Charlie Rose

winter  06/08/2012 06:21 PM Report

America spends more on its military than the entire rest of the world combined. Of course its over blown. Thats why the rest of the world hates us, they just want us out of their countries and it recruits more problems because we

stay.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  05/26/2012 01:57 AM Report

Charlie, you asked: "Is the military over stretched?"

The answer is of course "no". All you need to do is keep recycling the troops on active duty to "infinity and beyond".

Or as the Secretary told us, there are two ground wars but our military is the highest educated, best trained.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  05/26/2012 01:53 AM Report

Charlie, Osama bin Laden was a kill mission.

We were told it was a capture or kill mission but that was a lie.

You keep asking and perhaps we will get more truth.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  05/26/2012 01:50 AM Report

Is it me or is this interview a study in contradictions?

We are told the future of war is unmanned vehicles and cyber. Warfare will be very specific and will be very precise. Yet we need 39 ships under contract so we can have a navy of 300 ships.

The Navy has a billion dollar extra fuel bill. By 2020 they will cut fossil fuels in half because energy is being used as a weapon. So the HUGE fuel use by our military is actually a weakness in our defense.

Seems like our navy does not want to let go of the 20th century.

NeilMacCallister  05/24/2012 03:30 AM Report

tabs??? ..the other night, you said "I am NOT a Democrat!"

But, tonight you are hating military spending -- and advising instead that America needs to be 'slapped around a little' just to let her know her proper place in the world.

That sure sounds like Barack Obama to me!

tabs  05/23/2012 03:30 PM Report

Let us call this segment for what it is, an INFOMERCIAL for the US Military and their $700,000,000,000.00 USD budget. Mr Mabus was on Charlies show to tell the people of the World what an excellent and essential job the US Navy in particular is doing for them, and why they should continue to pay for that expense.

The reason for the shift to asymmetrical warfare is the fact that no one in the world can stand up and go toe to toe with the US military. The US military dominance is nearly complete, the only thing left to competing states is clandestine warfare. The question is, can the US continue to afford the role of being Policeman to the world? The corollary question is what happens to the Global Economy if the US is no longer able to afford to fulfill that role? This is reason No 4 as to why a US deficit and debt crisis would be a financial tsunami that would swamp the world economy.

As has been stated previously the Chinese building of a Blue Water Navy is their response to the questions posed above. They are simply preparing for the day when the US Navy will no longer be able to fulfill the role of keeping the sea lanes open. Again the Chinese are taking the LONG VIEW OF HISTORY and are noting its TRAJECTORRY.

anne4444  05/23/2012 02:59 PM Report

Charlie, not in china, but in Australia.

Gelles  05/23/2012 12:39 PM Report

From Wikipedia:

Raymond Edwin "Ray" Mabus, Jr. (born October 11, 1948) is the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy. Mabus served as the 60th Governor of the U.S. state of Mississippi from 1988 to 1992 and as United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1994 to 1996.

Mabus was born in Starkville and is a fourth-generation Mississippian; he grew up in Ackerman, the only child of the owner of the local hardware store. After attending public schools, he graduated summa cum laude from the University of Mississippi, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi, with a B.A. in English and political science.

He earned an M.A. in political science from Johns Hopkins University and a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He also served two years in the Navy as a surface warfare officer from 1970 to 1972 aboard the cruiser USS Little Rock, and worked as a law clerk in the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

===== end Wikipedia =====

Listening to our Secretary of the Navy gives us faith that America produces great talent in abundance.

The Secretary is a natural student, scholar and leader whose service to democratic political forces, that compete with the ignorant and ambitious more conventional types now represented by conservatives here and abroad, cannot be over-appreciated. If America emerges the global leader, the role it alone can honor in the transition from ages of scarcity to eras of abundance on the horizon, it will be because of gifted men like Mabus not their political rivals.

REMant  05/23/2012 11:04 AM Report

The issue is what kind of naval strategy: the now old-fashioned close-in aircraft type, or the newer stand-off, more clandestine sort. The latter is defensive and safer as well as cheaper, but the former is more intrusive and championed not only by Navy traditionalists, but also interventionists in the CFR, etc, for whom cost has never been an object. I would not say this argument has been exactly either confidential or consensual.

We are, of course, kowtowing to the Saudis and have been for a lot longer than the Bahrain protests. It's what keeps the price of oil in some sort of affordable range.

"New Face of the New South" or not, I find it interesting a Mississippian should be occupying this position, which seems to be entwined in political patronage.