There are so many priorities and I don't think they realize that many of them can't be put on the back burner, such as the military related ones.
Oh they have the military in their cross hairs all right .
In the spirit of bipartisanship ,Barney Frank and Ron Paul created an adhoc group of 'experts 'to come up with recommendations on cutting the military budget. The name of the group is the very misleading "Sustainable Defense Task Force".
The people selected for the group are a motley crew of disarmament advocates .
Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives
Benjamin H Friedman, Cato Institute
William D Hartung, New America Foundation
Christopher Hellman, National Priorities Project
Heather Hurlburt, National Security Network
Charles Knight, Project on Defense Alternatives
Lawrence J Korb, Center for American Progress
Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action
Laicie Olson, Center for Arms Control and Non-ProliferationMiriam Pemberton, Institute for Policy Studies
Laura Peterson, Taxpayers for Common Sense
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College
Christopher Preble, Cato Institute
Winslow Wheeler, Center for Defense .
I did a quick search on them because I recognized Lawrence Korb as Assistant Sec Def in the
1st Reagan term.
I thought there was a chance that it would actually be an objective task force. I was wrong.
Carl Coretta writes for an on-line site called antiwar.com .
Winslow Wheeler has written books like “The Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security” and wrote under the pseudonym "Spartacus," about in an article about Congress' reaction to the 9-11 attacks ("Mr. Smith Is Dead: No One Stands in the Way as Congress Lards Post-September 11 Defense Bills with Pork").
Chris Preble of Cato wrote 'The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free ' and 'Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda '
Christopher Hellman works at the 'Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation'.
Charles Knight is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives and founded the Ground Force Alternatives Project at the Institute for Defense and Disarmament studies .Formerly Knight was a fellow at the Institute for Peace and International Security .
Paul Kawika Martin is the Political Director of Peace Action where he shares blog space with former Yippie Tom Hayden and Michael Moore .
Lacie Olson works at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation .She recently penned that sanctions against Iran are counter productive .
Miriam Pemberton is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, writing and speaking on demilitarization issues for its Foreign Policy In Focus project. She recently opined that climate security was a greater national security concern than military concerns .
Institute for Policy Studies: Military vs. Climate Security: Mapping the Shift from the Bush Years to the Obama Era
You really can't make this stuff up !
Laura Peterson is with the National Security Program at Taxpayers for common sense. Deficit reduction on the back of the military .
Finally Prasannan Parathasarathi is a professor at Boston College who specializes in the economies of the European colonial era .
Korb would seem to be the odd man out from this group . But on further review I found that he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and has written articles recently defending the work of the group and compares it to Ike's warning to beware the military industrial complex.
The National Interest
Would you believe this line would ever come from a former Reagan Assistant Sec Defense :
As more Americans come to understand the high costs and dubious benefits of U.S. military dominance, a backlash is all but inevitable.
So there you have it ;the ad hoc advisory group...
Their recommendations to Congress are here
Drastic cuts outlined in think-tank report - MarineCorpsTimes.com
I don't think it does but the Defcon 3 light has been flashing on the Iran matters for about 3 years and more. You and I thought Bush might clean that up before he left as I recall. Is there something going on possibly that israel has a date in mind and O. is trying to talk them out of it, causing the real riff? I pray that something is in the works.
There is a lot of movement on the Iran front and I'll try to post them in the next day or so. I'm still gathering the info and trying to connect the dots. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on .
But 1st I'd like to add some closing thoughts about General Bolden.
I keep wondering what would've happened if President Bush had asked former NASA director Michael Griffin to something simularily bone-headed and contrary to NASA's mission.
I think he would've resigned before accepting the directive ;and that is what I think Bolden should do now.
NASA appears directionless to me and the President has no vision for the agency beyond being a part of his propaganda arm. Still Bolden serves at the pleasure of the President and his only honorable move left is to resign.
I am encouraged that there appears to be a bipartisan revolt against the President's plan to gut the agencies biggest projects , the Ares heavy lift rocket and Orion capsule .But I think the agency will languish aimlessly until the President leaves office .