Husband?
Not mine either.
...The deaths of at least one more US service member, an Australian and a Briton announced in the past two days have pushed the total to 2,002 since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001 by US-backed Afghan forces.
The total is less than half that suffered during the seven years of the Iraq war but is a significant milestone nonetheless, with NATO allies like the Netherlands pulling out of the alliance and others reviewing their future roles....
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announces the elimination of the Joint Forces Command and a 10 percent reduction in the use of contractors. It's part of his plan to reform Pentagon spending....
...Among other steps laid out, Gates plans to:
• Freeze the number of positions in the office of the secretary of Defense, among other offices.
• Freeze the number of senior department positions and appoint a task force to study reducing the number of generals and other senior staff to address what is called “brass creep.”
• Close two defense offices and recommend the elimination of a third.
• Find economies of scale, especially in areas like information technology and services.
“To be clear, the task before us is not to reduce the department’s top-line budget,” Gates said. “Rather, it is to significantly reduce its excess overhead costs and apply the savings to force structure and modernization.”...
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0809/Gates-budget-ax-swings-at-Pentagon-overhead-Joint-Forces-Command
...But why should anyone want to cut the U.S. military budget?
One reason is that—with $549 billion requested for basic military expenditures and another $159 billion requested for U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—the record $708 billion military spending called for by the Obama administration for fiscal 2011 will be nearly equivalent to the military spending of all other nations in the world combined. When it comes to military appropriations, the U.S. government already spends about seven times as much as China, thirteen times as much as Russia, and seventy-three times as much as Iran....
http://www.hnn.us/articles/130258.html
The 'problem' with the USA's economy isn't about 'big government' or 'entitlements,' it is about the INEFFECTIVE 'elected' leadership under Republican majority for most of the modern history of the USA. Democrats always 'get dumped on' when it is 'their turn' to straighten things out so the Republicans can 'do it all over again.' The country never realizes that Republicans are simply corrupt. They don't care about the people of the USA, they care about the money of the people of the USA.
I believe Secretary Gates is doing his best to trim the budget demands of the USA, but, in all honesty if the USA is spending MORE than the entire sum of the rest of the world, do we really believe we are less safe than everyone else?
Hello?
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are about nation building and that is why they are taking longer than WWII. WWII was about the survival of civilization as we know it. Iraq and Afghanistan is about a 'failed state' and the opportunity in Iraq for oil. Afghanistan is gas, too. At least a pipeline or something like that.
But, nation building requires decades of change and not simply a war to end 'a threat' to the world. Nation building is sapping the USA dry while its economy is shipped to China.
We need to bring the troops home and let General Petraeus write a book or something. We can't and shouldn't go on like this. It is hideous already.
PEACE !
