President Kerry means army = naked men with sticks?

[deek]

Received this email from a friend who doesn't follow politics, but does vote and passes on dribble such as this. Anyone want to take a line by line counterpoint for me to reply to all its receivers?

Subject: JOHN KERRY ON DEFENSE


Don't know how true this is, maybe someone could check it out.

He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle

He voted to kill the M-1 Abrams Tank

He voted to kill every Aircraft carrier laid down from 1988

He voted to kill the Aegis anti aircraft system

He voted to Kill the F-15 strike eagle

He voted to Kill the Block 60 F-16

He voted to Kill the P-3 Orion upgrade

He voted to Kill the B-1

He voted to Kill the B-2

He voted to Kill the Patriot anti Missile system

He voted to Kill the FA-18

He voted to Kill the B-2

He voted to Kill the F117

In short, he voted to kill every military appropriation for the development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988 to include the battle armor for our troops. With Kerry as president our Army will be made up of naked men running around with sticks and clubs.

He also voted to kill all anti terrorism activities of every agency of the U.S. Government and to cut the funding of the FBI by 60%, to cut the funding for the CIA by 80%, and cut the funding for the NSA by 80%.

But then he voted to increase OUR funding for U.N operations by 800%!!!

Is THIS a President YOU want?

[phantom power]

1. well...

The Bradley and the Patriot Missile systems deserved to be killed, in my opinion (ever see "The Pentagon Wars" ?) Voting against those would be protecting our tax dollars as far as I'm concerned.

As far as stuff like "cut CIA by 80%", that just sounds like a piece of propaganda pulled out of someone's bunghole. But I don't have any proof one way or the other.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. John Kerry's Defense Defense - Setting his voting record straight.

Sorry, you'll have to take the trouble to read for yourself:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127/

[Snow]

3. I wouldn't answer that sort of thing with a line-by-line defense

then you're drawn into the game. Respond with crappy armor on the humvees in Iraq, worthless to non-existent body armor for the soldiers such that mothers are buying it and shipping to their sons, water and food shortages for soldiers in Iraq, soldiers taking weapons from killed foes in Iraq because those weapons are better, and so on. This can be treated similarly to the "John Kerry flip-flops" thing.

[Cursive_Knives512]

4. I hope people don't believe that!

It's just not a reliable source of information. For example, it lacks

1. The dates of these votes
2. The background of each vote called into question
3. Cited sources

Anyone who reads that e-mail and believes it without doing adequate research probably won't be swayed by carefully thought-out facts, anyway. I agree with Snow.

[BagoDem]

6. Oh yeah!!!

Well, our naked-guy-with-sticks army would kick any naked-stick-guy army in the world!

[LiberalBushFan]

5. Another reason for Clark as VP

you can NEVER "overcompensate" for anything when you're up against the media-supported lie machine.

[kodi]

7. if we fought wars with sticks and clubs we'd be better off.

.

[Room101]

8. deek Here....

Ask wonk about the Patriot anti Missile system story 60 min. did. It was about Bush(41) lying about the Accuracy and how it is a bust.(pork)


If we support the troops
Why can’t Bush?

ARMY TIMES
An act of ‘betrayal
In the midst of war, key family benefits face cuts

Commissaries and the Defense Department’s stateside schools are in the crosshairs of Pentagon budget cutters, and military advocates, families and even base commanders are up in arms.

The two initiatives are the latest in a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-2335705.php

ARMY TIMES
Nothing but lip service

In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.

For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary — including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day. Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.
http://www.armytimes.com/archivepaper.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-1954515.php

VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE
Support The Troops
Deeds Not Words

The House of Representatives voted on a fiscal 2004 budget that cuts funding for veterans health care and benefit programs by nearly $25 billion over the next ten years. Narrowly passing by a vote of 215 to 212, the budget accommodates the president’s $726 billion tax.

Coming only a day after Congress passed a resolution to “Support Our Troops”, Veterans for Common Sense views this action as anything but. The $25 billion cut passed by the House of Representatives will slash healthcare and benefits for disabled veterans and beneficiaries, and significantly reduce VA’s ability to care for casualties resulting from the current U.S.-led military conflict in Iraq. It also cuts $204 million from Impact Aid, a program that supports the education of service members' children. To make matters worse, the Bush Administration has ordered VA medical centers to stop publicizing available benefits to veterans seeking care. And as of January 2003, the Bush administration ceased enrolling some eligible veterans for healthcare benefits.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1582


----------------------------------
The president can't seem to find the missing trillion dollars in the defense department that is unaccounted for. The president is just not good with money he has proved this time in and time out again. The president is "more concerned about Pentagon pork than controlling defense waste." The president bankrupted three companies and is now bankrupting the country. Just some talking points/sentiments I hope Kerry will use in his offensive plays.
-Beforeathought

WHAT HAPPENED TO $1 TRILLION?

Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

And before the Iraq war, when military leaders were scrambling to find enough chemical and biological warfare suits to protect U.S. troops, the department was caught selling these suits as surplus on the Internet "for pennies on the dollar," a GAO official said.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN25173...

[deek]

9. thanks!! n/t

.

[bigtree]

10. Facts

-The 2003 defense spending bill included 458 (m) million dollars that the administration didn't ask for to pay for 144 upgraded Bradley Fighting Vehicles and more than 40 Abrams tanks.

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1352611
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FactCheck.org

Did Kerry Oppose Tanks & Planes? Not Lately
Kerry voted often against nuclear missiles and bombers in the '90s, but GOP claims that he opposed a long list of conventional weapons are overblown.

February 26, 2004
Modified: February 26, 2004

Bush’s campaign chairman Marc Racicot on Feb. 22 accused Kerry of “voting against the weapons systems that are winning the War on Terror” and says Kerry was for "canceling or cutting funding for the B-2 Stealth Bomber, the B-1B, the F-15, the F-16, the M1 Abrams, the Patriot Missile, the AH-64 Apache Helicopter, the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, and the Aegis Air-Defense Cruiser." Another Bush campaign spokesman said Kerry has a "32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems" (a clear impossibility since Kerry has been in office less than 20 years.)

It's true Kerry expressed opposition to those weapons 20 years ago as a candidate, voted against Pentagon budgets several times as a senator in the early and mid-1990's, and proposed cuts in military and intelligence budgets as deficit-reduction measures as recently as 1996.

But Kerry's votes against specific military hardware were mostly against strategic nuclear weapons including the B-2 bomber, Trident missile and anti-missile items, not against conventional equipment such as tanks. And Kerry has a point when he says “I've voted for some of the largest defense and intelligence budgets in our history,” which is correct. He's voted for military spending bills regularly since 1997. http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0221d.html

Analysis

Twenty years ago, as a candidate battling another liberal for the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Massachusetts Kerry advocated terminating many strategic and tactical weapons.

In this 1984 campaign memo (which a Kerry spokesman confirms is genuine) the candidate called for cutting Ronald Reagan’s military budget by between $45 billion and $53 billion through (among other things) cancellation of the MX missile, B-1 bomber, anti-satellite weapons, and the “Star Wars” anti-missile program, along with several conventional weapons that have become mainstays of the present-day military, including the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the Aegis air-defense cruiser, and the F-14 and F-15 fighters. He also called for a 50% reduction in the Tomahawk cruise missile.

And during the same campaign, according to the Boston Globe, Kerry also advocated reductions in the M-1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the F-16 jet.

"No Excuse"

"There's no excuse for casting even one vote for unnecessary weapons of destruction, and as your senator I will never do so," Kerry said in the memo.

In 1985, Kerry's first speech in the Senate was against President Reagan's proposal to build MX ballistic missiles, and also in 1985 he introduced a "nuclear freeze" resolution calling on the President to negotiate a "verifiable" halt to testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons. It attracted no co-sponsors and died without a hearing in committee.

Throughout Kerry's early Senate years he often voted against specific weapons systems and sometimes against the entire Pentagon budget. He voted repeatedly to cancel the B-2 Stealth bomber, for example, in 1989 , 1991 (twice ) and 1992 . He voted against the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile in 1994 and 1995. And he voted repeatedly to cut funds for the Strategic Defense Initiative (ballistic missile defense) in 1991, 1992, 1993 , 1995, and 1996. He also voted for across-the-board cuts in the military budget in 1991 and 1992, as Congress struggled to deal with mounting federal deficits and the former Soviet Union disintegrated.

Republicans shouldn't make too much of these votes, however, since President Bush's own father announced in his 1992 State of the Union address that he would be ceasing further production of B-2 bombers and MX missiles, and would cut military spending by 30 percent over several years.

Voting Against M-1 Tanks? Not Really.

And Republicans go too far when they claim that Kerry voted against such mainstay weapons of today's military as the M-1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and the Patriot missile. (See this Republican National Committee "fact sheet," for example.) These claims are misleading because they rest on Kerry's votes against the entire Pentagon appropriations bills in 1990 and 1995. Kerry also voted against the Pentagon authorization bills (which provide authority to spend but not the actual money) in those years and also in 1996. But none of those were votes against specific weapons systems. Kerry's critics might just as well say he was voting to fire the entire Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

It is true as Republicans say that in 1993 (Bill Clinton's first year as President) Kerry specifically proposed cutting the size of the military, including reductions in numbers of submarines, jet fighters and soldiers. But what Republicans fail to mention is that it was a very broad measure aimed at cutting federal spending by $85 billion at a time when the federal deficit was roughly $300 billion. Kerry's measure -- the "Budget Deficit Reduction Act of 1993" -- targeted not only military spending but also would have eliminated federal subsidies for cotton, wool and mohair production, eliminated the superconducting super collider and the space station, and raised fees for grazing or mining on public land. That bill died without a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee.

It is also true that Kerry proposed in 1995 another measure that -- among other things -- would have cut the US intelligence budget by $300 million per year for 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. Republicans fail to mention, however, that this was another broad, deficit-reduction measure that didn't just target military spending. When he introduced it Sept. 29, 1995, Kerry said it would cut $90 billion in federal spending, of which $10 billion would come from defense spending, and $11 billion from terminating the international space station program.

Republicans also point to a 1996 bill Kerry introduced to cut $6.5 billion from defense spending. What Kerry's critics fail to mention is that Kerry proposed to use the money to hire an additional 100,000 police officers (above the 100,000 President Clinton already was proposing to fund.) Kerry called it the Safer Streets Act of 1996.

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, in a telephone conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush campaign Feb 21, went way over the top when he accused Kerry of "a 32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems." That's not possible since Kerry's first vote was cast in 1985. It also implies that Kerry has continued to vote for cuts over his entire career, which isn't true.

A "New Kerry?"

Since 1996, the John Kerry who once opposed the Apache helicopter and wanted to cut Tomahawk cruise-missile funds by 50% has evolved into a steady supporter of military budgets. Starting in 1997 Kerry voted for every regular Department of Defense appropriations bill and for every authorization bill as well.

Kerry says he's changed. He still defends his opposition to the MX missile and the "Star Wars" strategic defense initiative, but concedes that opposing some other weapons was a mistake.

This was not in evidence Feb. 21, when Kerry lashed out at the Bush campaign's criticism of his voting record. In a letter to President Bush he said -- wrongly -- "you and your campaign have initiated a widespread attack on my service in Vietnam," which is not the case. In fact Bush spokesmen at the White House, the campaign and the Republican National Committee have gone out of their way repeatedly to distinguish between Kerry's military service, which they call honorable, and his legislative record.

But Kerry was less defensive and more candid in a June, 2003 interview with Boston Globe reporter Brian Mooney. The reporter quoted Kerry as conceding that some of his positions 20 years earlier were "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now and the things that I've learned since then. . . . I mean, you learn as you go in life."

The Globe quoted Kerry as saying his subsequent Senate voting record on defense has been "pretty responsible."

Sources

Marc Racicot "Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign Chairman Governor Marc Racicot’s Letter to Senator John Kerry" 22 Feb. 2004.
http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=2258

Nedra Pickler “Kerry Blasts Bush Over Attacks on Record” Associated Press 21 Feb. 2004.

John Kerry "John Kerry addresses Bush/Cheney campaign attacks," 21 Feb. 2004.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0221d.html

Glen Johnson, “Kerry admits to an error in boast about 1st speech,” The Boston Globe, 1 May 2003.

Brian C. Mooney, “Taking One Prize, Then A Bigger One,” The Boston Globe 19 June 2003 : A1.

S.1500 "Comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Freeze and Arms Reduction Act of 1985" Introduced 25 July 1985.

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 101st Congress - 1st Session S.Amdt.859 Vote #203 26 Sept. 1989.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=101&session=1&vote=00203

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 102nd Congress - 1st Session S.Amdt. 1017 Vote #174 1 Aug 1991 .
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_______________________________________________________________

3rd Army commanders felt ammunition was short before Iraq invasion, internal report says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Soldiers with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division charged into Iraq in April short of the ammunition their commanders had said was necessary to invade, according to the division's postwar evaluation of the fighting.
It was one of a number of supply problems encountered by the 3rd Infantry before and during its 21-day dash to Baghdad from Kuwait, according to the internal review, a 293-page after-action report created by the division's senior officers and troops.

During the run-up to the war, division commanders requested additional ammunition be delivered to front-line units. The request was approved, but the troops could not obtain all the ordnance despite months of war preparations.

"Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers," the report said. "The entire situation became utter chaos. ... The division crossed (into Iraq) short the ammunition it had declared necessary to commit to combat."

The report, whose authors were not identified by name, catalogued serious problems with supply, security and the handling of prisoners of war. It blamed many problems on higher headquarters or other parts of the military, although it did point out some places where the division could train its own soldiers better.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-11-28-ammo-shortage_x.htm
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