Navy Halts Up or Out Rules in Bid to Keep Ranks Filled

[Dutch Uncle]

Almost always, you sign up for a 8 year commitment in the US Army. That is split between several years of active duty, reserves (or National Guard), and finally individual ready reserves. Individual ready reserves is almost like being out of the army, but you need to keep in touch with the army, and can be called up easily. At the end of those 8 years, usually you get a honorable discharge, but in theory the President can hold you for longer. Bush was one of the few Presidents who took advantage of that technicality, and held soldiers for longer.

So you agree our military was too small? LOL

I'm still blaming part of 1/6 on two generations of selfish assholes who wouldn't exist if the Democrats hadn't eliminated the draft. LOL

 

[Walt]

The fact remains, a Democratic President and Democratic Congress cut the military and intelligence budgets so much that we ended up with 9/11.

Worth noting that Clinton increased the anti-terrorist intelligence budget. In fact, Bush spent September 10th, proposing taking the anti-terrorist budget and spending it on Star Wars. He literally canceled the Bin Laden team twice, once before 9/11, though that time it did not go through. The second time it went through.

It was tough for Obama to rebuild the Bin Laden team after Bush had destroyed it, but he did.

If Clinton's military was so great, why did the US have to increase the military and intelligence budgets following September 11th, 2001?

It takes years to design and deploy a new weapons system, so the invasion Afghanistan started less than a month after 9/11 could not have been based on any budgeting from 9/11. What could be paid for was staff increases, which was mostly more hours worked. That cost a lot of money, and so money was pulled from keeping the military fit.

For instance, all work on building new Stinger Missiles, and replacements for Stinger Missiles stopped nearly immediately after 9/11. There simply was no money for future wars, while we were fighting two wars at once.

You talk about a few hundred troops in Bosnia or Haiti being a drag on the budget... What do you think Afghanistan and Iraq were?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Worth noting that Clinton increased the anti-terrorist intelligence budget....

...You talk about a few hundred troops in Bosnia or Haiti being a drag on the budget... What do you think Afghanistan and Iraq were?

Do you think if he spent more time fighting terrorists that 9/11 wouldn't have happened?

Yes. More. Again, you seem to think it always has to be all or nothing. I disagree. Results count. 9/11 happened. If the Democrats want the US to be the World Police, they need to support it with a budget that matches.

 

[Walt]

So you agree our military was too small? LOL

No. There was no problem calling up enough troops to invade two different countries. That is a big enough military for most purposes.

I think you are confusing the size of the military with the cost of calling up all those forces. There was a huge financial cost, but also an opportunity cost. Having our military fight two never ending wars meant that we simply did not have the resources to keep our military current.

Clinton, Obama, and Biden had the much wiser idea of having other people fight their own wars. We would provide aid, but that is nothing compared to the cost of actually fighting the wars with our own troops.

Clinton had no combat deaths from any conflict started by him. Let that sink in for a minute. But when a war was fought with Clinton's military, it had no trouble invading two different countries... At a very high financial cost, but that is to be expected.

I'm still blaming part of 1/6 on two generations of selfish assholes who wouldn't exist if the Democrats hadn't eliminated the draft. LOL

Nixon was the President who pushed stopping the draft. It was Carter who reinstated registration for the draft.

Technically, we never eliminated the draft, just Nixon started drafting zero people, and then stopped having people register for the draft. Carter realized that was too far, and reinstated registration, but continued drafting zero people. The Selective Service System is still fully in existence. The draft boards are still meeting every year to keep current. The database has all the potential draftees in it.

 

[Walt]

Do you think if he spent more time fighting terrorists that 9/11 wouldn't have happened?

I think the best chance we had of stopping 9/11 was the FBI officers in Germany. Clinton setup FBI offices outside the USA, including in Germany. These FBI officers were working with the German police. There was no need for us to spy on the Germans, they are our allies, and were glad to help us. The planning of 9/11 was being unraveled by the Germans in 2001...

Sadly Bush considered FBI offices outside the USA to be a waste of money, and closed them. The Germans had no way to communicate what they were finding.

I could go on and on about opportunities not taken in 2001. Basically, everything was being shutdown. Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested weeks before 9/11, with a computer with information about the 9/11 attack. The Bush Administration saw no importance in looking at that computer.

Results count.

There were several terrorist attacks stopped by Clinton Administration. When there was a terrorist attack planned, the Clinton Administration went into high alert, and made sure it was stopped. Bush literally shrugged it off. He hoped it would prevent itself.

There were more than enough resources to prevent 9/11. They were 19 men armed with box cutters; there are Boy Scout Troops in the USA that could have apprehended them. The question was putting those resources to use. Bush chose not to heed the warnings. You cannot blame Clinton for that.

If the Democrats want the US to be the World Police, they need to support it with a budget that matches.

Lead from behind hardly makes us the world's police.

 

[Walt]

Do you think if he spent more time fighting terrorists that 9/11 wouldn't have happened?

