or modifying any further cruisers or DDGs with BMD capability. In fact, the Navy would have to be cut to below 230 ships – thus becoming smaller than the Russian Navy – down from today’s already-inadequate fleet of 285 ships. No prizes for guessing where most of these decommisioned ships would have to come from – NS Norfolk, VA, the Navy’s largest base.

5) At least one CAW, probably two, would have to be eliminated. Again, no prizes for guessing where that CAW would come from – most likely NAS Oceana, VA.

6) Hundreds of thousands of troops, including thousands of those based in Virginia, would have to be laid off immediately.

7) Massive layoffs would occur in the US defense industry, with up to 1 million jobs on the line. Virginia would be hit harder than any other state except California.

And that’s just for starters, and just the consequences for Virginia.

Barack Obama and his propaganda team falsely claim that these cuts are part of some sacred agreement that Republicans agreed to, and that they’ve not presented any serious solution to sequestration.

But that’s not true. Republicans HAVE presented serious solutions: the Sequester Reconciliation Act (authored by Rep. Paul Ryan and passed by the House), the Ryan Budget Plan (also passed by the House), and the Down Payment to Protect National Security Act (H.R. 3662, which would replace only 1 out of every 3 retiring government workers).

Yet, Obama has threatened to veto both Acts (he can’t veto a budget resolution) and any other legislation that does not raise taxes on the most productive Americans (those who earn more than 250,000 dollars a year), even though his own SECDEF says that sequestration would be an utter disaster.

It is also not true that Republicans created this problem. Obama demanded massive defense cuts – on top of all the cuts Secretary Gates had administered and scheduled before April 2011 – long before the need to raise the debt ceiling even arose. He demanded them in a GWU speech on April 13th, 2011. Then, in negotiations on the debt ceiling deal and the spending cuts that accompanied it, it was Obama and his Congressional Democrat chums who demanded deep defense cuts as a part of any deal, with Obama saying he wanted to deeply cut defense to protect welfare programs. The eventual deal contained 487 bn in immediate defense budget cuts and a sequester threatening to cut another 550 bn out of defense, starting in FY2013, if the Super Committee could not agree to any savings (which it couldn’t, so now the sequester has kicked in). Both of these tranches of defense cuts were included at the Democrats’ and Obama’s insistence.

The sequester itself was created by them specifically to force Republicans to choose between massive defense cuts and massive tax hikes, because Obama and the Dems know that Republicans hate both. It was a purely partisan tool to start with.

And yet, Obama, along with the Democrat-controlled, do-nothing-Senate, still uses the sequester as a political tool to extract massive tax hikes from Republicans. He continues to threaten to veto any legislation that does not raise taxes on the most productive Americans.

Republicans, including Mitt Romney, need to call Obama out on this in stronger words than those used so far.

To hold the US military, national security, and industrial base at risk for the sake of a political agenda (of raising taxes) is the most despicable thing a President can do. It completely disqualifies Obama from being President and even dog catcher. By doing so, Obama has proven that not only is he unfit to be President, he’s unfit to be a toilet cleaner.

Romney needs to wage a no-holds-barred offensive against Obama for that reason – in Virginia and beyond.

http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2012/07/open-letter-president-obama-ahead-virginia-visit

Mitt Romney tries to dodge the Tampa GOP debate

As has been reported by the media, Mitt Romney is trying to dodge the upcoming Tampa GOP presidential debate, which will be held before the Florida GOP presidential primary on January 31st.

Why is Romney trying to avoid it? Because he doesn’t want to debate with Newt Gingrich. And why doesn’t the Massachusetts RINO want to debate with him? Because he’s too afraid of him. In fact, he’s scared to death of him. Gingrich is an excellent debater and can take on anyone, while Romney is a lousy discussion partner who gets angry and discomfortable whenever he’s challenged, criticized, or asked a difficult question.

But if he can’t debate Newt Gingrich, how can he take on Barack Obama?

The answer is: he can’t.

Republicans must not nominate this proven RINO loser. If he were to win the GOP nomination, Obama would have a field day with him.

Yet more anti-American BS from ungrateful Israeli Likudnik Ted Belman

WHAT THE HELL WAS THOMAS LIFSON THINKING?

Today, the American Thinker (should be called that way any longer?) published a virulently anti-American piece of garbage written by Israeli Likudnik Ted Belman, who has written hateful anti-American screeds on AT before. In his latest ‘article’, however, Belman outdid even his own previous anti-American screeds, calling the US an enemy of Israel (where he lives, having immigrated there from Canada) and accusing it again of appeasing Arabs at Israel’s expense.

Belman claims that:

“Before the ’67 War, U.S. policy was mostly hostile in that the U.S. imposed an embargo on arms to Israel for 20 years, from ’47 to ’67; was passive during the War of Independence, expecting Israel to be defeated in short order; and ordered Israel out of Sinai after Israel conquered it in the Sinai Campaign.”

This is clearly wrong. The US was selling tons of weapons to Israel even before 1967 (under JFK, for example, it sold Israel weapons worth 5 times the weapons it sold to Arab countries); and during Israel’s War of Independence, which Israel won easily, President Truman recognized Israel as an independent state just 11 minutes after Ben Gurion announced its creation, and met with first Israeli President Chaim Weizmann. As for the 1956 Suez War, which Belman calls “the Sinai Campaign” and which was an unprovoked act of aggression against Egypt by three countries (Israel, France, and Britain), the US and the USSR together acted to stop this aggression, with the Soviet Union even threatening France and Britain with nuclear war. The Eisenhower Administration did the right thing.

Then, Belman claimed:

“This policy was ameliorated in the aftermath of the ’67 War as reflected in Res. 242 of the UNSC, which established the principle that Israel was entitled to secure and recognized borders before withdrawing from the conquered territories.”

That is also a lie. Resolution #242 of the UNSC requires Israel to withdraws from the occupied territories BEFORE a peace agreement is made, and established the principle that all countries in the Middle East – not just Israel – are entitled to secure and recognized borders. It gives such right to all countries in the Middle East, not just Israel. It furthermore makes it clear that Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, termination of all states of belligerency, and respecting every ME country’s and territorial integrity is a PRE-CONDITION OF, and a BASIS FOR, any peace agreement, and that any peace agreement must be built on that foundation. John McHugo has already dealt with this common, but false, Israeli claim of the meaning of the Resolution in his landmark paper “Legal Reappraisal of the Israeli Right-Wing Interpretation of UNSC Resolution #242″.

Belman then continued to lie:

“By that resolution, the U.S. recognized that an agreement on borders had to be negotiated and that of necessity, Israel would be retaining some of the land.  Of course, a friend should have taken the position that Israel was entitled to keep all the land it had acquired in the defensive war.”

