President Trump, after threatening a veto, signed the omnibus spending bill funding Planned Baby Killing and providing only a pittance for his promised wall on our southern border. His excuse…and that’s what it was…was the need to support our military. He will one day have to answer to God for signing his name to the bill funding the butchery of the unborn, but is our high level of military spending really justified? It is time for us to revisit this topic. Of course, we all want to support the troops and we all admire the qualities of our fighting men and women, and many of us on this post (myself included) have served in the military. But the military, for conservatives, has become a kind of sacred cow.
The omnibus spending bill mandates $1.3 trillion for the next year, a staggering amount that will increase our out of control debt and ultimately lead to economic decline or even collapse. Of that, the Defense Department will get $655 billion. We spend, counting our eternal undeclared (hence unconstitutional) wars, which Trump has continued, more on the military than the next seven highest spending countries combined. We account for some 40% of global arms spending, and our Navy is larger than the next 13 largest navies combined. If this means that we are really as powerful as the next seven nations, we need to ask why we need to be that powerful. If we are not that powerful, it indicates a vast amount of waste, duplication, and outright fraud in DOD spending…and all of this has been confirmed repeatedly.
I have written previously about our unending wars, our insane neocon interventionist policy, and the fact that this is the only reason we “need” such huge ground forces. What we really need is a debate about our actual defense needs. Certainly, if we abandoned the wars and brought our troops home we could save a vast amount of money by downsizing our ground forces, and the remaining troops would still be more than sufficient to patrol our southern border. Of course, leftists would howl that this would be a violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended our Mexican War, but that treaty is null and void, for Mexico is effectively invading and occupying our former Republic.
What we really need, as Dr. Peter Vincent Pry and others have pointed out, is adequate defense against EMP and enemy nuclear attacks on our cities. We seem to be sliding toward a nuclear holocaust that could easily have been avoided, and our defenses are woefully inadequate. Dr. Pry believes that we could harden our grid against EMP for only two to three billion dollars and field a truly effective ABM defense for $20 billion or less. We spend far more than that on the wars that have not made us safe from terrorism.
Certainly a strong Navy will be integral to our defense, but must it really be larger than the next 13 navies combined? And is it realistically configured? Do we have the right mix of weapons systems? Take carriers, for example, much beloved by our admirals. We have 10 or 11 carrier groups, depending on what is counted as a full-sized fleet carrier, plus some smaller amphibious assault carriers. Each carrier group typically consists of a carrier, a missile cruiser, two LAMPS (Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System) capable ships and one or two destroyers or frigates.
Critics point out the potential vulnerability of carriers, which put many eggs (and human beings) in one basket, and the need for the escorts to protect the carrier. Proponents counter that the carriers have unique capabilities and excellent damage control and defense systems, including anti-aircraft missiles and the Phalanx 20 mm Gatling gun, computerized and radar guided, firing 4,500 rounds per minute, for close in defense against enemy missiles. And the escorts do not just protect the carrier; the carrier also protects the escorts, which are themselves capable of offensive action. All this is true, but if we fight only limited wars with third-rate powers we don’t need 10 or 11 carrier groups.
If we, God forbid, find ourselves in a war with Russia or China, the war will almost certainly go nuclear, at least at sea. Rest assured that even a Hiroshima-sized nuclear missile detonating even hundreds of yards away will destroy an entire carrier group. Of course, the escorts could disperse, but that would leave the carrier more open to attack from aircraft and submarines, and, for years, there have been disquieting rumors that, in war games, our submarines have gotten within torpedo range of our carriers even with the escorts in position. And Russia and China have a variety of missiles capable of overwhelming a carrier’s defenses, even with conventional warheads. Any damage at all is likely to render the carrier inoperable for days, weeks, or even months, and even a burst of 20 mm cannon fire hitting a plane on the deck when the carrier is conducting flight operations can set off a chain reaction and destroy much of the air group and damage the deck and the elevators…again, rendering the carrier inoperable.
We really only need two to four carrier groups, and the naval aviators can best serve our country if they are based at home and on shore, contributing to our air defenses. Another thing to consider: as carriers have grown more vulnerable to new weapons systems, cruisers and destroyers firing a variety of missiles, some nuclear-capable, including long range cruise missiles, have become far more capable. They can now perform many of the missions once left to carriers.
Finally, remember that the military is part of the deep state, especially since Hussein Obama effectively purged most of the good general and flag rank officers and promoted politically correct careerists who will do anything to get ahead. The military has gone full on politically correct, putting women, homosexuals, and lesbians into combat positions and making Army ROTC cadets wear red high heels to teach them…what? Standards have been lowered and women have been given ranger tabs they did not earn. Even the USMC has now lowered standards for infantry officers, so women can have glorious careers.
There are anecdotal reports of a lack of discipline and military courtesy at the (once very tough) USAF Academy, now headed by a lesbian Commandant of Cadets. West Point recently graduated an openly communist lieutenant; one of his teachers there was a Muslim. At the Naval Academy some 24 midshipmen are being investigated for selling cocaine, LSD, and ketamine. This is the same Navy that, in recent years, has been running ships aground and colliding with other ships. And let us not forget the naval officer who managed to get lost in the Persian Gulf, stray into waters claimed by Iran…and then surrender his craft to the Iranians. At least one of his heroic sailors cried like a baby when captured.
President Trump should have vetoed the spending bill and let the Demoncraps worry about the government shutdown. The military would survive, and is very much in need of reform. But I’m beginning to suspect that Trump is not the reformer we had hoped for.
William B Stoecker
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