There is an interesting parallel of failure here. Bush shutdown the FBI offices in Germany, and we got 9/11; trump shutdown the CDC offices in China, and we got Covid-19. These offices cost us a few million dollars a year to run, a few cents per American, but could have saved us trillions of dollars if we had kept them.

The issue is that Republicans do not seem to understand what they are. Republicans believe they are foreign aid, when they mostly do nothing for foreigners. They are early warning for us.

Most diseases either come out of China or Africa. The flu every year usually comes from China, and so it is just common sense to have people in China monitoring diseases. Many terrorist attacks on the USA are planned in Europe, where we have friendly police forces willing to help us. It just makes sense to have police there willing to work with them. As an added plus, we can help prevent a lot of smuggling and other international crimes.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

There is an interesting parallel of failure here. Bush shutdown the FBI offices in Germany, and we got 9/11; trump shutdown the CDC offices in China, and we got Covid-19. These offices cost us a few million dollars a year to run, a few cents per American, but could have saved us trillions of dollars if we had kept them.

The issue is that Republicans do not seem to understand what they are. Republicans believe they are foreign aid, when they mostly do nothing for foreigners. They are early warning for us.

Most diseases either come out of China or Africa. The flu every year usually comes from China, and so it is just common sense to have people in China monitoring diseases. Many terrorist attacks on the USA are planned in Europe, where we have friendly police forces willing to help us. It just makes sense to have police there willing to work with them. As an added plus, we can help prevent a lot of smuggling and other international crimes.

You seem to forget that Clinton put up a firewall between the FBI and CIA such that terrorists of the sort that perpetrated 9/11 weren't being tracked properly (Janet Reno, Clinton's moron of an attorney general was responsible mostly) and was a major cause of that attack succeeding.
There's plenty of blame to go around, but it mostly falls on bureaucratic incompetence and lethargy. It was hardly Bush's fault when for years before he was in office the incompetence in the agencies that were supposed to protect the US from such an attack had grown to profuse proportions.

 

[Walt]

You seem to forget that Clinton put up a firewall between the FBI and CIA

That appears to be a myth... One of many right wing myths.... In fact, the FBI and CIA were required by Clinton to be in constant contact to exchange information. There was no such requirement when Bush was in office. That is why so many terrorist attacks were prevented by Clinton.

Why do you think everything suddenly stopped working when Bush came to office?

such that terrorists of the sort that perpetrated 9/11 weren't being tracked properly

And yet they were being prevented at a rate of about once a year. And in fact, 9/11's basic plan was known because of the superior tracking put in place by Clinton. When Bush came to office, the Air National Guard was already training to take out commercial planes that had been hijacked. Bush was handed a warning that they were planning to attack buildings by flying hijacked planes into them.

 

[Lightbringer]

That appears to be a myth... One of many right wing myths.... In fact, the FBI and CIA were required by Clinton to be in constant contact to exchange information. There was no such requirement when Bush was in office. That is why so many terrorist attacks were prevented by Clinton.

Why do you think everything suddenly stopped working when Bush came to office?



And yet they were being prevented at a rate of about once a year. And in fact, 9/11's basic plan was known because of the superior tracking put in place by Clinton. When Bush came to office, the Air National Guard was already training to take out commercial planes that had been hijacked. Bush was handed a warning that they were planning to attack buildings by flying hijacked planes into them.

You're wrong about this.

 

[anonymoose]

Uhm... You do not believe that army enlistment obligations are 8 years? Really? You seem out of touch to me.

I am… when it comes to the military. Never considered joining.
As far as a bachelors degree, you can drop out of that at any time.

 

[Lightbringer]

Uhm... You do not believe that army enlistment obligations are 8 years? Really? You seem out of touch to me.

To an 18 year old it is sold as two years of active duty. A bachelors degree is 4 years, so that really does not seem like a long commitment to a lot of people. How old are you that this all seems like too much of a commitment?

There are people who expect to serve in the Air Force, and reserves for 20 years. Much of that might be individual ready reserves, which is practically not serving, but you can be called up. John Kerry full contract was 12 years, but again most of that was individual ready reserves. People make major commitments of time, and think it is a good idea.

You're right about the 8 year obligation.

 

[Walt]

You're wrong about this.

You can say that all you want, the 9/11 Commission found differently. It is a fact that the required daily meetings prevented about one terrorist attack a year when Clinton was in office.

The fact is that Clinton had a longer run of preventing terrorist attacks on the USA than Bush did.

 

[Lightbringer]

You can say that all you want, the 9/11 Commission found differently. It is a fact that the required daily meetings prevented about one terrorist attack a year when Clinton was in office.

The fact is that Clinton had a longer run of preventing terrorist attacks on the USA than Bush did.

Bullshit. I think youre making this up. I worked in this field at that time and I know for a fact you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

 

[Walt]

I am… when it comes to the military. Never considered joining.
As far as a bachelors degree, you can drop out of that at any time.

