Guns & Terrorism in the U.S.
by Jennifer Freeman

International terrorists who have experienced a measured degree of success in Spain, Germany, and France, are in for a rude awakening when it comes to the United States.

Unlike many European countries, whose culture and people are on the brink of extinction as a result of passive intellectualism, Americans are more than willing to stand up to terrorists in order to preserve our individualism and our liberties. We are a nation born of rebels who have fought and won wars not only to preserve our own liberties, but to preserve the liberties of other nations as well. One might even argue that, for some Americans, such a battle invigorates the spirit.

And while terrorists continue to attack private, non-military citizens around the globe, the United States is made up of private, non-military citizens who are legally armed and able to defend themselves and others in the immediate area. And while terrorists may be made up of students, businessmen, and women, armed Americans come from every walk of life. You never know who, in our society, is alert and able to take action at a moment's notice. It could be a banker, a florist, a ballerina, a football player, a soccer mom, drama coach, businessperson, gas station attendant, bus driver, airline pilot, hairstylist, or radio talk show host. Americans, armed or unarmed, will not stand down in the face of terrorism. And we will not instruct our military to stand down, either.

Sophisticated Europeans may turn up their collective noses in disgust at the barbaric Americans. But it is the Americans who will lead the charge that will likely save the day for Europe. Again.

There are some who do not fully understand how firearm ownership could possibly protect us against mustard gas, bombs, or suitcase nukes. After all, it's not like anyone is going to shoot a bomb or a virus. An alert citizen, on the other hand, could neutralize a terrorist prior to his committing the act.

We know that homicide bombers strap bombs to their bodies prior to setting them off. If an armed citizen were to neutralize a homicide bomber prior to an attack, many lives could be saved. Potential homicide bombers may reconsider such an action if the only death involved in the attack would be their own. Certainly, if anyone on the airplanes of September 11th had been armed, thousands of lives could have been saved.

There is another, indirect, benefit to firearm ownership, however. That benefit is the self-defense mindset. Armed or unarmed, Americans have a culture of intolerance when it comes to anyone who would try to infringe upon our liberties. Even the pacifists, who choose not to fight back with weapons, will use their voice to decry any injustice upon our people. Of course, the pacifists reap the benefits of an armed citizenry as well.

So, to the terrorists who think they can impose their way of life on Americans through violence and fear - Let's Roll.

Jennifer Freeman is Executive Director and co-founder of Liberty Belles, a grass-roots organization dedicated to restoring and preserving the Second Amendment.

http://www.libertybelles.org

LIFE Magazine: Americans Are Losing the Victory in Europe
January 7, 1946

We are in a cabin deep down below decks on a Navy ship jam-packed with troops that’s pitching and creaking its way across the Atlantic in a winter gale. There is a man in every bunk. There’s a man wedged into every corner. There’s a man in every chair. The air is dense with cigarette smoke and with the staleness of packed troops and sour wool.

“Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans,” puts in the lanky young captain in the upper berth, “but…”

“To hell with the Germans,” says the broad-shouldered dark lieutenant. “It’s what our boys have been doing that worries me.”

The lieutenant has been talking about the traffic in Army property, the leaking of gasoline into the black market in France and Belgium even while the fighting was going on, the way the Army kicks the civilians around, the looting.

“Lust, liquor and loot are the soldier’s pay,” interrupts a red-faced major.

The lieutenant comes out with his conclusion: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” You hear these two phrases again and again in about every bull session on the shop. “Two wrongs don’t make a right” and “Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans, but….”

The troops returning home are worried. “We’ve lost the peace,” men tell you. “We can’t make it stick.”

A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word “liberation.” Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting.

You try to explain to these Europeans that they expected too much. They answer that they had a right to, that after the last war America was the hope of the world. They talk about the Hoover relief, the work of the Quakers, the speeches of Woodrow Wilson. They don’t blame us for the fading of that hope. But they blame us now.

Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops, of out misunderstanding of European conditions. They say that the theft and sale of Army supplies by our troops is the basis of their black market. They blame us for the corruption and disorganization of UNRRA. They blame us for the fumbling timidity of our negotiations with the Soviet Union. They tell us that our mechanical de-nazification policy in Germany is producing results opposite to those we planned. “Have you no statesmen in America?” they ask.

The Skeptical French Press

Yet whenever we show a trace of positive leadership I found Europeans quite willing to follow our lead. The evening before Robert Jackson’s opening of the case for the prosecution in the Nurnberg trial, I talked to some correspondents from the French newspapers. They were polite but skeptical. They were willing enough to take part in a highly publicized act of vengeance against the enemy, but when you talked about the usefulness of writing a prohibition of aggressive war into the law of nations they laughed in your face. The night after Jackson’s nobly delivered and nobly worded speech I saw then all again. They were very much impressed. Their manner had even changed toward me personally as an American. Their sudden enthusiasm seemed to me typical of the almost neurotic craving for leadership of the European people struggling wearily for existence in the wintry ruins of their world.

The ruin this war has left in Europe can hardly be exaggerated. I can remember the years after the last war. Then, as soon as you got away from the military, all the little strands and pulleys that form the fabric of a society were still knitted together. Farmers took their crops to market. Money was a valid medium of exchange. Now the entire fabric of a million little routines has broken down. No on can think beyond food for today. Money is worthless. Cigarettes are used as a kind of lunatic travesty on a currency. If a man goes out to work he shops around to find the business that serves the best hot meal. The final pay-off is the situation reported from the Ruhr where the miners are fed at the pits so that they will not be able to take the food home to their families.

“Well, the Germans are to blame. Let them pay for it. It’s their fault,” you say. The trouble is that starving the Germans and throwing them out of their homes is only producing more areas of famine and collapse.

One section of the population of Europe looked to us for salvation and another looked to the Soviet Union. Wherever the people have endured either the American armies or the Russian armies both hopes have been bitterly disappointed. The British have won a slightly better reputation. The state of mind in Vienna is interesting because there the part of the population that was not actively Nazi was about equally divided. The wealthier classes looked to America, the workers to the Soviet Union.

The Russians came first. The Viennese tell you of the savagery of the Russian armies. They came like the ancient Mongol hordes out of the steppes, with the flimsiest supply. The people in the working-class districts had felt that when the Russians came that they at least would be spared. But not at all. In the working-class districts the tropes were allowed to rape and murder and loot at will. When victims complained, the Russians answered, “You are too well off to be workers. You are bourgeoisie.”