These are also blatant lies. Firstly, UNSC Resolution #242 does not require nor prohibit any land swaps; it does NOT, however, authorize Israel to retain any of the land conquered in 1967 by any means other than a negotiated peace agreement (if it authorized Israel to retain any land by virtue of conquest, it would have contradicted itself, because it affirms the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war). And no, a friend would not have to take the position that Israel was entitled to keep all the land it had acquired, or even any part of it. Israel was not entitled to that land.  As for the 1967 war – even if it were a defensive war, which it was not, it wouldn’t have mattered, because since the end of WW1, no country in the world has the right to acquire territory by war, even victims of aggression. The vexed question of who attacked whom during the various Israeli-Arab conflicts is therefore totally irrelevant.

And so we come to Belman’s most ridiculous claim, divided into a few sentences throughout the article:

“But the U.S. was committed to being friends with the Arabs, particularly Saudi Arabia, and this commitment excluded it.  That has always been U.S. policy, right up until today. (…) given this history, requiring Israel to return to the ’67 lines, even with swaps, suggests that she is really an enemy.”

Belman thus betrayed his real opinion: he considers the US an enemy of his country (Israel).

Thus, he’s an enemy of the United States.

The US has been consistently backing Israel since 1967, providing it with consistent diplomatic, financial, and military assistance not provided to any other country in the world. It has been selling (or giving for free, in the case of F-35 jets) the most modern weapons to Israel (many of which have ended up in China), and giving it intelligence information it denies to other allies. It doles out $4 bn per year of financial aid to the Israeli military, some of which is used to buy bulldozers and build settlements. It has fought wars for Israel’s benefit (vide the Iraqi war) and now, Obama is seriously considering launching the US into another disastrous war with another non-threat, Iran, solely for Israel’s sake. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 33 UNSC Resolutions (more than all other permanent UNSC members combined), all of which were vetoed solely because they were critical of Israel. At Camp David in 2000, by the admission of one participant of the 2000 summit, “far often we functioned as Israel’s lawyer.” US Administrations have expressed only muted concerns, and very rarely, about Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. Yet, Belman is not grateful and calls the US an enemy of Israel?

How dare he?

What more does he want? The US bombing Iran and all Arab countries to the Stone Age (or annihilating them)? More American money to raze Palestinians’ homes and build settlements on Palestinian lands? More American blood and money to be spilled and spent in quagmires for Israel’s sake?

Actually, I don’t care what he wants. He’s not an American, and he’s an enemy of the United States. Moreover, his articles are anti-American BS. So it doesn’t matter what he wants. He should, and will be, ignored by every sane person. The only commenters who agree with him on AT are Israeli citizens and Israeli Firster traitors with American passports (they don’t even deserve to be called Americans) who have chosen Israel over the US. As Jesus rightly said, a servant cannot serve two masters. One cannot be loyal to two countries simoultaneously, one can be loyal to only one country, and it’s clear that the US isn’t the country these saboteurs are loyal to.

Belman also claimed that:

“Shortly thereafter, the U.S. quietly negotiated an agreement with Israel limiting Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria to infilling for natural growth.  I am sure Israel didn’t ask for such an agreement. During the intifada II, Sen. Mitchell was sent to study the Arab violence.  On April 30, 2001, he submitted the Mitchell Report, which rewarded the violence by demanding that settlement construction cease. (…) President Bush recanted a bit in his letter to Sharon in ’04 in which he referred to Res. 242 but not the Saudi Plan, which was then called the Arab Initiative, as the basis for negotiations.”

Israel doesn’t even need these settlements to account for “natural population growth” and immigration; in any case, it has built far more settlements than it needed for this purpose; and it has built it on Palestinian land, where it has no right to build anything. Period. Sen. Mitchell was right to point out that the Palestinians were outraged because a foreign country was razing their homes, expelling them from the ruins of their homes, and building settlements on their own land. What would the American people do if Canada invaded the US, razed American homes, threw the American people out of these homes, and built settlements on US soil, on the ruins of these homes?

“Upon taking office, President Obama disavowed Res. 242, the longstanding agreement permitting infilling, and disavowed the Bush letter as binding.  He openly has embraced the Saudi Plan and has called for negotiations based on the ’67 armistice lines with swaps.  In doing so, he has pulled the rug out from under Israel — or, in today’s parlance, has thrown Israel under the bus.”

This is garbage. Obama has not expressed anything other than mute concern about settlements, has embraced UNSC Resolution #242 as a basis for negotiations, as have all previous US presidents, and negotating a peace agreement on the basis of the pre-1967 armistice lines with mutually-agreed land swaps has been the policy of EVERY US government since the Johnson Administration. Obama has not thrown Israel under the bus. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israeli-US cooperation under President Obama has been as good as ever, and Obama has been no worse for Israel than any previous President.

Belman has been known as a hateful enemy of the United States for quite some time. And in comments under his article, several people have shown their true colors. But what remains a mystery is why the American Thinker (or should it be called the Israeli Thinker?) published his hateful article. Why did this e-zin publish a hateful anti-American article from a foreigner? Why does it continually allow this anti-American foreigner to libel the US and express his hatred towards this country on its website?

AT Chief Editor Thomas Lifson and AT Submissions Editor Drew Belsky should be embarrassed. If they want to save whatever few shreds of credibility AT retains yet (if any), they will delete this article and apologize for it. If not, they will prove that AT is worthless and I will consequently cease submitting any article to that e-zin.

And if the Israelis really believe that the US is an enemy of Israel*, fine, let them cope without this “enemy”, then. The Congress should cut off all funding to Israel, and the US should stop selling any weapons to Israel. Let’s see how Israel will fare without the US.

Israel needs the US, but the US doesn’t need Israel for anything.

With America sinking in debt, and with draconian budget cuts being imposed on America’s own defense, its time to end subsidies for Israel.

*To be clear: I know that the vast majority of Israelis see the US as Israel’s ally, as does the Israeli Prime Minister, and that Ted Belman speaks for no one but himself and the fringe wing of the Likud Party. Nonetheless, his article is absolutely unacceptable, and AT’s Chief Editor should delete it immediately.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/is_the_us_a_friend_or_enemy_of_israel.html

Obama has once again proven he knows nothing about defense issues

America’s worst president ever, Barack Obama, has once again proven he knows nothing about defense issues, including the defense budget. During his recent Twitter interview with the voters and with Democratic plants, Obama was asked (apparently by a Democratic plant) a question about whether he plans to cut defense spending to reduce the budget deficit. Obama replied:

“The nice thing about the defense budget is it’s so big, it’s so huge, that a 1 percent reduction is the equivalent of the education budget. Not—I’m exaggerating, but it’s so big that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of head room to fund things like basic research or student loans or things like that.”

To borrow a line from Herman Cain: Mr President, with all due respect, you’re wrong.

