End Perpetual War

On our nation's getting out of Afghanistan--if you as a nation have been there 20 years and not achieved your goals, it's time to get out. End perpetual War. And while we're at it, cut the so bloated, very wasteful defense budget. It will actually and honestly make the nation stronger. As it is, we, the US, are the world's warmonger.

Great, Even Important Question About Our Defense Budget

President Biden proposed increasing, yet again, our nation's annual defense budget--but then followed that up by saying we're getting out of Afghanistan. Representative Ro Khanna asks an excellent question today out in social media.

“The Pentagon increases make no sense. If you’re ending the forever war in Afghanistan … then why are we increasing, at the same time, the defense budget?” --Rep. Ro Khanna @RoKhanna

The World's Warmonger

We, the US, the United States are, hands down, the world's warmonger, ladies and gentlemen. No one, no other nation comes even remotely close to spending what we do on what we call "defense." And we don't even do it well.

See the fighter jet above? It's the Air Force's F35.Nice, huh? And it only cost us 400 billion dollars. The Pentagon's most expensive program. Ever. Literally. Google: "The US Air Force Just Admitted the F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed." It's at Forbes Magazine. $400 billion dollars. And it doesn't work. Aren't we terrific? Exceptional, don't you think? But hey, let's keep shoveling more and yet more money to the Defense Department. That'll keep us all safe. Right?

Happy Veterans Day: Let's Start REALLY Honoring Them

So yes, first thing, absolutely, HAPPY VETERANS DAY. First and foremost.

But then, after that, let's start really, actually honoring them, as a nation.

Let's:

• End the war in Afghanistan. This is our 18th year there. We are gaining nothing. It is our longest war in the history of the nation.
• End perpetual war
• End the empire
• Bring more of our soldiers home from across the globe. 
• Let's stop creating new wars to send them off to

Check this out:

The United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined.

It's insane.



Let's bring all we can, home.

What Most Americans Don't Know About Our National Defense Budget--But Should

There is an excellent, even important article out presently at Alternet I wish all adult, voting-age Americans would read. It is this.

How to Blow $700 Billion and Lose Wars

A Guide to America's Exploding Defense Budget and Military Failure

Step 1: Buy the most expensive weapons in history. Step 2: Don’t use them, since they mostly don’t work

And before any military patriots or just disbelievers dismiss the article, out of hand, before reading it, they should know it's written by a Veteran and who served in Iraq, on the ground. It's not from some "Left Wing" "librul" they can or should dismiss.

A bit from the article:

This year, President Trump signed the largest defense budget in our history: $700 billion. The budget includes $13.7 billion for 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which according to CNN are “in service and mission capable only 26 percent of the time.” Not a single F-35 jet has yet to see combat duty.

The budget will provide $4.5 billion for the construction of a new Ford class aircraft carrier, $450 million for three Littoral Combat Ships, $4 billion for two new guided missile destroyers, $5.5 billion for two new Virginia Class submarines, and tens of billions more for upgrades and repairs on various aircraft and naval vessels. Two of the guided missile destroyers already in service were involved in deadly collisions with cargo ships in the western Pacific last year. A Navy investigation revealed that for all of the hundreds of billions spent on defense, there was apparently not enough in the budget to provide for adequate training in standing watch and driving Navy combat ships...

He finishes the article perfectly, to me. It's something I've been saying for some time.

Fifteen years in Iraq. Seventeen years in Afghanistan. There is no end in sight.

From 2011 to today, 2018, we more than doubled our national defense budget from 354 billion dollars to 700 billion.

We have no new enemies. No new group has attacked us or is attacking. Or is going to.

We are weakening, actually weakening our nation with all this absurd, obscenely expensive and very wasteful spending.

Understand this:

Our defense budget is very huge, very bloated and very wasteful and is actually making the nation weaker.  Not stronger.

What are we going to do about this, America?

