Needlenose

North Korean soldier looking for Repair_Man_Jack's house

…no, just seriously stoopid.  I’ve noticed that of late, as the HuffPos and PajamaMedias of the blogosphere emerge, fewer and fewer people ‘cross over’ to visit blogs and media of the opposing camp.  With all this Tea Party noise about the deficit, I thought I’d take a peak at one of the bigger conservative blogs to see what they had to say about it, and perhaps, as a self-professed ‘balanced budget’ guy, I might find some common ground.

Quite randomly, I found this diatribe by Repair_Man_Jack on RedState with the premise that we can’t cut the U.S. Defense budget without increasing security risk.  The crux of his argument is that there are some potential flashpoints out there such as the Korean Penninsula and the recent Chinese military buildup, and that we need to keep the sea lanes open for trade.

I’m guessing Repair_Man_Jack hasn’t really his homework if he thinks all of the defense budget goes to the cordon sanitaire around N. Korea and into policing the sea lanes.  I can think of many potential cuts that we can take immediately to tip the scales back in the direction of balance.

First, what are we paying per year for Shrubya’s occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan and other misc overseas adventures?  Something like $171 Billion a year….that’s a lot of scratch!  Presumably Jack the Repair Man is still a Believer in these invasions, otherwise undoubtedly he would have seen the Elephant in the budget room.

Then there is Shrubya’s unproven ‘Missile Defense” program, a costly $18B/year!!  Beyond the fact that what few tests that have been conducted have had extremely dubious results, I’m hard-pressed to understand exactly what threat this is supposed to protect us  from – the North Korean missiles might have the range now, but their guidance is questionable.  If either China or Russia get pissed at us and decide to send missiles our way, most likely those would come out of subs off the coast, a ‘use case’ not covered by Shrubya’s Star Wars.

And what of the $8+ Billion a year we are paying to support our nuclear weapons program?  Weren’t we supposed to be decreasing the number of bombs in our stockpile? ConservObama is not just continuing Shrubya’s handouts to aerospace in this filthy industry, but actually increasing the size of the defense and energy budget to support nuclear weapons and nuclear power research.  We haven’t hit the point where the US can get rid of all our stockpile and do no further maintenance, but seriously, how many H-Bomb-equipped MIRVs do we need to wipe out N. Korea, China and Iran?  Let’s close down one of the weapons lab and pare the remaining one back to a core function of reducing our stockpile further, and maintaining a enough weapons to wipe out Jack the Repairman’s overblown threats abroad.

Anyway, I’ll spare you further commentary, just take a look at this list of astronomical military boondoggles if you want to find another trillion or so (over time) in defense spending cuts that we can safely make without provoking a N. Korean invasion of the Fatherland.

As for Repair_Man_Jack, I suggest you stick to repairing drywall.

Always starts like this...

Does the reheating of the North/South Korea conflict, one of the last vestiges of the Cold War, pose the risk of escalating into a Hot War?  It seems like the Koreans are ready to have a go at each other.  Normally bellicose PRC is urging calm in the region, but it appears they have little control over their old puppet state.  Normally (under Obama) peaceful USA gleefully supporting S. Korea sabre-rattling in the form of more military exercises at the flash point.

Japan, meanwhile, seems to have finally woken-up from the threat of China’s recent, rapid military build up of naval & air power (useful primarily for bullying the neighborhood).

My crystal ball is fuzzy here.  If S. Korea sinks a ship or two, does the N. Korean regime go down (much as Great Britain’s Falklands was a positive agent of change in Argentina), or does it spark a fierce counter-attack, dragging first China then the US into a Hot War, followed quickly by actions against Taiwan and disputed territories in the S. China Sea?

China’s bellicosity and military build up smacks up against the Einstein maxim that you can’t simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The bad news for our allies in the region is that China can most likely kick American ass in any short-term ‘limited’ engagement.  Worse, I doubt that any military action in the region would stay limited – Dear Leader has nukes, and would most likely use them in the case of an existential threat to his state.  No idea if Taiwan (or even Japan for that matter) might have a few secret nukes stashed.

Even a limited regional nuclear exchange would have dramatic climactic consequences.

I’m not really sure there is much the US can do at this point.  If we don’t respond firmly, we go down the path of appeasement, forcing our allies to fend for themselves, almost guaranteeing a disastrous outcome down the road.  At this point, I think it’s pretty much up to China – either they will start acting like adults, tone down the militarism and bellicosity and promote peace in region, or they will continue down their current path and trigger the inevitable showdown.

*Update 12/23/10* I believe Kim Jong Il reads Needlenose, and made sure today that we are all clear that he considers any threat to be an existential threat worthy of going nuclear.

Nope, no legacy peace treaty...just a stinking pile of crap!

A couple of days ago, I was joking about the Shrubya transition plan – wondering if he would leave a trashed WH and pop all the “Os” out of the computer keyboards.  But on seeing Condi’s failure to make even an iota of progress on a ‘legacy’ peace deal in the cis-Jordan, I further reflected on the transition from Clinton to Shrubya, then contrasted it with the current transition.  Clinton left Shrubya with:

* a balanced budget
* $2 billion budget surplus
* under $6 trillion national debt
* fewer Federal employees than his predecessor
* an economic boom
* high levels of unemployment
* the virtual elimination of Big Ag agricultural subsidies
* a 98% agreed-upon peace deal for the cis-Jordan involving S. Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, the occupied territories and Jerusalem with Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians
* an anti-nuke deal with Little Kim in N. Korea

What presents have King George the Witless left for Obama?

* $400+ billion dollar budget deficit (not counting the cost of the Iraq war)
* $12 trillion national debt (doubled in 8 years)
* a surge in the number of federal employees and paid political appointees
* the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression
* 6.5%+ unemployment highest level in 14 years (since his daddy, King George the Clueless)
* unprecedented levels of corporate welfare Big Ag and Big Oil tax breaks and subsidies
* complete breakdown of cis-Jordan peace talks and 2nd intifada, massive unrest and hardship in the occupied territories and regional ‘cold war’
* Nuclear-armed Little Kim
* election of hard-liners in Iran, virtual elimination of moderate faction
* And to top all that off – a failed costly war in Iraq and a failing war in Afghanistan

And to remember King George the Witless and TurdBlossom’s biggest complaint was a few computer keyboards missing “Ws.” I never thought I’d miss Clinton.

News item: Impoverished, backward North Korea engages in a series of provocative actions related to developing nuclear capabilities, just as the United States publicly boasts its determination to unleash pre-emptive military strikes to prevent rogue nations from developing weapons of mass destruction.

Mouse That Roared, The (1959)

Stars: Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg
Directed by: Jack Arnold
Writing credits: Roger MacDougall, Stanley Mann III
Genre: Comedy / War

Plot Outline: An impoverished, backward nation declares a war on the United States of America, hoping to lose and accept foreign aid.