British Expatriate Network

Watched 60 Minutes last night and Andy Rooneys comentary on Military spending.
The US administrations of late have escalated spending on the military.
Has the US become a Military State?
http//www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/30/60minutes/main892398.shtml

Not really depends what they spend as a %tage of GDP which for the US military spends is less the 5% , less then in the cold war + the number of folx under uniform (who are all volunteers) is less 1% of the population


A true military state would be places like N korea where u have a population of 22million and 1 million man army

Yeah but in north korea, the choices are join the army or starve.

I have the impression that the military are generally now used as a cash-cow for businesses that cater to it. The fact that it does not actually need a lot of the items sold is neither here nor there, with the current system.

Eisenhower did indeed warn us against this and if he was not qualified, as an outgoing President and former General, then I have no idea who is.

The US certainly does have a lot of good military equipment but the priorities are often jumbled up by pork-barrel interference, corruption and the good old boys network. It also has a lot of junk equipment with poor performance records but high price tags - the Patriot missile system being one such shambles.

Britain has made its mistakes in the past but seems to be able to keep military spending to a reasonable level. Certainly, its foreign policies are different to the USA and so perhaps it is not comparing apples with apples but Britain has successfully fought wars on the cheap. One glaring difference was the amount of ordnance that the US "wasted" in Vietnam with their "Spray and Pray" shooting technique - Britain was very much against issuing ordinary soldiers with automatic weapons and preferred controlled, single shot semi-automatic rifles, with fully automatic weapons reserved as a platoon support weapon.

Back to the US though, I think it would still have a formidable and effective military if it cut back on the pork barrelling, corruption and wastage and halved military spending on new weapons systems whilst retaining or increasing spending on the soldiers and their welfare, both in the combat zone and at home.

They would not be a need to increase spending if they had not wasted over 200 billion on a pointless war in Iraq.

Most of the US spending is geared towards fighting an enemy who oppose it on the battlefield. What is the point in having 8000 tanks when you are waging a war door to door but still trying to 'win' public opinion. Land 8000 tanks in North Korea and 1 short range nuclear weapon will see them off, including the US Fleet off the coast.

I suspect the only reason for the continued spending is due to the power of the people who make the equipement.

There is something I don't understand.

Donald Rumsfeld is Sec of Defense. Here are a few thing he believes.

1) The military is too big and should be much much smaller.
2) Nation building is always a big no no.
3) The insurgents in Iraq are not terrorists. They don't fit the definition.
4) It is not the responsibility of the US to defend the world.

He's often mistakenly thrown in with neo-cons, but he absolutely isn't. Which is why the State Dept and the Dept of Defense hate each other. So why is he in charge of it? He's offered to resign three times already and Bush refused. Everything he believes is the opposite of what Bush claims to believe. Which has led to the disgusting battle of wills which sees the National Guard sent to fight because the military is being downsized.

Why is he there?

And to answer you Keith - I don't think so. Although with the idea of removing the Posse Comitatus Act i did have that icky gut feeling.

Obviously he knows what many don't know but the State Department may know what the insurgents probably don't know or they are pretending to know in spite of them not knowing it. :roll:

I hadn't heard him on your #3 but to some extent he's correct.
Some of them are fighting an occupying force and it's collaborators.

Defense is full of neocons, state hates them. Rummy has hung with the neocons for donkeys years, he picked Wolfy! I don't see what makes his beliefs the opposite of Bushes. Bush has learned that he needs the rest of the world, something he didn't believe at first. Since the cold war ended, the only reason to have the military that we have is to protect the oil supply. If we didn't have to do that we could have a much smaller military.

Unfortunately a lot of people are very fond of congress. :lol:

I read somewhere that the US soldiers have spent/ fired about 260,000 bullets total to kill each terrorist/freedomfighter in Iraq roll roll

The body count is probably higher though but it would be a bit self-defeating to include "friendly-fire" casualties and civilians caught in cross-fire.

I heard on the radio yesterday that Bush asked congress for permission to use the military in place of the police in case the bird epidemic hits here. Does he think that our police departments cannot handle themselves. Thats not clever planning, for the police sake that is planting seeds in Americans minds of the up coming police state. Our police looks more and more like the militay all the way down to NYC police having a freaking .50 caliber mounted to their helos. What is this Vietnam what the heck does NYPD need a .50 caliber for. When they break into peoples homes with search warrants take off the black ski mask and automatic weapons and put Brown shirts on them. Pay attention and slowly watch it unveiled. The original purpose of the second ammendment was not to have guns to go hunting or protect us from burgulars- it was to protect us from big government and when they stopped representing the PEOPLE and represented their special interest there is suppose to be revolution to get it right. Ole Thomas Jefferson said a revolution every 20 years is a good thing. The government has been infiltrated by TLC,CFR and Bilderbergers. They serve their special interest not the people. We are losing our rights slowly (PATRIOT ACT) and money. In 1900 there were only 3-4 low rate taxes now there are taxes on everything. I love this country just don't like those destroying it.

I heard that the pentagon is finally going to start compensating the grunts for the body armour and other stuff they had to buy, because they weren't equiped properly.

I wrote this last night before I went to bed was very tired and wanted to rant more about what I heard that morning so its off topic a lil bit but we currently have a 7,000,000,000,000.00 deficit as we speak. Eight years ago there was a surplus. With all the no bid contracts going to Halliburton and the war machine yes I feel we are more so a military state. Bush said this war could last for years and years. I don't feel we're done invading neither. All those countries he named on the night of 9-11 are at some point next (your either with or against). The media has already began their blacklisting of Iran and N. Korea. For our boys (and ladies) sake I really hope we hurry up and get out of those places. This is a CIA war fought behind the scenes to round up al queida and infiltrate. Iraq had no ties to 9-11 or terrorism against Americans. He persecuted his own citizens and there are alot worse people (Pol Pot) 20 years ago that we just sat and watched and did nothing. Has nothing to do with humanatarian injustices.

Talk about dragging it out though. Congress ok'ed that a year ago and how many have died since then?

The problem now will be whether bureacrats hum and haw over who is going to qualify and who is not.