Obama was wrong. With that reply, he has proven that he knows nothing about defense issues, including the defense budget. Firstly, the defense budget for FY2011 (the current fiscal year) is $530 billion, and the DOD’s base budget request for FY2012 is $553 billion. 1% of these sums is a microscopic $5.3-$5.5 billion, equals just 4.5% of the federal education budget (i.e. the budget of the federal Department of Education), which is $122 billion for the current FY. This is even less than the 7% that the Heritage Foundation claimed.

Cutting the defense budget by $5.5 billion would not provide enough money for student loans nor for basic research programs. And although Obama has not explained what he means by “modest changes”, it’s likely that for him, even cutting the defense budget by 15-20% would be a chump change.

And although he admitted that “We can’t just lop 25% off the defense budget overnight” and that the US military has legitimate equipment needs that must be funded, he nonetheless insisted that defense cuts are needed, prudent, required by a “strategy”, justifiable, and safe for America – which they are not.

As the DOD has reported on its website, Obama said during the Twitter interview that:

“Though he is committed to cutting the Defense Department budget as part of the overall reduction in the federal deficit, U.S.security and strategic needs must drive the effort, President Barack Obama said yesterday in his first Twitter town hall meeting.

Obama said he conducted the meeting to find out what the public thinks about how to reduce the federal deficit, what costs should be cut and which investments should be kept.

Responding to suggestions for cuts in the defense budget, the president said that is not an easy task.

“We can’t simply lop off 25 percent off the defense budget overnight,” he said. “We have to think about all the obligations we have to our troops who are in the field, and making sure they’re properly equipped and safe.” The need to replace outdated military equipment is another budget consideration, the president added.

“We’ve ended the war in Iraq, our combat mission there, and all our troops are slated to be out by the end of this year,” Obama said. And as Afghan forces take more responsibility for their country’s security, he added, U.S. forces will draw down there as well. But drawing down forces and beginning a new phase in Afghanistan must be done “fairly gradually,” he said.

Obama said that while decisions to cut defense spending will be tough, a reduction requires a balanced approach, as with any government program, to shrink the overall federal budget.

“Those who say that we can’t cut military at all haven’t spent a lot of time looking at military budgets,” he added.

However, the president said, the reductions must take place with the nation’s security in mind.

“One of the things that we have to do is make sure that we do it in a thoughtful way that’s guided by our security and our strategic needs,” he said. “And I think we can accomplish that.””

Actually, I have spent more time “looking at”, reading, analyzing, describing, and devising amendments to, America’s (and Britain’s) defense budgets, as anyone who reads my blog and my articles knows. I’ve spent much more time doing it than Barack Obama or any other Democratic politician has. I’ve spent ca. 90% of my spare time doing so during the last 4 years. America can afford to withdraw its troopers from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and to zero its spending on these countries and the GWOT, but it cannot afford to reduce the size of its defense tooth or its base defense budget (which is already too small).

Obama claims that “our security and our strategic needs” should guide defense budget cuts and he thinks “we can accomplish that.” That is not true. One cannot accomplish defense budget cuts that would be consistent with America’s defense needs and strategic needs. Those needs dictate that defense spending be increased, not decreased. They do not require defense spending cuts; quite the contrary is true.

Therefore, one cannot credibly claim that “US security needs and strategy must drive the effort to cut defense spending.”

Moreover, it is ridiculous for him to claim that any cuts he will make to defense spending and America’s military will be justified by strategy. They will not. They will likely be arbitrary cuts that will weaken the US military. Moreover, they will be made SOLELY to meet Obama’s diktat of cutting defense spending by $400 bn over the next 12 years. Moreover, the DOD will likely lie that these cuts are justified, make up some excuses, and produce some “strategy” that will pretend to justify these unjustifiable defense cuts. (That’s what it did in 2010 with the QDR – it was written solely to justify Gates’ unjustifiable defense cuts.)

By ordering the DOD to cut defense spending by $400 billion, Obama has put the cart before the horse. He has ordered massive defense spending cuts and has told the DOD to find out how exactly to make these cuts.

I am appalled, but not surprised, by the fact that Obama is “committed” to reducing defense spending. He’s a wimpy weak Dhimmicrat, just like almost all of his party colleagues.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=64583

The Heritage Foundation has rightly commented that:

“The President’s accounting failures aside, there’s an even bigger problem at work. Obama is of the belief that, for starters, $400 billion can be cut from the defense budget over the next 10 years without putting the military at risk. That’s in addition to the approximately $400 billion already cut by the Administration during the previous two years. In turn, he would take those dollars and apply them to pay for his pet projects at home.

The President is proposing those cuts irrespective of the military’s needs.

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that ill-conceived cuts to defense spending could increase America’s vulnerability in a “complex and unpredictable security environment” and that “the ultimate guarantee against the success of aggressors, dictators, and terrorists in the 21st century, as in the 20th, is hard power—the size, strength, and global reach of the United States military.”

But with the President’s proposed cuts, America’s base defense budget would be at its lowest point in more than 60 years (as a percentage of America’s GDP). Meanwhile, the threats Gates spoke of continue to materialize, while challenges remain in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and throughout the Middle East.

And then there’s the state of U.S. forces. Secretary Gates and the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel have agreed that the U.S. went on a “procurement holiday” in the 1990s. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz has stated that the present fleet of 187 F–22 fighters creates a high risk for the U.S. military in meeting its operational demands. The U.S. Navy has the fewest number of ships since America’s entrance into World War I. And yet the President sees fit to slash defense?

Contrary to Obama’s belief, the defense budget is not an ATM from which he can pull cash to pay for other projects. And he certainly can’t do it without causing further damage to U.S. military readiness. The Constitution demands that the U.S. government provide for the common defense. That’s a fact the President should keep in mind as he looks for ways to increase domestic spending amid a debt crisis.”

Sadly, yes, Obama sees it fit to deeply cut defense spending, as do his party colleagues and most Republicans (with few honorable exceptions such as Howard McKeon, Allen West, and Randy Forbes) – despite the fact that the PLAN is already larger than the US Navy, Russia and China are waging an arms race against the US, the Russian Navy has more SSBNs than the USN, the USAF’s current fleet of aircraft is the smallest and the oldest it has ever flown (with an average aircraft age of 24 years), the USAF’s ICBMs date back to the 1970s and need to be replaced,the USAF has only 20 stealthy bombers, and access-denial weapons are making current and potential future war theaters unsurvivable and unaccessible for nonstealthy aircraft and warships. The US military has huge legitimate modernization needs, yet both Democrats AND Republicans are committed to radically reducing defense spending, as is Obama.

It is utterly unacceptable for Obama to use defense spending as an ATM from which to finance his pet projects.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/07/what-obama-doesnt-know-about-defense-spending/

A response to the anti-American BS written by Ted Belman

Today, a virulently anti-American article written by Ted Belman was published on the Internet. Guess who published it?

Was it one of the usual suspects? Der Spiegel? The Guardian? Liberation? Le Monde?

