An objective take on Ron Paul

[Shell B]

Our military is in every country where there is an embassy, if I am not mistaken. Soldiers stationed in Germany are not there to fight off any threats. There aren't nearly enough there to do so, even if there was a threat. I could be wrong, but I do believe it is also a chain of information sort of thing. They are there to fill in the guys here. Again, I could be wrong, but that is my understanding of it. Shit, we have thousands in the UK and they are our allies.

ETA: I would imagine we also keep guys and gals on hand for hunting down international war criminals.

[The Grand Nudger]

Germany serves the purpose that Kosovo will serve for the next 80 or so years, fast deployment in theatre. Has nothing to do with a threat. It's all about speed of response. Kosovo is an even better location, so it's nice that we got that sweet 99 year lease eh?

[Minimalist]

He would advocate pulling out of countries where there is no clear and present danger to the US (Germany, Japan, Russian border nations

We are not being shot at in those places. Plus, this fellow has no understanding of logistics.

You need bases in developed countries to sustain operations in the shitholes where the problems are. The whole thing is a house of cards.

Do try to remember that bin Laden was pissed off at the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia. They don't need a good reason. Any old reason will do.

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Our military is in every country where there is an embassy, if I am not mistaken. Soldiers stationed in Germany are not there to fight off any threats. There aren't nearly enough there to do so, even if there was a threat. I could be wrong, but I do believe it is also a chain of information sort of thing. They are there to fill in the guys here. Again, I could be wrong, but that is my understanding of it. Shit, we have thousands in the UK and they are our allies.

ETA: I would imagine we also keep guys and gals on hand for hunting down international war criminals.

Check it out, Shel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat...eployments

[theVOID]

He would advocate pulling out of countries where there is no clear and present danger to the US (Germany, Japan, Russian border nations

We are not being shot at in those places. Plus, this fellow has no understanding of logistics.

You need bases in developed countries to sustain operations in the shitholes where the problems are. The whole thing is a house of cards.

So you simultaneously agree with Ron Paul's position of complete non-interventionism while also being against reducing military presence in allied nations where there is no clear and present threat to the liberties of your countrymen due to "logistics"? A complete non-interventionist approach wouldn't just put the "house of cards" on edge (and that is generously assuming that these peace-time deployments would have a significant negative impact at all), it would tear it down.

[The Grand Nudger]

You'd think that people would be clamoring for the US Armed Forces to set up a base in their cities. Take a bunch of 18 year old kids who get three meals a day, clothes, and housing for free, hand them a salary, and give them every evening and weekend off....what you have is a huge injection of USD into the local community (to the tune of a couple thousand USD per month per soldier, multiplied by decades).

[Rokcet Scientist]

You'd think that people would be clamoring for the US Armed Forces to set up a base in their cities.

Until you factor in the political bully angle.

[Nine]

Whats a Ron Paul?

* Nine googles it.

Ooooh that guy hehe.

Kinda reminds me of the old guy in robocop.

[Shell B]

Check it out, Shel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat...eployments

U.S. personnel are seeing active combat in Afghanistan. Others are deployed as part of several peacekeeping missions, military attachés, or are part of embassy and consulate security.

Pretty much what I thought.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, we're such bullies, when we speak the world really takes notice..lol. What's the deal here? Is it beyond imagining that the various governments of the world find their own angles to benefit from the "political bullying" of the US, all with the convenient excuse of "political bullying" to fall back on when whatever scheme they're engaged in loses public support? Let's not pretend for one minute that the various political parties and ruling factions of the world are suffering martyrs under the cruel hand of US oppression. That's giving us far too much credit, and them too long of a leash (and entirely too easy an out).

[Minimalist]

So you simultaneously agree with Ron Paul's position of complete non-interventionism while also being against reducing military presence in allied nations where there is no clear and present threat to the liberties of your countrymen due to "logistics"?

Nah, you miss the point...probably deliberately.

There is no point to maintaining troops in Germany or Japan except to provide the very necessary logistical support for our adventures elsewhere.
We have 35,000 troops in S. Korea who are backed by extensive air units in Japan ( including Okinawa.) You cannot simply say, we are at peace with Japan so bring them home because then those guys in Korea would be feeling awfully lonely if L'il Kim decided to cross the border. The North Korean regime is batshit crazy and we do not have a Peace Treaty in Korea - merely an armistice.

So while Paul's idea is tempting it ignores one of the basic rules of modern warfare which is essentially that for every guy carrying a rifle there are 5 guys driving trucks. The fact that we have outsourced a lot of that to "contractors" changes nothing. Unless we are going to withdraw from Korea.....dangerous....we need the support facilities in Japan.

Germany, of course, is a different story. It would take a monumental Russian offensive to cross all of the territory they have lost since the end of the Cold War and they have shown no ability whatsoever in that direction. Therein lies the problem with Paul. He is an ideologue who does not understand that one-size does not fit all. He is right in some places and wrong in others.

As for the "liberties" of my countrymen..... we have a decidedly spineless willingness to throw those away ourselves because of a bunch of towel-heads with exploding underwear.

Recall that the army overran Iraq in 3 weeks and then stood around for the next seven years with their thumbs up their asses getting blown up to the tune of 40,000 casualties because they had no real mission left.

The threat today does not come from other nations with conventional armies. It is far more nebulous. We have 11 carrier battle groups and no one else in the world has more than 1....and most of them are our allies. The Chinese have an old Russian p-o-s that they bought and re-furbished and to listen to our admirals you would think it was the British talking about the fucking Bismarck in 1940. We have terribly expensive aircraft that have never flown a combat mission because there is no use for them in a hovel in Afghanistan. Stealth aircraft are only useful when the enemy has radar coverage. There is precious little of that in the hills of Afghanistan. Our tank forces can go anywhere they want.... but the fuel trucks following along behind are highly vulnerable to any douchebag with an rpg. The list goes on.

We have a muscle-bound military designed to do one thing which now faces a different threat. To be sure there are special ops groups who can and do effectively discharge missions against actual terrorists but far too much of what we waste money on is to keep defense contractor profits up and jobs in congressional districts with no real conception of how these efforts actually aid in the defense of the nation against the ACTUAL threat. The Russians are not going to descend on the East Coast in landing craft. The Chinese are not going to swim to California.
Those red-scare days are over. But no one wants to face the reality because the military industrial complex has far too much influence in Washington....as Eisenhower warned and which we forgot to our shame.