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The special pleading for the military-industrial complex on the part of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has reached truly disgusting levels:
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been steadily escalating his warnings about the impact of the deep cuts facing the Pentagon if the congressional super committee fails to reach a deal. On Thursday, he played the last – and strongest — card in his deck, arguing that the hundreds of billions of dollars of mandatory cuts would directly imperil U.S. national security [...]
He went even further on Thursday, using arguably the strongest rhetorical weapon in his arsenal. Mandatory defense cuts, he warned, would weaken the armed forces to the point that enemies would be emboldened to attack the U.S.
“In effect, it invites aggression,” Panetta said during the new conference, just his second since taking office in July.
That’s right, reducing the size of the military from bigger than the military of every nation on earth combined to just slightly smaller than the military of every nation on earth combined leaves us terribly vulnerable to attack. Keep in mind the last “military” attack on the United States, outside of the War of 1812, was pulled off by 20 people with boxcutters. I don’t know that having the extra $300 billion in advanced weapons systems at the ready plays a role in stopping that. He actually said that these reductions, which would take the military to a size recommended by bipartisan panels, would turn the US into a “paper tiger.”
And rather than cutting the military, Panetta has openly called for exemptions that would force the cuts to fall on social safety net programs like Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Even internally at the Pentagon, Panetta is more interested in cutting the health care benefits of veteran retirees than reducing the bloat.
First Democrat running the Pentagon in 15 years, folks.
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Leon….Leon, you sorry sack of shit.
Who’s gonna attack us???? Get real!!!!! Friggin asshole
Panetta needs to be cut from the Pentagon budget But, what the heck, they’d probably just fill the position with somebody worse.
Yep.
I think Leon was a great Congressman and a disaster at CIA and DoD. Notice Obama LLC hasn’t put Leon on a short leash on any of his dumbassed comments since going to DoD.
Wowie zowie! The “First Democrat running the Pentagon in 15 years …”
How lucky we are, DDay, to have a “lesser evil” … in charge … after all those years/s.
“Defense” cuts …?
“In effect, it invites aggression.”
Agrument ad baculum: Resorting to a threat (and not even a “subtle” one, at that) in order to have a “point” accepted. An ancient and much-despised fallacy of discourse … who coulda ‘magined?
Why it’s right “up” there with W’s famous, or infamous, “You’re either with us or against us!” … and it will be no more questioned or generally understood to be pathetic false argument.
The political class has decided that FEAR and fear-mongering is just the political ticket to ride …
DW
Do you really expect anything different from a member of the Oblabla administration?? They all should be impeached for being traitors
Panetta, another 1%er that is deserving of prison garb.
And let’s not forget who hired Leon. That would be Obomba, the rootin’ tootinest Predator Drone lovin’ Peace Prize preznit evah!!!
Hey Barry. I don’t vote for war criminals.
Fuck Barry, fuck Leon and fuck the Dems.
I’m terrified all right. I am terrified. I am terrified that the DEMOCRATIC Party is going to nuke Medicare and I’ll be left to die without healthcare in my old age.
“First Democrat running the Pentagon in 15 years, folks.”
Started out as a Republican appointee in the Nixon Administration.
In 1971, a young Republican Leon Panetta worked in the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare…
http://nixontapes.org/panetta.html
It’s obvious that Leon Panetta is some sort of sexual deviant who is being blackmailed by National Security State interests, and that Leon Panetta hates America. (Glad I got that into google for all time.)
Just tell this corpulent white war criminal to STFU.
What a fucking pig , killers no nothing MURDERERS.
I’d like nothing more than to see this and his blood letting buddies homeless and recognized as INSANE.
There is The Magnificent Mindless ‘Merican Murder Machine in person and what a soulless fucking creep he is at that.
We have to have a veterans day for asshole thinking like this.
Your offense department is as Nazi as they come, scum.
Here is his Public Policy Institute says not biased but but???
http://www.panettainstitute.org/
Another paradigmatic example of O’Bushma’s loyalty to corporatist warmongers and financial criminals at the expense of We the People.
If the Democratic Party is ever going to be a force for progress again, it MUST run the Clinton/O’Bushma Blue Shits out of the Party. And that means that O’Bushma MUST be defeated in 2012, so that the Party will be available to be rebuilt along progressive lines. For those who are, once again, tempted to vote for O’Bushma in the name of lesser-of-two-evilism, just remember that, if O’Bushma staggers back into office, then in 2016 the Party will be firmly in the hands of the Blue Shits, and it will be nearly impossible to field a truly progressive candidate for president. On the other hand: If O’Bushma gets beaten in 2012, then there will be no base for the Blue Shits to keep obstructing progressive resurgence, and no reason to listen to their claims that 3rd-way neofeudalism is the best way to “win”.