When Americans looted they took cameras and valuables but when the Russians looted they took everything. And they raped and killed. From the eastern frontiers a tide of refugees is seeping across Europe bringing a nightmare tale of helpless populations trampled underfoot. When the British and American came the Viennese felt that at last they were in the hands of civilized people. But instead of coming in with a bold plan of relief and reconstruction we came in full of evasions and apologies.

U.S. Administration a Poor Third

We know now the tragic results of the ineptitudes of the Peace of Versailles. The European system it set up was Utopia compared to the present tangle of snarling misery. The Russians at least are carrying out a logical plan for extending their system of control at whatever cost. The British show signs of recovering their good sense and their innate human decency. All we have brought to Europe so far is confusion backed up by a drumhead regime of military courts. We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease.

The taste of victory had gone sour in the mouth of every thoughtful American I met. Thoughtful men can’t help remembering that this is a period in history when every political crime and every frivolous mistake in statesmanship has been paid for by the death of innocent people. The Germans built the Stalags; the Nazis are behind barbed wire now, but who will be next? Whenever you sit eating a good meal in the midst of a starving city in a handsome house requisitioned from some German, you find yourself wondering how it would feel to have a conqueror drinking out of your glasses. When you hear the tales of the brutalizing of women from the eastern frontier you think with a shudder of of those you love and cherish at home.

That we are one world is unfortunately a brutal truth. Punishing the German people indiscriminately for the sins of their leader may be justice, but it is not helping to restore the rule of civilization. The terrible lesson of the events of this year of victory is that what is happening to the bulk of Europe today can happen to American tomorrow.

In America we are still rich, we are still free to move from place to place and to talk to our friends without fear of the secret police. The time has come, for our own future security, to give the best we have to the world instead of the worst. So far as Europe is concerned, American leadership up to now has been obsessed with a fear of our own virtues. Winston Churchill expressed this state of mind brilliantly in a speech to his own people which applies even more accurately to the people of the U.S. “You must be prepared,” he warned them, “for further efforts of mind and body and further sacrifices to great causes, if you are not to fall back into the rut if inertia, the confusion of aim and the craven fear of being great.”

Getting Déjà Vu yet? Here's more from this issue of LIFE...

The first winter of peace holds Europe in a deathly grip of cold, hunger and hopelessness. In the words of the London Sunday Observer: “Europe is threatened by a catastrophe this winter which has no precedent since the Black Death of 1348.”

These are still more than 25,000,000 homeless people milling about Europe. In Warsaw nearly 1,000,000 live in holes in the ground. Six million building were destroyed in Russia. Rumania has her worst drought of 50 years, and in Greece fuel supplies are terribly low because the Nazis, during their occupation, decimated the forests. In Italy the wheat harvest, which was a meager 3,450,000 tons in 1944, fell to an unendurable 1,304,000 tons in 1945. In France, food consumption per day averages 1,800 calories as compared with 3,000 calories in the U.S.

Germany is sinking even below the level of the countries she victimized. The German people are still better clothed than most of Europe because during the war they took the best of Europe’s clothing. But their food supply is below subsistence level. In the American zone they beg for the privilege of scraping U.S. army garbage cans. Infant mortality is already so high that a Berlin Quaker, quoted in the British press, predicted. “No child born in Germany in 1945 will survive. Only half the children aged less than 3 years will survive.”

On Germany, which plunged the Continent into its misery, falls the blame for its own plight and the plight of all Europe. But if this winter proves worse even than the war years, blame will fall on the victor nations. Some Europeans blame Russia for callousness to misery in eastern Europe. But some also blame America because they expected so much more from her. On the following pages the distinguished novelist John Dos Passos, who has been abroad as LIFE correspondent, reports on Europe’s suffering and what it means for America.

The Facts About Military Readinessby Jack SpencerBackgrounder #1394
September 15, 2000 Executive Summary

In recent months, the major foreign policy issue of the 2000 presidential election campaign has been military readiness, with Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush each addressing the subject. Governor Bush has accused the Clinton Administration of military neglect, referring to the U.S. armed forces as "a military in decline." 1 Vice President Gore, on the other hand, has countered that "Our military is the strongest and the best in the entire world." 2

While there are clear signs that readiness is a problem for the U.S. military, Al Gore is factually correct when he contends that the U.S. armed forces stand far above any other military force. He is missing a more important point, however. The United States, as the most powerful nation in the world, has responsibilities and national security concerns far beyond those of any other nation.

U.S. military readiness cannot be gauged by comparing America's armed forces with other nations' militaries. Instead, the capability of U.S. forces to support America's national security requirements should be the measure of U.S. military readiness. Such a standard is necessary because America may confront threats from many different nations at once.

America's national security requirements dictate that the armed forces must be prepared to defeat groups of adversaries in a given war. America, as the sole remaining superpower, has many enemies. Because attacking America or its interests alone would surely end in defeat for a single nation, these enemies are likely to form alliances. Therefore, basing readiness on American military superiority over any single nation has little saliency.

The evidence indicates that the U.S. armed forces are not ready to support America's national security requirements. Moreover, regarding the broader capability to defeat groups of enemies, military readiness has been declining. The National Security Strategy, the U.S. official statement of national security objectives, 3 concludes that the United States "must have the capability to deter and, if deterrence fails, defeat large-scale, cross-border aggression in two distant theaters in overlapping time frames." 4 According to some of the military's highest-ranking officials, however, the United States cannot achieve this goal. Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Jones, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson, and Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Ryan have all expressed serious concerns about their respective services' ability to carry out a two major theater war strategy. 5 Recently retired Generals Anthony Zinni of the U.S. Marine Corps and George Joulwan of the U.S. Army have even questioned America's ability to conduct one major theater war the size of the 1991 Gulf War. 6

Military readiness is vital because declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the world that the United States is not prepared to defend its interests. Therefore, potentially hostile nations will be more likely to lash out against American allies and interests, inevitably leading to U.S. involvement in combat. A high state of military readiness is more likely to deter potentially hostile nations from acting aggressively in regions of vital national interest, thereby preserving peace.

Readiness Defined. Readiness measures the ability of a military unit, such as an Army division or a carrier battle group, to accomplish its assigned mission. Logistics, available spare parts, training, equipment, and morale all contribute to readiness. The military recognizes four grades of readiness. 7 At the highest level, a unit is prepared to move into position and accomplish its mission. At the lowest level, a unit requires further manpower, training, equipment, and/or logistics to accomplish its mission.

