Scott, you seem to have completely missed the point. I guess we wouldn’t want people entertaining ideas just a smidgen outside the beltway mainstream. I suppose there’s just no fat to be trimmed from those military budgets. We’d better have some guys in a base in Mongolia just in case we to need to invade repel a nearby country before they overrun us with their huge army.

Ever look into the military procurement process? I’m so glad these guys are “defending” us.

Sweet logic. Cue a “Paultard” bomb in 3…2…1…

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Scott, I assume you also agree with giving so much foreign aid to countries, esp. Israel?

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Scott,

I am a vet and have two daughters, a son-in-law and brother-in-law in active duty. We are and will always be, a pro-military family. I think that this country has need of a standing army and greater need of a large, forceful Navy. Of course, with all that as a lead-in you will be waiting for the “but” so here it is. If we are to have a strong military to defend our country why should we not have a military strong enough to defend this country against any and every threat? Why should we not spend whatever money is necessary to build systems that could take out any satellite, incoming missle, computer threats, etc and deploy them as close to our enemies as we can? Why should we not forceably disarm our enemies? Where do we draw the line and who do you think has the right and authority draw it?

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Grace, throughout this thread-and including in the OP, I’ve cited Ron Paul’s claims from his website. For Rep Kucinich, Is suggest watching that oh-so-patriotic interview he did in Syria a week or two ago. Surely you’ll see similar claims in it.

Best,
Scott

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How many of those “occupying” troops in foreign countries consist of the security personnel in our embassies? Marines provide that kind of security. The Global Security list does not make that distinction.

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Excellent point Scott, if we should only protect this country then why in the world do we need this large Navy for? Or Marines for that matter since they are an expeditionary force primarily. Navy lands them and they secure the area for the larger Army to come in. We could mothball the whole Navy and just grow the Coast Guard to patrol our waters.

It’s scary how these guys think actually. Completely insane.

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Grace,

You can listen to Kucinich use the word several times in this recent trip.

As for Ron Paul, just Google the word “occupation” and “Ron Paul”. I’ve seen and heard it used by him, and it shouldn’t be so hard to find.

That was easy: Here’s one.

I bet you can find him using the word if you go to his website; maybe even in the recent surge of anti-RP posts we did here over the weekend. Really, what’s the big deal with the word, “occupation”? RP uses it freely, without reservation.

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Whether it’s Democratic Presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, or Republican candidate, Dr. Ron Paul, or Osama Bin Laden…millions-perhaps billions of people around the globe believe that the United States military is occupying the 130 of the 193 nations on the planet.

Got any links handy?

I don’t care about bin Laden, but I am curious to see the actual terms that Paul and Kucinich use. Do they really use words like “occupy” or “occupation”? Or do they use terms like “bases” and “installations”?

Some links would be nice.

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Have things really gotten so bad that the U.S. military is now “arguably” the strongest in the world? The U.S. could not invade, say, China, or Russia at this point, but then it likely never could have even at the post-Soviet peak of U.S. military manpower strength. Who at this point is more qualitatively outfitted and more capable of projecting power globally?

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Julian’s comment (an echo of Ron Paul and all Paulbot’s position really) got me thinking. If having 1, 6, 12, 24 soldiers in 100+ countries is too much, if it’s not worth the money, and the perception is that they’re not defending the US, then perhaps we should scuttle the US Navy as well since a 5000-man carrier (and the 5000-10000 sailors and Marines on ships supporting and escorting it) could easily be replaced by ten thousand bassmaster assault craft to patrol the 12 miles of US waters. Anything beyond that apparently isn’t worth having army or Marine forces positioned, so why would it be ok or reasonable to have carriers on the other side of the planet? Nah, scuttle the USN. Bring the troops home. No blood for tuna!

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