Nope. The website on which it has been published is “the American Thinker”.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_unholy_usmuslim_alliance.html

Belman is a crappy writer biased in favor of the country where he lives (Israel); he’s a virulent enemy of anyone who doesn’t support a one-sided foreign policy in favor of Israel and continued wars with Muslim countries; and he has already submitted several biased, ridiculous, laughable articles to AT.

Nonetheless, this article is the worst one ever published on AT, because not only is it factually wrong, it also smears the US.

Belman accuses the US of maintaining an “unholy US/Muslim alliance” directed against Israel and believes that this alliance is motivated by greed and oil. (See below.)

Belman, parroting Avi Lipkin (an IDF spokesman), has accused the US of tolerating the Holocaust and of allying with the Arab world (whose oil was supposedly a key factor as early as the 1930s and the 1940s) to enable it. Furthermore, to Lipkin’s questions directed towards Americans, “And now you mean to say that it is going to happen again? You guys are going to sacrifice 5 million more Jews in Israel for the barrel of oil?”, he answered affirmatively, meaning that Belman believes the US plans to sacrifice 5 million Israeli Jews for a barrel of oil and allow a second Holocaust. The truth is that Israel is not threatened with a second Holocaust. Why? Because militarily, it’s the strongest ME country by far. It is the only ME country that possesses nuclear weapons; it has a missile defense system; and its conventional troops are far superior to those of its Muslim competitors. As a study by the Tel Aviv University admitted, “the strategic balance decidedly favors Israel”. Who the hell can threaten Israel, anyway? Egypt and Jordan are militarily weaker than the Jewish state, and they’ve signed peace-treaties with it. Saudi Arabia has offered to do so. The Palestinian Authority barely possesses a police, let alone an army that could threaten Israel. Syria no longer has a Soviet patron to resupply it (although Russia backs it), Iraq has been devastated by two Gulf Wars, and Iran is hundreds of miles away from Israel.

Belman falsely claimed that “The State Department negotiated UNSC Res. 242 at the end of the war, which allowed Israel to remain in occupation until she had an agreement for “secure and recognized borders.” But the Arabs refused to accept it.” This is also a lie. Resolution #242 does not Israel to continue the occupation of ANY Arab territories, under any circumstances; and it calls for “secure and recognized borders” for EVERY country in the Middle East, not just Israel. Furthermore, it calls on Israeli troops to withdraw from ALL territories occupied during the Six Day War (the English text of the resolution itself does not contain the definite word “all”, but it nonetheless means “all”; as was understood by all UNSC members at the time).

Belman also falsely claimed that after 1975, “the U.S., at first surreptitiously and then openly, backed the PLO. She saved them from Israel’s coup de gras in Beirut and enabled them to be welcomed in the United Nations and in the U.S.” This is utterly false. The US never backed the PLO and the only US President to ever meet with the PLO’s leader was Clinton.

Belman, who knows no shame and no moral limits, asked, “Remember how sick Rabin looked when he was forced to shake the hand of the arch-murderer Arafat on the White House lawn under the auspices of the smiling President Clinton?” Actually, Rabin was killed not by the “arch-murderer Arafat”, but by an Israeli, Yigal Amir, who admitted that he killed his own Prime Minister because of the Oslo Peace Accord. It is ridiculous and arrogant for Belman to use Rabin as a cover for his anti-American and anti-Arab BS.

Belman also lied that “While the U.S. maintains that the final agreement had to be negotiated between the parties, the U.S. puts a “gun” to Israel’s head during negotiations. The peace process is all about reaching an agreement predetermined by the Saudi/U.S. alliance.” Quite the contrary. Although successive Administrations have backed the PP, they accepted only agreements and proposals that are acceptable to Israel; no US Administration has ever pressured Israel to accept an agreement or proposal it didn’t like; and no US Administration has ever forced Israel to conduct policies Israel itself opposed. During the 2000 Camp David summit, the American delegation did not offer its own independent proposals, took clues from Ehud Barak, and coordinated with the Israeli delegation in advance. One of the American delegates to that summit, Aaron David Miller (an advisor of President Clinton), admitted that “we functioned as Israel’s lawyer”.

The only Administration of the last 49 years that even TRIED to pressure Israel to moderate its policies was the Bush Administration, which, however, capitulated to Ariel Sharon two times.

The most absurd part of Belman’s completely ridiculous article, however, is his implicit endorsement of Mordechai Nisan’s claim that “ the U.S. has long sided with the Arab world. (…) The U.S. arms Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the PA. Now she is also arming the Lebanese army, which is controlled by Hezb’allah. Who else but Israel is the target?”

The claim that the US has sided with the Arab world is utterly ridiculous. So is the companion claim that the US has sided with the Arabs against Israel. Every US Administration of the last 65 years, except the Eisenhower Admin, has backed Israel, often against Arab states, and always at the expense of America’s relations with the Arab world an America’s national interests.

Since 1967, the US has given Israel tens of billions of dollars for free. It gives Israel $3 bn per year, more than the amount received by any other FMF program beneficiary. This amounts to $500 per year per every Israeli. This largesse is suprising, given that Israel is a wealthy industrial state comparable with South Korea, with a per capita GDP of ca. $26000. Also, Israel, unlike all other recipients, receives in annually and can thus interest on it, and, again unlike all other recipients, is not required to spend all of it in the US. It is allowed to use 25% of the annual sum to finance its own defense industry. It is also never forced to account how the money is spent. Sometimes, it spends the money on bulldozers that raze Palestinian homes, or on the settlements that it builds in the ruins of already-razed Palestinian homes.

The US gives Israel intelligence information it denies to other countries, including NATO allies. Nonetheless, Israel believes the US is not generous enough, spies on the US, and has passed on American secrets to America’s enemies, including the Soviet Union. Jonathan Pollard did so in 1985 – at the same time that the Reagan Administration was negotiating with the Soviet Union on such important issues as intermediate-range ballistic missiles and the USSR’s abysmal human rights record. (AT has published several articles and blog posts calling on the US government to free Jonathan Pollard.)

Since 1982, the US has vetoed over 30 UNSC resolutions critical of Israel, thus vetoing more UNSC resolutions than all other permanent members of the UNSC combined.

In 1973, the US risked an Arab oil embargo (which devastated the US economy and seriously harmed other Western economies) by resupplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War to the tune of $2.2 billion in terms of free equipment delivered for free.

And regarding American arms sales, on which Belman commented that “The U.S. arms Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the PA. Now she is also arming the Lebanese army, which is controlled by Hezb’allah. Who else but Israel is the target?”, it must be underlined that the US annually sells Israel more weapons than it does to any Muslim country, and the weapons sold to Israel are always of higher quality than those concurrently sold to Muslim countries. Obama Administration officials have even publicly admitted that they sell weapons to Muslim states only if Israel approves, and only weapons inferior to those possessed or ordered by Israel.

