DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on October 23, 2012, 05:50:18 PM
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Obama Gets Military Tech All Wrong in Debate
by AWR Hawkins
23 Oct 2012
President Barack Obama ended up revealing an astonishing level of ignorance about the state of military technology during the presidential debate in Boca Raton, FL Monday night.
The U.S. Commander-in-Chief misspoke about bayonets. He misspoke about horses. He misspoke about the size of the U.S. Navy. He misspoke about the makeup of the Navy. And the whole time, he thought he was teaching his opponent Mitt Romney a lesson.
Obama mocked Gov. Romney's concerns about the diminished number of ships in the U.S. Navy by saying, "I think Gov. Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time studying how our military works."
Obama continued, trying his best to make the GOP challenger look foolish: "[Romney] mentioned that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well... we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines." Obama added that it's not about "counting ships," it's about "our capabilities."
These comments rang out with a snarky condescension that was only surpassed by their complete lack of factual support.
While the Army discontinued traditional bayonet training in 2010, the USMC still trains Marines with bayonets and issues them as standard equipment. The Army has also begun training soldiers in a different style of bayonet use--not affixed to the end of a rifle but as a secondary melee weapon.
To make bayonet training relevant again, the Army got rid of the bayonet assault course, in which soldiers fixed a bayonet to the end of a rifle, ran towards a target while yelling and then rammed the bayonet into the target center. Instead, soldiers learn in combatives training how to use a knife or bayonet if someone grabs their primary weapon.
Some users on Twitter have claimed that, by virtue of the USMC still using bayonets, there actually are more bayonets in use than 1916, when the army had between 100,000 and 140,000 enlisted members. As of 2010, the Corps boasted 203,000 active duty members and 40,000 reserve marines.
Regarding horses, a statue of a member of the U.S. Special Forces on horseback was just unveiled at Ground Zero in New York City. When our Special Forces invaded Afghanistan post-9/11, many did so on horseback. I personally remember sitting for a lecture in Austin, TX in 2005, given by a member of one of the first Special Forces teams to arrive in Afghanistan. He talked at length about their reliance upon horses.
As to the size of the Navy, Romney's remarks about fleet size were centered around a concern that U.S. naval forces would in the near future be unable to operate in multiple regions of the globe simultaneously. While Obama dismissed this out of hand, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mark Ferguson reached a similar evaluation months before the debate:
?Our role is really about the flexibility of forces, that they can move to various regions, both in this region in the Gulf and outside the Gulf... Should sequestration be enacted, the Navy would not be able to support the current national defense strategy and it would cause a reduction in the size of the fleet to the point that we would have to relook at the strategy,? Ferguson said. The Navy ?would be reduced both in size and in its presence around the globe.?
Even at the beginning of Obama's term as President, the Navy had a goal of producing a 313-ship fleet by 2013. It wasn't until 2012, after three years of unfulfilled promises of economic recovery, that the target was abandoned. What happened between 2009 and 2012 that made the Obama administration decide that it could downgrade the size of the U.S. Navy further yet maintain its ability to operate in multiple arenas simultaneously?
Lastly, and most succinctly, submarines are boats, not ships. Obama got this one wrong as well.
Perhaps President Obama "maybe hasn't spent enough time studying how our military works"?
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/22/During-Debate-Obama-Was-Wrong-on-Bayonets-Horses-Naval-Ships-and-Submarines (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/22/During-Debate-Obama-Was-Wrong-on-Bayonets-Horses-Naval-Ships-and-Submarines)
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He did not say that we had no horses or bayonets. He said we had FEWER horses and bayonets, and this is 100% true.
Who gives a shit what they call submarines? Boats or ships, who gives a flying duck?
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He did not say that we had no horses or bayonets. He said we had FEWER horses and bayonets, and this is 100% true.
Who gives a shit what they call submarines? Boats or ships, who gives a flying duck?
Oh dear!
Please never call a ship you are on a "boat", the crew will be insulted.