There is evidence of a widespread lack of readiness within the U.S. armed forces. Recently leaked Army documents report that 12 of the 20 schools training soldiers in skills such as field artillery, infantry, and aviation have received the lowest readiness rating. They also disclose that over half of the Army's combat and support training centers are rated at the lowest readiness grade. 8 As recently as last November, two of the Army's 10 active divisions were rated at the lowest readiness level, and none were rated at the highest. 9 Every division required additional manpower, equipment, or training before it would be prepared for combat, due largely to the units' commitments to operations in the Balkans. 10 And 23 percent of the Army's Chinook cargo helicopters, 19 percent of its Blackhawk helicopters, and 16 percent of its Apaches are not "mission-capable." 11 In other words, they are not ready.
The Facts about Military Readiness

The reduction in forces of the U.S. armed forces began in the early 1990s. After the end of the Cold War, the Bush Administration began to reduce the size of the military so that it would be consistent with post-Cold War threats. 12 Under the Clinton Administration, however, that reduction in forces escalated too rapidly at the same time that U.S. forces were deployed too often with too little funding. The result was decreased readiness as personnel, equipment, training, and location suffered.

Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. military has been deployed on over 50 peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations. 13 Yet the resources available to fund these missions have steadily decreased: The number of total active personnel has decreased nearly 30 percent, and funding for the armed services has decreased 16 percent. The strain on the armed forces shows clearly now as the reduced forces deploy for too long with insufficient and antiquated equipment. The result is indisputable: Readiness is in decline.
Because the security of the United States is at stake, it is imperative to present the facts about military readiness:

FACT #1. The size of the U.S. military has been cut drastically in the past decade.
Between 1992 and 2000, the Clinton Administration cut national defense by more than half a million personnel and $50 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. 14 (See Table 1.) The Army alone has lost four active divisions and two Reserve divisions. Because of such cuts, the Army has lost more than 205,000 soldiers, or 30 percent of its staff, although its missions have increased significantly throughout the 1990s.

In 1992, the U.S. Air Force consisted of 57 tactical squadrons and 270 bombers. Today the Air Force has 52 squadrons and 178 bombers. The total number of active personnel has decreased by nearly 30 percent. In the Navy, the total number of ships has decreased significantly as well. In 1992, there were around 393 ships in the fleet, while today there are only 316, a decrease of 20 percent. The number of Navy personnel has fallen by over 30 percent.

In 1992, the Marine Corps consisted of three divisions. The Corps still has three divisions, but since 1992, it has lost 22,000 active duty personnel, or 11 percent of its total. The Clinton Administration also cut the Marine Corps to 39,000 reserve personnel from 42,300 in 1992.
Effect on Readiness. In spite of these drastic force reductions, missions and operations tempo have increased, resulting in decreased military readiness. Because every mission affects far greater numbers of servicemen than those directly involved, most operations other than warfare, such as peacekeeping, have a significant negative impact on readiness.

For each serviceman who participates in a military operation, two others are involved in the mission: one who is preparing to take the participant's place, and another who is recovering from having participated and retraining. Therefore, if 10,000 troops are on peace operations in the Balkans, 30,000 troops are actually being taken away from preparing for combat. Ten thousand are actively participating, while 10,000 are recovering, and 10,000 are preparing to go. Coupled with declining personnel, increased tempo has a devastating effect on readiness. Morale problems stemming from prolonged deployments, equipment that wears out too quickly, and decreased combat training levels heighten when troops are committed to non-combat operations.

Further exacerbating the military's declining readiness is the tendency to take troops with special skills from non-deployed units. Thus, a mission may affect non-deployed units as well because they will not be able to train properly. The soldiers integral to the non-deployed mission are not present, and there is no one to take their place. A mission's spillover effects are clearly illustrated by a July 2000 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) on the U.S. commitments in the Balkans:

In January 2000 ... four active divisions and one Guard division were affected by these operations [in the Balkans]. Among the active divisions, the 1st Cavalry Division was recovering from a 1-year deployment in Bosnia, the 10th Mountain Division was deployed there, and elements of the Guard's 49th Armored Division were preparing to deploy there. At the same time, the European-based 1st Infantry Division was deployed to Kosovo, and the 1st Armored Division was preparing to deploy there. Although none of these divisions deployed in its entirety, deployment of key components--especially headquarters--makes these divisions unavailable for deployment elsewhere in case of a major war. 15

Simultaneously, the military's budget has continuously decreased over the past eight years; and, thus, the services are being forced to choose between funding quality of life improvements, procurement, training, and other essential spending. Consequently, none is adequately funded. For example, the Army is short by thousands of night vision goggles, binoculars, global positioning systems and hundreds of generator sets, battery chargers, and chemical agent monitors. (See Table 2.) According to the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, these shortages are due to "recent increases in requirements," "slowed procurement funding," and "use of operations and maintenance funds for higher priorities." 16
Furthermore, when smaller forces deploy for more missions, the result is increased wear-and-tear on equipment and longer deployments for servicemen. Coupled with too little money, the result is a military weakened by aging equipment, low morale, and poor training.

FACT #2. Military deployments have increased dramatically throughout the 1990s.
The pace of deployments has increased 16-fold since the end of the Cold War. 17 According to Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA), the Clinton Administration has deployed U.S. forces 34 times in less than eight years. During the entire 40-year period of the Cold War, the military was committed to comparable deployments just 10 times. 18

Between 1960 and 1991, the Army conducted 10 operations outside of normal training and alliance commitments, but between 1992 and 1998, the Army conducted 26 such operations. Similarly, the Marines conducted 15 contingency operations between 1982 and 1989, and 62 since 1989. 19 During the 1990s, U.S. forces of 20,000 or more troops were engaged in non-warfighting missions in Somalia (1993), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1996), and Iraq and Kuwait (1998). 20

In 1998, before U.S. interventions in Kosovo and East Timor, General Henry Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned, "In the past four years we've conducted some four dozen major operations. And today, in support of our national strategy, we have more than 50,000 troops deployed in 12 major operations--and, I might add, many smaller ones--in dozens of countries around the world." Today the Army has 144,716 soldiers in 126 countries. 21
Throughout the 1990s, U.S. taxpayers spent an average of $3 billion per year on peace operations. 22 In 1990, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) spent around $200 million on peace operations. Today that amount has ballooned to $3.6 billion. 23 The 78-day Kosovo campaign in 1999 cost around $5 billion, not including the ongoing peace mission. 24 Operations Southern and North Watch in Iraq cost $1.1 billion per year; the Haiti operation cost a total of $2.4 billion; and to date, the Balkans have cost over $15 billion. 25 (See Table 3.)

