The military is a necessary expenditure. I appreciate the sacrifices made by our enlisted men and women. However...

The Cold War is over. We have no enemies whose strength is remotely equal to ours. Consider Iraq, with the world's 4 largest army. That war did not even occupy our entire armed forces. While we were busy whipping the Iraqi army, we still had about 700,000(1) in fighting forces that were not engaged in that war. And the ground fighting there was over in less than a week!

The USA spends far more on our military than anyone else in the world. Our "open" military budget is larger than the combined budgets of the number 2, 3, and 4 countries on the list. And some of those countries are our allies!

When considering miltary spending we ought to add in the "hidden" military spending such as the Veterans Administration, military pensions, the CIA, NSA and DIA. Also the largest amount of the national debt was incurred to prop up our military. By the time you add these in, you are up to about 60% of the US budget. Also, if you take Social Security out of the picture, which should be an off budget item because it is funded out of a separate, dedicated revenue stream, the percentage of the budget for the military becomes more like 85%!

Does anyone here get the idea that perhaps our military expenditures are a bit unbalanced compared to the need for it?

What do you say to the idea that we close some overseas bases in Europe? How about letting Japan defend itself? Just for starters. Frankly, when we stopped defending ourselves by defending our borders and started defending the "free world" in places like Vietnam, our only excuse was stopping the dreaded foe of international Communism. What's our excuse now?

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 18, 2001

Answers

What is our excuse now? Good point there nipper. What has been our excuse all along? Why does America have to be the World Wide Police?

Perhaps because we always have been. Vietnam, whata waste of our lives. I saw a documentary awhile ago, it showed how we deystroyed different places and the gooks were right there rebuilding quicker than you could say rebuild.

So many lives lost and nothing, nada, zippo won. We still see those who were lucky enough to come back in mental anguish over the whole damn mess. For what?

FWIW, we dont spend nearly enough on our military, imho, and have you nipper done anytime in the armed forces at all? Surely if you have you realize our men/woman are dreadfully underpaid. Again, I ask, for what?

I dont like Bush, but Clinton scared me, to be frank. You must wonder, whom else did the former administration sell secrets too?

I also wonder, now that Bush is in could it be the reason why our economy is slumping? The secret party is over?

Got to wonder?

-- morph (morphed@here.now), March 18, 2001.

Good questions, guys. And all these things, I believe, are done to exploit us, and other countries by keeping everyone in crisis mode. I've tried several times on this forum to point out that our constitution is being seriously violated in several ways. We are not to have a standing army.

We are not to have a draft, unless we have a foreign invader.

We are to use a gold/silver coin system.

We are not to have a direct tax on citizens. One reason, which should stop people in their tracks is because when they submit, they waive their right to invoke the 5th, but there are many others. But as long as there are those who say "aint it a shame", and then participate, the abuse will continue.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), March 18, 2001.

I dont like Bush, but Clinton scared me, to be frank. You must wonder, whom else did the former administration sell secrets too?

Clinton sold secrets to whom? Is that one of those unproven bits of propaganda that has never been proven?

We are going to be in the middle of another military conflict. Guess where? South America

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 18, 2001.

Eisenhower spoke of this, didn't he? The military-industrial complex represents one huge vested interest in the way things are. Pulling the plug on a couple hundred billion or more per year has national economic consequences, not to mention one HELL of a lot of votes. Look at the multiplier around military bases. Something like 5 people put out of work for each soldier downsized. And you wonder why we have so many bases in so many places, at a terrible cost to efficiency?

So it's not a question of the money being wasted, so much as a question of opportunity cost, and a question of how to save that opportunity cost. Phasing down the military is a messy process bound to take years. We have amazingly complex weapons systems of even more amazing lack of reliability, requiring an army just to maintain. Should we junk it all? Why or why not?

I think it would be great to approach our military with zero-based thinking -- if we had no military at all, what size and shape of a military capability would we consider optimal given the nature of those potential targets currently most likely to require it?

But getting there from here is probably impossible. Too many entrenched interests, too much money opposing reasonable spending cuts, too many voters reliant on the way things are. A 2% change in NASA's budget has a major impact on my town. A 50% reduction (say) in the military budget has a life-and-death impact on nearly *every* town. So we have at best a long-term, highly politicized goal, reachable (if at all) only in slow and tiny increments, with pitched battles over every one.

So I applaud your attitude, but I don't expect major improvements in my lifetime.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 18, 2001.

cherri, you certainly are an ass. Do you honestly believe that the so-called propaganda is just that? Give us a break. Sure, it can not be proven. Yet. Just like he did not have sex, etc, etc.

Should the former administration be trusted? No, dont think so. Too many lies so much time. I liked (past tense) the economy, but the free ride is over, get it?

Just because it has not been proven yet, dont think for one minute the miserable sob didnt sell our Country out. Time will tell.

-- time will tell (time@will.tell), March 19, 2001.