If I were you I would withhold anymore comments. Sequestration was the idea of Obama and the hurt has not really hit the military yet. Coming in January the military is going to take a hell of a hit which is why we are all talking about this now. Obama has changed the rules in Afghanistan and our people are dying because of it. Instead of getting gun fire and aerial support out forward commanders are spending their time trying to convince a DOD lawyer why they need to destroy an area. People are dying waiting for support. A number of navy Seals have died because Biden and Obama could not keep their mouths shut about how and who got Bin Laden. Instead of calming people down around the world, Obama is going around pissing people off (Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, England). Obama is not really pro military. The only thing that looks pro military is when he continues a Bush policy. Originally Posted by JD BarleycornFirst of all sequestration was first proposed in the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. Which was jointly proposed by the White House and the Republican House -- it was not embraced by the Democratic Senate but was eventually passed with some Democratic support in the Senate.
To say the impact hasn't really hit the military yet is a gross misstatement. I work in DoD and I can tell you the impact started in 2012. We had to stop much of the training not directly related to current mission support and reduce maintenance of many of our systems. FY13 has been much worse. We have had to drastically cut flying hours and also reduce training that was directly related to mission support. Maintenance of many items has come to a complete stand still. We have had a hiring freeze since 2012 which in some cases is having a direct impact on mission. All that said, FY2014 will be even worse than FY2013.
I'm glad to hear nobody else in this country has pissed of the Middle East. I guess they attacked us in 2001 knowing what type of president Obama was going to be.
ROEs that are counter productive is nothing new in combat. Some of the ROEs that I experienced in Vietnam made zero common sense. However, most of the ROEs are suggested and endorsed by the top brass in the DoD to CYA vice being imposed by the White House.