Thursday, January 14, 2010

"Obama's policy on the war he once opposed is not similar to Bush's: It is identical"

Posted by Jack Hunter on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:15 PM

Reacting to my current column, plenty of Obama-loving liberals are angry at me for pointing out the obvious—that on the one issue that most defined Obama's candidacy and the Bush presidency—the two men are indistinguishable.

Or as syndicated columnist Steve Chapman observes:

"The administration and its opponents both make much of its plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by this summer and to pull the rest out by 2012. What both prefer to forget is that the previous president agreed to the same timetable. Obama's policy on the war he once opposed is not similar to Bush's: It is identical.

Afghanistan? Dick Cheney faults the president for allegedly failing to "talk about how we win," as if Obama were doing far less than the Bush administration. In fact, Obama has agreed to more than triple the U.S. troop presence in a war that his predecessor only talked about winning. McCain called for a "surge" in Afghanistan like the one in Iraq. Obama has given it to him.

Republicans nonetheless entertain the fantasy that at heart, Obama is a pacifist, bent on gutting our military might and naively trusting the good faith of our adversaries. Bush White House adviser Karl Rove recently complained that under this administration, "defense spending is being flattened: Between 2009 and 2010, military outlays will rise 3.6 percent while nondefense discretionary spending climbs 12 percent."

Read that again: Rove believes that when defense spending rises 3.6 percent, it's not really rising. Why? Because the rest of the budget is growing faster. By that logic, if I gained 10 pounds over the holidays but Rove gained 20, I'd need to have my pants taken in.

As it is, the United States spends more on defense than all the other countries on Earth combined. Yet we persist in thinking of ourselves as endangered by foreign countries that are military pipsqueaks.

Obama shares this view. He thinks the only problem with the American military is there isn't enough of it. He's expanding the size of both the Army and the Marine Corps. That's right: After we begin leaving Iraq, the biggest military undertaking in two decades, we won't need a smaller force. We'll need a bigger one.

Conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity accuses the president of "cutting back on defense," but he must be holding his chart upside down. The basic Pentagon budget (excluding money for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) is scheduled to go up every year.

Over the next five years, defense spending, adjusted for inflation, would be higher than it was in the last five years, when Fox News commentators did not complain about inadequate funding. That's not counting the increases requested by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to provide an additional boost of nearly $60 billion over those five years.

What all this suggests is that Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us nothing about the folly of invading other countries and trying to turn them into modern democracies. The essential theme of the administration's national security policy is reflexive continuity. Why else would we need a bigger military except to do more of the same?

So we are stuck with the consensus that has ruled Washington for decades — the expensive, aggressive policy that has inflated the federal budget and bogged us down in two unsuccessful wars while furnishing an endless, priceless recruiting message for Islamic terrorists.

Too bad. None of this would have happened if Barack Obama had been elected."

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Topics: National Politics
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Comments (6)

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Good points Jack, but Obama's expansion of the military won't (or can't) be limited to foreign conflicts. The Obama administration (just like its predecessors) will increasingly use the military as a problem solving "Swiss army knife". As you read this, US military personnel and equipment are being rapidly deployed to aid the people of Haiti. We will foot the bill for that deployment. One can argue over whether it is an appropriate use of the US military and taxpayer dollars, but it is certain that no other force can match our men in uniform when it comes to rapid deployment and security. Without a secure situation on the ground, there can be no distribution of critical medical supplies and food. Without security there will be no rebuilding of basic infrastructure. Without rapid US aid and assistance, a tragedy could become a catastrophe. We still don't know how many have died from the initial event, but the numbers killed by the ensuing dysentery, disease and famine are likely to equal or surpass the initial loss of life. As usual, we Americans will come to the aid of a third world country, and for our efforts we will be rewarded with further scorn and insult from the UN.

If we are going to use the US military to police the third world, and deliver "meals on wheels" to every nation struck by calamity in our hemisphere, then I don't see how the military budget can possibly shrink, notwithstanding our ongoing "foreign contingency situations" in the middle east.

At least our goodwill towards the Haitian people won't be rewarded with roadside bombs and suicide attacks. Of course, it should be noted that over 80% of Haiti's population profess to be Roman Catholics, who do not enjoy notoriety as suicide bomber Jihadist types.

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Posted by I P Yuengling on January 15, 2010 at 3:26 PM

They warned us about acid flashbacks; I must be having one as both Hunter and Yuengling are making sense today.

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Posted by FCB on January 15, 2010 at 5:23 PM

Hunter surreptitiously installed a Ron Paul "subliminator" widget to your desktop. Good luck finding that bit of liberal kryptonite amongst your files. To see if your infected, put your computer in standby and crank up your desktop speakers to maximum volume and you should hear Charleton Heston's voice reciting the preamble to the Constitution.

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Posted by I P Yuengling on January 15, 2010 at 5:56 PM

While Republican corruption & obstructionism is running wild, the unemployment so high, and with so many massive budget cuts looming; it's exactly the reason we need a new and dedicated leader to represent us, an American Hero and former Chief of North American Combat Forces.
With the recent support announcement of Ms. Linda Ketner to the Robert Burton congressional campaign for U.S. District 1, I urge you to check out the following link with your full support;
Col. Robert Burton (USAF Ret.), DEEDS not WORDS
http://bit.ly/8YSVwU

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Posted by DaveMoore1 on January 16, 2010 at 10:26 AM

Jack, it is astonishingly clear that you are not concerned with addressing the realities of the situations you write about and presenting possible solutions. Rather, you are preoccupied with persuading your readers to buy your brand of dogma regardless of the truth of the propositions you espouse. No one like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not Liberals, not conservatives (I think), not the Military, not the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. However like an oil spill, a disaster of tremendous proportions is very expensive to clean up.

You are so much worse than a liar, who at least has some regard the the facility and fidelity of truth. The truth is irrelevant to you and I suggest that you read a great book I think of every time I read your column: "On Bullshit," by Harry Frankfurt.

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Posted by Logic Avenger on January 19, 2010 at 9:13 AM

"It's the new model army...engaging in a new kind of high moral intervention...the U.S. soldier with a care package in one hand and a gun in the other."
Rothbard

I suppose it isn't exactly interventionist to help others, but I wonder if our government's prior intervention in Haiti (kidnapping their democratically elected leader and torturing him so he would accept global economic policies) and economic sanctions during bush 1 and clinton has any bearing on their ability to build better buildings and infrastructure. Or maybe the foreign aid we sent the country that was of course heavily skimmed by dictators (as is the case of a lot of foreign aid it seems) maybe simply funded the dictator's regimes and did nothing to help the people. Of course, the more dependent the people are the more easily they can be controlled, which is the reality of the liberal dogma and the statist power worshipers. And now we have bush 2 anointed by bush 3 to help the lead the relief efforts. I feel sorry for those people.

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Posted by n66178 on January 20, 2010 at 3:27 PM
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