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Military Facility Closings: Good thing or Bad thing?


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Military Facility Closings: Good thing or Bad thing?
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2005-05-13, 09:48

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/na...ist-base.html?

I guess I have mixed feelings about Rumsfeld's efforts in this area. On the one hand it seems there is probably an ulterior motivation here, and that is to keep pouring money into Iraq for the foreseeable future, without trashing the military budget. So, fight a war at the expense of people's jobs here at home. Wee bit hypocritical.

On the other, a lot of these places seem like cold war era administrative and logistical facilities. The only big names I see there are the two naval shipyards in Maine and New Hampshire, and Ellsworth AFB. Maybe Brooks in Texas since the AF used to do a lot of physiological testing there. Ellsworth is definitely the biggest though. There are - AFAIK - still active fleets of strategic bombers there.

Probably they'll get moved to Mountain Home in Idaho or Offut in Nebraska.

Anyway, I guess the net positive is that a lot of these lesser used places can be shut down and reinvigorated with local businesses. I've seen it first hand here. We had an old Army logistics base here (used to be home to a few helicopters, Nike Air Defense batteries, etc back in the 60s and 70s). They shut it down several years ago and at first it just sort of sat there, dormant. Still is in some areas. But now they've reused some of the better real estate to add middle-income homes, while new businesses have popped up in the area.

There are still military personnel there as it doesn't all evaporate immediately. Takes years to finalize everything and completely demilitarize the population but you can see it working. I think this was one of Clinton's base closings but it might've even been teh first Bush, I don't remember.

...into the light of a dark black night.
 
Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2005-05-13, 09:59

Sorry, Moogs, but I'm closing this thread now. Consider it my "preemptive strike." We need to cool it with the war/defense/military/Bush administration threads before this place turns into another Fireside Chat or PoliticalInsider forum.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
 
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