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Why did Reagan gut our military? Was it because there was no evidence that the Soviet Union represented a threat to America and our friends and allies? No. It was because Ronald Reagan loathed our military. After all, he did dodge the draft during World War II. He “served” in the filmmaking department, starring in the 1942 comedy, Juke Girl alongside Ann Sheridan. Its tagline: “Sure she’s easy to meet . . . but try and forget her!”

In addition to falling down on the horse front, Reagan provided absolutely no funding for two of the other key elements of our war in Afghanistan. The Predator, a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), which went into production in 1997 and which was first used in Kosovo, and the JDAM: the Joint Direct Attack Munition.

A word about JDAMs. During the first Gulf War, our “smart bombs” were laser-guided bombs that cost over $100,000 each. A JDAM, which costs $20,000, is a recycled Cold War “dumb bomb” that has a Global Positioning System guidance unit strapped to it. I’m not certain about this, but I was told that Roger Clinton got the idea for the JDAM while installing a LoJack on his ’86 Camaro. Maybe that’s apocryphal. In any case, JDAMs were funded and stockpiled during the Clinton administration.

During the first Gulf War, less than 10 percent of the bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq were smart weapons. In our most recent war against Saddam, thanks to (Roger?) Clinton’s JDAMs, that number jumped to over 70 percent. The result: fewer civilian casualties and less damage to infrastructure that might be needed for the “useless” nation-building that our troops are now undertaking in Iraq.

Captain Charles O’Brien, a company commander in Iraq, said that the Kosovo experience has given his soldiers a foundation in “stability support ops” (e.g., not getting killed by paramilitary forces, suicide bombers, et cetera). Turns out that those peacekeeping operations in the Balkans that Sean Hannity went to war against are now saving American lives.

Of course, there’s a lot more to war than hardware and building on past experience. Every war brings with it a new set of tactical problems that have to be solved. Solving those problems speaks directly to the quality of our military leaders. As Don Rumsfeld noted, the credit for our battle plan in Iraq should go to General Tommy Franks. Franks was appointed to head the Central Command by the Clinton administration.

And it wasn’t just the battle plan. “More important,” as Lawrence J. Korb put it, was that “the military forces that executed that plan so boldly and bravely were for the most part recruited, trained, and equipped by the Clinton administration.”

Who is Lawrence J. Korb? Well, he’s currently director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He goes on to say of our swift victory in Iraq: “The fact of the matter is that most of the credit for the successful military operation should go to the Clinton administration.”

Oh. Korb was also assistant secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration. Maybe he’s the guy who screwed up on the horses.

Let’s review some quotes.

Did Clinton gut the military because there was no evidence that countries like Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and an increasingly aggressive Communist China would represent serious future threats to America and our friends and allies? No. Rather, it was because he loathed the military.

—Sean Hannity, Let Freedom Ring

If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, “Not ready for duty, sir.”

—George W. Bush, August 3, 2000

Hi, Dr. Wolfowitz. Hey, the Clinton military did a great job in Iraq, didn’t it?

—Al Franken

Fuck you.

—Paul Wolfowitz

A commander in chief leads the military built by those who came before him. There is little that he or his defense secretary can do to improve the force they have to deploy. It is all the work of previous administrations. Decisions made today shape the force of tomorrow. . . . And when that war [the first Gulf War] ended,