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Ear to the Ground

Pentagon Aiming to Slash Military Spending

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Posted on Jan 6, 2011
Pentagon
Flickr.com / mindfrieze

The Obama administration is working on cutting back defense spending to levels the U.S. hasn’t seen since before Sept. 11, 2001, but the proposed changes have more to do with economic reasons than any big strategic change from within military ranks, as The New York Times explained Thursday.

The New York Times:

The White House has ordered the Pentagon to squeeze almost all growth from its spending over the next five years, which will require eventually shrinking the Army and Marine Corps and seeking controversial increases in the fees paid by retired, working-age veterans for their health insurance, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday.

The reductions of up to 47,000 troops from the Army and Marine Corps forces — roughly 6 percent shrinkage — would be the first since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, reversing the trend ever since. They will be made easier by the withdrawal under way from Iraq, and will only begin in 2015 — just as Afghan forces are to take over the security mission there according to agreements with NATO.

But Mr. Gates said the cuts in Pentagon spending were hardly a peace dividend, and were forced by a global economic recession and domestic pressures to find ways to throttle back federal spending.

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By Puppet King, January 21, 2011 at 4:30 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Its time to cut the Pentagon into a triangle.

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By Tom Russell, January 8, 2011 at 2:01 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

There is historical evidence for waste, fraud, and
abuse (theft) in the MICC (Mil. Ind. Cong. Complex)
since the Civil War. And now light has been shed on
alleged suicide of Merriwether Lewis showing that
Pres. Jefferson was lied to by Officers of the U.S.
Army to enrich themselves. Criminal elements are
motivated by greed & power wearing uniforms or suits
(Banksters) they regard the general public (tax$) as
chattel to be exploited. PNAC document calling for
“New Pearl Harbor” is an example of public getting
dragged along. Sept. 11, ‘01 was event to get
everyone on board Neocon crazy train called TWOT (The
War On Ter.). It has been a boom for MICC and those
invested in continuing TWOT. I’ve heard it called
“self-liking ice cream cone” during VietNam debacle,
I’m sorry I can’t credit. W/false flag ops
(CIA=AlQada, ISI=Taliban) keeping all alert all the
time has developed a mil. contractors wet dream and
made Dick “Head” Cheney a $bil. and more for
Halliburton et el. Giving a solution, “Peace
dividend,” is NOT an option to war mongers bent on
profiting from misery. I do not offer a solution but
understand that we must id the problem first and
bring better minds to developing an exit strategy to
this morass. I could go on indefinitely looking at
JFK, RFK, Martin, Malcolm, and others untold because
of my beliefs I know God WILL repay them. Thank YOU
for this opportunity to express my thoughts. Cheers!

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By purplewolf, January 7, 2011 at 7:22 pm Link to this comment

The Pentagon will be or already has their 6% increase for this year, not counting all the other hidden and add-ons for the rest of 2011. The cuts start on 2015, is we still have a country left by then. As for defending this country, what a joke. This country is crumbling at the base and why would you defend a dying beast? You wouldn’t.

The only infrastructure work I have seen is Comsumers Power putting up new cables,something that was supposed to be done every 10 years according to my state laws-same for phone companies and cable.Since I have lived in the same house, these cables should have been replaced 5 times already. But don’t look at this as fixing our crumbling country, they have added hundreds of spy cameras along with these new cables in my county. Makes me feel safer already. Not!

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By robertbeal, January 7, 2011 at 5:56 pm Link to this comment

Fraudulent headline.

This is not a cut in the defense budget.

It shifts burden to veterans.

It does nothing to defuse the culture of empire.

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RayLan's avatar

By RayLan, January 7, 2011 at 2:00 pm Link to this comment

Cut military - you must be joking - and cut back the billions of dollars for defense corporations like Haliburton.. when pigs fly.
It’s not hard really - you just send the troops home - That’s it. No more deficit - despite the corporate-generated paranoia.

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By Igloo, January 7, 2011 at 7:14 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Reading all these comments and seeing that those in power are not only ignoring the reality of a real train-wreck of empire proportions makes me wonder how we got to where we are now: at the edge of an abyss. Bring the troops home, put them to work and build rather then destroy, get rid of half the carrier fleet (even the Brits have better sense and cut their carrier), bring our troops home from Germany, Japan (the war ended 65 years ago!!) and dozens of places around the globe.  Forget about trying to save failed states around the world, let’s face it what really needs saving is our own beloved country!

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By Gary Maxwell, January 7, 2011 at 12:16 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

What cut?  They are only suggesting that future increases will be less than they originally wanted.

We should be looking at cutting the total budget by 50%.  Our spending would still be huge compared to other countries.

Scrap the older ships and mothball half of the carriers.  Close most of the overseas military bases (do we really need nearly 700 bases?) Cut the military R&D budget by 50%.  Get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can still have a force adequate to assure national defense for much less than what we are spending now.  We need to be spending this money on fixing our internal problems.

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By bob, January 7, 2011 at 12:08 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

cut budget? easy.

get out of iraq. no. really get out of iraq.
get out of afghanistan.
get out of the rest of the world where your interferring is doing nothing but costing dollars and lives.

usa military hasnt won a war in the last 50 years, and thats against countries with hardly an army, hardly an airforce, and no navy.

just gtfo.

oh.. and stfu2

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By gerard, January 6, 2011 at 10:57 pm Link to this comment

Wait till the squeals from Lockheed Martin and the other “defense contractors” feeding at the Pentagon trough begin to be heard in lost jobs for people living in Podunk, Missouri.  Amazing how nothing whatever dares be said about stopping the wars, eliminating bases and adopting that now-mythical abstraction “a peace-time economy.”  It died somewhere on a guerney in the Halls of Congress.

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By Carl, January 6, 2011 at 10:05 pm Link to this comment

More hogwash and deception from TD. Don’t they even read these articles? It states “the Pentagon budget will begin a decline in the rate of growth for two years, and then will stay flat — even with inflation”

So the Pentagon budget will INCREASE greater than inflation. That is not a cut, and not a slash.

Please change the title to “Pentagon Spending Set to Rise” and apologize to readers.

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PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, January 6, 2011 at 8:44 pm Link to this comment

Dock some carrier battle groups and close most overseas bases. 

End the 50 million per copy fighter, billion dollar subs and most of the other manevolent waste of our national treasure.

We need to invest those monies into a more positive endeavor.

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By glider, January 6, 2011 at 8:33 pm Link to this comment

Will only begin in 2015.

Yeah right!

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By rollzone, January 6, 2011 at 8:21 pm Link to this comment

hello. there will never be full disclosure. we are left
to surmise the Pentagon has achieved its global
military objective, and it is now time to scale back to
a more efficient platform. that should save them $780
billion over the near term- enough to cover an other
bailout. just tell the public there are cuts being
made. military spending could still exceed $3trillion.

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