An Axe to Grind "Wouldn't now be a good time to begin restoring the American military to its former glory after the crippling cutbacks that occurred under President Clinton?" That question was asked three years ago by a former Marine lieutenant named Adam G. Mersereau in an article published on the pro-Republican website National Review Online. This was ten months before the United States made its decision to invade and occupy Iraq. "Where is the build-up?" Mersereau wondered. "Where is the recruiting drive? Where is the request for meaningful budget increases? Why are we not replacing at least some of the countless troops, ships, tanks, and aircraft that were so unceremoniously downsized by the Clinton administration?" There you have it. You can't engage in a discussion about military readiness in America without someone attempting to blame Bill Clinton for denuding the armed forces. It's the same old conservative attempt to (A) deflect blame from the place where it truly belongs, and (B) to forge belief from the lies told to the Party faithful. That such underhanded and dishonest tactics actually work reveals more about the average Republican voter than it does about those in power today. So the irony escapes them all as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepares to close nigh 100 military bases, about the same number as were closed from 1988 to 1995 combined. The truth is that those "crippling" military spending cuts started during the second term of Ronald Reagan and continued through Papa Bush's truncated reign. When Clinton followed suit - logically, as the Cold War had ended - he was predictably attacked as being a liberal softie. As it happened, only a couple of States were given large, new military projects in the Clinton era. One was Georgia, where then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (Republican) wrangled a few billion dollars' worth of pork out of Congress, to build warplanes that the Pentagon had not requested. Another was Mississippi, home of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (Republican), which received a contract to build a new aircraft carrier - again, something the Pentagon didn't want. Going over the rolls, the man who seemed to be happiest about slashing military spending in the pre-Clinton years was our Vice President, Dick Cheney. This continues today as the Bush administration short-shrifts the troops, leaving them to soldier on through ever-dangerous Iraq in insufficiently armored Humvees and antiquated trucks that have been in use since the waning stages of World War II. On February 1, 1990, Cheney bragged to Congress, "since I became Secretary (of Defense under Bush 41), we've been through a fairly major process of reducing the defense budget." Among his other comments on the subject were, "we're recommending base closures," "we're talking about force structure cuts" and "we've got a military construction freeze." One of his pet stub-outs back then was "the Apache helicopter". Did you hear any of that in the last campaign, when conservatives assailed John Kerry for voting against military projects? Under Bush, Cheney, Inc., we've made a commitment to generational warfare without increased production in infantry necessities such as Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Abrams tanks. Sorry, but you can't blame that on the last president. So, why are the venomous barbs that were hurled at Clinton not now being directed toward the Bush administration in general, and at Rumsfeld in particular? After all, Rummy himself wrote, in an article published by the Washington Post on May 22, 2003: "The fact is that the transformation of our military capabilities depends on the transformation of the way the Defense Department operates." In other words, it's his baby. He wouldn't have it any other way. When Clinton made cuts in defense, he was pilloried by the same people who were crying and moaning about balancing the budget at the time - so much for that noble idea. When Rumsfeld swings the axe, he's making the military "flexible, light and agile, so they can respond quickly and deal with surprise." That sounds great, except that the bulk of our troops (and Guardsman and Reserves) are stuck occupying Iraq, unable to respond quickly to anything. Keep in mind that this round of base closures has nothing to do with reducing overall federal spending. As Cheney said, "deficits don't matter," and besides, the five billion or so dollars in savings that Rumsfeld says these closures will provide isn't spit if you know how much the military spends in its overall operations, which is about a billion dollars a day. What, then, is this really all about? A week ago, we may have gotten an inkling of that. George W. Bush, go figure, says he thinks we ought to build oil refineries on closed military bases. He says it's part of his energy plan, which his Vice President has always spearheaded. Now, they'll have about a hundred freshly closed bases to work with. Gosh; do you think they might have anyone in mind for the job? Paul Heller 05/05/05 << back to the archives
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