🚀 go-pugleaf

By Alan Caruba

�Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the 
U.S. was too strong.� --  Ronald Reagan

If you want to know how President Obama feels about the U.S. 
military, consider that in all the years since D-Day 1945 there 
have been three occasions when a President failed to go to the D-
Day Monument that honors the soldiers killed during the Invasion.

The occasions were:

1. Barack Obama 2010
2. Barack Obama 2011
3. Barack Obama 2012

For the past 68 years, all Presidents, except Obama, have paid 
tribute to the fallen soldiers killed on D-Day. This year, 
instead of honoring the soldiers, he made a campaign trip on Air 
Force 1 to California to raise funds for his reelection.

The U.S. military has been systematically weakened from within 
by a combination of idiotic and duplicitous decisions that 
suggest how far the nation has come from the fundamental 
understanding that an enemy must be destroyed with sufficient 
devastation as to never contemplate attacking us or our allies 
again.

World War Two was a success because both Germany and Japan were 
required to sign instruments of unconditional surrender. Both 
nations are now our allies. Even Vietnam where the U.S. 
blundered into a civil war and was ultimately forced to withdraw 
now has normalized diplomatic relations and welcomes U.S. 
investment.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain inconclusive due to a 
combination of timid rules of engagement and the transformation 
of our military�s mission into "nation-building" that have 
yielded unsatisfactory results.

The military force that distinguished America as a super power 
at the mid-point of the last century now is facing draconian 
funding reductions from a Congress unwilling to make hard 
decisions about our historic debt.

A July Wall Street Journal editorial, �The Coming Defense Crack-
Up�, warned the automatic sequestration, �If implemented, the 
Pentagon budget would be cut by another 9% (or $492 billion) 
over the next decade, on top of the $487 billion in cuts that 
are already planned. Defense accounts for the largest share of 
total sequestration, or 42.6%m according to the Congressional 
Budget Office.�

�The sequestration cuts would leave the defense budget some 30% 
smaller in 10 years.� Does anyone believe that the world will be 
any safer in two years or ten years? Or that weakening our 
defense will make us safer in a world bristling with nuclear 
arms and other weapons of mass destruction?

If the sequestration cuts are pure folly, then the use of our 
defense forces as a means to avoid �global warming� is sheer 
insanity. There is no global warming insofar as the Earth 
entered a natural cooling cycle in 1998 and the claim that 
carbon dioxide is �causing� global warming is completely 
baseless. A tiny element of the Earth�s atmosphere�0.038%--
carbon dioxide (CO2) has been the excuse environmentalists have 
used to attack our manufacturing and energy sectors. Now it is 
being used to render our military weaker through a requirement 
to use biofuels.

On October 8, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 
13514, ordering the Defense Department and other agencies to 
reduce CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gas emissions. He set 
a goal of having the ships that defend our nuclear carriers 
powered by biofuels.

How stupid is this? First of all, America sits atop enough oil 
reserves to make us energy independent if the Obama 
administration would permit exploration and extraction 
domestically and offshore. The U.S. Geological Survey reports 
that the U.S. possesses 26% of the world�s oil supply. The Obama 
administration assertion that the U.S. has only 2% of the 
world�s supply is a lie.

There is zero need for biofuels. By 2020, the Navy has been 
instructed to use alternative fuel for half of its consumption. 
A recent naval exercise cost the Navy $27 per gallon of biofuel, 
versus $3.50 to $4.00 for standard petroleum fuel. As this is 
being written, Americans are required to use ethanol, a biofuel, 
in every gallon of gas they put in their cars, needlessly 
increasing the cost with no benefit in mileage and at the risk 
of damaging their car engines.

The Air Force is also subject to these mandates for biofuels 
that cost more than $26 per gallon, compared with standard jet 
fuel at $4 per gallon. Both the Navy and Air Force face the 
prospect of having to refuel ships and planes in potential 
battle zones where every gallon of biofuel would have to be 
transported from the U.S. for lack of biofuel refineries in 
Asian, Mideast or Mediterranean ports. Can you spell d-e-f-e-a-t?

These biofuel mandates are part of the Obama administration�s 
crony capitalism that has seen �alternative energy� lose 
billions in loan guarantees to solar companies and the 
government mandates that maintain the wind power industry that, 
like ethanol, would not exist without federal government support.

Phil Dunmire, the national president of the Navy League of the 
United States, on July 18, warned that �The defense and maritime 
industries are being jeopardized from within� noting that 
�programs related to our nation�s defense will absorb half of 
the sequestration costs despite being just 19% of the national 
spending budget.� These cuts go into effect in January!

The sequestration and other budget cuts, and the global warming 
biofuel mandates will leave the U.S. more vulnerable to attack 
and defeat since the end of World War Two. Our Navy has shrunk. 
Our combat air fleet is old. The manpower of military forces has 
been reduced and subjected to restrictions that leave every 
soldier and marine subject to investigation for every enemy they 
kill.

The exception to the long engagement in the Middle East was the 
successful killing of Osama bin Laden, but even that was 
tarnished by a President who took full credit for it and 
released information about it that runs contrary to the safety 
of all comparable future missions. Within days, the White House 
provided a briefing on it to a Hollywood producer and writer in 
order to facilitate a film lauding the mission.

The greatest force for the defense of the nation and for freedom 
in the world is being reduced by a Congress and a White House 
who refuse to recognize the threats that exist in a dangerous 
world.

� Alan Caruba, 2012

http://www.theospark.net/

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