Effect on Readiness. This dramatic increase in the use of America's armed forces has had a detrimental effect on overall combat readiness. According to General Shelton, "our experience in the Balkans underscores the reality that multiple, persistent commitments place a significant strain on our people and can erode warfighting readiness." 26

Both people and equipment wear out faster under frequent use. For example, units deployed in Somalia took 10 months to restore their equipment to predeployment readiness levels. 27 According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) survey of Army leaders who participated in peace missions, almost two-thirds said that their units' training readiness had declined. 28
Training is a key component of readiness, and frequent missions cause the armed forces to reduce training schedules. For example, Operation Allied Force caused 22 joint exercises to be cancelled in 1999. Joint training exercises were reduced from 277 in fiscal year (FY) 1996 to 189 in FY 2000.

Inadequate training has resulted in the Air Force exceeding its annual deployment goals for Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) crews. Thirteen of the Air Force's 40 AWACS crews were inadequately trained, forcing the 27 remaining crews to carry the workload of all 40. For U-2 pilots, the situation is equally bad. Because only 40 of the Air Force's 54 authorized U-2 pilots are fully trained, many experienced crewmembers leave the force due to an excessive workload. 29

The frequent deployments also take funding away from ongoing expenses. The Department of Defense funds about 80 percent of the cost for operations other than warfare from its "operations and maintenance" accounts, 30 although the funds in the account are supposed to pay for training, fuel, and supplies to forward-deployed troops--all of which are readiness-related. Every dollar spent in Kosovo or Somalia takes 80 cents away from training America's troops for war, buying spare parts for aging equipment, or providing a high quality of life for troops in foreign lands protecting America's interests abroad. The remaining funding for operations other than warfare comes from personnel accounts. 31 This 20 percent is money that could be used to pay pilots or computer programmers.

The stress of frequent and often unexpected deployments is detrimental to the morale of troops and jeopardizes the military's ability to retain high-quality people. Already understaffed units undertake more missions that last longer. (See Table 4.) Some 58 percent of U.S. troops are married, and long deployments often result in strains in family life, leading many to leave the service. The Center for Strategic and International Studies recently concluded that the high tempo of operations had had a significant, negative effect on morale. 32 More recently, the General Accounting Office concluded, "long deployments can adversely affect morale and retention." 33 Increased missions have clearly worn out equipment, reduced training, and decreased morale--all resulting in decreased readiness.

FACT #3. America's military is aging rapidly.
Most of the equipment that the U.S. military uses today, such as Abrams tanks, Apache helicopters, Bradley fighting vehicles, surface ships, submarines, bombers, and tactical aircraft, are aging much faster than they are being replaced. Due to a shortsighted modernization strategy, some systems are not even being replaced. Lack of funding coupled with increased tempo and reduced forces has again strained the U.S. military's ability to defend vital U.S. interests.

For example, between 1991 and 1999, according to a GAO study, the percentage of mission-capable Air Force fighter aircraft has decreased from 85 percent to 75 percent. 34 Jacques Gansler, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, points out that "we now have an average age of our fighters in the Air Force of about 20 years. These were designed for a 15-year life." 35 The U.S. bomber force consists of B-52s, 36 B-1s, and B-2s, none of which are being produced today. In fact, the Air Force has claimed that it does not want a new bomber until 2037, by which time the B-52 will be nearly 90 years old. Although the B-2 is a new bomber, the United States has only produced 21 of these planes.

The Navy's equipment has begun to age rapidly as well. Amphibious ships, for example, are on average over 27 years old, while the service life of these ships is only 30-35 years. 37 Currently, the shipbuilding accounts are inadequate to maintain current force structure. The Navy is being forced to cut its ship building accounts from 8.7 per year--the number needed to maintain a 300-ship Navy--to 6.5 per year. 38

Effect on Readiness. The effects of old equipment are being felt across the services. As weapons age, they become less reliable and more expensive to maintain. The services have attempted to provide for their higher maintenance costs by reallocating funds, but they often take the funds from procurement accounts, effectively removing the money from modernization programs.

Shortages of parts and aging equipment are already affecting readiness, and the effects are expected to worsen. On August 4, 2000, Kenneth Bacon, the DOD Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, told reporters that spare parts are so scarce that the Air Force is made to "cannibalize" perfectly good aircraft for spare parts. 39 In April, 40 percent of the Army's helicopters were assessed as being either unable or at high risk of being unable to perform their mission. 40 The impact this has on America's readiness to fight wars is immense. For example, by day 60 of a two-war scenario, 44 percent of the Army's Apache helicopters and 52 percent of its Kiowa helicopters will not be available due to shortages in spare parts. 41

In June, a study released by the Pentagon reported that over half of its gas masks had critical defects that rendered them useless against chemical or biological attack. 42 In late August, 413 Marine aircraft were grounded due to safety concerns. These included the Super Stallion helicopter, the Vietnam-era Cobra attack helicopter, and the new MV-22 Osprey. 43 This is in addition to the 76 Harrier "jump" jets that have remained grounded since July. 44

According to General John Coburn, Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command, "One of the most serious issues the Army faces is aging equipment. This issue is so serious that, if not properly addressed and corrected, it will inevitably result in degradation of the Army's ability to maintain its readiness." 45 The consequence of poor readiness resulting from an aging force was described starkly by Admiral James M. Loy, Commandant of the Coast Guard, "Lack of readiness may already be costing us lives." 46

FACT #4. Morale is on the decline in the U.S. armed forces.
According to a recently retired Marine colonel who wishes to remain unnamed, in the armed forces "quality of life is paid lip service.... We need tough, realistic and challenging training. But we don't need low pay, no medical benefits and ghetto housing." 47 The poor living conditions for soldiers, sailors, and airmen impair the services' ability to recruit the best young people to fill their ranks and their power to retain highly skilled servicemen. Representative Joel Hefley (R-CO) described the condition succinctly: "The pay is lousy, the retirement is lousy, the living conditions are lousy. The op tempo is lousy. The ability to do their job, because of lack of spare parts and that kind of thing, is lousy." 48

Military payroll comes out of the military personnel account. Current outlays project that this account will remain relatively unchanged at around $75 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars through FY 2005. 49 Given that over 5,100 military families are currently on food stamps, and that some of the military's brightest and most talented servicemen are leaving to find higher-paying jobs in the private sector, military payroll clearly needs increased funding. The "pay gap" between the military and the private sector for similar jobs is currently at over 13 percent. 50