“Anybody But O’Bushma 2012″
We have a veterans day because corrupt old men start pointless wars like WWI costing the lives of millions of innocent young men.
At least Panetta helps us to remember that.
AMEN!!!
If the children and grandchildren of the politicians and the MIC and the one-percenters were the first to go in harm’s way, there would be a lot fewer wars.
Someone out there remind me, again, why I’m supposed to vote for Obama in 2012? Oh yeah, the Supreme Court. Sorry, the streets are the only answer at this point.
My thinking exactly. 2012: ANYBODY BUT O’BUSHMA
Re panetta: What I have to say isn’t fit to print.
HOW will we ever reverse this PRIVATIZATION that negates government itself?
(Even Jefferson knew it)
AND….. the people will also see exactly how bad it can get!
Sounds like exactly what the Repugs are doing now, ruin the country to save it. But what if YOU were sure to be one of the casualties – like ANY SENIOR?
Why do you think the PTB wanted an all volunteer military? It meant that the poor would be the first line of defense while the children of the 1%ers could riot over a fired coach, drink and film porno at their parties.
The Iraqis will attack us.
They hate our freedom.
“…would turn the US into a “paper tiger.”
With a military budget budget as big as the rest of the world combined, we must be making some pretty crappy stuff if a 10 or 15% cut will turn us into a paper tiger.
It seems, “I want what they’re having” might be a better defense strategy.
gee, maybe if our military didn’t have to occupy every oil producing region in the world, we would adopt our own national energy policy that uses renewable, solar, hydro, wind, and conservation here at home.
Now that we will spend a little less than all the other countries combined, it seems entirely logically that all the other countries in the world will unite against us and seize the chance finally to conquer us, those English, French, German, Australian, Brazilian, and Mexicans will all turn against us and unite as one massive invasion force !!!! those bastards !!!!
This is totally Bizzaro world. How big should the Military Budget be? Some estimates put it at over 50% of all spending now.
And are we not borrowing that money?
The “Super Committee” is going to really cleave the entitlements to keep this going.
Hell, they will probably bring back conscription just to keep the young’uns in line after all this OWS non-sense./s
All the “stuff,” i.e. hardware, of the U.S. military got worn out in all the wars & has to be replaced. I kid you not; that’s one of the excuses.
I can no longer listen to this crap long enough to figure out what they are saying anymore, so I don’t know whether Panetta’s used that one yet, but I’ve been hearing it for years.
yes those terrorists are sitting around watching to see if the super congress will cut the DoD budget! they are basing the decision to attack on how much money the DoD gets! ha ha what nonsense! Leon, weakening SS Medicare and Medicaid will do more to hurt this country then the unseen boogeyman would ever do! Obama, the Dems and GOP are bought and need to go!
Obama’s no Democrat and neither are the bulk of his appointees. These people are all to the right of Richard Nixon, and possibly even Ronald Reagan.
The last attack was 20 people with box cutters? Are you forgetting the raft of desperados from Haiti? I think one on them had a knife.
Phooey on Panetta – watch this.
53 cents of every tax dollar.
Thanks to all of the FDL commenters who turned this thread around from aother Fuck Them!! post,
To a more thoughtful conversation.
Back to Lurking.
Every present-day ghoul with ties to Richard Nixon should have a stake put through their heart and be buried 12 feet under in a chained coffin. Panetta “invites agression” and if there’s any justice in the universe, he’ll experience it personally.
Phooey works for me, Kelly.
If the U.S. hasn’t been attacked in the past decade at the current military budget, does that mean the U.S. won’t be attacked 5 times in the next decade if the U.S. multiplies it defense budget by 5?
The math is so confusing to me.
The repugs are ruining the country. Yeh, along with the republican and his administration sitting in the white house.
The reality is the Republican Party has become such a joke they can’t even take themselves seriously anymore, the Democratic Party is totally comfortable as neo-Republicans owned by the same lobbies, and we must vote for a 3rd Party to keep democracy alive.
Vote Peace. Vote Seniors. Vote Education. Vote Environment. Vote Labor. Vote 3rd Party — your life may depend on it.
More weapons systems funded and developed by the Pentagon means more ‘obsolete’ weapons systems being sent off to our ‘allies’ (so they can murder their own teachers, citizens, and human rights workers), and more weapons systems being sent out to anyone else approved by a corrupt militarist democracy in DC that can pay for them.
Panetta an his ilk are traitors to the American ideal of fairness and equity, and to freedom loving people everywhere.
And more R & D to develop autonomous robotic death machines to terrorize us all in the future.
