US Army Chief Gen. Ray Odierno is fighting budget cuts the only way he knows how: with hysterical rhetoric and predictions of huge imminent wars that the US isn’t ready to fight.
Yesterday, that came in the form of a warning at the Association of the United States Army, where Odierno claimed only two brigades out of the Army’s 33 brigades are even combat-ready anymore, blaming the recent government shutdown and the minor funding cuts of sequestration.
Exactly how the vast majority of US ground troops suddenly fell out of “combat ready” status so quickly is unclear, but Odierno continued with his predictions of doom and gloom today, with a leaked report providing the backdrop for his push for a much bigger budget.
In the report, Odierno dubbed a US Army of 450,000 to be at “extremely high risk,” even though at those levels the military is still receiving several times the funding of any other military on the planet.
The “risk” in this case is the risk of being unable to win a single overseas war, and Odierno included in the report his assessment that such a war is coming “much sooner than we think.”
Absent in this assessment is that the US Army has been given a military budget unmatched in all of human history annually for the past decade-plus and didn’t manage to win either of the overseas wars it fought in that period in any real sense, suggesting that Odierno’s underlying assumption that military victory depends on an even more runaway round of military spending is simply false.
These guys are like mob captains knocking on the doors of Americans to collect.
What huge future wars are they thinking of waging, except on Iran, China, Russia or the American people themselves who are fed up with this government's BS. All could result in World War III. To hell with "the troops". Anyone who joins the US military today is a moron.
Is Odierno Jesse Ventura's twin brother?
Jesse Ventura is against any unnecessary war caused by Democrats, Republicans and anyone else. He says Iran and many other nations should have nuclear weapons to prevent an invasion from the US and any of its allies thinking of invading them.
More rubbish from an enabler of the Empire.
So, no one bothered to ask Odierno to to expand on his "single overseas war…coming “much sooner than we think" comment?
Of course, these were unnecessary and completely unjust and illegal wars. Besides, I'd like to know what is Odierno's definition of winning? Morally, what does it mean for us to 'win' an unjust and illegal war?
Is that like in the nest BIG war? Like WW2? Or another bananastan adventure featuring lots of shocking and awing?
The gin'ral could be right though all that expensive hardware they've been using comes with programmed expiry and best before dating.
The ammo lockers of democracy could be running low.
Anyone remember back when the conservatives said you couldn't solve problems by throwing government money at them.
Yeah, with a virtually unlimited budget they've been getting their butts handed to them by small time local players since Viet Nam. He's dreaming of having at least one war in his career where all that hardware can actually pretend to be useful, instead of always practicing pretending to be useful.
Note the use of the phrase 'overseas war'. In other words a war of choice, not of self-defense.
They murdered millions since 1776 never won one but got their asses broke in the process, and had to slip away in the dead of night.
Um, the army did win those wars in real terms.. Its just that armies don’t win the peace.