12.07.11
December 7th war salesman
From the New York Post, one ninny uses December 7th to take the absurd and indefensible position that the US is militarily weaker now than it was then.
President Obama reassured Asian heads of state in Hawaii last month, “We’re here to stay??? — which is supposed to intimidate China into playing nice. Plus, we’re sending troops to Australia to show a “more broadly distributed military presence??? in Asia, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton terms it. Our Navy will step up operations there, too.
Yet that Navy is even smaller than in 1933, with up to 60 more ships destined for retirement with few replacements in sight. And our troops in Australia will number less than 2,500 — just enough to be provocative, but far too small to do anything effective.
Meanwhile, our troops in South Korea and ships and airbases in Japan are more vulnerable than anyone likes to admit. China’s generals and admirals have spent the last decade building the means for Assassin’s Mace, an all-out Pearl Harbor-style preemptive strike, from anti-ship and anti-satellite missiles to a tsunami of cyber attacks that would leave our forces blind and mute around the globe — and render our military presence in Asia a smoldering ruin.
Yes, no doubt about it. The US Navy is in worse shape than the years before the Japanese sneak attacked at Pearl Harbor.
This comes from someone parked at the American Enterprise Institute, the center of neo-conservatism. Which brought us alleged WMDs in Iraq and that subsequent fine never-ending adventure. Today its frontpage also recommends denial of global warming.
The American Enterprise Institute is a valuable part of new America. It’s a top manufacturer of our always noticeable and significant non-durable goods exports to the world: really bad ideas, frank lies and the white assholes needed to deliver them.