For example, Israel has been allowed to buy dozens of F-35 jets, and was even offered F-22s (which no other country was even allowed to buy, and neither the DOD nor the Congress were even willing to consider allowing other countries to buy them). The best fighterplanes that the Bush and Obama Admininistrations have offered to Arab countries are F-15s, aircraft which first flew in 1974. No Arab country was ever offered F-35s or F-22s. Even such reliable longtime allies as Japan and Australia were not allowed to buy F-22s, while Britain was denied the source code for F-35s. Because Saudi Arabia wants modern, capable fighterplanes, it had to order EF-2000 Typhoon jets.

Israel has been allowed to buy high-quality weapons for decades, even though it has repeatedly transferred American weapons to America’s enemies, such as China, the deadliest foe of the United States.

So the accusation that the US is arming and has been arming Arab countries against Israel is ridiculous.

Belman complained about America’s ties to Turkey and Pakistan, and the muted criticism of how Saudi Arabia and Egypt treat Christians. Belman is blind to the fact that, with the exception of the alliance with Pakistan, all of these links are absolutely necessary. The US was right to bring Turkey into NATO, and it is right to back Turkey’s application to join the EU. Turkey is one of the most important allies the US has, unlike Israel.

Belman also lied that “the Turkish Muslims slaughtered one and a half million Christian Armenians during WWI, to little Western condemnation. This silence gave Hitler confidence twenty years later that he could slaughter the Jews.” The West has repeatedly condemned Turkey, and this genocide remains one of the reasons why Turkey hasn’t been admitted into the EU yet. Plus, this massacre had nothing to do with the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. Hitler was motivated by his own racist ideology, and Nazi camps were killing people even as late as 1944.

Belman also lied that “Recently, Turkey turned Islamist and aligned itself with Iran, Hezb’allah, and Hamas, but still President Obama stands by Turkey.” Turkey is a strictly secular state (although the AKP party sympathizes with Muslim countries), and has remained such a country to this day. The Constitution of Turkey is proof of this, as is the continued veneration of Turkey’s first president, Ataturk.

Belman also made another slanderous accusation against the US: “President Obama’s much-pursued Muslim outreach merely makes public what has been a covert reality for American policy for a hundred years.The Islamic countries can do no wrong. They have all the oil and money. Israel can do no right. They are a pain in the globalist’s butt.” No American official has ever said that. Nor has any prominent American politician ever said that. Moreover, politicians of both parties are biased in favor of Israel, because they know the political fact that if they don’t reflexively back Israel regardless of Israeli policies, they can’t win elections.

Belman concluded his article with these words:

“Avi Lipkin understands this. He is advocating for an alliance between Israel and the Evangelical Christians as a bulwark to the plans of the unholy American/Muslim alliance. Only with such an alliance can America and Israel, as we know them, be saved.”

Actually, Mr Belman, America doesn’t need you as a savior. Not you, a guy who has written slanderous anti-American vitriolic comments that are more fit for the Pravda, the Global times and Der Spiegel than for AT. Not you, a virulent enemy of the United States who hates anyone who doesn’t believe that the US shouldn’t reflexively favor Israel against the Muslim world. Not you, an enemy who has spit on the US despite the fact that America has been extremely generous towards the US for the last 59 years.

Everyday you should be thanking the US that it still backs your country.

The US can reform itself without you, and will surely do well without you.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_unholy_usmuslim_alliance.html

Another anti-defense liberal has utterly discredited himself

Yet another anti-defense liberal has utterly discredited himself. His name is Josh Barro, and his article of 8th June 2010, written for “RealWorldMarkets” (it should be called Alternate Universe Markets) claims that Senator Tom Coburn has tacked America’s supposed “runaway defense spending”.

The claim that America maintains “runaway defense spending” (i.e. “out-of-control defense spending”) is merely the first of the many lies included in his defense-bashing article. The truth is that defense spending – unlike entitlement spending – is tightly controlled by the OMB and the Congress, which carefully scrutinizes defense budgets, often refuses to authorize many programs and weapon orders, and usually authorizes less defense spending than what the executive branch requests. Not to mention the fact that ever since FY1995, defense spending has constantly remained below 4% of GDP and below the record Reagan-era levels.

Burro claims that defense spending is the second-largest cause of America’s debt and deficit. He’s lying. After the splurge of entitlement costs, which he correctly named as the biggest cause, the second-largest item in the federal budget (and therefore the second-largest cause of budget deficits and the federal debt) is welfare spending, not defense funding. This FY, welfare spending reached a record-high level – $888 bn, that is, much more than defense spending ($534 bn).

He claimed that defense spending “often gets short shrift”. He’s wrong. Defense spending is always the favorite “whipping boy” of almost every politician whenever the federal government posts a yearly budget deficit. This is also true today – very few politicians promise to reduce civilian programs and agencies, but almost every politician is calling for defense spending cuts.

He then falsely claimed that

“That national security is important does not mean that the Pentagon should be exempt from fiscal oversight or off the table when we talk about balancing the federal budget. This is especially true because higher defense spending does not always make us safer.”

This is NOT true. And yes, the DOD should be off the table when people talk about balancing the federal budget, because 1) the DOD is not to blame for the current budget deficits; 2) the DOD is responsible for the government’s most important, constitutionally-ordained, no-fail task: national defense. Any reduction of defense spending makes it hard for the DOD to execute that task.

Barro is apparently nostalgic about Clinton and his treasonous defense cuts, because he claimed that:

“With the Soviet threat eliminated, the “Peace Dividend” allowed a reduction in defense spending as a share of the economy, bottoming out at 3% of GDP in 1999 and 2000. This restraint was one of the key drivers of the budget surpluses of the Clinton-Gingrich era.”

Every defense issues expert recognizes that the “Peace Dividend” (which should be called “the procurement holiday”) was a foolish mistake. Over a period of 12 years, the first Bush Admin and the Clinton Admin literally massacred the US military and instituted a procurement holiday from which the US military still hasn’t recovered due to insufficient weapons spending. The US military was decrepit by 2001. As of 2000, the then Joint Chiefs of Staff complained that their services needed permanent budgetary increases measured in tens of billions of dollars. When the FY2001 defense budget was signed, liberals and defense conservatives alike estimated that it was inadequate. Some estimated that it was too small by $100 bn per annum. The Air Force Association wrote back then that the FY2001 DOD budget did not even begin to address the military’s financial and equipment requirements.

The deep reduction of defense spending was indeed a key driver of the Clinton-era budget deficits (because civilian spending wasn’t reduced significantly – vested interest groups defended it and singled out defense spending for reductions), but it was a foolish mistake.

Burro also claimed that:

“In 2010, defense spending will again reach 4.9% of GDP, the same level as in 1980. About half of this increase has been driven by specific costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rest by growth in base military spending faster than economic growth. With deficits expected to run in the range of 4% of GDP over the next decade, a 2% of GDP rise in defense spending is a huge deal.”

