Reprinted from Allen West Republic.
According to the New York Times, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is pondering “realignment” of the military budget, which means a shift in strategic posture. That’s the sort of news which should cause grave concern about our military readiness – unless, of course, you’re one of our enemies.
According to Secretary Hagel, “The Army was the principal institution fighting those two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), as the armies normally are in land wars,” Mr. Hagel said. “So as those requirements have come down, there’s going to be an adjustment.” That view is driving a new look at the Pentagon’s traditional, even distribution of funds. Hagel further states, “I don’t think you can just make easy, simple assertions based on simple formulas — a third, a third, a third,” he said. “That might turn out to be just about right, but it may not.”
We need visionary leadership that analyzes the growing global threats instead of trying to anticipate missions based upon political preferences. Every dollar is not equal in Washington DC and the most vital mission of the federal government is to protect the American people.
I wish the Obama administration would be more concerned about military readiness and funding instead of expanding the welfare nanny-state and Obamacare. Consider what $634 million could have meant for the US military, instead of being wasted on a failed website, healthcare.gov.
Yes there is waste at the Department of Defense and there should be an audit of their accounts. However, we should be going to our Combatant Commanders and asking them what are the burgeoning threats they perceive in their geographic areas of responsibility over the next 15 years.
Then we should develop a power projection-type force –not forward-deployed — which can meet those threat-based requirements. The last thing we need is another 21st Century “Kasserine Pass” where we throw an unready Army into the field against a well resourced, trained, and battle-tested adversary. My greatest concern is that our federal government priorities are upside down and that Chuck Hagel is just a complicit puppet executing the political agenda emanating from the White House via Valerie Jarrett. President Obama gave a surrender speech last May at the National Defense University. And he fails to realize the enemy has a vote.
As Andrew McCarthy summed up in his review of the speech at the time, If I am an aggressor and I punch you in the nose, we are in a fight, even if you weren’t looking for a fight. The fight does not end just because you insist you’re not in a fight. The fight ends because you lose. Your ostentatious display of not having a quarrel with me does not convince me to stop hitting you — although it may convince me to keep hitting you. We cannot end war by pretending it isn’t happening. Don’t believe for a second our enemies aren’t watching us slowly dismantle our capability. The wolves are salivating.
Allen West
Read more at http://allenbwest.com/2013/11/realignment-military-budget-must-enemies-cheering/#iUEtzshmo4oYOpee.99
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