Jeroen: Please re-read Gautam's post and take it as a unified statement instead of just parts.
My points are, first about Afghanistan 2001: Gautam clearly writes that the Pentagon asked the administration to ask NATO not to get involved. Not the administration, the Pentagon. Not 'the US', the Pentagon. He then listed very clear reasons why the Pentagon did not want other forces in Afghanistan. A unified electronic battlefield is very important to the way the US forces work. On a black night, with thick fog, every US tanks knows where every other tank is and where all the people are. This is done with a local net, not with satellites. The planes and helicopters have this information also. The tank driver isn't looking out a viewport to see where he is going. The fire-control person isn't looking out a window either, she is looking at a screen that is identifying every piece of machinery, and the people. More importantly, the tanks can identify what isn't part of the network, what may be an enemy unit. Two US tanks wouldn't fire at the same enemy tank because each one knows what the other one is doing. Now throw another countries' tanks and people in the mix and the US forces might as well turn their electronic equipment off. Yes the tanks can identify friendly units when the battle starts, but what will the battlefield be like 10 minutes later? It is much safer, for everyone, if all the units have the same hardware. (Obviously there was no tank battles in Afghan, but the same idea is applied to units and squads. The individual solider isn't wearing a heads-up display a-la Starship Troopers, but all the soldiers are being monitored, and they communicate, and train together so they each know what their neighbors are doing). Money: Gautam says, right in the post, that the military budget increase this year is more than Italy's entire military budget. Please read the whole post. (I know you say country's entire *budget*, but that's the same thing). Now for Kuwait. Let's see....US declares war on Iraq, tells rest of the world: stay home, we'll take care of it. The opinion already is that the war was only over oil, you think our press would be better if we kicked Iraq out of Kuwait by ourselves? Where does he say cannon fodder? Nowhere. Are you putting words in his writings? Mis-interpreting him? But seriously, you want to risk your navel vessels when we have the USS Greenville out there running into other ships? ;-) Kevin T.
