Can someone explain to me why a bloated Defense budget is OK?

[LSK]

$2trillion for an illegal war.

$400 billion annual defense budget.

The PENTAGON is the #1 problem in this country.

Defense money can go towards healthcare, balancing the budget, energy independence, etc etc etc.

A smaller, less threatening US Defense and military also will help reduce tension in the world. America's power and willingness to use it is spurring other countries to arm itself.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. F E A R

[LSK]

3. i fear loosing my job and another depression

Not a guy riding a camel half way around the globe or invisible WMD.

[leftchick]

2. TERRA TERRA TERRA!

:(

[unpossibles]

4. I wish I knew

I never understood how so many can object to the tax dollars that go to the arts, the poor, emergency relief, medical and energy research, etc - yet don't ever mention or blink an eye about the huge amount of money being sucked down the military-industrial gullet. I think I saw that over half of our tax money goes to military use, but few seem to care.

[The2ndWheel]

5. Because

whatever state had a bigger military would do the same thing that we do.

I'm not saying it's ok, but that's just how power works.

[The2ndWheel]

6. Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Worldchanging Interview

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001778.html

Prof. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War College, is maybe the hottest military thinker in the world right now. His work, which focuses on the connections between development and security, and in particular his book, Pentagon's New Map, has become deeply influential with forward-thinking members of the military. Whether or not Worldchanging readers agree with what he has to say, Prof. Barnett's vision for the future of the U.S. military is worth knowing about.

[teryang]

8. They can't fix New Orleans and the Gulf Coast but

...unlimited interventions and nation building are no problem?

The military leviathan will implode before too long. These policies are proven to be cost ineffective by the last three years of military adventurism which have accomplished nothing and done incalculuable harm to our security, economy, and power.

These policies being expoused are a kind of reverse leninism and a neo-liberal excuse for 19th Century colonialism in the 21st Century.

[The2ndWheel]

10. Pretty much

But when was the last time a power center voluntarily reduced its own power? This is why empires rise and fall throughout history. Every war, every empire, that has ever existed, has led to this moment in time. We will soon be part of history, and will be no different. Everything goes through that birth, life, maturity, and death cycle.

[teryang]

16. Allocation of resources is a deliberate process...

...there is nothing invevitable about it. Increasing manufacturing investment increases power. Debt financed military spending carried on while capital investment moves overseas accelerates decline. War accelerates decline further when the capital base for projecting power is eroding steadily. Export of capital for manufacturing is a major source of national decline.

This is giving up power voluntarily through ideological stupidity. As corrupt elites lining their pockets with short term gain and no long term plan to adapt to changed circumstances, they are throwing their "power center" into the trash heap. Their policies in fact, reveal a complete lack of understanding of the current decline.

Belief in one dimensional military power and financial manipulation of paper instruments is extremely superficial. The much vaunted military industrial complex is being given a bitch slapping not only in southwest and central Asia but also in world financial markets.

Before long the Pentagon will have to undergo an involutary trimming such as the one Great Britain took after WWII. It will be radical because the industrial infrastructure to maintain it is in a virtually terminal decline chosen as a voluntary policy by ideological nitwits mouthing Orwellian fictions about "free trade." Two billion dollars for a bomber bombing and six billion a month for warfare in Asia is supposed to cure this. How stupid can people be?

Intelligent and commited leadership could reverse this process by returning to the rule of law at home and abroad, reallocation of private resources to domestic rather than foreign investment, penalties for offshore tax avoidance corporate shells and ponzi schemes, progressive taxation, investment tax credits for alternative technologies and new patents, abandonment of fiat paper currency inflation, investment in personnel resources, planning industrial expansion rather than passive "rentier" investment, abandonment of war as a distraction from bankrupt political policies, and a single payer health care system to free up the labor force.

[acmejack]

12. That was a fascinating little post on that blog.

I really like what he had to say about integrating the general officers from all the services. He had some really good points about theater operations and logistics.

[teryang]

7. Energy and defense shareholders want it that way

The bush family has played a leading role in war and armaments for four generations.

American Dynasty, Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush.

[area51]

9. "Can someone explain to me why a bloated Defense budget is OK?"

It's not okay. It's the reason why we don't have universal healthcare like all civilized nations do. We can have a strong military & universal healthcare. Lack of universal healthcare makes for a weaker nation w/a weaker workforce, and stifles entrepreneurship.

[LSK]

11. then why is it not discussed more often around here?

I see it as the root of most of our problems.

[devilgrrl]

13. Why do you hate America?

Don't you want to be protected from manufactured threats?

[LSK]

14. oh yeah, i forgot about Saddams nuclear arsenal

:sarcasm:

[Mr_Spock]

15. Yeah, killing is one thing the USA is still good at

:D