Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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Ron Paul's NH Ad
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Posted by:
Matt Lewis at
11:12 AM
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Thanks to the $5 million he brought in this last quarter, Ron Paul has some ads up in New Hampshire. Here's a taste of what he's running:
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answer to those questions needs to come from Nat'l Sec. or the Military.
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He didn't answer the question.
He said we have vital interests around the world, and that we are the only indispensible economy in the world. Ok. So why do we need 63,000 troops in Germany, and 10,000 in Britain and Italy? Again, the only way that those vital interests and economic interests would be harmed is if there was an invasion of Germany. While not likely, why pull those 63,000 and then reinforce the Germans if we deem it necessary?
I just saw on the bottom of that personnel site that they pulled 17,000 from Germany. So that makes the question why do we need 46,000 still there?
And if we're doing fine with those 17,000 gone from Germany, why should they need to return?
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Looking at:
http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst0 606.pdf
I see a lot of countries with single digit or low double digit numbers of active personnel. These numbers almost look like they artificially inflate the number of countries with troops stationed. Does anyone know what these are for? For example, we have 2 active personnel in Guyana. Why? |
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answer your question about the "need of our foreign bases."
I doubt there is much question that we should have had more troops on the ground in Iraq from the beginning... but that agument really has nothing to do with our troops stationed on our vairous bases in Europe, etc.
And the fact is, they DID pull some of those troops. My son's brother in law was stationed in Germany, and was sent to Iraq for a year (+/-) before he came home.
As I said, admittedly, it is an expense to maintain our overseas bases, but I also believe not having those bases could be far more costly, and not only in terms of money.
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You didn't address the question. I said even if you Paul doesn't get the nomination, maybe we could have a much needed debate on the need of our foreign bases. Even don't like Paul, and disagree with him, this might be a good thing that comes out of his run for president. Regardless of whether or not I'm a Paulbot, or whatever, why is it conservative to defray the Germany's, Japan's, and South Korea's military spending? Why are we using our tax dollars on to subsidize the German social welfare state?
Phil, you stated that "We have vital national interests around the world and have an obligation to defend them." It doesn't follow that if we have vital national interests in Germany or Italy or the UK that we need 85,000 troops based over in those areas. As Anne noted, we are 'there at the pleasure of those countries.' So if, say, Italy were attacked, let the attacker go through the Italian funded military to reach our vital interests, rather than one funded by our tax dollars. If Hilary Clinton decided that she needed another Bosnia in 2010, then she could ask our allies to allow us to use space.
Goodness, even from the pro attack Iraq and Iran side, it doesn't make sense to tie up 85,000 of our troops in Europe and 65,000 more in allied Asian countries. Even from that side, isn't it better to use those soldiers to help fight our actual war? Quit quibbling about a surge of 25,000 soldiers (or whatever the number was) and pull these people. |
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site.
I'll be sure to take a look.
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spend some time at http://www.globalfirepower.com. This site gives easy to understand military breakdowns on a world scale. Most Americans have no idea that as nations like Britain are falling in military strength, nations like Brazil and India are growing. Look at gold reserves, oil production and reserves, as well as military hardware itself. Overall budgets are very revealing as well. You can also compare military exchanges between existing nations if war were to break out. |
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than I.
Clearly you are correct. There is no doubt that it IS costly, but not near as costly as it could be should we NOT have troops in strategic places around the world.
The other thing is that we have bases in those countries "at the pleasure of those countries."
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Kids come first!!!!
My point was not money but strategic (national) security issues.
