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. Wizard
You 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"