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

To: long-gone who wrote (2289)	10/12/2000 10:10:52 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

I wanted to let everyone know I sent Richard a private response to this as well... Throwing money at what is a procedural error (letting civilian craft approach a military ship) is not the answer. What if this attack had occurred in a US port with a US civilian boat crewed by terrorists? That's the problem with terrorism and guerilla warfare. They is NO FRONT LINE AND NO REAR AREA. Everywhere can be considered a battleground. One that is chosen by the terrorist. Force protection is very difficult in war-time conditions, let alone maintaining proper and constant guard 365 days a year at during peacetime. It requires constant vigilance and the capability to react at a moment's notice to any potential threat. But you have to perceive that threat first.. and from what I've seen and read today, these guys didn't have any reason to suspect ANYTHING until the two suicide bombers snapped to attention and blew themselves up. And by that time.. it was too late... But let me broach one real problem here... and that is that we have a very top-heavy military chock full of staff officers and program managers, who are capturing a serious amount of the military personnel budget to the detriment of the lower ranks. These guys are taking their fact-finding trips, flying around with the various branch chiefs, clocking up per-diem, micro-managing huge defense programs, and paving the way for a "kindler, gentler military"...... All while Joe Snuffy is out there being passed out "stress cards", failing to learn basic soldier's tasks, and not receiving the necessary training funds to take them out in the field and make them do their jobs properly (and peace-keeping missions only go so far) There is just as much waste, fraud, and abuse in the military as there is in any other government agency. The only difference is that the department of defense is indispensable, while the others are mainly "nice to have". Regards, Ron