Furthermore, according to an August 1999 GAO review, more than half of the officers and enlisted personnel surveyed "were dissatisfied and intended to leave the military after their current obligation or term of enlistment was up." The "lack of equipment and materials" was a primary reason. 51 Inadequate training is also a concern for military personnel. 52 Army officials, for example, have blamed a reduction in training at the Army schools for shortages in skilled workers such as mechanics. 53 Due to inadequate training, only three of the Army's 15 reserve brigades can report that their platoons meet the requirements for tasks such as attacking enemy positions or defending against attacks. And only 42 percent of the Army's 24 reserve mechanized battalions met training standards for firing at stationary and moving targets. 54

Substandard housing is another problem for morale because it has an immediate impact on servicemen and their families. According to General Shelton, almost two-thirds of all military housing, or approximately 180,000 units, are inadequate. 55 While there are plans to alleviate housing problems, 56 the funding is inadequate. The military is continually forced to divert funds that could be used to update housing to pay for the costs associated with peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations.

Effect on Readiness. Because U.S. servicemen are the military's greatest asset, a ready United States military requires bright, well-trained, and highly motivated active and reserve personnel. Unfortunately, due largely to low morale, the services are finding it difficult to recruit and retain servicemen. The Army and the Air Force fell short of their 1999 recruiting goals by 6,300 and 1,700 recruits, respectively. 57 The U.S. Navy was forced to change its recruiting standards in 1999 to make up for the nearly 7,000 sailors it lacked in 1998. That year, many Navy ships deployed with too few sailors onboard. 58

Retention is also a problem. With the exception of the Marines, the military is facing a severe manpower shortage. Although the Army is generally retaining enough soldiers, it is falling short on personnel with occupational specialties. For example, the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division was short on Bradley fighting vehicle turret mechanics, Abrams tank mechanics, and motor transport operators by 75 percent, 50 percent, and 36 percent, respectively. 59

In 1999, the Air Force missed its retention goals in all enlisted categories, causing it to fall short by 5,000 airmen. 60 The Air Force expects to be short 1,500 pilots by the end of 2002. 61 The Navy also missed its retention goals in 1999. 62 Even the Marines, who historically do not suffer from recruiting or retention problems, have begun to have retention problems. Due largely to a high operations tempo, the Corps lost Marines at a rate 10 percent greater than expected in the first half of 2000. 63

Reserve and National Guard units are playing an increasingly important role in national military strategy, and their importance is likely to increase in the future. They, too, must maintain consistent recruiting and retention numbers. But like the active Army, Navy, and Air Force, Reserve units are also insufficiently staffed. In 1999, the Army Reserves fell short by 10,300; the Navy Selected Reserve, by 4,740; the Air Force Reserve, by 3,723; and the Air National Guard, by 122. 64

Low morale among the Junior Officer Corps is also a problem in the force. In the fall of 1999, the Navy surveyed its junior officers to gauge morale. They expected a 15 percent response rate, but, to their surprise, over 55 percent of those surveyed responded. Of these responses, 82 percent responded negatively. Citing poor leadership, inadequate pay and compensation, and insufficient spare parts and equipment, only one-third said they planned to reenlist. 65

The Army conducted a similar survey this year to find out why it is having difficulties retaining captains. Between 1989 and 1999, the number of captains who voluntarily left the service rose 58 percent--from 6.7 percent to 10.6 percent. The Army Chief of Staff commissioned a survey of 760 officers at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, the base at which the Army trains its brightest and most promising future leaders. The results were startling. Junior officers had clear reasons for leaving the service, citing sensitivity training, the pace and type of operations, micromanagment from superiors, the risk-averse environment created by generals who view even small errors as career-threatening, and superiors who lied about military readiness. 66

At the same time, soldiers in the field hear the Administration blithely stating that everything is fine in the military--that the force is adequate, and that readiness is not an issue. This further degrades morale and readiness. Because morale inherently affects military readiness, low morale among servicemen is a real indicator of the U.S. military's declining readiness.
CONCLUSION

The Clinton Administration has damaged the U.S military with a dangerous combination of reduced budgets, diminished forces, and increased missions. The result has been a steep decline in readiness and an overall decline in U.S. military strength. Nearly a decade of misdirected policy coupled with a myopic modernization strategy has rendered America's armed forces years away from top form.

To deny that the United States military has readiness problems is to deny the men and women in uniform the respect they deserve. America's military prowess can be restored. To do so, America's leaders must first admit there is a problem. Only then can the President reestablish America's military readiness.

Jack Spencer is Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Endnotes
1. Remarks by Texas Governor George W. Bush at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) national convention, August 21, 2000.

2. Remarks by Vice President Al Gore at VFW national convention, August 22, 2000.

3. The National Security Strategy is a comprehensive statement of national objectives. The document, which is produced by the National Security Council and signed by the President, is required by the National Security Act of 1947, as amended by Section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. The principal function of the National Security Strategy is to lay out the specific political, diplomatic, economic, social, and military objectives that must be pursued in order to achieve the nation's objectives and specify how they will be integrated and coordinated.

4. The White House, "A National Security Strategy for a New Century," December 1999, p. 19.

5. Peter Grier, "Ryan's Concerns About USAF Posture," Air Force Magazine, December 1999, p. 14, and "Representative Floyd Spence (R-SC) Holds Hearing on Readiness and Unfunded Requirements," House Armed Services Committee, FDCH Transcripts, Federal Document Clearing House, Inc., October 21, 1999.

6. Jim Moret and Jamie McIntyre "Retiring Commander of U.S. Forces in Persian Gulf Raising Questions About U.S. War-Readiness," CNN The World Today, aired August 10, 2000. Also, Tony Snow, Juan Williams, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, and Jeff Birnbaum, "Montana Fires Continue to Rage; Is Gore's Bounce For Good? How Prepared is U.S. Military?" Fox News Sunday, aired August 27, 2000.

7. The four grades of readiness range from C-1, the highest level, to C-4, the lowest level of readiness.

8. Rowan Scarborough, "Army Training Centers Get Failing Grades," The Washington Times, August 29, 2000, p. A1.

9. The Army divisions' grade has risen since the Pentagon report came out in November 1999; however, there is still a significant problem. The higher rating resulted from a shift in resources rather than an increase in resources. The extra people, money, and equipment came largely from support units--hence, the poor rating of the Army training facilities. This readiness shell game creates the illusion of readiness while actually exacerbating the readiness problem. It takes soldiers out of combat training and puts them into peace operations. Simultaneously, it takes the resources away from the units training for combat to pay for the missions. The divisions participating in peace missions will be unprepared to fight if war erupts, and the units that will have to replace them will be unprepared as well.

