Democratic Defense Agenda: Just Like Vietnam only worse! [UPDATED!]

[And more at the bottom where I can review the actual document! Wheeee!]
The Democrats want to get serious on Defense! No! Really!

Here's how it works:

1. They want to eliminate Osama!
2. They want to pull all the troops out of Iraq!
3. They want to hire more spies, to spy on you like the NSA!
4. They want to DOUBLE the number of Special Forces!

The Good Lady Jane had ruminations on this and I gave her a response, as is my wont at times:

Not satisfied with betraying one ally at a time after stopping the support of South Viet Nam... they have decided to pull everyone out of Iraq to make that country go to hell, put them in Pakistan to cause a massive civil war which will destabilize Afghanistan... and then they will find that Osama took a camel across Iran into Iraq... where they had just pulled everyone from... and so be stuck fighting a civil war where the troops can't be supplied, destabilize India's nuclear neighbor, throw lots of refugees into the 'stans, give Iran a direct entry into Iraq and give Osama a new training base!

Why *thank you* Democratic party!

Perhaps they can invent the circular firing squad for an encore...

Actually it is far worse than that.

Think about this: as I write this it is 29 MAR 2006.

11 SEP 2001 is 4 years 6 months and 9 days ago (including today).

This is the first Democratic Party National Security Agenda to actually address Osama bin Laden and terrorism. Had some problems finding 'root causes' didn't they?

Remember that in 1974 the Anti-Watergate Democratic Congress cut off aid to South Vietnam while the USSR continued aid to North Vietnam. The excuse used was that since the South was going to be overrun we didn't want to give them new equipment which would fall into Soviet hands. The response was: well, yes, that is because you fine folks have decided to cut of funding to the military for even aerial operations thus giving the North Vietnam air forces free reign to do whatever they liked.

Without US Airpower the South was doomed. With it they had rallied a decent defense, and while still suffering losses, it was nothing to what the North was taking. Folks, the USSR re-equipped the North Vietnamese about 4 times in equipment since the start of the US portion of that conflict. The Soviet economy was not robust then and could not well afford to keep this sort of thing up by having precious industrial capacity going towards equipment to be shipped to North Vietnam.

Even with that they were able to take over Afghanistan and then, once their air superiority disappeared due to US Stinger Missiles, their conventional forces were ground up by light infantry and irregulars used to mountain combat. The South Vietnamese would have had a fighting chance to relieve the North of yet another full army using our equipment to the last, and there is a good chance that air interdiction would have immobilized the Northern army and allowed it to be chewed up piecemeal AGAIN. Either way an entirely new army would have to be outfitted from the USSR.

The Democratic Party has only learned one thing: retreat.

Retreat then, retreat now, retreat always.

They gave us the dishonor of abandoning an ally, causing the Boat People problem, and allowed the Soviets to think adventurously against their neighbors. And because of that last the USSR had to be disabused of expansionist notions and the only way that could be found was through the resistance fighters in Afghanistan. If you are on the Left and are saying that the US *made* al Qaeda, I will point out that the Left gave the Soviets the idea of expansionism by not draining their supplies when we could have done so at little cost to our treasury and in few lives lost from our Naval air forces!

If you think the lightly simmering kettle of Iraq is bad now, imagine it in a year without ANY Coalition forces in it. Yes, the Democratic party wants to doom the Iraqi people either to "Lebanonization" via al Qaeda, a return to Ba'athist tyranny or have it taken over by Iranian Theocrats. The bastards do not even MENTION our stalwart allies the Kurds! And no matter which way you cut it Iraq will then *become* a safe haven and expansion area for terrorism instead of the killing zone for them!

Plus, to all of the military units and soldiers that have made good and deep friends with the people of Iraq and the military of Iraq, you will be condemning their friends to DEATH! This will kill morale of the US Armed Forces like nothing since Vietnam, when you abandoned our allies in the South. This will give Transnational Islamic Terrorism the exact foothold it needs to actually become a POWER in the Middle East, instead of a targeted and hated group of thugs. Thank you for clearly explaining that you WANT a terrorist state to start controlling the Middle East. That position is now painfully clear for the Democratic Party. Can't let those nasty brown people try out democracy now, can we? They just will never understand it...

Then these fine stalwarts of Foreign Conflict want to go after Osama!! With what? Are you going to invade the border provinces of Pakistan to do so, and thus touch off a war with a nuclear armed power? Or will you Democrats take the easy way out and just have President Musharaff wake up one morning with some glassy terrain where those provinces were? You know he might look at that as an opening salvo from India and thus touch off a nuclear war between the two of them. What a lovely idea!!

Why, yes, getting involved in a Soviet style invasion in the high mountain regions of Pakistan will drain the military unlike anything except the withdrawal from South Vietnam! Because the US can *not* easily supply an entire damn army without the help of Pakistan and you would be invading their territory to get this done! Has it ever occurred to you wunderkind in the Democratic Party to use the proper forces to suit the terrain? And that right now mountain forces with some special forces and UAVs is the best way to track down hide and seek players in such terrain? Do you even have anyone that can look a topographic map and understand it?

And if you thought there was spying aplenty going on NOW, well the Democrats want to DOUBLE IT!! And they are going to do it using the ineffective Agencies that haven't been able to predict such little things like the Fall of the Soviet Union or the fact that Saddam transferred his WMDs to Syria with the help of the Russians. May I point out that the entire way we do business in the Intelligence Community needs to overhauled?

