Black Bishop Launches Brutal Attack Against Democratic Party

[Plane]

Even if we were so poverty stricken that we had no gold to steal, we could still be attacked by people who thought they could manage our land better.

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Yeah right. Surely with over 200 nations on this planet you can cite some recent case of this.

Spratley Islands.
Tibet
North Timor
Falkland Islands
Lots of other examples , we don't get involved directly with all of them.
In the near Future
Tiwan

[Xavier_Onassis]

We should not get involved in any of those.

The conflict was over South Timor, which was a Portuguese colony that declared itself independent and was overrun by the Indonesians. North Timor was part of Indonesia since the Dutch left.

I do not give a damn about the Spratly islands. It is pretty clear that the US has no claim to them, or any of the other places you mention.

The Chinese claim Taiwan, but Taiwan has a huge amount of investments in mainland China. China has not tried to conquer Taiwan, and there are no signs that this is likely anytime soon. In any event, it is not possible for the US to defend Taiwan if the PRC is really intent on taking Taiwan.

[Plane]

Do you think we will ususlly have a choice about being involved?'

Do you think that not to be involved will always be the better choice?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I know for a fact that none of the places you mentioned is worth the life of a single American soldier.

Obviously, we have made some really, really stupid choices. Getting involved in Vietnam. Interfering in Iran when we deposed the elected secular Mossadeagh and put the nasty little Shah on the throne. Allowing Brzinenski to wreak vengeance on the Soviets over Katyn Forest by allying this country with the hateful Saudis and creating the Taliban in Afghanistan. Listening to Kissineger and keeping the US Embassy open when the Ayatollah took over.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. All rightwing dummies.

[sirs]

I know for a fact that none of the places you mentioned is worth the life of a single American soldier.

But unlike yourself, Plane was backing up his position with actual examples that you had requested.  You my opine about not liking them, but cudos to Plane for supporting his position, when requested.  You should take notes sometime, when asked to back up some wreckless claim or yours, instead of the standard calling everyone you don't agree with, immature grade school names

[Xavier_Onassis]

I cannot imagine how the Falkland Islands could matter to the US if it was British or Argentine. The same is true of Tibet and the Spratleys. The Aussies dealt with East Timor rather well, it turns out.

Taiwan is, as I d=said, i8ndefensible against a massive Chinese attack, and the Chinese know this, as do the Taiwanese.

[sirs]

That opined, doesn't refute my point now, does it

[Plane]

There is a point to make about not taking war lightly.
War is tragic.
War is hell.
War is expensive.
When the choice is between having a war and putting up with some annoyance, we should put up with a lot of annoyance in preference to going to war.
But is war less likely for the poorly armed ?

Plums get picked.

If the US is very strong , we give ourselves the choice of whether to fight or put up with whatever seems the alternative. We have been very strong so long we are accustomed to having this choice.

If we were not strong enough to make an enemy ponder , we would be given fights without any choice in the matter much more often.

As long as the USA is the strongest of all , we can debate and consider each fight we get into, choosing not to fight quite a lot .We can work up our moral standing and use our learned sages to help make the decision.

Sometime in the future perhaps the USA will be forth or tenth or less the strongest, then we can't discuss whether to fight or not with anyone except our attacker.

[Xavier_Onassis]

We have all the military we need to scare away any potential attacks by anyone. The military itself has not asked for the increase that the Mittwit proposes.

[Plane]

Are you aware of how much the military force availible has declined since the mid 80's?

Do you know how much it is going to crash in January if we do have the sequestration?

The sequestration is a way to get the gutless vote on a major slash in military spending, but it will be as well planned as a train wreck.

The Democrats will blame the Republicans and vice versa, I think that is the plan.

Each of the last three years , the AirForce has bought fewer aircraft than replacement would require.

How much is still enough , and will we find out the hard way?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Each of the last three years , the Air Force has bought fewer aircraft than replacement would require.

Not a bad idea. That is what happened with the cavalry when it became obvious that it was ever more obsolete. They just failed to replace the horses. Now we have a very limited cavalry, if at all. I suppose we have a few horses for shows and funerals.

We seem to have an overabundance of marching bands in our military. As a weapon, they are rather obsolete as well.

Many types of aircraft are obsolete. Even so, we have the biggest air force in the world, as well as the second biggest.
 
I have no idea what you mean by "sequestration".

