Wampum

While eliminating some bookmarks, I ran across a link to the 2000 Republican Platform. A couple of items within that document caught my eye:

In a time of fluid change and uncertainty, intelligence is truly America’s first line of defense. The current administration has weakened that defense by allowing a series of shocking security breaches … (including) sheer sloppiness at the highest levels of government. This must stop, immediately. Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments. A Republican administration working with the Congress will respect the needs and quiet sacrifices of these public servants as it strengthens America’s intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and reorients them toward the dangers of the future….

[T]he U.S. military faces growing problems in readiness, morale, and its ability to prepare for the threats of the future …

(The) American military has been run ragged by a deployment tempo that has eroded its military readiness…

When presidents fail to make hard choices, those who serve must make them instead. Soldiers must choose whether to stay with their families or to stay in the armed forces at all. Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness…