When General MacArthur made political statements, he lost his job. [1]
Times have changed:
The military will have to do its part when Washington makes decisions on how to reduce the nation’s growing budget deficits, the commander of the Air Force Materiel Command said Monday, March 1.
“At some point, we’re going to have to start addressing debt. We’re on an unsustainable path as a country,” Gen. Donald Hoffman told the Dayton Rotary Club during a speech at Sinclair Community College. “As the military, we’re part of that.
“Right now, we’re at war. The funding is there to support the war.”
If the war on terrorism should abate, the military would have to closely examine its spending priorities to reduce operating costs wherever possible, said Hoffman, a four-star general who oversees the AFMC, its acquisition, sustainment and research and development missions and its $52.5 billion annual budget and 79,000 employees. The 10-base command has headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
via Military will have to help reduce nation’s budget deficits, general says [2].
With the recent statements from the generals about gays in uniform- and the knee jerk reaction from John Boehner, are we seeing a move to an activist military? This is a totally new landscape and we made it the main subject of today’s Dayton Grassroots Daily Show- with a bit about Thorium reactors [3] as well.
And, I don’t know what Greg was on today- but, I think we all need some of it.
The continued funding of C-17 production is an interesting case-study in the military saying, “please sir, no more” (consistently, for years), and Congress saying, “here’s the money, buy more planes” (consistently, for years). Now, whether this was gamesmanship on the part of the military (knowing congress would reinstate funding) to get a bigger top-line, that’s another discussion…
In general, I think there should be a prohibition against members of the military expressing opinions like these. They’re not exactly in an environment where unrestricted speech is conducive to effectiveness.
At the same time, there should be a strict ban on any politicians’ appearances with the military being photographed or videorecorded and broadcast to the public. It becomes an abuse of the military for a phot0-op, a campaign commercial without expense, an insult for the military enlistees who must be at the event whether or not they oppose the politician who’s glad-handing them.
Military + politics = abuse of the uniform. If generals want to make anything beyond reports of military effectiveness and readiness to the legislative and executive branches, they should wait until after retirement.
Poppies, Poppies. The Military Stands up again and tells the empire it cannot afford to fight the drug war anymore….
The data is speaking, are you listening?