52 Seconds of Obama Unilaterally Disarming America

[beerman]

This was sent to me today. I can't watch the video for some reason but I did read the article. Sounds like Obama would like to see significant cuts in military spending (besides ending the iraq war).

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008...teral.html

[OWC Jamie]

I couldn't get the audio to work.

I can't see a political candidate throwing the military vote away.
I'm tempted to believe there's an awful lot of interprtation happening by the "author".

[mattkime]

Apparently the author thinks that unless we have space nukes, we have no weapons.

[samintx]

works for me on a Toshiba.

[SDGuy]

Well, he lost my vote at around 13 seconds:

"I will slow our development of future combat systems"

No matter what else, I can't vote myself out of a job-I remember the early 90s all too well. Some of our combat systems really ARE in need of updating - 70s technology that's just creaking along.

[mattkime]

>>Some of our combat systems really ARE in need of updating - 70s technology that's just creaking along.

Please describe. It seems that our current military challenges have NOTHING to do with technology.

[Don Kiyoti]

I watched that video and it's not nearly as alarming as the right-wing alarmists make it sound. Ending the war in Iraq would bring significant cuts in military spending all by itself. As for slowing development of future combat systems: that's fairly vague. Which systems? All? Some? The priority review board sounds like it might be a good idea and could help getting the most bang for the buck.

I kinda hate agreeing with SDguy, but our future adversaries will be armed with Russian and Chinese equipment, if we're not fighting the Russians and Chinese themselves. It's still important to keep developing. The trick is to do that without wasting billions.

The first priority of the new administration will be to replace the equipment that has been worn out or destroyed in the war in Afghanistan and the debacle in Iraq.

[SDGuy]

[quote mattkime]>>Some of our combat systems really ARE in need of updating - 70s technology that's just creaking along.

Please describe. It seems that our current military challenges have NOTHING to do with technology.
Well - without getting too much into details that could get me into trouble, let's use an analogy.

What would your reaction be if you were to walk into any corporate office and found computers designed 30 years ago running things, with the programs being used written, at best, 20 years ago? The programs have had bug fixes since then, but are essentially unchanged since Ronald Reagan (or in some cases Jimmy Carter) were President?

These aren't just some administrative, bookkeeping type computers. They are used in Combat Systems - what we give our sailors to fight battles with.

As of late, the things that get money are things that are designed to blow up - because that's the obvious, most visual part of the military that people (i.e. Congress) sees. It's like buying a shell of a racecar, and having a gocart engine inside. It looks nice and flashy to people who don't know better, but the person who has to drive it will know what's missing.

[Rolando]

I dunno. Proven, stable technology is good thing in national defense.

http://www.gcn.com/print/17_17/33727-1.html

[vision63]

You'd think with all of our amazing weapons technologies we'd actually be able to win a war. When was the last time that happened?