10. Bradley Graham "Two Army Divisions Unfit for Major War: Both Flunk Ratings of Preparedness," The Washington Post, November 10, 1999, p. A1.

11. U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Readiness: Readiness Reports Do Not Provide a Clear Assessment of Army Equipment, GAO/NSIAD-99-119, June 1999, p. 12.

12. The cuts made by the Clinton-Gore Administration are beyond those envisioned by President George Bush in the early 1990s. His plan, known as the "Base Force," would have cut U.S. forces by 25 percent and the defense budget by 20 percent over a five-year period. Base Force would have reduced active and reserve Army divisions from 26 to 18; Navy ships to 450; active and reserve tactical fighter wings from 34 to 26; and active duty personnel to 1.6 million.

13. U.S. General Accounting Office, Contingency Operations: Providing Critical Capabilities Poses Challenges, GAO/NSIAD-00-164, July 2000, p. 3.

14. U.S. Department of Defense, National Defense Budget Estimate for 2001, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), March 2000, p. 207.

15. U.S General Accounting Office, Contingency Operations: Providing Critical Capabilities Poses Challenges, p. 9.

16. U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Readiness: Readiness Reports Do Not Provide a Clear Assessment of Army Equipment, p. 60.

17. Robert Holzer, "U.S. Army, Marines to Gauge Deployment Cost," Defense News, July 17, 2000, p. 1.

18. House Republican News Conference on Defense Appropriations Bill, Washington, D.C., October 25, 1999.

19. U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Operations: Impact of Operations Other Than War on the Services Varies, GAO/NSIAD-99-69, May 1999, p. 13.

20. Congressional Budget Office, Making Peace While Staying Ready for War: The Challengers of U.S. Military Participation in Peace, December 1999, Chapter 1, at www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1809&sequence=0&from=1.

21. "The Army Birthday Quiz," The Washington Post, June 14, 2000, p. A37.

22. Michael O'Hanlon, "The U.S. Defense Budget," Brookings Review, March 22, 2000, p. 41.

23. Congressional Budget Office, Making Peace While Staying Ready for War: The Challengers of U.S. Military Participation in Peace, Chapter 1.

24. John Omicknsik, "Pace of Peacekeeping Could Take 20,000 More U.S. Troops," Gannet News Service, February 1, 2000.

25. Hearing of the House Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, FY 2001 Defense budget, Supplemental Request for Kosovo, March 1, 2000.

26. General Hugh Shelton, Testimony, Senate Appropriations Wrap-up Hearing, April 26, 2000.

27. U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Making Peace While Staying Ready for War: The Challengers of U.S. Military Participation in Peace, Chapter 3.

28. Ibid.

29. U.S General Accounting Office, Contingency Operations: Providing Critical Capabilities Poses Challenges, p. 5.

30. U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Making Peace While Staying Ready for War: The Challengers of U.S. Military Participation in Peace, Chapter 1.

31. Ibid.

32. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, American Military Culture in the 21st Century, January 2000, p. 6.

33. U.S General Accounting Office, Contingency Operations: Providing Critical Capabilities Poses Challenges, p. 3.

34. U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Operations: Impact of Operations Other Than War on the Services Varies, p. 13.

35. "U.S. Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) Holds Hearing on Defense-Wide R & D Programs," Military Research and Development Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee, Washington, D.C., March 1, 2000.

36. The B-52 was designed in the late 1940s and first deployed in 1954. The Air Forces plans to maintain its fleet of B-52s well into the 21st century.

37. Prepared Statement of The Honorable H. Lee Buchanan III, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Research, Development and Acquisition and Vice Admiral James F. Amerault, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Logistics, before the House Armed Services Committee, Military Procurement Subcommittee, February 24, 1999.

38. Robert Holzer, "U.S. Navy Budget Takes a Hard Hit," Defense News, July 30, 2000, p. 1.

39. Kenneth Bacon, Defense Department Regular Briefing, August 4, 2000, The Pentagon.

40. Ron Laurenzo, "Army Wants Leaner, Faster Helicopter Force," Defense Week, April 10, 2000.

41. U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Readiness: Readiness Reports Do Not Provide a Clear Assessment of Army Equipment, p. 20.

42. David Ho, "Study: Many US Gas Masks Defective," Associated Press, June 21, 2000.

43. The Cobra attack helicopters and the Osprey have since been given the go-ahead to resume operation.

44. Robert Burns, "Grounded US Aircraft Spurs Questions," Associated Press, August 28, 2000.

45. Prepared Testimony of Gen. John Coburn, Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command, before Senate Armed Services Committee, October 7, 1999.

46. Roberto Suro, "For U.S. Aviators, Readiness Woes Are a 2-Front Struggle," The Washington Post, February 3, 2000, p. 4.

47. Charley Resse, "Take It from One Who Knows: Military's on a Downward Spiral," The Orlando Sentinel, September 2, 1999, p. 18.

48. Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Budget, February 2, 1999.

49. U.S. Department of Defense, National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2001, p. 67.

50. Congressional Budget Office, What Does the Military "Pay Gap" Mean? June 1999, Chapter 1, at www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1354&sequence=2.

51. U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Personnel: Perspectives of Surveyed Service Members in Retention Critical Specialties, GAO/NSIAD-99-197BR, August 1999, p. 2-3.

52. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, American Military Culture in the 21st Century, p. 6.

53. They also attribute to the problem the burden of peacekeeping operations and the assignment of personnel to tasks beyond their military specialties. See, for example, U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Readiness: Readiness Reports Do Not Provide a Clear Assessment of Army Equipment, p. 19.

54. U.S. General Accounting Office, Enhanced Brigade Readiness Improved but Personnel and Workloads are Problems, GAO/NSIAD-00-114, June 2000, p. 5.

55. General Hugh Shelton, Testimony, Senate Appropriations Wrap-up Hearing, April 26, 2000.

56. The military plans to eliminate inadequate housing for single enlisted personnel by 2008 and to fix family housing by 2010.

57. General Hugh Shelton, Testimony, Senate Appropriations Wrap-up Hearing, April 26, 2000.

58. Hearing on Military Pay and Compensation, Subcommittee on Personnel, Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senate, 106th Congress, 1st Session, March 3, 1999.

59. There are numerous other examples. See, for example, U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Readiness: Readiness Reports Do Not Provide a Clear Assessment of Army Equipment, p. 19.

