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The state of Georgia is blessed for the many military bases it has. I don't need to discus the great economic benefits they generate for their local communities and the state of Georgia. I don't need to discus the support they are providing to the war fighters during this war against radical Islamic terrorism.

There will be a major change in Washington that will have an effect on all of the military including all of the bases in Georgia. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be stepping down soon. President Obama's administration has sent up a trial balloon for his likely replacement; Leon Panetta.


Panetta is described as a "moderate" democrat who was Bill Clinton's head of Office of Management and Budget and latter Chief of Staff. He was known for his organizational skills; his skills in budgeting, and being one of the few adults in the Clinton White House.

He is also known for his cuts in the military's budget. Per former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Clinton cut the Army to LESS than half its Gulf War size, which left the United States unequipped to fight a multi-front war against terrorism. We lost air and sea lift capacity and cut research and development. Former California Congressman Leon Panetta wrote the budget that did this.

Leon Panetta is now director of the CIA. Let's see how well our intelligence community has done under his leadership. We've got over 400 files stating that the middle east is unstable. Given these over 400 files, we still did not know about the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Per Leon Panetta we don't know the trigger. We don't know who's in charge of the uprisings. We don't know the likely outcome. We did not know about the uprising in Bahrain which is our headquarters for the 5th Fleet. We still do not know who composes the rebels in Libya.

Now the citizen of the world wants to give him a promotion.

Leon Panetta is not bad man. He is a good organizer and good with budgets. He is not a war time Secretary of Defense.

The job of Secretary of Defense deals with a lot more than just budgets.He or she will have to deal with foreign countries and diplomats, the military and, oh ya, that one things that some us still call a war.

One of the aspects of leadership is finding good people and putting them in places were they will excel in their work. President Obama has found a good person and constantly tries to jam this square peg of a budget person into the round holes of CIA Director and now Secretary of Defense. A person who is a good leader, and experienced in fighting a winning a war in the Middle East would be a much better fit than just a good budget person during a time of war.

Leon Panetta has a past history of deep budget cuts for the Military which are not needed in a time of war. Given this past history of deep budget cuts for the Military the Georgia Military bases and their communities do not need Leon Panetta.

We Georgians need to SAY NO to the Leon Panetta trail balloon.

We Georgians need to SAY NO to Leon Panetta loudly.

We Georgians need to SAY NO to Leon Panetta NOW.

Let's contact other blogs, our congressman, the media, and especially our senators and say no to Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent analysis. Leon Panetta has been an utter failure as CIA Director, and he would be even worse as SOD. Of course, Obama is just as big a failure as Commander In Chief, so Panetta would fit right in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the comment. You are right, failure should not lead to a promotion. We need a SEC DEF who can win wars not just fit in politically.
    F. Perry

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