In Defense of Who?

It’s interesting that John Kerry has proposed adding two army divisions, roughly 40,000 soldiers, to our active duty military when under Clinton, liberal Democrats – Kerry included –cut 8 army divisions.

In the first three years when Clinton controlled the defense budget – not counting cuts attributable to former President Bush – the Democrats slashed some 235,000 active duty military personnel from our armed forces. On top of that, some 200,000 civilian defense workers and contractors were cut in Clinton’s first term.

At the time, all agreed some force reductions were desirable and necessary – the Cold war was over and we were saving money by closing military bases – but the fact remains that Republicans led the fight against the even deeper cuts liberals demanded.

Clinton proposed, and John Kerry supported, seven years of defense budget decreases in a row. Each year Congress appropriated more than Clinton or his liberal allies wanted. Democrats complained about the Republican additions to defense.

It is a fact that John Kerry opposed – and consistently voted against - many of the major weapons systems we deploy today, including B-2 bombers, Apache attack helicopters, and Patriot missiles – while backing deep reductions in F-16s, Bradley armored fighting vehicles, and Tomahawk cruise missiles. He proposed killing at least 27 major weapons systems and drastically reducing spending on some 20 others.

Yes, our forces are strained today because of Iraq, Afghanistan, homeland defense, and other missions, but recall that President Bush inherited a military already suffering from too deep cuts in defense and intelligence. In Clinton’s last years, the military services told Congress many units were not combat ready.

One other word of warning about putting liberals like Kerry in charge of our military. While there were 929 acts of terrorist violence against United States targets here at home and abroad during Clinton’s eight years, liberals were wasting our military forces on nonsense such as . . . (from 12 June 1997 Washington Times)

"The word from the US Southern Command is that US soldiers were being drafted to GUARD RAIN FORESTS and ENDANGERED SPECIES. Timothy E. Wirth, Clinton’s Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs said 'This is a legitimate military issue.' GOP Senator Gramm informed SECDEF Cohen in no uncertain terms that in a time when base closings are being proposed along with further, deeper cuts in military manpower, if any such proposal reaches the Senate floor 'it would proceed no further.'”