It is like calling a Horse a pony or calling a rifle a gun.
On the other hand if you really want to cause insult you could call a ship a scow ,but I would not reccomend it , to the crew it is home.
On the third hand calling submarines ships is not absolutely incorrect, if you are discussing the big boomers they are really capitol ships.
Early Submarines were definately boats, tiny ones. By WWII subs bigger than the USS Constitution were prevalant but the convention of calling the subs "boats" was a sticky legacy.
US Navy - ships and submarines. American naval firepower! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsUt6J8ez_Q#ws)
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He said we had FEWER horses and bayonets, and this is 100% true
"By virtue of the USMC still using bayonets, there actually are more bayonets in use than 1916, when the army had between 100,000 and 140,000 enlisted members. As of 2010, the Corps boasted 203,000 active duty members and 40,000 reserve marines"
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Border patroll count?
The technology to choose is not the most recent development every time, sometimes you choose the particular capability you need even if it is the older tech .
Horse and bike patrols are used to augment regular vehicle and foot patrols. Horse units patrol remote areas along the international boundary that are inaccessible to standard all-terrain vehicles. Bike patrol aids city patrol and is used over rough terrain to support linewatch.[2] Snowmobiles are used to patrol remote areas along the northern border in the winter.
In 1992 the Border Patrol had approximately 4,139 Patrol Agents on the job......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol)
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1916 was a year before WWI began. We had virtually no military at that time.
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The bayonet count is not an important element in our national defense.
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Of course Obama didn't know that every Marine is issued a bayonet and is trained on one. He's ignorant.
He could have deployed Marines to Libya and they could have used those bayonets to kill the terrorists. Obama was campaining in Vegas.
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1916 was a year before WWI began. We had virtually no military at that time.
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The bayonet count is not an important element in our national defense.
Are pistols an important element in our national defense?
A each tool for its best use , in spite of what the President said I do not beleive that Horses and Bayonettes have been replaced one for one with submarines and carriers.
Come to think of it , the topic was the Navy wasn't it?
When did the Navy have a lot of horses and bayonets?
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Of course Obama didn't know that every Marine is issued a bayonet and is trained on one. He's ignorant.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/Bay_zpsad513c7b.jpg)
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1916 was a year before WWI began. We had virtually no military at that time.
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The bayonet count is not an important element in our national defense.
Are pistols an important element in our national defense?
A each tool for its best use , in spite of what the President said I do not beleive that Horses and Bayonettes have been replaced one for one with submarines and carriers.
Come to think of it , the topic was the Navy wasn't it?
When did the Navy have a lot of horses and bayonets?
Ouch :D
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By WWII subs bigger than the USS Constitution were prevalant but the convention of calling the subs "boats" was a sticky legacy.
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They were always called U-boats, not U-ships. The film was Das Boot, not Das Schip.
When I talk about boats and ships, I am not usually talking with sailors. No one else really gives a damn.
FEWER horses and FEWER bayonets is not the same as NO horses or NO bayonets. But to a seventh grade, teabagger mentality, apparently this is all the same.
If this country steps in the Mitt, we will all be worse off.
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The way I see it, the President rehersed this line , but delivered it as a real nonsequiter, along with a deep smirk.
I hope it gets replayed a lot.
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It was just a quip, like "There you go again", and I have heard it all that I need to, thank you very much.
Romney wants to spend more on the military in order to provide make-work jobs. It is true that a President cannot normally create jobs in the private sector, but he certainly can do so if he increased money spent on weapons and troops.
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http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2011/02/28/toc.html (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2011/02/28/toc.html)
Fortune Magazine
VOL. 163, NO. 3 - February 28, 2011
Cover story
America's Hottest Export: Weapons
Arms sales to the Middle East are booming. The defense industry's surprising partner in the race to arm the world? President Obama. By Mina Kimes
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Good long article about how President Obama preserved the production line of the F-15 , JADAM and other wepons with increased sales to the middle east and other forifhen customers.
I kinda apprpve of Obama doing this , as long as he is carefull about boomerangs.
So I hesitate to call him a warmonger, that is not the point.
The point is , saying that Republicans are warmongers is unfair.
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No Joking Matter: O's Declining Navy
By Alexander B. Gray
October 23, 2012
President Obama's attempt to discredit Mitt Romney's farsighted plan to rebuild the U.S. Navy derisively referencing "horses and bayonets", shows his obliviousness to the real-life consequences of his leadership. A look at what this administration's policies have meant to the U.S. Navy is both revealing and frightening.
Over the last four years, the combat strength of the U.S. Navy has been degraded to an extraordinary degree. President Obama is fond of saying that Governor Romney would spend "trillions of dollars that the military isn't asking for." In fact, successive chiefs of naval operations have testified before Congress that the minimum number of vessels needed to carry out current missions is 313. The fleet currently consists of 285 ships, the lowest number since before America entered World War I.
Governor Romney's plan would add 15 ships per year for the next decade, with a goal of roughly 350 ships by 2020. This would meet the Navy's minimum threshold of vessels to carry out current requirements. Equally important, Romney is also laying the groundwork for a Navy capable of meeting the myriad challenges that will arise on the watch of presidents down the road. In planning for the future, he is exercising the type of strategic judgment this President has eschewed.
As he mocked Governor Romney's statement that the Navy's size has fallen to the lowest level since 1916, President Obama took pains to mention both aircraft carriers and submarines as two platforms that have transformed the nature of warfare over the last century. Unfortunately, the President's actions don't convey the same concern for our submarines and aircraft carriers as his rhetoric evinced last night. The U.S. Pacific Command has long stated that it requires between 16 and 18 attack submarines to fulfill operational requirements; the Navy can currently provide only 10 at any given time. This comes as the Chinese Navy has begun to outnumber the U.S. Navy's submarine force in the Pacific, playing directly into Beijing's "anti-access, area-denial" strategy for limiting America's freedom of movement in the region.
The Obama administration has also been less than enthusiastic about the aircraft carrier, the most versatile tool of American power operating today. Only after the Navy' top officers told Congress that eleven carriers were absolutely essential to American security did the administration attempt to walk back a suggestion that we should reduce the number of carriers in the fleet. Governor Romney's plan, far from ignoring our uniformed leadership, actually calls for an eleventh carrier air wing the Navy leadership has been requesting exactly this for years, as it would markedly enhance our ability to project power around the world.
President Obama's expressed hostility to the two platforms he singled out in the debate is only a small element of his general neglect of American sea power. As Representative Randy Forbes (R., Va.) has noted, the president underfunded the Navy's maintenance budget by $800 million this year. It is no surprise that more than 20 percent of the fleet failed its annual inspection in 2011, a sizeable increase over previous years.
Obama has also slashed funding for research and development, failed to develop adequate replacement platforms for aging ship classes, and ignored our Marine Corps's requirement for 39 amphibious ships, which is particularly important given the vaunted "pivot to Asia" the President has initiated but refused to adequately resource.
President Obama's four years have been difficult ones for American sea power. As he stakes American credibility on a re-engagement in Asia, he does so with a dramatically smaller, under-resourced fleet. And, despite his incessant talk of "investing for the future," he has no plan to make the investments needed to leave his successors with a Navy capable of defending American interests around the world.
For all his bluster, this president has consistently shown himself ignorant of the choices required to sustain the best tool of projecting American power in the 21st century: the United States Navy. Not to mention what a boost to the economy it would be to build those "ships" because they are American made!!! Newport News Shipyard "we build great ships"! Keeps are shipyard workers happy! Fuels the local economy while protecting America!!!
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331447/no-joking-matter-o-s-declining-navy-alexander-b-gray# (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331447/no-joking-matter-o-s-declining-navy-alexander-b-gray#)
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This country has not been protected by a ship for many, many years. Make work jobs in shipyards are a poor use of taxpayers' money. I use roads and bridges, I see no reason for expanding the Navy. And quibbling about the terms "ships"and "boats" is not astonishing ignorance.
