The time to debunk the myth that a bloated military, armed to fight 20th Century wars, keeps America safe. The narrative just doesn't jibe with reality. Donald Trump pointed that out at the last Republican debate, as ironic as that may be.
Protecting America in the 21st Century using 20th Century force is not only a bad idea, it is bad for America because it does not keep us safe. 9/11 showed us that today's conflicts are not fought using tanks,planes,ships, or huge armies.
The question to ask is why a country that boasts the strongest military the world failed to keep America safe on 9/11.
There is a simple answer, though not one that people who are heavily invested in what Ike called the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) want to hear.
9/11 will go down in history as the worse attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor with one major difference. 20th Century wars were fought with tanks, planes, guns, and armies while 21st Century wars need to be fought with computers, satellites, drones, and intelligence.
The invasion force on 9/11 was made up of a handful of people with coach tickets on commercial airliners armed with box cutters. All the planes, ships and tanks in the world could not have stopped them and frankly, had no role to play in preventing it.
Osama Bin Laden was not brought down by an overwhelming military force like that used against Japan in WWII. His defeat was at the hands of a small group of highly skilled forces (Seals), using computers, satellites and drones to take down the enemy, and which has been found effective time and again against those who replaced him.
Today's wars require not only a strong military but a smart one as well. It's not a question about whether America's military still needs to be strong but more about how strong. Based on today's numbers if the military were half the size it is now it would still far exceed the forces of every country in the industrialized world.
Today's military is bloated with an obsolete arsenal that even it's generals don't want. It has been turned into a cash cow from which a small group of people are getting rich at the taxpayers expense. It unwittingly does more harm than good because it impoverishes the rest of us; depriving Americans of much needed services for it's citizens and neglecting the infrastructure that America needs to remain strong.
Cutting the fat from the military budget and reducing it's arsenal is not an easy task. No more than it was when horses were no longer useful on the battlefield and the Calvary had to move to Jeeps and tanks. There's going to be a lot of push back; especially by interests group that are heavily invested in the Military Industrial Complex.
But the fact is, fighting 21st Century wars using outdated 20th Century methods is doomed to fail.
Americans were reminded by Donald Trump who was recently interviewed and said;
SCARBOROUGH: I always ask leadership questions, this is a good leadership question to ask. How did you get it done?
TRUMP: Because I know how to build, I know how to get it done. I mean, that's what I do. The thing I do best is build. When you have an infrastructure of a country like ours that is absolutely decaying and rotting and falling apart and we -- by the way, we're spending $5 trillion in the Middle East instead of doing what we're supposed to be doing. We have to knock the hell out of ISIS and all, but we have to get back to rebuilding our country because you look at our airports, our roadways, our tunnels, our bridges -- 67 percent of them are in trouble.
SCARBOROUGH: Have we wasted too much money over the past decade fighting wars? Has that been one of the biggest...
TRUMP: Well, I'll tell you what, I don't mind fighting, but you have got to win and number one, we don't win wars, we just fight, we just fight. It's like a big -- like you're vomiting, just fight, fight, fight.
We don't win anything. I mean, if you're going to fight, you win and you get back to rebuilding the country. We don't win. It's really a terrible thing. I mean, our country used to win all the time. We don't win at all anymore.
Trump on Perpetual War: "We Don't Win Anymore, We Just Fight, Like Vomiting, Fight, Fight, Fight" | Video | RealClearPolitics
No comments:
Post a Comment