Letters to the Editor
tempus
Published Letters: 469 Editor's Choice: 8
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You are so wrong Anonymous
[Read the article: Does a bigger Army mean another Iraq?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand...you've obviously not been in the military or you would understand that if you power down a military, it takes a GREAT deal of time to get it back into fighting shape. Now you suggest we rely on coalitions like the UN and NATO...the problem with this is that NATO relys on a strong US to enforce it's mandates and the UN, while a good idea, simply do not have the capability to do, without US backing, what it needs to do.
Not only have I served in the military, I AM IN THE MILITARY RIGHT NOW! I want the military downsized significantly. It costs FAR more to continue and grow an overly-huge military, long-run, than it does to reduce the military short-term. Money is literally wasted in the military...and talk about redistribution of income! Whiner rich people (generally Republicans) cry about income redistribution via progressive taxation and social safety nets but are all into income redistribution the other way, from the bottom into the pockets of the nonproductive rich classes by way of over-funding mega military projects!
I was initially RIFed back in 1992, right at the start of what was supposed to be the Peace Dividend. I didn't sweat it. Though I wanted to remain in the military at the time, I knew that there needed to be cuts. Since there needed to be cuts, SOMEONE had to go. If not me, then who? I refused to get into that anyone but me selfish game. I moved on and used the GI Bill to improve my education level...and then rejoined via the Reserves. The military is TOO BIG. It is BLOATED and unnecessarily so! To fight what, exactly? A handful of guys wearing rags and sporting AK47s in the desert on the other side of the world? Pa-leeeze. It doesn't take a huge army to do that, nor a huge, expensive air force to do that. Cheap-ass predator drones are almost all the air force you need for simple strikes against valid terrorist camp targets. Cheap cruise missiles are all the air force you need for foreign government targets (VALID foreign targets...you know, retaliation for actual attacks ON US rather than for aggressive wars of whim). It doesn't take a huge army to fight piddly little countries like Afghanistan under the Taliban. You only need huge armies if you intend to (illegally) continue to invade other countries, start illegal wars of aggression, and fight wars all over the place on whim.
By the way, I am a Major in the Air Force. I am a veteran of Desert Storm (ashamed to say given what I know now of that nasty, invalid skirmish). I know full well what it takes to demobilize. Yet...this country managed to demobilize after WWI and to a large extent after WWII. There is no physical law that says we can't massively demobilize now. It is actually easy, you just do it, pretty much like anything else. You don't even have to fight against natural laws or physical constants either.
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It is the "American Way"
[Read the article: Does a bigger Army mean another Iraq?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Robert Franklin spoke:
Let's see,
we currently spend about $400 billion directly on the military which doesn't include the Iraq war itself or veterans' benefits. Now we learn that that's not enough. All the candidates agree, so it must be so. The country that spends more on its military than the rest of the industrialized world combined still doesn't spend enough. Amazing.
That is, indeed, THE key information. And it is the American Way: spend WAY too much money for something that doesn't need to cost as much as we're paying for a lot less than what others get for a fraction of the price. Case in point is healthcare. We in the US spend a huge amount of money per person on healthcare but we get some of the worst healthcare in the world, while France, spending a fraction per person that we do, gets great healthcare to its citizens, producing longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality. Go figure.
Same with the military. We spend an astronomical amount on our military and what does it get us? Ignore for a moment that the entire operation in Iraq is ILLEGAL and should never have happened to begin with, but here's the thing - all those BILLIONS AND BILLIONS spent on the military and we are stuck and defeated in a country the size of a mid-sized state and actively losing another similarly-sized country (Afghanistan). All that money with nothing to show for it but almost a million dead Iraqi civilians, 4500+ dead US service members, nearly a trillion dollars of additional and totally avoidable debt, and now calls for MORE money to throw after the bad. Bad money over-spent on the military in the first place, bad money spent on an illegal and ill-advised and poorly-carried-out war in Iraq, and wasted money spent on a legitimate, but losing war in another country in the same general area.
What did all those billions and billions of defense dollars buy us again?
Avoidable and unnecessary morass after morass after morass...but at least the heads of corporations and their political mouthpieces in government are getting filthy rich!