Who can explain the bloated defense budget

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   Credence2posted 8 years ago

   In the face of the Memorial Day Holiday, regardless of paying due homage to those that wore the uniform of the US Armed Forces, of which I was one, why is our defense costs SO much higher than that of any of our allies or adversaries?
   
   So answer me, conservatives, please check out the article below
   
   
   
   http://www.salon.com/2015/05/24/the_u_s … ty_threat/
   
   
   1. Yeah, I know we are a superpower, but to spend more on our defense outlays than every nation combined? One third of the world's defense outlays is from the United States? What about using a shot gun to take down a housefly?
   
   2. For all the money we spend here, we should have had binLaden and all the ISIS bad guys bagged long ago.
   
   3. Are we chumps, spending our precious treasure providing global security to others, while they use their money to develop their economies and their people?
   
   4. Is it about defense or is it about control?
   
   5. Its been noted  that just two years funding for the massive, $1.5 trillion F-35 fighter jet could fund free community college for all students for a decade.? That's pretty dumb, someone's priorities are definitely  askew
   
   I can understand that we would spend more, but the difference and the sheer magnitude of that difference cannot be justified in the modern world. Too many neo-con types are fixated in the 20th century, the era of Teddy Roosevelt, big sticks and such.  As we have seen over the last 60 years, going around the world in the Great White Fleet is not the deterent that it once was.
   
   So, I said my piece, what do you think, and why?

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      rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Congress is at the heart of spending like a drunken sailor. They are after the money for their constituency and the military contracts that ensue. Eisenhower warned us in his farewell address of the industrial military complex who would lobby us into an arms race. The other thing in this globalized economy we need to defend our interests. It should read that our interests are our corporations who are more than willing to by a little strong arm tactics to have their way. We spend three times as much as the rest of the world's militaries combined. One thing we really do better than anyone else is rage war. The second best thing we do is sell it to the rest of the world.

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         Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         I don't know if I relish in the role defending corporate interests with obscene amounts of money. WrenchBuscuit has a point, we talk about defense but give lip service to the men and women in uniform. Many of the enlisted ranks qualify for food stamps. Instead of wasting money on endless gadgets, how about attending to the 'point of the spear', personnel?  How do we deal with the soldier who has bore the brunt of the batte? VA has been castigated more than once for not seeing to the Vets needs properly.
         
         Having worked in federal contracting, the sheer waste was found in no-bid, limited competition contracts, where the $500.00 hammer is real because of the bloated overhead these  defense contractors include in their proposals. And we pay....
         
         We seem to have a bottomless pit of resources for big business and the MIC, so is there any wonder why everyone and everything else goes wanting?
         
         We cannot build infrastructure nor feed and educate our citizens with bombs and military ordinance. The boogieman theory promoted by the right to justify these expeditures rings hollow.

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            rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            This is a problem that is ignored by the taxpayer and renforced at the ballot box. The reason why it is like this is because we take no responsibility for the slime that circumvent our best interests profiting themselves. In that case we are all guilty for not taking control back and voting the slime out. It crosses all subjects as our country is bought and paid for by greed.

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   maxoxam41posted 8 years ago

   To rationally explain the existing contradiction you used a falsehood, a superpower. It is not anymore, its economy is declining, wages plummet, the financial bubble is about to explode... The only exit is its military branch that is prospering. Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen..., the military-industrial complex is thriving. Academic, Dyncorp are living proof.
   Provide global security? What are you talking about? Where did the US bring security? Which economy therefore people did it develop?
   The real question is who manufactures those F-15 fighter jet and logically push for the purchase behind closed doors? Isn't the government, the corporations and vice-versa?
   Indeed the US won't bully anyone with the same arrogance since alliances are developed worldwide. If Syria is not a ruin now thanks to the US is because it is supported by a deterrent force to its hegemony.

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      Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Maxo, as for "global security" that is what they say, not what I say. You are correct in that the term "superpower" in the face of today's geopolitical realities is a misnomer. The fact that so many believe that global security is part of the military mission, is why DOD cannot exist without costing so much. There is no security just the illusion of such, the propaganda of which is also supported with your tax dollars.
      
      Yes, the way the money is so easily exchanged would make one suspect that DOD and major military contractors are one in the same.
      
      "Defense" in these times is simply much more complex than the powers that be would have us believe. If we could take any credit for Syria, tangentically, I would much prefer that we keep our sticky hands out the region to a far greater degree. We play a dangerous game.

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         maxoxam41posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Syria is business as usual. Russia and China are another story. They both have nuclear power.
         It is why we need a Poroshenko that says that Ukraine is at war with Russia. Another proxy war . Ukraine that Nuland and the likes pilfered (stole their gold reserve), that Monsanto and its ilk expropriated its arable land, that is ruined economically can wage war against Russia? Can someone explain me this contradiction? Ukraine at our example can wage a costly war whereas its coffers are empty. It's true the sharks from the IMF are always there to catch any impoverish country in its net to strangle them financially. Where is money coming from if not from the US taxpayer? Will corporations invest to overthrow a country if it is beneficial? Why not? It is very plausible. Will it take the risk alone? Obviously not.

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