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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (2112)	10/11/2000 12:42:50 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 10042

Steven...a couple of things: 1) I believe the DOD is the only department that has to list the retirement pay of the retiree's on it's budget...I don't believe any other Government Dept does.... If so, this makes the DOD budget even smaller than most think...

To: Dayuhan who wrote (2112)	10/11/2000 12:45:31 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 10042

and 2) you may be interesting in the following..How very soon some of us forget, and some of us never know (willfully).... by the way, the entire site is rather interesting... KLP cdiss.org IRAQI BALLISTIC MISSILE AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD) THREATS REEMERGE 50 AL HUSSEIN MEDIUM RANGE BALLISTIC MISSILES (MRBM) ABLE TO CARRY CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS (CBW) WARHEADS NOW IRAQI MISSILES ABLE TO HIT EUROPE BY 2005 cdiss.org NORTH KOREA RELEASES TAEPO DONG 1 PHOTO - Oct 1999 UPDATE ON NORTH KOREAN SHIP SEIZED IN INDIA Oct 1, 1999

To: Dayuhan who wrote (2112)	10/11/2000 10:11:13 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

We spend more per soldier because we believe that a smaller force of trained soldiers equipped with modern devices will be more effective than a larger force of untrained conscripts Let me take you back a step in history... The time is 1939-45, the place.. Nazi Germany... Here we have one of the most professionally trained armies the world had known to date, equipped with the most powerful weapons able to conquer smaller countries.... But when they took on a Russian army still reeling from the decapitation (literally) of its top military leadership as a result of Stalin's purges. Initially, they captured MILLIONS of prisoners. They surrounded entire armies in one fell swoop, consisting of 100s of thousands of men, and eventually made it to the suburbs of Moscow. But then they faced General Winter, were bogged down and slaughtered in the snow by Siberian Guards units (who were transferred when Japan attacked the US) and never truly regained enough momentum to beat their foe, who seemed to possess endless quantities of manpower. And then here came the US military, flooding the battlefield with mass-produced, easily destroyable military equipment that could never truly compete with the Tigers, Panthers, and King Tigers of the German one for one... But they could compete in numbers. And although it is estimated that we lost 6 of our Sherman tanks for every Tiger tank that was destroyed, we still prevailed over better trained German troops.. Now I'll tell you something... no matter how good the US Army may be, it will NEVER be able to match the discipline and quality of the German army of WWII... And considering that some nations possess the capability to raise armies that exceed the size of the entire population of the United States, such as China. And combining that with the fact that many of these Chinese men will never have the opportunity to have a family due to the lack of available females (one child policy), that's a whole lot of excess manpower looking for something to do. So they can't airlift their troops here. They certainly can march them west if they chose, threatening Iran and the Persian Gulf states. Bottom line, while they aren't likely to invade us, they can cause a whole bunch of grief for our allies and our economies.... And they can form all kinds of alliances with the Moslem world, combining their population with the 700 million followers of Islam in what would be quite a powerful economic/military bloc. And against these folks we'd be forced to send pilots who aren't properly trained to find and hit their targets (given the fact that out of 37,000 sorties flown over Kosovo, we only knocked out some 87 tanks, if that many). And we'll be sending troops, who are more used to a "kinder, gentler military" and handing "stress cards" to their drill sergeants, and "peace-keeping", than launching ordnance downrange and training to live, fight, and prevail on the battlefield. Believe me, I left the military after 14 years active and reserve... The new kids I was seeing coming in weren't even being trained to press their uniforms or shine their boots. And they were entitled, by regulation, to get 8 hours sleep each night... We SHOULD only need recall our experience in the Korean War when the Chinese intervened and kicked the crap out of our troops, leaving that war in a stalemate and armistice. Regards, Ron

To: Dayuhan who wrote (2112)	10/11/2000 11:22:23 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

The question, simply, is this: do the current level of threat and the current probable missions justify an increase in military spending? I do not think that they do. You have to be prepared for more then merely the likely missions, but for possible threats as well. Possible threats include having to fight two wars at once in different places of the world. Possible threats include ballistic missile attack. Another consideration. Having just enough to have a decent chance to win is not ideal. If you have more then sufficient forces available then your chances of winning are greater and victory can come sooner at a much lower cost. Wars that drag on because both sides are close to equal usually result in a lot more deaths on both sides. Tim