Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Perhaps one of you can explain what you're talking about. Clinton left us with the military that performed in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. The accusation that he wanted to cut forces more -- which is what I think bilmore is saying -- is a little odd, . . .
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Clinton cut military expenditures from the mid$350's to the mid-$250's, and that's in unadjusted dollars, meaning the impact was far greater. He stopped a lot of R&D completely. He cut manpower down to less than half of what we had in GWI, which took us way down past the multi-front capacity that we arguably should always maintain. Pay was slashed, careers were ended, and a lot of capable people were gone. He also cut way back on spending for the various intelligence agencies. With his various policies, he scrambled the humint sections. In short, he was hell on our military capabilities. Yeah, we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, but we had to pull up very old reserves to do it.
So, no, I'm not talking about further cuts that he wanted - what he actually did was bad enough.
