Some people are conveniently forgetting that John Kerry bravely served in combat, while George Bush got a National Guard gig which for he barely showed..... as far as todays phantom prosperity, it's partially maintained by selling mountains of debt to China, growing the national debt faster than ever before and ignoring it. If we Americans were actually called upon to support the war effort in a meaningful way, such as raising taxes in parallel with our war spending, conserving fuel and instituting a draft to relieve overextended and exhausted soldiers, the wars would be over in months and all of this chest thumping bumper sticker patriotism would look pretty damn hollow.
Go back and look at the various facts and figures about the Clinton debt policy....
they "sold" debt just like every other presidency... the difference is that it was sold in bonds and long term arraingements that won't come due for another 20 years or so. Yep, that's going to be good for all of us. Never mind the fact that the "budget surplus" was only a projection of things to come over the next five years.... then 9/11 and that five year plan... bogus. It's not like the Chinese all of a sudden started buying American debt on January 21, 2000. Right.
Just as with the attack on Pearl Harbor, spending skyrocketed on Sept. 12 and beyond. It's now starting to come back down.
Look at the recent economic and governmental financial news. The buget deficeit is down quite a bit from the projected figures (mostly thanks to spending by the average american who has more money in their pockets thanks to the tax cuts), two years a head of schedule. Never mind the fact that tax receipts far outpaced the increased governmental spending. If we cut out the Socialist programs, think of how much more money you would have in your pocket to invest in your own ways with.
The DRAFT? Yeah. Right. We have less than 200,000 soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now compare that to the 1.4 million soldiers that we have on active duty and another 1.2 million that are in the reserves (for a total of 2.685 million available forces).
WHY THE HELL DO WE NEED A DRAFT? We have deployed less than 10% of our total troop strength to the area. Prior to Mr Clinton taking office, the military was large enough and well-enough equipped to handle a MAJOR war on two fronts. Today we have pip-squeaks wanting a draft for a small-scale conflict. Clinton reduced the size of the military by 30% while in office. If it were not for that fact, we would have nearly 4,000,000 troops available. Whould we need a draft then as well?
A draft at this time diminishes the quality of out all-volunteer force. Personally, I would much rather see guys and gals in their fighting who wanted to be there and understood the responcibilty rather than those forced to be there and have no heart for firing a rifle at another human because they we told to or go to jail....
I'm sure that the boys who liberated France and the rest of Europe in WWII who were sent abroad for 4 years at a time didn't like not going home more often, but you know what? Look at what they were dealing with.
No branch of US Services are behind in their recruiting goals:
Air Force: 104.2% of Goal
Army: 100.1 % of Goal
Navy and MC both have not missed a recruitment goal since 1998 (who was president then?)
Coast Guard: "Highest recruitment numbers in years"
According to Wikipedia, we have the second largest active armed forces in the world, with the most advanced weaponry, largest Navy, second largest amount of armored vehicles, etc.
Do you know we still have 1,700 troops in Kosovo thanks to Bill? Guess we need the draft to relieve those poor bastards as well (I say that with the utmost respect to the men and women stationed there).
We also still have more than 75,000 soldier in Germany, where we have had a presenc