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Your list of bases and comparative expenditures is not an argument that there are too many bases. Furthermore, Ron Paul's position is not that we should REDUCE bases, but that we should CLOSE THEM ALL DOWN (sorry about the caps, no italics). That is an ISOLATIONIST position which is vastly different than the NON-INTERVENTIONIST position you paulbots keep arguing. We have vital national interests around the world and have an obligation to defend them. Like it or not, we are the only indispensable economy on earth. We can't call the police against our mortal enemies who are legion. |
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I wrote "We currently have 63,939 of our 1,092,580 active military in Germany," but I used the US number, the actual worldwide is the later mentioned 1,381,400 |
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Anne, it took me more than a few minutes to respond because I have small children that need attention. I didn't spend my last hour or so waiting for a response. That doesn't make me wrong.
Here's a link for you:
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20050527_2005BSR.pdf
We currently have bases in:
Antigua, Aruba, Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Br. Indian Ocean Territories, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, Denmark, Equador, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Luxemborg, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Peru, Portugal, St. Helena, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, not to mention other US territories.
Most of these are concentrated in Germany, Japan, Italy, and South Korea. We're fighting old wars.
As far as personnel,
http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst0 606.pdf
We currently have 63,939 of our 1,092,580 active military in Germany, 34,452 in Japan, and 29,602 in South Korea. So of our 1,381,400 total military personnel worldwide, 127,993 of them, or close to a tenth of them, are in these three countries.
By comparison, Germany is only spending $27.7 billion on it's whole military. Japan only spends $46, and South Korea only $13 Billion.
Just to clarify things a bit:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2003/0710im perialmap.htm
So again I ask, what is conservative about spending American tax dollars to help defray the costs of other countries defending themselves?
Heck, even from a neo-con view, pull these 127,993 troops and send them to a surge in Iraq! |
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any facts to back up his claim that we don't need nearly as many military bases around the world as we currently have.
Is anyone surprised? I didn't think so!
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basing your position that we don't need nearly as many bases around the world as er currently have?
I'm assuming that you have "facts" to back up that position!
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That even if Paul doesn't get the nomination, that maybe he can awaken conservatives to the fact that we don't need nearly as many bases around the world as we currently have.
Anne, Rogue, or anyone, please tell me what is so conservative about taxing our citizens to pay for bases in Germany or Japan? We are using our tax dollars to defray the cost of them defending themselves, so it's like we are supporting their welfare state via our tax dollars!
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national interests is not a conservative nor a liberal issue. It is an issue of national security."
And that's exactly where ronpaul and his gang of groupies lost it!
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Didn't you know that opposition of all foreign aid makes you an anti semite? Of course denying Egypt and Palestine aid at the same time does not make you anti Arab and denying money to Africa at the same time does not make you anti black, but some people have thicker skins than others and can comment on policies and the consequences of those policies without pulling the race card. |
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Add to that his claim that national defense is a main reason for those deficits. It is a very small part of our federal spending as a percentage of GNP. It's the entitlements and outright organized theft that are killing us. |
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Like many an economic ignoramus, Ron Paul believes that the national deficit is a bad thing just because its called a deficit. He should check out what the man on the ten dollar bill has to say about government debt. This astounding display of ignorance alone disqualifies him from holding any public office. |
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National security based on our national interests is not a conservative nor a liberal issue. It is an issue of national security. That didn't used to be open to debate until the Democrats and libertarians- posing-as-conservatives made it a partisan issue. |
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If you think leaving our troops all over the world is conservative or even close to fiscal than you are clearly not conservative. Please go join the Liberal party we call the democrats, they'd welcome you're big government taxation and spending with open arms! |
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How is briging home our troops "anti-Israel"? That's a stretch.... |
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The deficit would be brought down even more by shutting down most of these Cold War relics. They are not need nor wanted by most of the locals where they are located. It would also eliminate the need to borrow from countries like China. |
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are all naive, anti-Israel idiots...what else is new? |
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Even HELLary is backing away from THAT notion... and kind of moving toward Pres. Bush.
What ronpaul isn't saying in this ad is that he plans to bring home ALL troops and close ALL our military bases on foreign soil.
Very, very, very BAD idea!
And, the deficit is already being brought down due to "tax cuts."
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