Military Morons

"Your article 'Boots on the Ground or Weapons in the Sky?' (Currents, Oct. 30) asks the wrong question about the future of America's military, suggesting that the U.S. must choose whether to be prepared to fight more 'grinding insurgencies' like in Iraq and Afghanistan or to fight a conventional conflict with a near-peer competitor like Russia or China. Wouldn't it be grand if the military could decide to prepare for only one type of warfare? ... In reality, the military must be prepared for both types of wars, and much else besides, because our nation's security depends upon it", Jim Tucci letter to the WSJ, 8 November 2008.

"Your article implies that increased defense spending since Sept. 11, 2001, was for modernization priorities, and it creates a false dilemma that the U.S. has the luxury of choice in preparing for asymmetric conflicts or all-out war. In fact, the increased spending funded the constant deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, not the Army's core modernization program Future Combat Systems , which you singled out for its $160 billion cost. ... Our National Defense Strategy must achieve balance to deal with the entire continum of conflict, which in the future will include regular and irregular enemies potentially as deadly as any past state-on-state war. However, we musn't confuse balance as equal priority for everything or buying everything. We don't have the luxury of picking which kind of war an enemy will choose", Rickey Smith letter to the WSJ, 8 November 2008.

I agree with Tucci.

What doesn't our current SecDef and Obama's SecDef designate understand? Thomas Jefferson said, "Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute". Now we pay tens of billions in tribute to Goldman Sachs and similar "pirates".