- txdot-guy
- 05-13-2021, 03:23 PM
Every military coup in the world paints themselves as the savior of the country/empire they purport to serve, just before they take over. This kind of letter from a supposedly apolitical branch of the government is shocking in the extreme and the politicization of the military needs to stop. The only way a democratic government will work is if the majority of people believe that the democratic process works. That's why Trump's BIG lie is so dangerous.
- The_Waco_Kid
- 05-13-2021, 03:36 PM
Every military coup in the world paints themselves as the savior of the country/empire they purport to serve, just before they take over. This kind of letter from a supposedly apolitical branch of the government is shocking in the extreme and the politicization of the military needs to stop. The only way a democratic government will work is if the majority of people believe that the democratic process works. That's why Trump's BIG lie is so dangerous. Originally Posted by txdot-guy
do you really think the politicization of the military started during Trump's term? i think you need to look a little farther back when a certain community organizer was president. that includes the DOJ/FBI too. and just about anything else Barry could get his poison mitts on.
tell us why Barry felt he needed to purge 17 Admirals and Generals.
sounds political to me ..
of course you can contend all 17 of these senior commanders were incompetent .. all of a sudden after long and note worthy careers .. good luck with that.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/559290847453168620/
https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage...0734627550487/
- bambino
- 05-13-2021, 03:47 PM
do you really think the politicization of the military started during Trump's term? i think you need to look a little farther back when a certain community organizer was president. that includes the DOJ/FBI too. and just about anything else Barry could get his poison mitts on.
tell us why Barry felt he needed to purge 17 Admirals and Generals.
sounds political to me ..
of course you can contend all 17 of these senior commanders were incompetent .. all of a sudden after long and note worthy careers .. good luck with that.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/559290847453168620/
https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage...0734627550487/ Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid
17? There’s that magic number again!
- txdot-guy
- 05-13-2021, 04:43 PM
Every military coup in the world paints themselves as the savior of the country/empire they purport to serve, just before they take over. This kind of letter from a supposedly apolitical branch of the government is shocking in the extreme and the politicization of the military needs to stop. The only way a democratic government will work is if the majority of people believe that the democratic process works. That's why Trump's BIG lie is so dangerous. Originally Posted by txdot-guy
do you really think the politicization of the military started during Trump's term? i think you need to look a little farther back when a certain community organizer was president. that includes the DOJ/FBI too. and just about anything else Barry could get his poison mitts on.I didn't say anything of the sort. You are assuming meaning that's not in my statement.
tell us why Barry felt he needed to purge 17 Admirals and Generals.
sounds political to me ..
of course you can contend all 17 of these senior commanders were incompetent .. all of a sudden after long and note worthy careers .. good luck with that.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/559290847453168620/
https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage...0734627550487/ Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid
Active and retired military should be completely apolitical except at the ballot box. To do otherwise is to destabilize the democracy in which we live.
If you want to change our country you must do so via legitimate and legal means. To do so otherwise is to participate in an illegal coup against our democratic and legally authorized institutions. Vote, and convince others to vote but to keep insisting the vote was rigged is to undermine the very institutions that make our country free.
Excerpted from a good article by Retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel.
https://www.militarytimes.com/opinio...-institutions/
----
For our democratic system to work, civilian leadership must have trust and confidence in the military and its leaders, without concerns of partisanship. Like those civilian leaders, every person who joins a military branch, both enlisted members and officers, takes an oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That shared loyalty to the concepts of our Constitution should give our elected leadership the confidence that our military and its leaders are serving the common good.
Elected leaders should also want prudent military advice that is free of political bias. This apolitical role is underscored by another clause in the officer oath, through which each officer affirms, “I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.” Similarly, every enlisted military member promises through their oath to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over [him or her], according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” It is thus made clear that the loyalty of our servicemen and women is not owed to a party or to an interest group but rather to their offices and our greater institutions.
- Yssup Rider
- 05-13-2021, 04:47 PM
- Yssup Rider
- 05-13-2021, 04:50 PM
He can’t prove it’s false can he?Same source, different link.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...y-elected.html
I can post more “sources” but what’s the use? Originally Posted by bambino
Nothing from nothing leaves nothing ... Billy Preston.
