Quoting Rich Johnson <rjohnson@dogstar-interactive.com>:
On May 1, 2006, at 12:18 AM, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:Cybe R. Wizard wrote:The backlash of 9-11 was like Christmas to the conservative military-industrial complex and their puppet congress-critters. All the things they have wanted over the years like more defense spending, less rights for citizens and the ability to run stormtrooper like raids on citizens and eavesdrop on attorney/client converasations came true the morning after. I call it the American public running scared. Cybe R. WizardYou must admit, though, that defense was cut *way back* during the Clinton administration. Not only that, but he deployed the military more in 8 years than something like the previous five or 10 presidents put together.WHAT?! Do you mean "more military actions", or "more soldiers"? 5 presidents goes back to Nixon and covers bombings of Cambodia, Loas, and Libya, as well as various proxy wars and at least one invasion. 10 presidents goes back to FDR, and involves a few _very_ big deployments. What's the tally behind your assertion?
http://www.cdi.org/issues/USForces/deployments.html 1975 - 1993: 44 deployments (4 presidents; Ford to Bush) 1993 - 2001: 44 deployments (1 president; Clinton) Now, on exact number of troops I am not certain. Obviously Desert Shield/Desert Storm were huge. Not only that, but more military operations under Clinton were complete debacles because the troops had no sense of purpose. For exmaple, Mogadishu (let's be opportunistic about grabbing these warlords when we were only there to ensure equitable distribution of food) and Bosnia (let's not permit the fighers and bombers to fire unless fired upon, even if they see civilians being exterminated). Now, no president has been perfect. But you must also consider that Clinton's 44 deployments were with a military that was something like 1/2 the size of the pre-Gulf War military. So, as a *percentage*, Clinton used the military *way* more than any other president, except maybe going back to maybe to WW2. Another source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/MissileDefense/BG1394es.cfm They count 10 army operations from 60-91 and 26 from 92-98. Their criteria was "outside of normal training and alliance commitments". Even CNN talks about how Clinton's cuts were too deep for what he was expecting them to do: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/democracy/bigger.picture/stories/military.readiness/ I am not a professional military historian, I just happen take in an interest in military history in general. -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto