Swords Into Plowshares

Partly because of our strategic location and partly because of our large population and strong defense, their are no real dangers concerning a conventional attack on this country.

Yes we were attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and terrorists have attacked specific targets, but the idea that someone could invade and occupy this country is not really a danger.

Our troops are engaged worldwide in "Peacekeeping" roles that are sometimes open hostilities.  We have significant forces in Europe, and Asia to serve as a first line of defense and to guarantee the safety of certain countries from potential enemies.

These arrangements primarily started after the world war or during the cold war.  Our involvement in the middle east is a bit more recent and was to prevent a dictator from grabbing certain oil supplies, although we called it protecting an ally (sort of) from a brutal dictator.

The dictator was deposed and in his place we have a fairly unfriendly regime and increase terrorism that we have been combating.  Our involvement in the middle east in complex and since we seem to have enough of our own oil now, why are we still there?

The argument is that we have to combat terrorism before the terrorists attack us here.  It seems thought that our presence creates more terrorists than we can kill.  We have killed quite a few but unfortunately its hard to avoid some collateral damage as we do it, so we kill some innocent people which leads to new terrorists.

Now the best cycle.

We spend a lot of money on defense and I'm certainly in favor of defending this country.  I have some trouble seeing how our national interests are being served in some of these actions.

The bible tells us to beat our swords into plowshares.  Don't see much of that going on.

Spending Priorities

Watching the dontard at the G7 gives some clear signs that American leadership in most spheres is on the decline.

Unfortunately, instead of using this to help the country by reducing the amount we spend on defending other countries he is trying to increase defense spending because it is popular with some of his supporters.

I'm not advocating for a weak defense, just a smarter one that protects our country and focuses on where we need to focus.

One of the things to understand about defense spending is that it is in many ways a type of stimulus to some companies, which gets great support in congress because it creates jobs in their districts.

We build state of the art weapons that are unlikely to be used in an actual conflict.

We have military all over the globe including Korea, the middle east, Europe and Africa, to contain our enemies.

This spawns a defense industry which has been raking in record profits with no end in sight.

Instead of simply spending billions on weapons we probably don't need we should evaluate the actual threats to this country and our allies and decide on an affordable plan.

I disagree with a lot of what the dontard says and does, but it is time that our allies picked up more of the cost of defending themselves instead of us.  They are able to provide all their citizens with health care while we pay for weapons and men to protect them.

We need to focus our funds where they help the citizens of this country while staying strong.

We have technology now that can provide protection while reducing the risk to our people with drones and other technology.

We have to get smart about where the money we borrow gets spent.