Shocker! - Top uniformed officer says cuts to Pentagon budget would endanger U.S.- The Hill

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Quick! Erect a new Bogeyman, shout "support our troops", and start waving the flags...lot's of flags.

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/121609-top-officer-says-cuts-to-pentagon-budget-would-endanger-the-us

The nation’s top uniformed officer on Wednesday warned that any massive cuts to the Pentagon budget would be “dangerous” in the face of the military’s multiple national-security requirements. Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the pressure to cut overall government spending “is growing” and will only increase with time.


The Pentagon’s budget represents more than half of the country’s discretionary spending. The budget for fiscal year 2010 is $693.3 billion, while the request for 2011 is $708.2 billion. Those amounts include funding for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Recognizing that outside pressures to trim government spending are going to get “worse” before they ease up, Mullen indicated he and the Pentagon leadership are fighting to protect the Pentagon’s budget.



“What I hope to be able to avoid are any massive cuts,” Mullen said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “Those would be dangerous now, given the national security requirements that we have.”

[Kolesar]

1. F-ing nuclear bomber fleets. 100 generals in Germany. Cold War jet interceptors.

Gasp.

[Renew Deal]

2. I agree with Mullen.

I think Mullen is telling the truth. “Those would be dangerous now, given the national security requirements that we have.”

You can't cut the budget without changing the requirements.

[USArmyParatrooper]

3. Stop being readonable.

He top military brass so he must be the devil and have ulterior motives.

[Ikonoklast]

15. Name one bureaucrat that ever wanted to diminish his authority by reducing the

size of his bureaucracy.


I can wait.

[blindpig]

5. Those 'requirements' are Imperialism.

If the US were not busy making the world safe for Capitalism the Pentagon budget could be by 90% and we'd be snug as bugs in a rug.

Fuck that whore from the MIC.

[Renew Deal]

6. You're saying F' him, but he's telling the truth.

And you are both saying essentially the same thing.

[blindpig]

12. Hardly...

Imperialism is not in the interests of the working class, it afflicts us in every way.

Cut the Pentagon budget by 90%.

Bring the troops(and marines, sailors, airmen & spooks) home, all of them, from everywhere.

Immediately reduce the US nuke arsenal to 100 warheads.

There ya go, single payer, social security, green tech. What benefits the people more? And we'd still kick anybody's ass who came looking for trouble. The US military in it's current configuration serves one primary purpose: creating, expanding and protecting capitalist profit.

[L0oniX]

9. Gee ...do those "requirements"meet the needs and will of the US people?

UMSA United Military States of America ...turning us all into a war machine.

I hate the military ...and all the assholes who support it!

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." - Dwight Eisenhower

That worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor . . . This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism–how passionately I hate them! – Albert Einstein

[area51]

4. It's actually

continuing to fund the military at the current levels without any cutbacks is endangering the American public, as our tax dollars keep getting funneled to the MIC instead of paying for health care, infrastructure repair, etc.

[leftstreet]

8. [phone]

:applause:

[L0oniX]

7. ...more like a trillion this year. Fucking liars!

[Ezlivin]

10. 800+ military bases

We're still occupying Japan, Korea and Germany decades after the war ended.

The military is creating newly disabled veterans at an alarming rate and many of those veterans are going to require a lifetime of care.

We're building submarines to combat enemies without fleets or even ports.

It will be impossible to rein in the military until this country is in economic tatters. And even then they'll probably be viewed as necessary to keep the peace within our borders.

[w8liftinglady]

11. my question-maybe someone can answer-how much funding is going to private contractors?

and,yes...my son is one of them.he will make 200K...the equivalent of...hmmm...5 soldiers,give or take.

[krispos42]

13. Get less national-security requirement, then. n/t

[Octafish]

14. Endanger some real lard asses, you mean.

Sir!