60. General Hugh Shelton, Testimony, Senate Appropriations Wrap-up Hearing, April 26, 2000.

61. Prepared Statement of General Michael E. Ryan, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, Concerning Readiness, House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 1st. Session, October 21, 1999.

62. Congressional Research Service, "Summaries of FY 1999 Performance Reports for the 24 CFO Agencies," memorandum to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, June 2, 2000, p. CRS-6.

63. Robert Holzer, " U.S. Army, Marines To Gauge Deployment Cost," Defense News, July 17, 2000, p. 1.

64. Congressional Research Service, "Summaries of FY 1999 Performance Reports for the 24 CFO Agencies," p. CRS-6.

65. Ed Offley, "Young Officers' Anger, Frustration Stun Navy's Top Brass," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 29, 2000, p. A1.

66. Thomas E. Ricks, "Younger Officers Quit Army At Fast Clip," The Washington Post, April 17, 2000, p. A1.

France Says Time to Help Iraq End Violence

Tue Nov 23, 5:09 AM ET
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - France told an international conference on Iraq Tuesday it was time to put aside differences over the U.S.-led invasion and help the country put an end to violence.
"We all know what positions our different countries held in the period that led to the current situation developing. But today we must turn to the future. France, and Europe, are ready to do so," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said.
"We have a collective duty to put an end to instability in Iraq," he said in a speech prepared for delivery at the conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. An official English translation was obtained by Reuters.
France and Germany were the most prominent critics of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein last year, and have refused to send forces there to help restore peace.
Barnier said the conference should call on the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government to hold a meeting of Iraqi political groups as soon as possible before the elections.
"Such a meeting would ensure high voter turn out across Iraq," he said. France had wanted Iraqi political forces, including those not represented in the U.S.-backed government, to meet on the sidelines of the Sharm el-Sheikh conference. But that idea was rejected by Baghdad.

"They're not bad guys"

MSNBC.com
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Nov. 13

Read the transcript to the 7 p.m. ET show
Updated: 10:19 a.m. ET Nov. 16, 2004
Guest: Michael Ware, Richard Perle

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. We‘re talking about the U.S. Marines‘ investigation today into what may be the illegal killing of a wounded, unarmed insurgent during combat operations in Fallujah. Joining me right now is MSNBC‘s military analyst and retired U.S. Army Colonel Ken Allard.
Colonel, it‘s a tough one. What did you make of the pictures? You‘ve seen the raw footage.
COL. KEN ALLARD (RET)., U.S. ARMY: Yeah. Chris, I‘ve got to tell you, if I were that kid‘s defense counsel, I would realize that I had a very, very tough case in front of me, and I would try—literally try and pull out every possible stop, and every possible advantage that I could. Including self-defense.

MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you about this. If this were the other side, and we were watching an enemy soldier, a rival—I mean, they‘re not bad guys, especially—just people that disagree with it. They‘re in fact the insurgents fighting us in their country.
If we saw one of them do what we saw our guy do to that guy, would we consider that worthy of a war crimes charge?

ALLARD: We probably would. I mean, what you have to remember about all these things is the fact that if what you‘re seeing is enough to inflame the senses, that is precisely the reason why we think of those things in terms of war crimes. And it is also why we tell our soldiers, look, the reason why we have you observe the laws of land warfare is because it makes peace so much easier.

MATTHEWS: The thing is, I guess, I don‘t want to get into the exculpatory mood or the indictive role. That‘s not my role. It is simply to report what we know so far and what its implications are.
Colonel, that fellow was apparently alive, clearly alive at the time the trooper went in there. He wasn‘t some dead guy with—covered up or clouded up with, what do you call it, explosives that were going to blow when the guy was touched. He wasn‘t booby-trapped. Was there any justification for killing him, then?

ALLARD: You would have to say probably not. But I just have to tell you, if you are one of those Marines that we‘ve seen so often going into Fallujah, imagine the incredible tension and imagine the incredible danger. You have got AK-47‘s and RPGs in front of you, and you have got TV cameras right behind you. You cannot imagine a more daunting situation. But all that having been said, that is exactly what these kids are trained for. And you simply have to judge this whole case on the merits.

MATTHEWS: And he knew the cameramen—he knew the cameramen were there. He knew that he was being observed. So whatever he did, he thought he was justified in doing it, it seems to me, that‘s a fair assumption.
Let me ask you about what the rules of engagement are. Watching the battlefield casualties, you don‘t read a lot about wounded Iraqi prisoners. Do we take prisoners? Do we take wounded prisoners? Obviously we‘re sending our troops up to Germany to get fixed up, if we can. They‘re getting the best medical treatment in the world, and they deserve it. What kind of treatment normally goes to the losers? To the other side, the wounded?

ALLARD: One of the things that we do with our kids, is they are trained—yes, indeed, we do take prisoners. Yes, indeed, we are responsible for evacuating them and making sure they receive competent medical care. It is one of the laws of land warfare. It is one of the points of honor of the U.S. force that we take care of the enemy‘s wounded as well as our own, even if that means that you are taking chances you would not otherwise want to take, even if it means you‘re putting yourself in harm‘s way to do that. That‘s what we do.

MATTHEWS: But we don‘t send them up to Germany for the best medical care in the West, do we? Like we do our own guys?

ALLARD: I think we try and treat most of those guys in country. We have a very elaborate military evacuation system, but I think most of those people are probably treated in that theater.

MATTHEWS: So what—it‘s not one of those things when on the offensive, you take no prisoners? It‘s not? There are times when that does occur, though, right?

ALLARD: Well, in the heat of battle, Chris, I‘m not going to say that there are not some very, very tough decisions that those soldiers have to make. I...

MATTHEWS: I mean, you can‘t take prisoners when you‘re fighting in a mosque and fighting against the enemy that all—potentially all around you. You can‘t very much start putting the stretchers up, can you?

ALLARD: No. In fact, one of the things that we do not do is, we do not demand that those kids put themselves deliberately in danger.
It is a very, very tough line that you have to always be prepared to defend. But I just have to tell you that what we always try and do is to stress the humanitarian values, consonant with the mission they‘re on. The mission that they‘re on is to kill insurgents.

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much, Colonel Ken Allard.

ALLARD: You bet.