Links:

The Secret Side of Military Spending & The Wastes of War

We Are Spending a Trillion on War 

and We Need to Own Up to It

The 10 Most Blatantly Wasteful Defense Items

Note this next article is from the American Conservative magazine:

Expanding the Military Budget Is 

Wasteful and Unnecessary'

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion 

in bureaucratic waste

The F-35: A Weapon That Costs More 

Than Australia

What People Don't Understand About Our National Defense Spending

What too many people, too many Americans don't understand or realize about our obscene, absurd, very bloated and extremely wasteful defense spending.

It's actually making us weaker, as a nation.

Quote of the Day -- On Defense--and Deficit--Spending

"For 40 years we were led to think of the Russians as godless, materialistic and an evil empire. When the Cold War ended, we suddenly discovered that Russia was a poor Third World country. They had not been equipped to take over the world. In fact, they were just trying to improve a miserable standard of oppressive living, and couldn't. They had to spend too much on arms build-up. We didn't win the Cold War; we bankrupted the Russians. In effect, it was a big bank exhausting the reserves of a smaller one."

--Norman Mailer

And now, we're doing it to ourselves. That is, we are bankrupting ourselves, honestly, spending obscene amounts on "defense", far outspending any and every other nation on the planet.

And for no good reason.

America, Who You Are, In Three Statistics

America, I don't think you know who you are.

Oh, sure, you kind of know but I don't think you're really looking at yourself and seeing who and what you are.

So with that in mind, America, Americans, I give you three--just three--statistics, just three facts that really show who you are, what you support and what you're about. Forsooth:

Number one.  Health care.

Once again, U.S. has most expensive, least effective health care

US Spends More on Health Care Than Other High-Income Nations But  Has Lower Life Expectancy, Worse Health

U.S. Healthcare: Most Expensive and Worst Performing

Our health care and health care system is, far and away, the most expensive health care system in the world, bar none.

For all we pay, we have lousy health and even extremely poor health outcomes.

Of the top 17 industrialized nations, we have the worst mortality rates. Translation: We die sooner than the 16 nations before us on that list.

Second, number two of our statistics, on top of all that spending and costs, we are ranked number 31, in 31st place in life expectancy, internationally. Check it out.

List of countries by life expectancy

Of the 30 nations ahead of us on this list of life expectancy, all have universal health care. Imagine that. Oh, yeah, and most are---GASP--SOCIALIST nations. Heaven forbid, right?

Third and finally, there is this statistic and fact, America. Again, this is who you are.

U.S. Military Spending Dwarfs Rest of World

US Spends More on Military Than Next Seven Countries Combined

How Military and Education Spending Compare in America

US spends more on military than next 8 nations combined

These, my fellow Americans, are your--our--priorities.

Sure, we bemoan our students and schools failing and sure, we lament our health care is outrageously high--so high we can't afford it and that it's also the number one cause of bankruptcy in the nation. And yes, we don't have enough money, we think and say, for our roads and bridges and highways and sewers and airports and infrastructure or anything else, really, but BY GOD, WE HAVE BILLIONS AND TRILLIONS FOR "DEFENSE"! Nobody has more money for bombs and jets and warships or blows things up better than us.

So there you go, America. In three quick little "nutshells", so to speak, this is who and what you are.

Apparently, you think this is all not just a good idea but that it's also somehow sustainable.

Links:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Gross, wasteful defense spending

The 10 Most Blatantly Wasteful Defense Items

Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion 

in bureaucratic waste

The Pentagon Could Reach a Historic Level 

of Wasteful Spending

5 Insanely Wasteful Projects the Pentagon 

is Spending Your Money

Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending

Nearly half of states are facing budget shortfalls. 

Here’s why that matters.

Congratulations, America, On Your Very Dubious 15 Year Anniversary

Today is the 15th anniversary of the U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Think about that.

15 years of sending mostly young American soldiers---men and women--to a foreign country to fight and die--for....?

How is this not like the Vietnam War?  How is this not a "quagmire"?

#perpetualwar

Link:  U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan begins - Oct 07, 2001

Fifteen years on, the Afghanistan war still rumbles

Afghanistan Needs a Settlement, Not Another Troop-Withdrawal Deadline

Ending the Afghan War

Hoist By Their Own Words

Leslie H. Gelb says the U.S. military has lost its way in Afghanistan.

Forging a Four-Sided Afghan Deal

 Fifteen Years of Lessons Not Learned

With No End After 15 Years, Thoughts Turn to Who Will Inherit Afghan War

2016: Imagine

The way to justice and peace. End endless, perpetual war.

What Actually Happened in Iraq

What the government, lead largely by the Republicans and Right Wing, actually did in Iraq.

The best hour and fifteen minutes you can spend, learning about your government and our spending.



Our defense spending is what is bankrupting America. That and giving corporate welfare in the billions of dollars.

Further Proof and Reason Why the US Needs to Cut Its Defense Budget

Our biggest military threat?

China?

This, from the New York Times, late last evening:

China Pledges to Cut 300000 Troops From Its 

Massive Army

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged a reduction of 300,000 troops from China's 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, amid rising personnel costs and growing technological capabilities that reduce the need for large numbers of troops.

The announcement Thursday at the start of a massive parade commemorating Japan's World War II defeat 70 years ago brings the military's headcount down to about 2 million.

Once known for its human wave tactics in conflicts such as the Korean War, the PLA is increasingly focused on high-tech weaponry and more focused missions.

This, following the now-famous blast a few weeks ago:

Death toll from Tianjin, China, 

explosions over 100

Not to be done there, followed by this, 3 days ago:

Another Chemical Plant Explosion in China

And then there's all their other environmental problems, effecting their economy, their collective health and so many other issues:

China's Environmental Crisis

So tell me again why the US spends so grossly, wildly, even obscenely and certainly immorally on our defense budget and military?

Links:  Chinas Top 6 Environmental Concerns

WWF - Environmental problems in China

China's Environmental Awakening

China Wakes Up to Its Environmental Catastrophe

Why China Can't Fix Its Environment

China's environmental problems are grim, admits ministry

China turns to drastic measures to avoid water crisis

China's Looming Water Shortage

China's Water Problems Are Even Worse Than You Think

Why We Need To Cut the Defense Budget

The fact is, our Defense Department budget is not just large but huge. It's bloated, truth be told. It's famously beyond what any other one nation spends, many times over, it's wasteful, it's actually unaccounted for and downright immoral. It ends up actually weakening us. Professor Reich, once again, educates us Americans.

Quote of the Day -- On War, and Preventing It

1919

Link:  Frederick Barton Maurice - Wikipedia

America. And War

Peace lovers?   Peace-loving nation?   Peace-loving people?   Really?

Who are we?  Who do we want to be?

The Real War --- On the American Middle Class

Kev Mo

Kev Mo

How we spend too much on "Defense" and what we should do about it

From Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream:



Our defense budget is huge, bloated, grossly over-funded, wasteful, unaccounted for, wildly immoral, unsustatinable and ends up weakening the nation, ultimately, in very real terms.

Let's get started.

Important National Anniversary

I learned today, out here on the interwebs, that today is the nation's 13th anniversary of going into Afghanistan. I was reminded by some military veterans and their call:

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Today marks the 13th year since our country began the occupation of Afghanistan. It's long time for it to end yet we just signed a Bi-Lateral Security agreement that places us there for at least another decade. What do you think should be done?

To this I have three responses.

First, we absolutely should, at long last, get the hell out of Afghanistan.

Second, we need to end "perpetual war" in this country.

Finally, we have to recognize that we are, America is the world's warmonger, we have to stop it and we need to cut our absurd, huge, hugely wasteful, fiscally irresponsible, totally unsustainable, actually unaccounted for, nation-weakening defense budget.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

― Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending

Think our government spends too much? 

Sure you do.

So let's cut the spending that is the biggest, most wasteful, most irresponsible segment of all that spending. 

Fight to cut funding for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). It's absurdly bloated, it's immoral, it's obscene, it isn't even accounted for, they get so much money. They cannot and do not even account for all they get and spend.

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America's national priorities, redux

Who we are, what we're doing