[HCCN] Fwd: Barney Frank Wants All Troops Home From Iraq: 'What The Hell Are They Doing There?'

[Judith Robbins]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Doug Rawlings" <rawlings at vfpmaine.org>
>
> Barney Frank Wants All Troops Home From Iraq: 'What The Hell Are  
> They Doing There?'
>
> Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) called on Friday for President Obama to  
> bring the 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq back home to the United  
> States, arguing that it's inappropriate to deploy troops trained  
> for combat in a non-combat situation.
>
> "What are they there for, if it's not combat? To monitor elections?  
> To mediate religious disputes? Let's get them home," Frank said at  
> a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "What the hell  
> are they there for?"
>
> Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said  
> that designating the troops "non-combat" does not persuade  
> insurgents not to shoot at them. Frank made his remarks as part of  
> a broader critique of the U.S. military's presence across the globe.
>
> He rejected the notion that America is "the indispensable nation,"  
> that it must be a global cop that responds to trouble all across  
> the globe. "People've gotta learn to dispense with us," he said,  
> adding that if it could be shown that U.S. involvement across the  
> globe is beneficial, he would reconsider the position, but, in  
> general, he said, U.S. intervention only backfires.
>
> The defense budget, he said, "ought to be cut very substantially,"  
> suggesting that basing 15,000 Marines in Okinawa is no longer  
> necessary and a "cultural legacy of the Cold War."
>
> If the defense budget were to be cut substantially, Frank said,  
> there may be a short-term loss of jobs as contracts are not  
> renewed. But, he said, he has been told by former Fed Chair Alan  
> Greenspan that reducing military spending would lead to a stronger  
> economy. "You build weapons not to use them," said Frank, while you  
> build other products to use them. Frank said that it was  
> Greenspan's opinion that the utilization of the products that would  
> be made instead of weapons would result in greater economic activity.
>
> Frank tweaked Republicans for defending defense spending on  
> economic grounds, calling them "military Keynesians" who only  
> believe that government spending creates jobs when that money is  
> spent on building weapons.
>
>
>
>
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