Re: Anybody else listening to W?
Why you ol plagiarist you Pointer!
<br /><br />The first half of your response (post #2599) to my question was practically verbatim from some web page/blog called "Chronwatch". They describe themselves as a "media watchdog and conservative news site with a focus on the San Francisco Chronicle". We just can't keep you off of the blogs and conservative web pages.
but, I'm sure they are just a bastion of credibility!
<br /><br />Then you quote several ex military men and a defense policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, named Jack Spencer. I really don't take a lot of credence in what these ex military people have to say, because so many of them spend their retirement as spokesmen or lobbyist for defense contractors.
<br /><br />As for Jack Spencer, I found an article (www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=419&archive=true) which is a complete contradiction of some of the quotes you attributed to him. To paraphrase him, he sees no harm in the cuts to the military. Spencer believes we need a "faster", more "mobile" military with a "quick strike capability". Not this big heavy slow to deploy style of military left over from the cold war. Even though this article was written before the Iraq war he almost seemed to be speaking with this war in mind. Spencer stressed a heavy investment in intelligence. BTW,intel was an area that then Defense Secretary D1ck Cheney cut quite a bit when we should have been investing more. One article I found (www.prospect.org/web/page.www?section=root&name=viewweb&articleId=8481) felt that Defense Secretary Cheney set our intelligent back ten years and may have had an effect on sniffing out the 9/11 terrorist before it happened. "At one point, Cheney told the Post he had terminated the F-14, F-15 and F-16 fighters, the A-6, A-12, AV-8B and P-3 Navy and Marine planes, and the Army's Apache helicopter and M-1A1 tank". "Five of these weapons systems are listed by the Bush campaign in its attempts to chastise Kerry for his anti-defense votes". Cheney was so successful at cutting weapons that The Boston Globe worried "the army's cupboard is left particularly bare...." <br /><br />Another article you might find interesting is called "A Hollow Debate on Military Readiness" (www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb62.pdf). The interesting thing I got from this article, that I never thought of, was that they were saying we don't have to replace each peace of equipment one-for-one. Because of the superior firepower of some of the modern equipment we might have one piece of equipment with the same or better firepower than 2 or 3 of the old obsolete equipment. So when you here these figures being thrown around that we may have less tanks, airplanes or ships, that may be true, but we may have a faster force with just as much firepower capability. <br /><br />As to your question about John Kerry's plan for Iraq? Pointer, given the availability of the facts you could have found this yourself if you were genuinely interested.
Just "google" John Kerry's plan for Iraq and you will find pages of sites. Or, go to www.thenation.com/doc/200-41011/corn and you will find Kerry's plan in detail. Not that it matters I don't recall call anyone on this thread touting Kerry's plan for Iraq.<br /><br />As to your question on assassination using drones? I believe we already do use drone for assassination. If I recall correctly didn't we take out some Al Quida members a while back using drones to blow them up while traveling through the desert in their cars?