Dave Zweifel: Clinton bashers off base on military
By Dave Zweifel
January 16, 2002
I'm never sure how this happens, but my recent column suggesting that Bill Clinton didn't leave the country with a dilapidated military was posted on some Web site apparently frequented by Clinton haters.
To date I've received more than 350 e-mails from places in Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida and elsewhere calling me names that would make a drill sergeant blush. These folks are well organized. Too bad some of them don't put their brains in gear before typing.
How dare I say Clinton didn't harm the military? most of them ask. He not only hated anything to do with the military, he actually reduced the Defense Department budget.
Well, no kidding.
Perhaps it's too long ago for some of these folks to remember, but once upon a time there was something called, for lack of a better term, the "peace dividend." Finally, after a history of spending close to a third of our federal revenues on preparing for war, we could use some of that money for things like child care, health insurance for the poor, better schools ... you know, projects that just might make life a little better for all U.S. citizens.
That was now possible, we were told even by George Bush I, because we had finally faced down the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall had come tumbling down. No longer would we have to sustain a hugely expensive military that could not only take on the commies, but defend Europe as well.
We could now concentrate on peace, not a major war.
The Clinton administration's early budgets, bowing to public opinion, did indeed make modest cuts in military spending to reflect the new era, but as critics of excess defense spending know full well, he quickly abandoned the "peace dividend" in his later budgets, increasing military procurement and keeping alive a rejuvenated "Star Wars"-light missile defense scheme that George W. Bush is so proud of today.
The truth of the matter is that Clinton, like those before him, could not reform the military establishment's archaic bureaucracy and wasteful practices that presidents as far back as Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about.
With the Soviet threat gone, the military should have been able to reorganize, consolidate facilities and enact efficiencies without harming its effectiveness. Instead, wasteful competition between the services, duplicate missions and forces, and a refusal to abandon strategies to fight two major wars at once made dealing with fewer dollars next to impossible.
How did the military establishment deal with it? Very cleverly. It cut out spare parts for older equipment, skimped on housing for the troops and, in effect, stole money and equipment from the Reserves -- all areas that it knew would draw public attention and political criticism. It wasn't Clinton who shortchanged the often maligned troops, but the decisions made by an intransigent Pentagon.
Areas where the Clinton defense secretaries -- William Cohen and William Perry -- were able to exert some influence was in achieving reforms in the Defense Department's research and development mission, which did make some major advances in the '90s, many of which were seen in Afghanistan in recent months.
To claim that Clinton did nothing for the military is not only absurd but ignorant. If he was guilty of one thing, it was allowing the military establishment to bamboozle him.
Hopefully, someday an administration will effect real change in this country's military bureaucracy, which constantly finds it necessary to spend more in one year -- terror wars or not -- than Australia's entire gross national product.
Published: 7:18 AM 1/16/02 |
