Gates faults Congress for 'crisis on my doorstep'

[steve2470]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110127/ap_on_re_ca/cn_gates

OTTAWA, Ontario – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is accusing Congress of dumping a "crisis on my doorstep" by holding the Pentagon to last year's spending levels and creating a potential $23 billion gap that could weaken a wartime military.

"That's how you hollow out a military," Gates said Thursday.

Gates said it looks increasingly likely that Congress will not act on the Pentagon's 2011 budget request even as lawmakers argue over Gates' proposal to slow the rate of increase in defense spending next year and freeze it by 2015.

Gates was in Canada for North American defense talks. In an interview as he traveled to the Canadian capital, the Pentagon chief said he understands that his proposal for $78 billion in cuts in future spending has run into opposition among lawmakers.

[DeSwiss]

1. Boo Fucking Hoo

- We need to cut that shit in half. And that's just for starters.....

K&R

[Angry Dragon]

5. Close bases in Europe

time to close bases, stop being the bully of the world, get out of illegal wars, get rid of a lot of officers,

[gratuitous]

2. Oh noes! Not the hollowed out military!

More planes! More tanks! More guns, bombs, bullets and mines! Or we're dooooooomed! Dooooooomed!

Oh, and more contracts. LOTS more contracts.

[Lindsay]

3. Maybe all that money spent on contractors

wasn't such a swell idea after all.

(Not to mention two unnecessary wars and military bases all over the freaking world. Just saying.)

[Autumn]

4. Oh so sad Gates ,

a lot of fucking people have a 'crisis on their doorstep'. Cry me a fucking river.

[Better Believe It]

6. So Gates and the Obama administration isn't really proposing a cut in military spending!

Just a slowing the rate of increase in war spending.

And they call that a 78 billion dollar cut!

[earthside]

7. Holy Crap!

The U.S. military is going to be "hollow out"!!!!

Because -- out of budget of over half a trillion dollars -- there is a $23 billion gap ... wow.

Does this mean that maybe Gates will have to order home some more troops from Iraq sooner than he planned? Or that a few of the 500 military installations around the globe might have to be closed?

Frankly, this attitude on Gates part is why I simply do not believe that Obama and Boehner are going to cut or freeze the Pentagon budget ... it ain't going to happen, folks.

[Newest Reality]

8. So, instead

we let the MIC act as a parasite so that we can be a hollowed-out shell of a society, instead? Safer from the impact of an induced fear from the imposed, profitable paranoia, but so gaunt and emaciated that we can barely cross the collapsed concrete and asphalt in the street?

Why should the fruits of our labor continue to support wealth that is built on destruction and intimidation via weaponry? We are wasting our legacy and potential on a game that feeds fat cats by way of lucrative defense contracts, not to mention the vast waste of resources involved in military posturing and dominance.

Cry me a Rubicon, baby! As the empire collapses, we can only wonder how the choice between food for children will equate and compete with bucks for bombs in years to come.