- bambino
- 05-13-2021, 05:34 PM
- The_Waco_Kid
- 05-13-2021, 05:55 PM
I didn't say anything of the sort. You are assuming meaning that's not in my statement.
Active and retired military should be completely apolitical except at the ballot box. To do otherwise is to destabilize the democracy in which we live.
If you want to change our country you must do so via legitimate and legal means. To do so otherwise is to participate in an illegal coup against our democratic and legally authorized institutions. Vote, and convince others to vote but to keep insisting the vote was rigged is to undermine the very institutions that make our country free.
Excerpted from a good article by Retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel.
https://www.militarytimes.com/opinio...-institutions/
----
For our democratic system to work, civilian leadership must have trust and confidence in the military and its leaders, without concerns of partisanship. Like those civilian leaders, every person who joins a military branch, both enlisted members and officers, takes an oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That shared loyalty to the concepts of our Constitution should give our elected leadership the confidence that our military and its leaders are serving the common good.
Elected leaders should also want prudent military advice that is free of political bias. This apolitical role is underscored by another clause in the officer oath, through which each officer affirms, “I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.” Similarly, every enlisted military member promises through their oath to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over [him or her], according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” It is thus made clear that the loyalty of our servicemen and women is not owed to a party or to an interest group but rather to their offices and our greater institutions. Originally Posted by txdot-guy
that's exactly what you said and your post proves it
Every military coup in the world paints themselves as the savior of the country/empire they purport to serve, just before they take over. This kind of letter from a supposedly apolitical branch of the government is shocking in the extreme and the politicization of the military needs to stop. The only way a democratic government will work is if the majority of people believe that the democratic process works. That's why Trump's BIG lie is so dangerous. Originally Posted by txdot-guy
do you recall this letter?
55 Retired Military Brass Say Trump Is Unfit to Lead
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats...trump-s-sexism
were they being apolitical then because it's Trump but political now because it's Biden?
can't have it both ways. either both are political or neither are political
so which one is it?
- The_Waco_Kid
- 05-13-2021, 05:59 PM
- Levianon17
- 05-13-2021, 06:00 PM
- Submodo
- 05-13-2021, 08:15 PM
Really? Our allies don't trust us???? That's good. So Germany and Japan and S. Korea and all the other countries that US taxpayers pay to defend will be no longer needing us, right? So we can cut about 50% of the military budget an get back to defending the US.
"Our allies no longer trust or respect us, and our enemies no longer fear us," the former officers and officials wrote in a letter released Thursday.
Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid
- Strokey_McDingDong
- 05-13-2021, 08:36 PM
Yea why are we trying to invade the world? Let's MAGA and not try to god damn invade 15 countries.
- GastonGlock
- 05-13-2021, 09:19 PM
The only way a democratic government will work is if the majority of people believe that the democratic process works. That's why Trump's BIG lie is so dangerous. Originally Posted by txdot-guyThe best way to kill the "big lie" is to let the trumpsters do the investigations they want to do to find the so called "fraud" that "doesn't exist". The fact that people were being shut out or locked out left, right, and center and that all the suspicious shit that happened is being met with attacks when asked reeks of corruption.
What's the worst that can happen? Either corruption is found, or trumpsters look like idiots.
If you want to change our country you must do so via legitimate and legal means. To do so otherwise is to participate in an illegal coup against our democratic and legally authorized institutions. Originally Posted by txdot-guyCool, when do we lock up all the libs for treason then?
- The_Waco_Kid
- 05-13-2021, 09:37 PM
different link.same facts
Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
FTFY
Really? Our allies don't trust us???? That's good. So Germany and Japan and S. Korea and all the other countries that US taxpayers pay to defend will be no longer needing us, right? So we can cut about 50% of the military budget an get back to defending the US. Originally Posted by Submodo
Trump's NATO heresy was Eisenhower's wisdom: James Robbins
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...lumn/91282406/
Then why are people so mad? Because The Donald might actually do something about it.
James S. Robbins
"There is no reason for the American taxpayers, in the face of our own substantial deficit, to continue to subsidize Germany, France, England, Norway, Belgium and other prosperous European democracies." Is that Donald Trump going off again about NATO? Will Hillary Clinton smack him down for his reckless rhetoric? Are we on the brink of an international crisis?