A liberal mind in action

TO BEGIN WITH, THE PRESIDENT IS A FOOL
Thu Oct 28, 8:00 PM ET

Op/Ed - Richard Reeves
By Richard Reeves

NEW YORK -- John Kerry is winning the presidential election -- as far as I can tell. I have already voted absentee and I voted for the Democrat. I voted for him because I have children and grandchildren, too, and I love my country too much to watch George W. Bush try to figure it out for four more years.

Biased? Of course. That's why I write this column: to share my bias. I am always amazed when I get letters, many of them, accusing me of being a "liberal" or, a lot worse, an "elitist." Yes, I am. Hello!

I also think that being president of the United States is an elite job. Don't you? What are we talking about here?

Yes, I am disappointed with the way Sen. Kerry has presented himself and his bias. But I am frightened by the thought of a Bush second term. I'll stick with my analysis of the man from Massachusetts as a rather humorless straight-A student. If you teach (and I do), Kerry is of a type, a smart guy who gets it all down, synthesizes it beautifully, and then tries to give you back what he thinks you want. The defining moment of his campaign, I thought, was his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was an A paper without a single original thought. I counted 15 lifts from archived presidential speeches, most of them by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

My gripe with President Bush, who has risen above his Yale, Harvard and oil resume to become a man of the people, is that he is an incompetent man of the people. He's smart enough for an elite job, but he has lousy judgment, no sense of history and the dogmatic ways of the insecure. He is a fool, quoting Webster's first definition: "A person lacking judgment and prudence."
I find myself in absolute agreement with Kimberly Parmer, a lady from western Michigan presented in The New York Times last week as the last undecided voter, who said it was hard to make up her mind because "One is too polished; the other one, I think to be honest, I don't know how he ever got to be president."

Well, the Supreme Court picked him. Maybe they thought he was his father.
Kimberly Parmer then went on to say something both silly and profound: "If you actually look at him, and he stands next to Kerry, you kind of just feel sorry for him."

I can see that, though I tend to feel sorry for the rest of us. There are two Americas facing off against each other in this election, not rich and poor, but past and future.

A lot of Americans, mostly white males of a certain age, look to this George Bush and see themselves. This campaign, I would argue, is one of the last convulsions of angry, real American men, who fear losing the country they know (or imagine), fighting to hold back the time and tide of the new, the un-white and un-Christian, and those girlie men, too, who sooner or later will make a different America. Bush has the "Father Knows Best" vote, from men who have lost their personal power and hate what they see happening all around them. Kerry, often blowing in the wind, is "the times they are a-changin'" candidate.

Which one will prevail? I think Kerry will hold the one-vote lead I gave him. But this is a wild-card election. For the first time in a while no one is quite sure who will actually come out and vote this Tuesday. It would do wonders for the tired blood of American politics if there was a big turnout, but that could help or destroy either side. It could also shake up the Congress, which could use some shaking. The narrowly partisan and ideological meanness some Republican leaders have brought to the debate in Washington -- I'm really thinking of that other angry Texan, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- is about the worst I've ever seen.

So the last question is, "Who votes?" I already have. You should too. Perhaps you will feel driven to neutralize my vote. Good luck. I certainly hope the best man wins. ..this I agree with you...the BEST MAN WON..

Confessions of a Liberal

Op/Ed - Ted Rall


CONFESSIONS OF A CULTURAL ELITIST

Tue Nov 9, 8:03 PM ET Op/Ed - Ted Rall


By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE/TED RALL

Win or Lose, Kerry Voters Are Smarter Than Bush Voters

NEW YORK--Democratic hand wringing is surrealy out of hand. No one is criticizing the morally incongruous Kerry for running against a war he voted for while insisting that he would have voted for it again. Party leaders have yet to consider that NAFTA, signed into law under Clinton, may have cost them high-unemployment Ohio. No, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, darling of the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council, blames something else: the perception "in the heartland" that Democrats are a "bicoastal cultural elite that is condescending at best and contemptuous at worst to the values that Americans hold in their daily lives."


Firstly, living in the sticks doesn't make you more American. Rural, urban or suburban--they're irrelevant. San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district is every bit as red, white and blue as the Texas panhandle. But if militant Christianist Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the more so after this election.


I spent my childhood in fly-over country, in a decidedly Republican town in southwest Ohio. It was a decent place to grow up, with well-funded public schools and only the occasional marauding serial killer to worry about. The only ethnic restaurant sold something called "Mandarin Chinese," Midwestese for cold noodles slathered with sugary sauce. The county had three major employers: the Air Force, Mead Paper, and National Cash Register--and NCR was constantly laying people off. Folks were nice, but depressingly closed-minded. "Well," they'd grimace when confronted with a new musical genre or fashion trend, "that's different." My suburb was racially insular, culturally bland and intellectually unstimulating. Its people were knee-jerk conformists. Faced with the prospect of spending my life underemployed, bored and soused, I did what anyone with a bit of ambition would do. I went to college in a big city and stayed there.


Mine is a common story. Every day in America, hundreds of our most talented young men and women flee the suburbs and rural communities for big cities, especially those on the West and East Coasts. Their youthful vigor fuels these metropolises--the cultural capitals of the blue states. These oases of liberal thinking--New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston--are homes to our best-educated people, most vibrant popular culture and most innovative and productive businesses. There are exceptions--some smart people move from cities to the countryside--but the best and brightest gravitate to places where liberalism rules.


Maps showing Kerry's blue states appended to the "United States of Canada" separated from Bush's red "Jesusland" are circulating by email. Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.


72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs. 75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true.


Kerry voters were less than half as idiotic: 26 percent of Democrats bought into Bush-Cheney's WMD lies, and 30 percent into Saddam-Al Qaeda.


Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial liar? Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false.


Educational achievement doesn't necessarily equal intelligence. After all, Bush holds a Harvard MBA. Still, it bears noting that Democrats are better educated than Republicans. You are 25 percent more likely to hold a college degree if you live in the Democratic northeast than in the red state south. Blue state voters are 25 percent more likely, therefore, to understand the historical and cultural ramifications of Bush's brand of bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy.


Inland Americans face a bigger challenge than coastal "cultural elitists" when it comes to finding high-quality news coverage. The best newspapers, which routinely win prizes for their in-depth local and national reporting and staffers overseas, line the coasts. So do the cable TV networks with the broadest offerings and most independent radio stations. Bush Country makes do with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity syndicated on one cookie-cutter AM outlet after another. Citizens of the blue states read lackluster dailies stuffed with generic stories cut and pasted from wire services. Given their dismal access to high-quality media, it's a minor miracle that 40 percent of Mississippians turned out for Kerry.


So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior? We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries, meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2.