This is just another load of ratbag right wing neocolonialist crap.
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The President was dismissive in his answer, but taken literally , he makes it sound as if Carriers and Submarines are recent developments that replaced the Navys Horses and Bayonettes.
In what respect does one learn something about the Presidents knoledge of Naval units from this?
Has the president ever at all demonstrated sophisticated knoledge of military matters?
Say, does anyone recall the president presenting an award to a "corpseman"?
I really do not think he speaks often to military people , and when he does he probly needs a translator.
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I would say that President Obama knows at least as much as Romney, and probably more.
Obama mispronouncing a word is about like you misspelling one. Not any big deal, even if it upsets Marines, who seem to think that they are at the center of the entire universe.
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I would say that President Obama knows at least as much as Romney, and probably more.
Obama mispronouncing a word is about like you misspelling one. Not any big deal, even if it upsets Marines, who seem to think that they are at the center of the entire universe.
Yes my spelling adventures are a tell that I am not expert at phonetics , nor spelling rules that are not phonetic.
President Obama has never given any impression that he is expert in matters military, and some of his mistakes confirm that he spends little time in that study.
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He has managed to keep us out of war, hasn't he?
Juniorbush mongered TWO wars and was clueless as to how to fight them.
Romney seems just as clueless.
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He has managed to keep us out of war, hasn't he?
No.
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He has started no new wars or invasions. he has reduced the number of troops involved in the wars that existed when he was elected.
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He has started no new wars or invasions. he has reduced the number of troops involved in the wars that existed when he was elected.
I guess the presence of US Robots does not count as invading.
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No, they do not.
I assume you mean drones.
We are not at war with any governments. American troops are not dying at the hands of any enemies as before. The suiciude rate among them is higher than the casualty rate.
Obama has done far better than Juniorbush at foreign policy. He has surely done better than McCain would have done.
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No, they do not.
I assume you mean drones.
We are not at war with any governments. American troops are not dying at the hands of any enemies as before. The suiciude rate among them is higher than the casualty rate.
Obama has done far better than Juniorbush at foreign policy. He has surely done better than McCain would have done.
I think Drones count , and that the war that Obama is trying to ignore is rageing under the pressure cooker lid.
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Every week or so, a drone takes out a couple of guys in Pakistan or Afghanistan. It is a drop in the bucket, there are more traffic fatalities involved in any US city. No Americans are killed or maimed,and we have to support no widows and orphans.
It hardly matters, because if Romney is elected, it will certainly not stop.
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You are right , the foreign policy of Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney differ only in details.
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I think Romney would be much more likely to go to war. He has surrounded himself with warmongering types like Eliot Abrams and John Bolton. He wants to project FEAR,and that does not work.
It would be ever so nice if the US could be as evenhanded in the Middle East as it is in South America, where we respect elections and favor equal rights. In the Middle East, we support democracy in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt. In Libya we will use weapons to defeat oppression, but will not do so in Syria. We support oppression in Bahrein, because Saudi Arabia,another oppressive country, supports it.
That is why we are not assumed to be fair or impartial there. Because we are not.
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I think Romney would be much more likely to go to war. He has surrounded himself with warmongering types like Eliot Abrams and John Bolton. He wants to project FEAR,and that does not work.
Oh?
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That is what caused 911, dummy.
Fear means nothing to people with suicidal ambitions. You cannot scare suicidal maniacs away.
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That is what caused 911, dummy.
Fear means nothing to people with suicidal ambitions. You cannot scare suicidal maniacs away.
They had aims and hope for the future , even if they wern't going into the future.
I don't think they were unreasoned , they thought us cowardly and that acts of courage would amaze and cow us.
They probly still think this way , they don't repeat our storys of heroism any more than we credit them with reason.
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They don't repeat anything.They are deceased.
No amount of fear would be likely to deter them from doing what they did. That is the point. FEAR is useless against those who are willing to kill themselves.