All of these claims are false. This year, defense spending will not exceed 3.65% of GDP ($534 bn divided by a GDP of $14.61 trillion is 3.65%). Defense spending does not include the cost of the Iraqi war and the Afghan war (which have NOTHING to do with defense spending, which is about maintaining the military), but even if you do include these costs, total “military spending” (the defense budget plus the GWOT cost) will reach only 4.5% of GDP this year ($664 bn /14.61 trillion = 4.5%). So the 4.9% figure (whether you count defense spending or total “military spending” is totally false. Furthermore, given that defense spending has risen from 3% of GDP only to 3.65% of GDP, it has risen by 0.65% of GDP, not 2%.

The defense budget, which stands at 3.65% of GDP, is, as a proportion of GDP, the SMALLEST defense budget since FY1948, if you exclude the last few Clinton defense budgets. During the entire Cold War, except FY1948, America’s defense spending was much higher than today. Total “military spending”, as a proportion of GDP, is also lower than America’s defense spending levels of the entire Cold War era (except FY1948).

Burro complains that the level of military spending will be “the same as the level of 1980″. I guess he believes that the tragically inadequate defense budgets of the Carter Administration (1977-1981) were also excessive, because he decried those defense budgets. During the Carter era, the US military was decrepit, and America’s adversaries were emboldened by Carter’s defense cuts and pacifist foreign policy.

Burro then claimed that “Senator Tom Coburn made these points last month in a letter to the chairmen of the president’s deficit commission. Coburn, who sits on the commission, puts a spotlight on rapid, inflation-adjusted growth in military spending and the lack of oversight at the Pentagon as that money is spent.”

Both of these claims are false. SECDEF Gates does exercise oversight on how the money is spent, and there has been no rapid growth of military spending during the last 20 years. See below.

Burro wrote that

“In his letter, Coburn notes that inflation-adjusted base Pentagon spending (that is, the figure excluding the additional costs for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan) rose from $407 billion in 2001 to $553 billion — a 36% increase — by 2011. “Supplemental” spending to cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will add a further $159 billion in 2011.”

This is utter gibberish. Firstly, spending levels for FY2011 have NOT been authorized yet and FY2011 hasn’t begun yet, so no one can honestly claim that defense spending already has risen  to “2011 levels”. Secondly, the figure proposed by the Administration is $549 bn, not $553 bn. Thirdly, that 36% budget increase – if it happens – will be an increase conducted over ten fiscal years, not over one year. (By comparison, Obama has increased federal welfare spending by 70% during the last 16 months.) Fourthly, even if the $549 budget for FY2011 is approved, it will nonetheless stand at only 3.75% of GDP, and, like the current defense budget, will be the lowest since FY1948 (excluding the last few Clinton budgets). Fifthly, the FY2001 defense budget – as stated earlier – was tragically inadequate, and the current levels of defense spending are absolutely necessary to enable the US military to recover from the 1990s procurement holiday imposed on it by two idiotic presidents.

Burro then asks, “Is all this spending necessary to protect America? Coburn gives reason to believe that it isn’t.” And that’s a lie, because Coburn has given no reason to believe that it isn’t. Quite the contrary, it is necessary to protect America. It is necessary to enable the US military to recover from the 1990s procurement holiday. Some savings could be made in the DOD (on unneeded bases and bureaucracies, as well as fuel costs, personnel costs and healthcare program costs), but all of these savings should be reinvested at the DOD.

Burro wrote that

“Coburn notes first that even though military spending has risen significantly in real terms — and will continue to do so under the Obama administration’s current plans — we are spending more to get less.”

Coburn is lying. Military spending has not risen significantly in real terms. Like I wrote earlier, that 36% increase from a dismally low level (the FY2001 level) is an increase over 10 fiscal years, which means it’s small.

Burro then claimed,

“For example, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program has experienced a cost overrun from $226 billion projected in 2001 to $328 billion projected today. This is despite the fact that the number of F-35 planes to be purchased has gone down by 14%; the overrun is driven by a unit-cost increase of 68%. And yet, there are serious concerns about the F-35′s suitability for combat operations currently performed ably by its nine-times-cheaper predecessor, the A-10.”

This is utter gibberish which proves that Burro knows nothing about defense issues. One of the chief reasons why the cost of one F-35 and the total F-35 program cost have grown is that the order for F-35s has been significantly reduced from 2001 levels. Moreover, the F-35 type is, by all metrics, superior to A-10 aircraft, which are obsolete, large, unstealthy, and very expensive to maintain. Plus, there are almost no spare parts for A-10s at AMARC any longer – the spare parts supply has already been depleted.

Burro noted that

“Coburn is likely to find an ally in the White House, which has sought to rein in the Pentagon’s spending culture. Obama used significant political capital to kill the overrun-plagued F-22 fighter program, threatening to veto any defense spending bill that did not terminate it. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been encouraging military brass to reevaluate their decisions about what purchases are useful for today’s wars, including an emphasis on widely used — and less expensive — unmanned aircraft.”

The F-22 program was absolutely necessary to protect America from peer competitors (Russia and China, one of whom has already flown a 5th generation “Raptorski” fighterplane and the other is projected by the US intel community to field a domestic 5th generation fighterplane by 2018), and the chief cause of its cost overruns was the deep reduction of the number of planes ordered by the DOD: from 750 in 1989 to 187 in 2008. Every credible defense expert now recognizes that the decision to close the F-22 program was a foolish mistake.

“The Pentagon’s spending culture”? Since the defense budget equals only 3.65% of GDP, it’s hardly profligate. As for Robert Gates – he hasn’t been “encouraging military brass to reevaluate their decisions about what purchases are useful for today’s wars”, he has imposed draconian weapon program cuts on them.

For today’s wars as well as for future wars (which are more important than today’s conflicts), the US military needs a very wide range of weapons, ranging from MRAP vehicles and UAVs to high-tech fighterplanes, bombers and submarines. America is facing a very diverse range of enemies ranging from China and Russia, to North Korea, Iran Venezuela, Syria, Al Qaeda and the Taleban. To deter and defeat them, the US military needs a very wide range of weapons. In other words, America needs an “all-of-the-above” weapons purchase policy, just like it needs an “all-of-the-above” plan to wean itself off foreign oil.

UAVs have been oversold. UAVs cannot do anything other than ISR and limited ground attack. The claim that UAVs can replace fighterplanes, attack aircraft and bombers is a fantasy.

Burro praised President Obama for his planned further defense cuts:

“Over the medium term, the president’s budget forecasts a steep drop in defense spending as a share of GDP — from 4.9% in 2010 and 2011 back down to 3.5% in 2015. But projecting that is one thing, and getting there is another. Doing so will require a scaling back of our military operations abroad, and will require that Congress go along with the Administration’s plans to restrain cost growth for personnel and procurement.”

