Thursday, February 28, 2008
Now I have to vote for McCain
as a vote against Obama and I'm not happy about it. Certainly the patriotic corporations act had a role in that decision, but it's really a decision I made after seeing Obama lay out specifics on his national defense policy in this video.
Some quick notes.
1. Contra my prior assertion that Obama wasn't being very specific in his speeches, this is pretty specific. So maybe he's getting more specific as part of wrapping up the nomination, in response to general criticisms, or he's been specific all along and it just hasn't gotten play on the news. I'm leaning to the latter as this is a four-month old speech.
2. The reason I saw it today is apparently members of the Hillary camp are pushing it. Interesting angle.
3. The full speech is here and the excerpt is basically 80% of the full speech and just excludes an anti-not-our-side-special interests promise (this is basically what everyone means when they rail against special interests - interests they agree with, like Obama and unions, are not "special", they're representative of broader interests), so it's in context.
4. Contra Geraghty (where I saw this today), I'm pretty certain that Obama's reference to cutting back funding to "future combat systems" is actually in reference to "Future Combat Systems" - a major DoD initiative to integrate networked sensors and unmanned vehicles/robots into combat forces. There's already been cuts to FCS due to Iraq having a higher funding priority (though UAVs, UGVs and sensors have been critical in diminishing the effectiveness of IEDs - the most significant threat to our troops in Iraq). In light of Obama's stated plans to pull out of Iraq, I think this is not aimed at FCS as a specific program (JTRS would be a better program to scrap and retool [again]), but rather as part of the larger Obama plan to cut the size of the military and disarm in general.
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Some quick notes.
1. Contra my prior assertion that Obama wasn't being very specific in his speeches, this is pretty specific. So maybe he's getting more specific as part of wrapping up the nomination, in response to general criticisms, or he's been specific all along and it just hasn't gotten play on the news. I'm leaning to the latter as this is a four-month old speech.
2. The reason I saw it today is apparently members of the Hillary camp are pushing it. Interesting angle.
3. The full speech is here and the excerpt is basically 80% of the full speech and just excludes an anti-not-our-side-special interests promise (this is basically what everyone means when they rail against special interests - interests they agree with, like Obama and unions, are not "special", they're representative of broader interests), so it's in context.
4. Contra Geraghty (where I saw this today), I'm pretty certain that Obama's reference to cutting back funding to "future combat systems" is actually in reference to "Future Combat Systems" - a major DoD initiative to integrate networked sensors and unmanned vehicles/robots into combat forces. There's already been cuts to FCS due to Iraq having a higher funding priority (though UAVs, UGVs and sensors have been critical in diminishing the effectiveness of IEDs - the most significant threat to our troops in Iraq). In light of Obama's stated plans to pull out of Iraq, I think this is not aimed at FCS as a specific program (JTRS would be a better program to scrap and retool [again]), but rather as part of the larger Obama plan to cut the size of the military and disarm in general.
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