Did Obama shrink the military? GOP candidates sure seem to think so

[unhappycamper]

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article62298922.html

Did Obama shrink the military? GOP candidates sure seem to think so
February 24, 2016 6:56 PM
By James Rosen

WASHINGTON

Republican White House hopefuls are likely Thursday to sing what’s become a familiar dirge during every presidential debate so far: President Barack Obama has degraded the military.

Top defense analysts with combat experience, however, say that refrain is simplistic, and fails to include other parties they hold responsible for current military problems, including President George W. Bush and his predecessors, and the Pentagon itself. The missteps include failed occupations in the Middle East, super-expensive weapons systems such as the F-35 fighter jet that under-perform, and the centuries-old inability of major powers to counter insurgencies.

“Those were strategic catastrophes insofar as they squandered trillions of dollars and cost too much life and blood,” Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel who helped lead the U.S. and allied victory in the first Gulf War, said of the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“That money was diverted from useful investments in military power,” Macgregor, whose book on military misadventures will be published in June, told McClatchy. “There has been a failure to understand that occupations always ruin armies.”

[raging moderate]

1. Thank you, Colonel Douglas Macgregor.

Good to know.

[TheUndecider]

2. Wish that he had

I think over half of our budget should be enough

war is peace