Music To My War-Weary Ears... Obama: the US can no longer fight the world's battles

[kpete]

Obama: the US can no longer fight the world's battles
President plans to cut half a million troops and says US can't afford to wage two wars at once

The mighty American military machine that has for so long secured the country's status as the world's only superpower will have to be drastically reduced, Barack Obama warned yesterday as he set out a radical but more modest new set of priorities for the Pentagon over the next decade.

After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that defined the first decade of the 21st century, Mr Obama's blueprint for the military's future acknowledged that America will no longer have the resources to conduct two such major operations simultaneously.

Instead, the US military will lose up to half a million troops and will focus on countering terrorism and meeting the new challenges of an emergent Asia dominated by China. America, the President said, was "turning the page on a decade of war" and now faced "a moment of transition". The country's armed forces would in future be leaner but, Mr Obama pointedly warned both friends and foes, sufficient to preserve US military superiority over any rival – "agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats".

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the rest:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-the-us-can-no-longer-fight-the-worlds-battles-6285629.html

[tabatha]

1. Oh, but I thought he was going to wage war on Syria and Iran.

[Muskypundit]

2. *crickets*

I thought so.

[The Doctor.]

3. This won't be easy.

I'm afraid it might give Republicans the fodder they need to whip up their imbecile base.

[orpupilofnature57]

4. Please lets call it what it is ,Tell him we

will Protect you from the Powers that be ,put your faith in Us , Mr President.

[hootinholler]

8. We couldn't protect Jack

I hope this signals that a deal has been struck with TPTB.

[orpupilofnature57]

11. Your right ,TPTB know only $$$$$$$

[evrstrong]

5. The budget can be cut many times over....

.....we still have the capacity to take over the world and wreak havoc!

I'm not jumping up and down.....Obama already outlined this on his website in a speech he gave called "The War We Need To Win",in which he outlined his dream for a more streamlined, smarter, more stealth, etc...military.

Here is an excerpt from the speech given August 7, 2007:

I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America. This requires a broader set of capabilities, as outlined in the Army and Marine Corps's new counter-insurgency manual. I will ensure that our military becomes more stealth, agile, and lethal in its ability to capture or kill terrorists. We need to recruit, train, and equip our armed forces to better target terrorists, and to help foreign militaries to do the same. This must include a program to bolster our ability to speak different languages, understand different cultures, and coordinate complex missions with our civilian agencies.

To succeed, we must improve our civilian capacity. The finest military in the world is adapting to the challenges of the 21st century. But it cannot counter insurgent and terrorist threats without civilian counterparts who can carry out economic and political reconstruction missions -- sometimes in dangerous places. As President, I will strengthen these civilian capacities, recruiting our best and brightest to take on this challenge. I will increase both the numbers and capabilities of our diplomats, development experts, and other civilians who can work alongside our military. We can't just say there is no military solution to these problems. We need to integrate all aspects of American might.

One component of this integrated approach will be new Mobile Development Teams that bring together personnel from the State Department, the Pentagon, and USAID. These teams will work with civil society and local governments to make an immediate impact in peoples' lives, and to turn the tide against extremism. Where people are most vulnerable, where the light of hope has grown dark, and where we are in a position to make a real difference in advancing security and opportunity -- that is where these teams will go.

I will also strengthen our intelligence. This is about more than an organizational chart. We need leadership that forces our agencies to share information, and leadership that never -- ever -- twists the facts to support bad policies. But we must also build our capacity to better collect and analyze information, and to carry out operations to disrupt terrorist plots and break up terrorist networks.

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh yes, he had a vision of his stab at being Commander In Chief!

[Pirate Smile]

6. We NEVER did conduct "two such major operations simultaneously." The Colonel on MSNBC today pointed

that out. When the Iraq War was hot - all the fire power was shifted there and Afghanistan was put on hold & it regressed with the Taliban taking back control over major parts of the Country.

[MichiganVote]

7. We STARTED the last two.

[DCKit]

9. The interview with Panetta on The Newshour was pathetic.

1) Bogymen are everywhere. We need to be on the alert, staffed and ready for every possible contingency ever dreamed of.
2) We need to maintain our military to a level that would allow wars on two fronts, at all times.
3) We need to rely more on an increased National Guard to provide extra cannon fodder on an as-needed basis (Really scary, if you're one of those (us) who imagines a day when the Nat. Guard will be mobilized against the 99% to protect the 1%).

I say "Screw it. Let's close half our foreign bases and see how much that saves, then go from there. Let NATO, the UN and our other allies pick up some of the slack of being the world's policemen."

[JVS]

10. dicentes pax pax et non erat pax

[Bonobo]

12. The most overlooked fact of the last decade of US wars...

is that it has counter-productively reduced our security in at least two ways:

1. It has demonstrated that the US is a paper tiger.

2. It has increased the number of people who hate the US and wish to do it harm.