If you keep it as it is all these new spies will be well trained for... doing what? If you want HUMINT out of the Middle East or Asia, that will take a decade or longer to build up. And if you do not have a 'dot connecting enabled' Intelligence Community then you will get double the results of what you have now once these new folks spend 3 to 5 years spinning up in a small area of expertise.

Then, to top off their thorough and complete understanding of the entire Military system: they want to double the size of the Special Forces! Let me ask this one, little question:

FROM WHERE?

Special Forces soldiers are ones that are highly trained veteran combat soldiers and are the very best of the very best units in the military. It takes YEARS to get someone to such a high level of training that they can even *attempt* to qualify for the Special Forces! If you want to double the size of the Special Forces you will either have to lower standards, increase service time (thus discouraging applications!) or DOUBLE THE SIZE OF THE MILITARY and *hope* that in 5 years enough good soldiers will be able to qualify for a larger Special Forces.

THERE IS NO OTHER SOLUTION!

You can water them down, thus making them into just another specialized set of units or you can drastically increase the size of the military as a whole to get the very few who can even attempt to qualify or you can increase service time which will reduce or nearly kill applications. There is no way, save raising the dead, to double the size of the Special Forces and still keep it uniquely effective and capable as it is NOW. And I do not see one of the anointed amongst your party with a halo over their head to get that task done.

So what this does is:

1. Destroys the entire morale of the US Armed Forces from top to bottom by betraying an ally and letting them watch their friends there get slaughtered as Iraq gets balkanized.
   
2. Creates a safe haven for a new Terrorist state to start in the Middle East.
   
3. Creates the image of the United States as unwilling to stick by an ally.
   
4. Creates the image that the United States thinks that the people of the Middle East are unfit for democracy.
   
5. Puts the entire region at risk of becoming a shut off point for China, India and European economies, thus allowing an expansionist terrorist state to blackmail them.
   
6. Betrays the Kurds and leaves them alone in a sea of militant terrorist Islamic fundamentalist fanatics.
   
7. Either puts the US to war with Pakistan or threatens to touch off a regional nuclear conflict.
   
8. Destabilizes Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and all the surrounding 'stans.
   
9. If it puts a large US force into Pakistan, it will be forced into the worst sort of grinding mountain warfare for which they are not trained nor equipped. This will destroy morale which would already be low after leaving Iraq to the jackals and deplete the military no end as people see that the Democrats aren't serious about handling the military.
   
10. And likely leaves Osama to head over to Iraq and establish himself there, which will require us to RE-INVADE THE COUNTRY! By this point in time the US will be very lucky if it has a military LEFT!

It is things like this that have forever made me scorn the Democratic Party. This sort of thinking will make the United States far more vulnerable then we were on 9/10.

[UPDATE 20 MAR 2006]

And now for the actual document, not just the talking points.

Dear me! The Republicans have a pre-9/11 mindset? And it has taken the Democratic Party how many years to get a post-9/11 mindset? And as for the Iraq quips... well, lets just say that you fine folks were more than willing to let Saddam off the hook so he could restart his WMD programs and a brandie new long range missile delivery system! Haven't been keeping up with the releases, have you?

Make 2006 a year for tranisition in Iraq... JUST LIKE BUSH WANTS!
Rebuild our military and National Guard... but you are the folks that wanted to conscript people into them. Now if you mean re-align and enhance the active forces a bit over the Guard, well that is the BUSH AGENDA.
Just a quick note: which part of the military needs 'rebuilding'? Could you name the actual Service, please? I want to know who is falling down on the job. Would love to know that. Come on, you Democrats, you can say which of them... or is it all of them?
Provide veterans benefits: JUST LIKE BUSH WANTS!
Keep training our first responders? Ummm... there is a plan to STOP that? Sorry, this is STATUS QUO.
Oh, Energy independence by 2020... reserve a special spot for that. Note to Democrats: I can think of exactly 1 way to do it in that timeframe, and it is not through conservation!

Secure America, huh?
Hunt down terrorist: this is the BUSH AGENDA.
Provide our troops tools to hunt them down. Note, tell us what our troops are lacking. Otherwise this is the BUSH AGENDA.
Secure ports, nuclear plants and chemical plants: well, you folks signed of on the DHS and it is doing that at the pace you have set it via funding so I can say that THIS IS BEING DONE AND WITHOUT REALIGNMENT OF THE DAMN GOVERNMENT IT WILL NEVER GO FASTER.
Safety and security of our communities? Like stopping folks from flowing over porous borders? Like stopping Mexican Federal Military and Police from violating our territory without cause? Like stopping narcotraffickers from tunneling under the border? Like stopping some American Cities from shredding the first 6 Articles of the Constitution, trafficking in humans, conspiring with Foreigners, meeting with Foreign agents, denying the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches oversight and, basically seceding from the Union to become slavery cities?
Any of those are you going to actually STOP?

You want to give us security? Well, you haven't done a damn thing to get us involved now, have you? You could have offered a bill to get Congress involved actively in cutting off Commerce to terrorists and their sympathizers, those giving aid and comfort to them, you know? At any point after 9/11 and RIGHT UP TO TODAY.

Nice words on the Armed Forces, too bad all of your action to-date have been to denigrate them, demean them and castigate them.


Now, energy independence. Solar Power Sattelites. Space based industry. Lunar materials. Self-sustaining colonies. Private Space Industry. Awards to companies to reach measurable goals in achieving same.

If the Democrats want cut-backs and renewables and conservation all I have to say is: been there, done that, lost the t-shirt.