Fair enough. You are lucky others have joined the military so you do not even have to consider joining it. If they had not, you would have been forced to join.

 

[Walt]

You're right about the 8 year obligation.

Sometimes people do not realize it is 8 years, because they do not count the individual ready reserves in there, but it is almost always 8 years total obligation. With the Air Force, or with some rare special programs in other forces, it can be a longer than 8 year obligation. But, it is never less than 8 years contract that you are signing up for.

 

[Lightbringer]

Sometimes people do not realize it is 8 years, because they do not count the individual ready reserves in there, but it is almost always 8 years total obligation. With the Air Force, or with some rare special programs in other forces, it can be a longer than 8 year obligation. But, it is never less than 8 years contract that you are signing up for.

Mine was longer than 8 because it was renegotiated but yeah 8 years is standard.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

No. There was no problem ...

I'm not going to get into a Masters thesis on this; the US was tapped when we were in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Stop loss, recycling National Guard units and equipment shortages pointed out US military limitations.

You're free to believe Bill Clinton was the greatest Commander-in-Chief in US history, but I witnessed the effect upon our military in the 1990s and how our nation paid for it in the 2000s.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I think the best chance we had of stopping 9/11 was the FBI officers in Germany. Clinton setup FBI offices outside the USA, including in Germany. These FBI officers were working with the German police. There was no need for us to spy on the Germans, they are our allies, and were glad to help us. The planning of 9/11 was being unraveled by the Germans in 2001...

Sadly Bush considered FBI offices outside the USA to be a waste of money, and closed them. The Germans had no way to communicate what they were finding....

Bush was in office less than 9 months when 9/11 happened. The fact you are placing 100% of the US failures to stop 9/11 upon Bush is interesting, but flawed IMO. Al-Qaeda had been working in the plan for years.

Why do Democrats forget who was President when the WTC was attacked in 1993? LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Atta

In June 2000, Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi arrived in the United States to learn how to pilot planes, obtaining instrument ratings in November

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plann...1_attacks#Origins_of_the_September_11_attacks

Origins of the September 11 attacks
The attacks were influenced by the Bojinka plot, a terrorist operation planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ramzi Yousef, who was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[5] The plan would have included bombings of eleven trans-Pacific airliners and crashing a plane into the CIA Headquarters. Yousef tested the plan by planting a bomb aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434 on December 11, 1994, which detonated but only killed one passenger. The plot was intercepted when Yousef's Manila apartment burned down and the Philippine National Police captured his laptop computer with the plans. Yousef himself was captured by U.S. and Pakistani forces in 1995.[11]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed presented a modified plan to bin Laden in 1996 in Afghanistan.[5][12] According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed envisioned hijacking twelve airplanes on both the East and West coasts, and for eleven of them to crash into the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building in New York City; The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; the Prudential Tower in Boston, Massachusetts; the White House and the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.; the Willis Tower (then Sears Tower) in Chicago, Illinois; the U.S. Bank Tower (then Library Tower) in Los Angeles, California; the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, California; and the Columbia Center in Seattle, Washington.[13][14] Nothing came of the idea at the time, however, as bin Laden rejected the plan as being too elaborate.[5][9]

In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the U.S., including training personnel to hijack aircraft.[15]

 

[Walt]

Bush was in office less than 9 months when 9/11 happened. The fact you are placing 100% of the US failures to stop 9/11 upon Bush is interesting, but flawed IMO. Al-Qaeda had been working in the plan for years. Why do Democrats forget who was President when the WTC was attacked in 1993? LOL

The 1993 attack happened 37 days into the Clinton Presidency, not 9 months in. It was unexpected, not another attack on a long line of attacks. You cannot blame Clinton for 1993, without blaming Bush far more for 9/11.

The fact remains that Bush thought he did not have to work to prevent terrorist attacks, so shutdown any attempts to prevent terrorist attacks. Clinton handed him a system that worked, and Bush destroyed it.

Clinton also handed Bush a military that could fight two wars at once, but no one thought that would mean two occupations for decades at once. Not really sure how someone builds for that. Think about it.

Everyone should remember what Ashcroft did do leading up to 9/11. His largest investigation was of a graffiti incident where someone had spray painted the word "ELF" on a middle school. He poured hundreds of investigators into the investigation of what he thought was a major "Earth Liberation Force" attack. It turned out to be a kid who thought she looked like an elf.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

The 1993 attack happened 37 days into the Clinton Presidency...

Sorry I wasn't clear; the point was that Clinton had four years to stop al-Qaeda and didn't. They kept killing Americans overseas and b began planning 9/11 on Bill's watch.

Now is the time when you claim it was all the Republican's fault, even though they didn't take the House for the first time since 1928 until January 1997.

Walt, I've repeatedly admitted the Republicans are part of the problem yet you refuse to budge one iota on admitting that the Democrats are part of the problem. You know that's the view of a political extremist, don't you?