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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SirRealist who wrote (17089)	1/23/2002 9:24:19 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

And in that regard, I remain amazed at the lingering animosity towards a guy whose political career is likely a year past 'done'. How does beating a retired horse win the next race? It depends on what race you're in. If you're trying to submit a budget that has a major funding increment over the prior Administration, it's hard to say that a fine job has been done in the prior eight years. We went from 10% precision guided weapons during Desert Storm to close to 80% in Afghanistan. The price of those quided weapons were a fraction of what they cost during Desert Storm. I haven't heard anyone bitch about those "cuts". Both the Predator and the Hellfire equipped Predator were developed and came on line during the prior Administration, I haven't heard much complaining about those expenditures. Rumsfeld in his last Congressional testimony wants to close a number of bases as unnecessary. He also wanted to cut the National Reserve units that had B-1 expertience. When the committee pressed him on the fact that the reserve units had more flying time [experience] with the B-1 and a much lower cost of maintaining the B-1...Rumsfeld said he would "look into it". We can pump up the Defense budget with SDI on a rationale that conflicts directly with the recent report from the intelligence community. And we can spend money on buying a non-mobile piece of precision artillery that has little to no use in current military strategic/tactical thinking. But does spending more money mean better, or does it just mean spending more money. Your mention of Gingrich is well put. But one should notice that during the Reagan years the rhetoric was that the House of Representatives controlled the budget, during the Clinton years it was Clinton's budget, and now I'm beginning to see a few references for the Bush Administration that it's the Senate that controls the budget. Astounding how the power over the budget changes when there is critical tune to it. I agree with you. It's a federal budget and the Executive, House and Senate all played a fairly equal and contributory role. It was designed to work that way. jttmab

To: SirRealist who wrote (17089)	1/23/2002 3:44:46 PM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

How does beating a retired horse win the next race? well you tell me......why did you bring the subject up? So far, our troops and their toys have been exceedingly effective in carrying out their missions. Jaw-droppingly effective. do not be mesmerized by the effectiveness of Special Forces against the present enemy...the tactics and techniques so successful for the current situation would be a mere drop in the bucket in other situations such as iraq. the real problems with troop strengths and air and sealift denigration due to lack of funding is perceptible by this one fact... we have not opened a second front anywhere. uw

To: SirRealist who wrote (17089)	1/23/2002 6:54:13 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Debka says that Arafat plans to openly throw his PA police into battle, thus burning his last bridges with Oslo. A PA spokesman made an announcement to that effect on Iranian TV, apparently. That's suicidal but entirely in character. Debka's track record on PA moves has been pretty good, as far as I can judge from subsequent events and reports in the mainstream Israeli papers. Debka's track record on Israeli government actions is quite good if you filter out some of the Likud editorializing. I think that Likud ministers and staffers must be using Debka as a leak recipient, just as Washington staffers use Newsweek. As for Debka's opinions on Central Asia, they've rarely been corroborated by later events.