Oh wait, it was uber-liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in 1994, talking about a NATO burden-sharing amendment to the defense authorization act. He wanted to start pulling troops out of Europe unless our allies paid more to keep them there.
OK, well how about someone saying that unless European allies started spending more on capability and work out cooperation with NATO, the alliance could become "a relic of history”? That undiplomatic, irresponsible comment had to be Trump, right? No, it was President Bill Clinton’s secretary of Defense, William Cohen, fulminating at a NATO meeting in 2000.
This one just has to be Trump: “Turkey even gets to renegotiate (NATO) base rights every year. I don't know what genius negotiated that deal, but every year we give Turkey the option to shoot at our feet and say, 'Tap-dance, Uncle Sam!’ ... As long as (our NATO allies) can get one more bite out of the apple, nobody is going to voluntarily say, 'We will pay more money.’ ” Hillary Clinton would jump on that comment, calling it uncouth, destructive and careless. Oh but sorry, it was Colorado member of Congress and feminist icon Patricia Schroeder criticizing NATO way back in 1988.
Politicians have been getting upset over NATO burden-sharing for a long time, at least since President Eisenhower fumed over the Europeans “making a sucker out of Uncle Sam.” Trump is just the latest public figure to say the free-riders need to pay their freight.
Trump’s insistence that our NATO partners pay their bills or else has generated an overheated response. Clinton’s campaign frets that Trump’s position is an attack on the integrity of the alliance itself. Former secretary of State Madeleine Albright fulminated about Trump’s “irresponsible” comments, accusing him of “blackmailing our partners.”
But back in 1997, Secretary Albright told Congress that she'd “insist that our old allies share this burden fairly. That's what NATO is all about." She must not have insisted very hard because a study group she chaired in 2010 found that “the primary limiting factor hindering (NATO) military transformation has been the lack of European defense spending and investment.”
That same year, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discussed the “NATO budgetary crisis” and noted how few allies are meeting their defense spending targets. He said this could create “real or perceived weakness” that would be “a temptation to miscalculation and aggression.” In other words, the threat to peace and stability isn't Trump's irresponsible rhetoric; it is Europe's irresponsibly low defense spending.
NATO “doesn't fund itself. Just come with me to my constituencies and ask them whether or not we should primarily fund it.” Vice President Biden made this veiled threat at a NATO summit in 2015. He added that “every NATO country needs to meet its commitment to devote 2% of its GDP to defense.” But only five of the 28 NATO countries clear this bar — Estonia, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. And U.S. outlays cover $650 billion of the $900 billion spent by NATO's member nations on their military budgets, or 72%.
Not only is Trump right on the facts, his more forceful tone also might be the tonic needed to shake the other 23 countries out of their complacency and meet their obligations. The only difference between Trump’s approach to NATO burden-sharing and those of his predecessors is that he might finally get our allies to pony up.
Allies. you mentioned our worthless loser allies who soak the american tax payer to defend their nations.
IT'S TIME TO CONSIGN NATO TO HISTORY, AND LOOK TO FUTURE
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...263-story.html
A he assumed command of NATO forces in Europe in 1951, General of the Armies Dwight D. Eisenhower uttered prophetic words of caution: "If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed." One can only speculate about his response if he were to learn now that almost 150,000 American troops are still in Europe 43 years later, and we are planning to keep 100,000 troops there into the 21st Century.
His first question might well be, "Who are we defending Europe against now? I thought that the Soviet Union had disappeared three years ago." The answer would certainly astound him, particularly when he learned that NATO's former adversaries, including Russia, are now all aligned with NATO in a "Partnership for Peace."
- Lucas McCain
- 05-13-2021, 10:06 PM
I don't know what the total sample size is of retired admirals and retired generals. I don't care enough to look it up but it is relevant to know the sample size to make any objective conclusion about whether the data is even relevant or whether these people are outliers.
If someone has already mentioned this, my bad. I have not read every post in this thread.
If someone has already mentioned this, my bad. I have not read every post in this thread.