Correcting Obama's Debate Comments on the United States Navy.

[Kablooie]

From a rightwing blog courtesy of the freerepublic:

Earlier this evening in the Third Presidential Debate Mitt Romney raised legitimate concerns about the current and shrinking size of the United States Navy. The President responded snarkily by saying that size does not matter because we have these these "things" called Carriers that "planes can land on" and these "things" that go underwater.

This pathetic attempt at rebuttal by Obama is quite simple. The first submarine commissioned by the United States Navy was "USS Holland (SS-1)" on October 12, 1900.

The first Aircraft Carrier commissioned by the United States Navy was the USS Langley (CV-1) on March 20, 1922.

Exactly how does the existence of Aircraft Carriers and submarines in a Modern American Navy nullify Mitt Romney's just concerns about the size of the Navy? Obama spoke about both as if they were some new fangled advances in naval warfare. The existence of carriers in our fleet justifies its reduction even though they have been an integral part of our navy for 112 and 87 years respectively? I guess in Obama's world Jimmy Doolittle was bombing Tokyo with ELECTRONIC b-25 Mitchell bombers. How can he defend shrinking a navy whose history he is wholly ignorant?

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Obama’s remarks about bayonets, horses, aircraft carriers, submarines, and the strength of the U.S. Navy were nothing less than ignorant foolishness taken to the worst levels possible.
Bayonets are still a vital piece of equipment included in the armaments of all combat personnel carrying rifles and many who don't carry rifles.

Horses were by our military personnel to go to war in Afghanistan. Patton would hive used more horses if he had not been foolishly overruled time and agin by his superiors.

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So there ya go.
Obama didn't go into a detailed history of the Navy and bayonets and horses are essential for today's military.
Obama was totally wrong.

Damn these right wingers are clever aren't they?
I wish they'd stop drooling all over the floor.

[patrice]

1. "he is wholly ignorant" These people are so fucking possessive! IF anyone else knows anything at all

about whatever, they're always absolutely certain that it is less than what they know, without asking validation question number one.

This. is. insanity.

[JDPriestly]

2. The point is and was that we use our Navy very differently than we did pre-WWII.

The Navy is not used that much for direct combat. Maybe we use submarines for combat, but our big ships do not sidle up all that often to other ships other than the rare pirate ship.

Ships are just too vulnerable to air attacks to be used in combat the way they were pre-WWII. We don't let anything near the ships we have. We keep them as far out of the reach of the planes and missiles of other countries as we possibly can. Also, the Navy requires a lot of heavy lifting and personnel hours just to keep going. We keep our trade routes safe with our Air Force which can hit and run in combat.

Drones also make a lot of the work the Navy used to do less important.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. sure and they had Tomahawk missiles and advanced radar, too

the increase in firepower of modern warships over those of the early 1900's, or the WWII era, is of at least an order of magnitude. In the early part of the 20th century the US was one of several naval powers; Britain had the world's largest navy, Germany was 2nd, the US was third. Now? The US has more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world's navies combined, and the US Navy is one of only three navies in the world with blue-water capability (deployment of force across oceans; the other two? France and Britain, both US allies).

[gordianot]

4. Pre World War I U.S. Navy was not inconsequential we were the worlds second largest naval power.

There was actually some tension with Great Britain after World War I. The Royal Navy knew they were overstretched could not compete hence the Washington Naval Treaty.

[Amonester]

5. Not correcting anything.

Just proving he or she is projecting his or her ignorance of everything modern warfare, and making a fool of himself or herself affirming he or she will vote for the ignorant lizaRd.

[brush]

6. What bubble do they live in?

Last edited Tue Oct 23, 2012, 10:13 AM - Edit history (1)

God, the ignorance displayed in this rant is only matched by Romney's. We don't need all those 300 ships that we had in 1917. One carrier battle group could wipe all of them out without getting a scratch on the carrier. Hell, they wouldn't even know what hit them, and their planes would get nowhere near the carrier, what with the destroyers, the subs, the cruiser, the frigate, the tomahawk and cruise missiles and such, not to mention the fighter planes, all the President's point of course. All I can say is Romney's got some dumb ass supporters who don't even know how badly misinformed they are.

[murielm99]

7. When Rmoney started talking

about how small our navy was now, I turned to my husband and said, "We don't need all those ships. We use our navy differently now." He started to say something about the carriers alone and what they could do. Then the President spoke up about bayonets and horses. We both burst out laughing.

My husband did serve in the military, but I am no military expert. If I understand, I am sure that other people with my low level of military expertise understand it, too. Thank you, Mr. President, for saying it so well.