There were plenty of losers in this week’s debt deal, but the U.S. military might be the biggest. For three years, this administration has put its radical social policy on the backs of our servicemen and women. Now the President wants to make life even more difficult for our troops by asking our military to pay the price for his failed economy. Since 2009, it’s become a favorite strategy of this administration to use our troops as either leverage for social change or a direct channel to it. Our men and women in uniform have born the brunt of this White House’s agenda despite the unrealistic demands already placed on them. Anyone who’s followed the debt debate knows about the automatic cuts built in to Tuesday’s compromise. If Congress can’t come up with another $1.2 trillion in reductions by November 23, the Pentagon will pay the price–a steep $350 billion now, with the possibility of another half-trillion later on. “I’m sympathetic to the challenges that we face in terms of the deficit,” Secretary Robert Gates said last November. “But the truth of the matter is… the Department of Defense is not the problem.”

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped it from being treated as such. The area of government doing the most is still being punished the hardest. As Gen. Benjamin Mixon (U.S. Army-Ret.) told us earlier today, the military was already anticipating significant cuts that had been designated by Gates earlier this year. “The initial numbers… were going to cause us great difficulties in the Army in completing our duties. Now we’re faced with the potential of an additional round of budget cuts–all because of the failure of leadership to come to the hard decisions during [these] negotiations.” Once again, he said, the military is being offered up as a “sacrificial lamb,” when it’s never had more on its plate. Before he retired, Gates called the President’s budget proposal, which called for another $400 billion in cuts, “catastrophic.” His successor, Leon Panetta, agrees. At a press conference earlier this week, the new Secretary called the downsizing a “doomsday” for our troops, citing the strain already put on our soldiers by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposition in Libya, disaster relief, and national security.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) understands. “Can you imagine anything more irresponsible,” he said, “[than] for the commander-in-chief of the military to promote–not just promote, but insist–on the knowing destruction of the U.S. military as a means to threaten Congress?” Coming out of these Middle East conflicts, Gen. Mixon explains, the military has already sacrificed a lot in terms of personnel and equipment. “We also have a huge debt to repay our veterans,” he said, “especially in health care.” With the possibility of these cuts also comes anxiety about military pay. “The people I’m talking to,” he told us, “say, ‘We’re out here fighting a war, but we still have to worry about whether our families back home will have enough money to live on.’”

For the last 100 years, America has had a tendency, Mixon explained, to scale back the military after a conflict in a way that puts the nation’s security at risk. According to Mixon, the reason America won the Gulf War is because President Reagan rebuilt the military and replenished it to the point that it could effectively engage in Kuwait. Since then, he says, the reason America has had initial success in Afghanistan and Iraq is because the Pentagon was able to leverage our technology. Now, with the military so strained, we have to rely on government contractors. Washington, he said, wants our troops to do more with less. “That’s not leadership.” They take cuts from the military, a frustrated Mixon explained, so that they can use the money for “obtuse programs” like Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately for the nation, this is all part of President Obama’s plan to hollow out the military–starting with its values and ending with its substance.

Both comments and pings are currently closed.