The US simply cannot afford to cut Military spending and keep us safe. (16 posts)

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  • Profile picture of John Bravo John Bravo said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/9b6b4ac6234a38d7f61757290055617d.png

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  • Profile picture of John Bravo John Bravo said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Seriously. Can’t this President operate his military at the same spending level as evil Bush?

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  • Profile picture of Geoffrey Thorpe Geoffrey Thorpe said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Sure it can. The US spends more on defense than the next richest 13 nations. Combined. Over 20 percent of the federal budget is defense. We spend more on defense than anything. Oh, and Bush greatly ramped up military spending…due to a couple of things called Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter of which we now know was an unfathomably huge expenditure to supposedly search for weapons that weren’t there.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/

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  • Profile picture of John Bravo John Bravo said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Sarcasm, completely lost on you.
    Again, the question. Why does Obama still need to spend more on the military than Bush did, even though Iraq is over and he should have gotten us out of Afghanistan over 2 years ago?

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  • Profile picture of catpaw catpaw said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Depends on what military programs are budgeted. “Military spending” is a pretty broad category.

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  • Profile picture of John Bravo John Bravo said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    You spelled bloated wrong.

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  • Profile picture of catpaw catpaw said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    I keep hearing of wasted and bloated military spending without any qualification, which sounds tantamount to name-calling. Much the same when I hear of “spending” that could be qualified as “investment.” (Education or infrastructure, for examples.)
    I don’t doubt that some allocations could be better spent on something else or discontinued altogether. But I’d like to know just what exactly is the money being “wasted” on as much as I’d like to know what the benefits of investment are.

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  • Profile picture of Groucho Groucho said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    I would think one place to start would be our presence in Europe. Stalin is dead, and I don’t believe Russia is going to invade.

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  • Profile picture of Geoffrey Thorpe Geoffrey Thorpe said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    JohnB: you’re right, the sarcasm was completely lost on me. I’m just too used to the “I hate government spending unless it’s on guns and uniforms and stuff that blows up” mindset. Still, some interesting stats.

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  • Profile picture of think4yourself think4yourself said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    “Stalin is dead, and I don’t believe Russia is going to invade”

    True. However Russia has become increasingly more antagonistic towards the west under Putin. And there are events going on right now in Pyonyang, North Korea that could chill our relations with Moscow (and Beijing) even more. Kim Jong Un seems hell bent on invading South Korea. If the US were to get involved militarily, it could ignite a chain of events that would include both Russia and China coming to the aid of North Korea. China would think twice because of its economic ties to the west. Russia is another story.

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  • Profile picture of Groucho Groucho said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Well, I see where the leader in North Korea is saying he might end the 1953 Truce. I ain’t going back, I’m keeping my part of the truce. Russia doesn’t have enough of an army to pose a threat. I say start phasing out the NATO bases.

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  • Profile picture of think4yourself think4yourself said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    No. But they still have a nuclear arsenal that can destroy the planet 5 times over. They’ve also built up their Navy in recent years and continue to funnel weapons to Iran. MOscow has made it quite clear that any overt military action against Iran would trigger a military response from Moscow. How does the saying go about the friend to my enemy???

    As to the Korean Peninsula, we should not be naive. This is not an issue amongst Koreans. And if there is an invasion, there will be a military response from the West. Such provacative actions by Pyongyang doesn’t just threaten Koreans. It threatens the security of the Pacific Rim Region-a region that we have deep economic ties to. Adopting a isolationist attitude toward the situation ignores political reality; especially since the Pacific Rim owns so much of our debt!

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  • Profile picture of think4yourself think4yourself said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    In other international news, Hugo Chavez died. But I suppose its the US oil industry that can see the Pearly Gates of Heaven openning up right now. ( :

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  • Profile picture of Jack Burns Jack Burns said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    No. But they still have a nuclear arsenal that can destroy the planet 5 times over. They’ve also built up their Navy in recent years and continue to funnel weapons to Iran. MOscow has made it quite clear that any overt military action against Iran would trigger a military response from Moscow. How does the saying go about the friend to my enemy???”

    Nonsense, the Russian military is as third rate as the rest of the country. The Russian military is a shell

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  • Profile picture of catpaw catpaw said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    Superpowers are less of a worry over using nukes than arm pit countries run by mad-man dictatorships with nothing to lose.
    Right now, N. Korea has the headlines for bluster and posturing. The big worry is, they will take their threats and provocations too far.

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