Firstly, it will not be a reduction “from 4.9% in 2010 and 2011 back down to 3.5% in 2015″, because defense spending, as I wrote earlier, is NOT at the level of 4.9% of GDP (it stands at a mere 3.65% of GDP), and even total military spending stands at only 4.4% of GDP. Secondly, that defense spending reduction is unjustified and will badly hurt the US military, which still hasn’t recovered from the 12-year-long procurement holiday (because, since FY1995, defense spending has always been below 4% of GDP). Thirdly, the Obama Admin doesn’t plan to “restrain cost growth for procurement”, it plans to arbitrarily close crucial weapon programs. Missile defense is rumored to be on the chopping block, and the Obama Admin is reportedly talking to the Russians about an agreement that will unilaterally curtail and reduce America’s missile defense.

Burro then noted:

“This assumes that a scaling back of foreign military operations is a good idea. Iraq and Afghanistan are budgeted as “contingency” operations, with the idea being that they reflect temporary spending and should not be included in the ongoing budget baseline. If we expect to have over a hundred thousand troops fighting a war or two abroad on an essentially permanent basis, we should be budgeting accordingly — and adjusting our tax code or other government programs to accommodate a permanently higher level of expenditure.”

I oppose the Iraqi war and the Afghan war, and the sooner they end, the better. However, even a military spending level of 4.4% of GDP (let alone a defense spending level of 3.65% of GDP) DO NOT require the American people to make any additional sacrifices, do not require a tax hike, and do not require “a permanently higher level of expenditure”. It merely requires that the REAL causes of America’s budget deficits and debt – namely, entitlement programs, bloated bureaucracies and welfare spending – are curtailed and reduced. But this must be done anyway, to balance the budget if for no other purpose.

Burro then wrote:

“But regardless of macro-level foreign policy decisions, Coburn’s letter gives reason to believe that we can find significant savings in military spending — though perhaps not as much as 1.4% of GDP — just by increasing accountability and making wiser spending choices.”

Other than ending the Iraqi war and the Afghan war – which should be done ASAP – no significant savings can be found in military spending. Certainly not savings to the tune of 1.4% of GDP. Certain savings could be made (on bases, personnel, socialized medicine, fuel costs, overhead, and O&M costs), and my Defense Reform Proposals Package proposes such savings. But all defense spending savings should be reinvested in the DOD. Moreover, no big savings that could significantly reduce the budget deficit can be made at the DOD.

To reduce and ultimately eliminate the budget deficit, the Congress needs to tackle the REAL causes (if you don’t tackle the causes, you cannot cure the patient): the failed “stimulus”, the TARP program, entitlements and welfare spending. FY2010 welfare spending stands at $888 bn, the TARP program cost taxpayers $700 bn, the cost of the stimulus is over $820 bn, and entitlement programs collectively cost $1.438 trillion per year. These are the real culprits. Defense spending is microscopic compared to these programs.

I’m proud that I’m the only person who has written a comprehensive DOD reform blueprint. Burro and Coburn have not done so. But given that defense spending equals only 3.65% of GDP, no significant budget-rescuing savings can be made at the DOD.

The article I replied to is published at the following address:

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/06/08/sen_coburn_tackles_runaway_defense_spending_98501.html

Welfare spending is the LARGEST item in the federal budget.

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Liberals and libertarians constantly decry defense spending as excessive and single it out for reductions. Yet, defense spending is microscopic compared to welfare spending.

Today, welfare spending is the largest item in the federal budget, standing at $888 bn out of the $3.6 trillion of the federal budget, that is, almost 25% of it.

The $888 bn sum represents ALL federal welfare programs, but doesn’t include non-welfare-programs (and therefore doesn’t include the SS program nor the Medicare program).

These 70 welfare programs are spread among 14 different federal agencies.

When Bush left office, annual federal welfare spending was already gargantuan – $522 bn – and was larger than Bush’s last defense budget ($512 bn in 2008 dollars, which is $517 bn in today’s dollars). But Obama significantly increased welfare spending – by $366 bn by FY2010, that is, more than 50%.

Already during FY2009, Obama increased welfare spending to $697 bn – by $255 bn, i.e. 48.85% – but now, welfare spending is even higher ($888 bn per annum).

The $366 bn welfare spending growth since January 2009 is the largest welfare spending increase ever. And yet, even though welfare spending is the largest cause of America’s budget deficits and America’s debt, Obama intends to continue to grow it. He plans to spend $1 trillion per annum on welfare programs by FY2014 and has set a plan for the federal, state and local governments to spend $10.3 trillion on welfare programs during the next several decades. Of that sum, $7.5 trillion is to be spent by the federal government itself, and $2.8 trillion by state governments as a result of federal diktats.

Historically:

1) Since LBJ began the “War on Poverty”, the federal government has spent $15.9 TRILLION (in 2009 dollars) on welfare programs. (By contrast, the combined cost of every war America has ever fought, including the Revolutionary War, was $6.4 trillion in 2009 dollars.)

2) Welfare spending has always been the fastest-growing part of federal spending. It has grown by 292% (yes, by 292 percent) since 1989, while the SS program and the Medicare program have grown by 213% since 1989.

3) In 1965, welfare spending was only 1.2% of GDP. Today, it accounts for 5.92% of GDP, while defense spending stands at a meagre 3.56% of GDP.

4) Obama’s FY2010 welfare spending ($888 bn) is larger than the entire sum spent on the Iraqi war than the Bush Admin ($622 bn).

5) Already as of FY2000, welfare spending cost over 4% of America’s GDP (while Clinton deliberately kept defense spending at 3% of GDP, the lowest level since FY1941). During the Bush era, welfare spending was always higher than ANY other item in the federal budget except the SS program.

6) As of 7th March 2001, federal welfare spending cost 4.4% of GDP.

7) The welfare spending level as of 2000 was $434 bn in 2000 dollars, that is, $549.88 bn in FY2010 dollars. This sum is larger than the defense budget of FY2000, the defense budget for the current fiscal year ($534 bn), and the proposed defense budget for FY2011 ($547 bn). Of course, the FY2010 welfare spending level is not $434 bn, it is $888 bn.

During the 1990s, there was a much-vaunted, but minor, welfare roll reform, which reformed only ONE of the 70 federal welfare programs, namely the “Aid for Families with Dependent Children” program (and that reform was abolished by Obama’s stimulus package). The other 69 federal welfare programs remain unreformed to this day. None of these 70 programs were ever abolished.

The US Census Bureau constantly lies, “Oh my goodness, we have 40 million poor people. We need to spend more money.” and claims that “poverty levels” are high. But it counts only 4% of welfare spending as income.