How, again, does this make my nation, or myself, safer?
obama WILL NOT nominate a progressive, a liberal or even a centrist, he WILL nominate a corporatist
since there will be no re-election to worry about, the reigns will let loose and we will get an even MORE BRUTAL second term from obama then the first
hang on to your hats because the republicans (and the democrats) are undermining the only hope we have of getting obama out of office, they are doing their best to oust romney, the only electable candidate in their ring of fools
we need to get this benedict trojan judas wolf OUT of office and the corporatist in office MUST be dressed in their uniform not ours if we are to mount any kind of defense
And with other countries in their own messes from Japan to Europe it’s not like they are going to arm themselves to either help us or fight us so the waste in a time of global austerity is truly mind boggling. It’s evil. It’s very truly throwing sick children off Medicare to fund the merchants of death. It doesn’t strengthen our national security. It very much does the opposite. It hollows us out from within, prevents us from funding education and infrastructure, and makes our people sicker and more vulnerable to disease, hunger, and despair.
ah, you miss the point
austerity has it’s own purpose, it’s SUPPOSED to bankrupt the middle class, spending money on the military industry facilitates that model of middle class destruction
We could cut out Guns and Bombs Budget by 75% and still be safe. I’d love to see US cut the $100 million a day for the upkeep of the Nuclear Bomb which 99% of the world knows must never fall again.
Put him at the buttstock end of a rifle on the front line of any conflict, along with the other warmongerers and bankers who always profit win, lose, or draw.
A sure fire prescription for peace that beats the hell out of spending more money to kill more innocent citizens in …name the
countryG.W. Panetta, you are either with us or against us.
You know there was a time I would have laughed at that. But after penn state i came across the franklin sex scandal and that led to a similar scandal in scotland. i don’t know but it does seem those in power love little boys and girls
Sieg Heil, mein Führer Panetta!
“the rootin’ tootinest Predator Drone lovin’ Peace Prize preznit evah!!!”
can we get this on a bumper sticker?
So we can impose our military power on anyone anywhere in the world and of course “defend ourselves”.
What are we defending? Apparently it WILL be all the new elderly who are now homeless and starving … all thanks to SS cuts. Woohoo.
Also defending the elderly who are slowly dying due to preventable diseases, … because we privatized medicare.
So a society that has no retirement and health care (and boy what a joy to look forward to that in our old age, … woohoo), homeless and starving.
But we’re all safe from the “box cutter-wielding terrorists”.
Oh thank Dawg.
“Keep in mind the last “military” attack on the United States, outside of the War of 1812, was pulled off by 20 people with boxcutters.”
Who are you, Condoleeza Rice?
Or was Pearl Harbor not a “military” attack?
If the Taliban invade Louisiana we might have to open up a can of whup-ass.
If we could come to agreement nationally on which of those candidates other than dem or gop we could really throw a wrench in the system that needs to be stopped.
I dream
yes I know
so call me
Don Quixote
I am with Chris Hedges on that.
You really don’t believe that “boxcutter” bullshit, do you?
That one’s right there with Papal Infallibility and Speaking in Tongues.
not in this house
Man, I used to like Panetta. Is the purpose of higher office to find people with credibility to consume?
Yes.
Dude, you are waaay off base.
..
Panetta is Italian. He would be “Il Duce”, (Mussolini)
Ahha, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The military industrial complex is a WMD aimed at the middle class.
And now, with Congressiona approval at 9%, the Democrats on the Super Corrupt Committee believe the answer to that is to cut Medicaid and Medicare.
Ain’t it the truth! That’s how knowledge is power, no matter how small one may be…
I hear Corzine is looking for a New Job. Panetta can take over Corzines bank and be bailed out while Corzine steals enough money to keep the Pentagon happy. Right ? right ? hmmm ok maybe not.
The OWS movement exists because the Democratic Party has abandoned its reason to exist. There should now be 3 parties: TEA, Democratic-Republican (there’s no reason to deny the merger any longer), and the People’s Party.
And now the O-Team wants to resurrect the manufacture and use of cluster bombs. Heaven help us!
Remind me again why we “must” vote for Democrats? Seriously, the Republicans would be worse than this?
Oh, the nostalgia of it all. It’s as if W never went away.
Two words: Bush mal-Administration. Oh, and the neocon crackpots, like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Douglas Feith, L. Paul Bremer, and a cast of thousands of other Republican war criminals.
But where Panetta is concerned, it’s hard to describe him as a Democrat, not with his pushing to “save” the bloated Pentagon’s budget by dismantling Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And where saving the Pentagon’s bloated budget is concerned, is Panetta trying to save the regular military or is he just looking out for all the private defense contractors feeding at the taxpayer-funded trough? Or maybe because so much of the Pentagon has been farmed out as part of the right-wing’s privatization scheme, is Panetta trying to “save” the profits private for-profit contractors have been making off of our “publicly-owned” military?
Panetta is truly disgusting but he’s in his position because he pushes the CIA-Pentagon Junta’s programs with gusto!