[Plane]

http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration

Under sequestration, an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the Budget Resolution and the amount actually appropriated is "sequestered" by the Treasury and not handed over to the agencies to which it was originally appropriated by Congress. In theory, every agency has the same percentage of its appropriation withheld in order to take back the excessive spending on an "across the board" basis. However, Congress has chosen to exempt certain very large programs from the sequestration process (for example, Social Security and certain parts of the Defense budget), and the number of exempted programs has tended to increase over time -- which means that sequestration would have to take back gigantic shares of the budgets of the remaining programs in order to achieve the total cutbacks required, virtually crippling the activities of  the unexempted programs.

Mitt is against Sequestration.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81747.html

Leon Panetta is against it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/panetta-irate-over-sequestration/2012/09/28/7afc59ba-0987-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html

Nobody loves sequestration.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/09/sequestration_both_parties_agree_it_ll_hurt_the_economy_so_they_should_agree_to_repeal_it_.html

Mitt Romney warns that looming defense cuts will cost American jobs. Speaker of the House John Boehner calls them a “serious threat” to the nation’s security and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls them “crippling” and “destructive.” Oddly, both congressional leaders voted for the cuts. Even odder, the Obama administration agrees: Its Office of Management and Budget says the cuts will have a “devastating impact” on both military and non-military government programs. Look! Bipartisanship!


Except, perversely, the parties can’t seem to bring themselves to do anything about the “fiscal cliff” than use it as a political cudgel. Republicans want to halt the defense cuts, but only by replacing them with even steeper cuts to non-military spending that they know perfectly well Democrats won’t agree to. Democrats would like to roll back the cuts on both sides, but only if Republicans make unnecessary tax concessions that they clearly won’t make. Consequently, we’re heading toward some sharp spending cuts that nobody really wants, cuts that Congress voted into law precisely because nobody really wanted them. Worst of all they’re coming at a time when short-term government spending isn’t actually

The devil is in the details.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0915/Everything-you-need-to-know-about-budget-sequestration-except-the-consequences

You can now go line by line in the federal budget and see just how deep the spending cuts slated for January will go thanks to a White House report released Friday on the impact of what’s known as “sequestration.”

What isn’t there, however, is how the Selective Service (down 9.4 percent, or $2 million), managers for federal emergency food and shelter funding (down 8.2 percent, or $10 million) or operations and maintenance at the Marine Corps (down 9.4 percent, or $854 million) will actually cope with the reductions.
 
How many fewer tents will the Federal Emergency Management Agency buy? How will the Marine Corps maintain its combat readiness? That’s all still unclear.
 
“There will be some unintended consequences sooner or later,” says Pete Davis of Davis Capital Investment Ideas. “They’ve taken 8.2 percent out of embassy security which doesn’t seem like such a great idea right now…. What are you going to do if you’re building a ship and you’re going to take 9.4 percent out of it? It’s not like you can just buy 90 percent of a ship.”

Sequestration was the result of last summer’s debt ceiling deal, which cut $1 trillion in government spending over the next decade outright and then put responsibility for finding another $1.2 trillion on Congress.

Because Congress failed to agree on the mixture of lower spending and higher taxes to hit that figure, a mechanism in the debt ceiling-raising legislation causes automatic spending decreases to hit the $1.2 trillion figure: about $109 billion in lower government spending every year for the next decade.
Overall, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget outlined the $109 billion in spending cuts for 2013 as follows:
 
• Hits to defense programs of either 9.4 percent or 10 percent, depending on how they receive their appropriations from Congress ($55 billion).

• Payments to Medicare providers will be reduced by 2 percent ($11 billion).

• Cuts to non-defense spending (like elementary and secondary education or rehabilitation services and disability research) will be cut at either 8.2 percent or 7.6 percent (totaling $43 billion).

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of which budget lines see what reductions, the document does not carry the down-the-middle, dispassionate tone presented by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, say, or the Joint Committee on Taxation.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Republicans need to stop being REpublican'ts. This is what happens when ignorant teabaggers are elected.

[sirs]

The Republicans need to stop being REpublican'ts. This is what happens when ignorant teabaggers are elected.

And yet, its the Democan'ts led by Senator Reid, not having passed a budget for ...how many years now?, and not even allowing the Senate to vote on bill after bill after bill, that the so-called Republicant's have passed.  Apparently Reid and the Senate Dems are closet teabaggers.  Good disguise

[Plane]

The Republicans need to stop being REpublican'ts. This is what happens when ignorant teabaggers are elected.

Either you don't get it , or I don't understand you, or both.