Bush's "Bring the Boys Home" Plan a Cheap Ploy
Boy, it’s a good thing we have a president who won’t stoop to ill-advised (albeit sound bite rich) policy decisions just to win re-election.
Oh, wait a minute.
On August 16, during a campaign speech, President Bush announced election-year- worthy plans to recall between 60,000 and 70,000 troops from Europe, South Korea and Japan. The president said that the realignment would allow the military to "be more effective at projecting our strength and spreading freedom and peace" and save taxpayers money.
This is a very bad idea.
The plan, if enacted, would further strain already tenuous relationships with traditional American allies. Not to mention the fact that it runs completely counter to our strategic, economic and military interests.
Currently, the U.S. is fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military has been forced on numerous occasions to extend deployments, recall retired reservists and rely on private military. Moving troops from Europe to the U.S. does not address this problem, as troops stationed in Germany are already being deployed to Iraq.
But there are even bigger issues at play here. Does anybody remember North Korea? Point three on the "axis of evil"? Pulling out more than one-third of our forces from the Korean Peninsula could have been a major bargaining chip in negotiations with North Korea – which has been asking for U.S. troop withdrawals for years. Removing troops from South Korea while the North is flagrantly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, without obtaining concessions from Pyongyang, makes no strategic sense.
Contrary to the president’s claims, the proposed realignment would not save taxpayers any money. Military facilities overseas are subsidized by foreign government – $1 billion from Germany alone. Bringing troops and their families back to the U.S. would require a significant expansion of U.S. bases. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a similar plan would cost $7 billion to implement. Troops in Germany are not there as a souvenir of the Cold War. Troops are in Germany because they can be quickly deployed to places where they are most needed: the Middle East, Bosnia, Africa, Kosovo, Afghanistan. Besides, over 200,000 troops were removed from Europe in the 1990’s in response to the post-Cold War landscape change.
So, let’s look at this for what it is: A cynical move by a desperate president who’s falling in the polls to score points with the families and friends of those he arrogantly put in harm’s way.
Think this out with me for a second. Seventy-thousand troops return to the United States and they bring 100,000 family members with them. That’s fantastic. However, President Bush has cut funding for military families numerous times in the past. His administration has tried to cut $1.5 billion out of funding for military housing and medical facilities; proposed closing commissaries; tried to roll back increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops in combat; cut $174 million from schools near military bases while eliminating aid to military base schools; and left out one million children living in military and veteran families from the child tax credit passed last year.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that a reconfiguration of U.S. Troops isn’t worth consideration. I am saying, though, that to announce a proposal like this without engaging in debate over the details and questions smacks of yet another policy decision made for political gain.
Hasn’t Mr. Bush tarnished our image on the world stage enough?
Oh, wait a minute.
On August 16, during a campaign speech, President Bush announced election-year- worthy plans to recall between 60,000 and 70,000 troops from Europe, South Korea and Japan. The president said that the realignment would allow the military to "be more effective at projecting our strength and spreading freedom and peace" and save taxpayers money.
This is a very bad idea.
The plan, if enacted, would further strain already tenuous relationships with traditional American allies. Not to mention the fact that it runs completely counter to our strategic, economic and military interests.
Currently, the U.S. is fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military has been forced on numerous occasions to extend deployments, recall retired reservists and rely on private military. Moving troops from Europe to the U.S. does not address this problem, as troops stationed in Germany are already being deployed to Iraq.
But there are even bigger issues at play here. Does anybody remember North Korea? Point three on the "axis of evil"? Pulling out more than one-third of our forces from the Korean Peninsula could have been a major bargaining chip in negotiations with North Korea – which has been asking for U.S. troop withdrawals for years. Removing troops from South Korea while the North is flagrantly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, without obtaining concessions from Pyongyang, makes no strategic sense.
Contrary to the president’s claims, the proposed realignment would not save taxpayers any money. Military facilities overseas are subsidized by foreign government – $1 billion from Germany alone. Bringing troops and their families back to the U.S. would require a significant expansion of U.S. bases. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a similar plan would cost $7 billion to implement. Troops in Germany are not there as a souvenir of the Cold War. Troops are in Germany because they can be quickly deployed to places where they are most needed: the Middle East, Bosnia, Africa, Kosovo, Afghanistan. Besides, over 200,000 troops were removed from Europe in the 1990’s in response to the post-Cold War landscape change.
So, let’s look at this for what it is: A cynical move by a desperate president who’s falling in the polls to score points with the families and friends of those he arrogantly put in harm’s way.
Think this out with me for a second. Seventy-thousand troops return to the United States and they bring 100,000 family members with them. That’s fantastic. However, President Bush has cut funding for military families numerous times in the past. His administration has tried to cut $1.5 billion out of funding for military housing and medical facilities; proposed closing commissaries; tried to roll back increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops in combat; cut $174 million from schools near military bases while eliminating aid to military base schools; and left out one million children living in military and veteran families from the child tax credit passed last year.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that a reconfiguration of U.S. Troops isn’t worth consideration. I am saying, though, that to announce a proposal like this without engaging in debate over the details and questions smacks of yet another policy decision made for political gain.
Hasn’t Mr. Bush tarnished our image on the world stage enough?
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