One of the reasons why welfare costs are so high is that there are many single mothers in the US. Almost all single mothers are dependent on welfare programs. These single mothers alone get welfare rolls worth $350 bn per year. Last year, 41% of all newborn American kids were born out of wedlock. (By comparison, as of 1963, 93% of newborn American kids were born to married parents.) Of course, 70% of unmarried single women voted for Obama, because they always vote for the guy who offers the biggest giveaways.

Another reason is the ethos. Before the 1960s, troubled individuals applied to their local government or to a private charity (e.g. the Salvation Army). A downtrodden individual had to explain how he got into trouble and how he intended to rescue himself from it. He was monitored to ensure that he wasn’t lying. Welfare program costs were relatively small. Today, with minimal qualifications, you can receive welfare rolls if you’re willing to bother to come to your mailbox once a month.

Before the 1960s, welfare programs were seldom talked about, because they weren’t compelling issues. They were small programs operated by local governments, and were available only to truly downtrodden individuals. Today, the welfare state is a national scandal. Obama has hiked welfare spending to $888 bn per year during just 16 months, and there is a permanent dependency class.

Yet, politicians (Democrats and Republicans alike) are refusing to reduce welfare spending. They seldom even talk about it. Instead, they are working to cut the meagre defense budget in order to maintain and expand federal welfare programs. Recently, a panel of pacifists convened by Congressman Barney Frank of MA called for $1 trillion defense spending cuts – which means a total abolition of the US military for 2 fiscal years. Obama proposes to reduce defense spending by FY2012 by $92 bn, to a meagre level of $457 bn, while he continues to increase welfare spending so that the welfare bums who voted him into office will vote for his Congressional allies.

Why do politicians continue to sabotage America’s defense while increasing (rather than reducing) welfare programs?

Because these programs have an entire dependency class that lives off them, depends on them (and therefore on the federal government, which wants as many people as possible to be dependent on it, so that it can manage them like puppets), and is not willing to surrender them. This dependency class will vote out of office any politician who proposes to reduce (or eliminate) welfare programs.

On the other hand, defense has very few defenders (myself an a few other people) and no constituency to defend it. That’s why for the last 57 years politicians have been shamelessly using the DOD as a piggy bank to finance their bloated, unjustified, unnecessary domestic programs while lying that the defense budget is “profligate”.

The sources:

http://blogs.examiner.net/blogs/teapartykccom/prez-spends-more-welfare-spent-entire-iraq-war

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Testimony/Means-Tested-Welfare-Spending-Past-and-Future-Growth

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/06/Married-Fathers-Americas-Greatest-Weapon-Against-Child-Poverty

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Obama plans a huge defense budget cut for FY2012

Obama boasts that he has excepted the DOD from his spending freeze. And that’s true – but his five-year budget plan for the DOD is much worse than a spending freeze.

Obama’s Five Year Defense Plan, revealed by the Heritage Foundation (http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/the-obama-five-year-defense-bud…), indicates that Obama plans to REDUCE defense spending (i.e. the defense budget) by a whopping $92 billion (in real terms) during FY2012, from the planned FY2011 level ($549 bn). This means that during just one fiscal year, he will reduce defense spending (in real terms) by a whopping $92 bn.

This would be a reduction of 16.75% from the planned FY2011 spending level and would bring defense spending down to $457 billion – the lowest level of defense spending (in absolute terms) since FY2003! The FY2012 defense budget, planned by Obama to be $457 bn, would be smaller not than most Bush budgets, most Reagan budgets, and some McNamara budgets.

This deep reduction of defense spending – which Obama promised to his extremely liberal voters – is a gift to extremely liberal members of the Congress such as Barney Frank, the socialist Congressman from Massachusetts, who recently demanded a defense spending cut of $1 TRILLION, which would mean abolishing the entire US military, because the DOD’s current budget (the FY2010 budget) is only $534 bn.

Make no mistake: a $92 bn defense spending reduction will render the US military impotent. It cannot be compensated with a new BRAC round, or a reduction of bureaucracies, or a reduction of fuel costs. It will force the DOD to cut programs that are truly necessary – e.g. modernization programs. This means that the DOD will be forced to stop modernizing the military. This means a sharp reduction of the military and a sharp reduction of equipment stocks.

Please call (or email) your Congressman and your Senators, and political candidates from your district/state, and tell them that you will never vote for them if they approve Obama’ defense cuts.

The new START treaty WILL constrain America’s missile defense

Today, Obama signed a disastrous START treaty with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. The treaty is fundamentally flawed, and Obama is trying to convince reluctant Republican Senators to vote to ratify it by lying to them that this treaty will not limit missile defense anyhow.

Obama is lying. The treaty WILL constrain America’s missile defense. The entire treaty is flawed, disastrous and unacceptable for any defense conservative, but the most disastrous clause of all is the missile defense clause. Obama and his Republican useful idiot, Richard Lugar (a liberal Republican from Indiania), claims that the clause is only declaratory and that it’s not legally binding. Obama is lying, because the clause IS legally binding, as confirmed by the Russian foreign minister:

“It appears that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Lavrov isn’t quite ready to pop the champagne on the new nuclear arms reduction agreement due to be signed in Prague this week:

Russia will have the right to exit the accord if “the U.S.’s build-up of its missile defense strategic potential in numbers and quality begins to considerably affect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow today.

The issue of missile defense was the major sticking point in negotiations over the treaty, particularly after the United States announced plans to build new facilities in Bulgaria and Romania.

Russia insists that the agreement includes a link between offensive and defensive systems.

“Linkage to missile defense is clearly spelled out in the accord and is legally binding,” Lavrov said today.”

The sources: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/06/lavrov_russia_may_pull_out_of_nuke_deal_if_us_expands_missile_defense

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-06/russia-may-exit-new-arms-deal-if-u-s-boosts-missile-defense.html

Of course it is legally binding. That is EXACTLY why Russia forced Obama to agree to that clause as a precondition without which Russia would’ve never signed the treaty. Russia’s goal was not only to convince the US to gut its own nuclear arsenal and the delivery systems – the nuclear arsenal will be reduced to just 1550 nuclear warheads and the number of delivery systems will be reduced only 800 – but also to constrain America’s missile defense so that it will NOT develop any further and will NOT appear anywhere beyond the US.

And the Russian foreign minister warned the Obama Administration and the American public, in no uncertain terms, that if America does develop its missile defense, Russia will withdraw from that treaty, just like it withdrew from the START-II treaty after President Bush withdrew America from the ABM Treaty and began building a missile defense system.

So this treaty is a 100% victory for Russia, a capitulation by Obama to the Russians, a boon for Russia and all other aggressors around the world. Moscow, of course, will never comply with the treaty – just like it didn’t comply with SALT treaties. It has managed to convince the US government to gut its own nuclear deterrent while also surrendering missile defense.

The only institution that can stop this disastrous treaty now is the US Senate.

So please call your Senators and tell them that you will NEVER vote for them if they vote for this treaty.