Who has betrayed the U.S. military?

Many Americans belief that Jimmie Carter was horrible for the U.S. military and the country. And that despite his problems Bush is far better than Carter. They even go so far as to say Carter and the current Democrats have "betrayed the military" It's a comforting thought if you have sympathy for the Republican party, but an analysis of the fact don't support it.

Point one: the hostages (that Reagan freed by promising and sending some weapons to Iran). The collapse of the Iranian gov't was the result of miscalculations by the CIA and other gov't agencies controlling our puppet gov't in Iran. When that gov't collapsed the new nut case gov't took some embassy personnel hostage for over a year. Cater freely admits that he could have sent in the military and decimated Iran and it probably would have made him more popular. However the hostages likely would have died and tens-of-thousands of Americans and Iranians would have died in the process. Carter's conscience would not let him do that. Cater was a man with great strength and integrity.

Cater did allow the military to plan and execute a hostage rescue. He afforded the military unlimited funding and resources to do it. It was the military that screwed op the rescue. In fact that rescue attempt has become a textbook example of how NOT to plan and execute a mission. It is still being used as an example today in U.S. military officer professional development courses.

Point two: I was worried about cartoons and spelling words during the Carter years, I never severed during that period. I don't doubt that it was a tough period for military members. However none were sent to die in pointless wars.

And despite low levels of funding for general military operations Cater, a nuclear physicist trained at the Naval Academy, kept the U.S. moving full speed ahead on the technology front. I'm sure Dpusabot is aware of how long it takes to get a new combat system designed, procured and integrated into the operational forces. Many of the advanced weapons systems, guidance systems, stealth technology, intel systems were in fact developed during the Cater years. Even more telling is one of the systems Cater cut and Reagan famously restarted, the B-1, bomber sat on the ground during the first gulf war. Cater people could tell the program was a money sucking turkey and Reagan wasted huge sums of taxpayer money proving it.

Point three. The most important point: the last 7 years.
Lets Start with the VA. Bush appointed a political operative with no managerial experience or experience with veteran's affairs to run the VA. It no exaggeration to say his only job was to go to Congress each year and say all is well and the VA doesn't need any additional funding. He left after the Walter Reed scandal. I know someone who was working at Walter Reed when the scandal broke and they said the Washington Post did not exaggerate anything. The soldiers getting good care were the ones with a wife or parent there to pressure the system and staff members. Other soldiers we left to fend for them selves. Even that is not bad if you still have your mental faculties and some common sense, but there were hundreds of brain injury patients there. If they could walk they were put in run down barracks and literally forgotten about. TELL ME WHO'S BETRAYING THE MILITARY NOW? CARTER OR BUSH?

To date Bush has gotten every penny of defense money he has asked for. (Note: despite the current political flap the U.S. military is still funded at full Bush request levels through Feb 08). Despite this the military has been slowly and consistently undermined since the second year of the Iraq war. There is a hundreds-of-billions dollar backlog of equipment that needs to be replaced or receive depot level maintenance. I've seen some reports the Army's fully mission capable equipments if approaching 50% of what is authorized in many catagories.

Base facility repairs and improvements have had to be curtailed to some degree at all installations, many projects have just plain stopped in the last few years.

Training budgets have also dropped. It costs a lot of money to fly an aircraft to a bombing range or take a tank out on a training maneuver. The funding to do this has mysteriously started shrinking since 2004 despite Bush getting every penny of requested defense funding approved.

Education budgets have also been cut. Some of the more advanced training program have taken 50% hits. The impact of this is very little now. It will be serious in the 5-15 year timeframe.

Research and Development, this should worry everyone. Since the end of WWII the U.S. has invested heavily in maintaining the technological edge. Even during the "Cater years" technology development was well funded. Not anymore, even research and development is feeling the impacts of the Iraq war. And those worried about maintaining an edge over countries like China will love to hear where the emphasis of military research is heading. Its heading to universities and private companies.

Working with universities and private companies is northing new, in fact it's a great thing in many ways. What's new is the level of dependence on them. If you want to maintain an advantage you can't depend ob universities and the private sector where much of the information is shared (or sold). Also, many of our best university researchers are foreigners, you know the research is being shared globally. It's fine for scientific advancement, bad for keeping a technologic edge on potential adversaries.

With the exception of a 3 or 4% pay raise each year I can't see any way in which the Bush administration has been good for the Military. Blackwater and Halliburton, well that's another issue...