The empire of the Soviet Union had many problems, not least among them they failed to control the means of distribution which was an essential element for their system to thrive. But that isn't what ultimately caused the crumbling of that empire. It was the pissing contest that they engaged in with us over military supremacy. They overspent, and when there was nothing left, they fell apart. That is what will happen to us.

I have long been disturbed by the very points brought up in the article about how disproportionate our level of military spending (I won't use the term "defense" spending, since it is obvious that, despite the comforting implications, this spending is not totally geared to defensive purposes) is in relation to the countries we consider the greatest threats to us, and to the entire rest of the world. We really need to be asking ourselves some serious questions about WHY it should require a level of spending so many times greater than others in order to defend ourselves properly.

It is also worth pointing out that, in spite of this level of spending, we have long heard, and continue to hear, stories about how the troops don't have the proper body armor, or the right armor for their vehicles, and they have to depend on CARE packages from home to supply them with certain basic everyday necessities. SO EXACTLY WHERE ARE THOSE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS GOING? I would really like to know just how much of them have wound up in the pockets of Bush and Cheney's best friends and biggest corporate sponsors.

All I can say is that it is lucky for the world that America is a peace loving, Christian nation.

. . . many years after he had given it. I was born in 1959, and I first saw it in the 1980s during a PBS documentary:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Truer words were never spoken . . .

I have grumbled in the past about how if this or that administration official had accountability for their job like most of us do, they'd have been fired long ago. It's not a big leap from that thinking to measuring some of these pricey plans for return on investment, just as companies would do. As a contributor to the tax base that funds this endeavor, I could claim the investor's rights to see some sort of reports on how my money was invested and understand how the project is to achieve its returns. None of this kind of reporting is available to us investors, though. We get murky, biased sound bites filtered through Tony Snow and the like.

Yes, you can argue that peace and liberty are priceless and should not have a dollar cost associated with them, but even these intangibles seem not to be resulting from the spending of so much of the money I invested.

And don't get me started on the sleight-of-hand budgeting process being used to fund this war...

great article!

did anyone really think the Cold War profiteers and their numerous minions and hangers-on would give up all that bounty so easily?

At the time the Cold War ended, there was a lot of talk about just how those profiteers would adapt to the new world.

Well, I think we see how: elect a sock-puppet President, and go right back to the trough.

Tell you what folks, we deserve everything we have coming. We're idiots, and when the financial melt-down precipitates a police-state and the end of the American Experiment, those same dudes (including the Bush family, yo) will be laughing all the way their numerous off-shore bank-accounts.

Christ. What a world.

As if they matter any more in this crazy country.

Everyday I get more and more disappointed, astonished, and nauseated at the operation of this government. Since 9/11, our military budget has increased to cover wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for security to protect us against shifting cells of terrorists.

At the same time, Bush proposes an immigration bill that will cost taxpayers another trillion dollars, given that it's a decades long process that calls for supervising 12-20 million illegal immigrants, making sure they touchback and pay taxes.

Why are we trusting this administration or this congress? Why are we giving them the greenlight after we've suffered debacle after debacle? Where is a shred of proof that anyone in DC right now has management skills?

Yesterday at the gym, walking the treadmill and watching the evening news, I got so distressed that I fled the y for home.

Lately, I've been dreaming about Amsterdam, which is beginning to look like utopia. Rational people who protect their country, their environment, their citizens. A government that isn't targeting countries for regime change and waging endless wars. A country whose cities aren't left to rot after hurricanes, whose citizens aren't flushed down the canals like giant turds. Leaders who don't import slaves for Big Business. Hospitals that wouldn't let patients bleed out on the floor while catering to Paris Hilton's claustrophobia. A place to thrive and paint a picture, with no religious zealots arresting you for smoking a joint on occasion.

I have a dream.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Dwight D. Eisenhower - 1961

We spend an amount on our military that equals the sum total of what the rest of the world spends on theirs, yet somehow it doesn't seem to help either or security or our liberty.

The potential that Ike warned about has been realized and yet Dem politicians are queuing up to feed the beast. They're all afraid that the Republicans will call them weak on security, so they try to spend their way out of the accusation using borrowed money - debt that our great-grandchildren will be trying to pay. When is someone who has the nation's ear going to have the guts to call this what it is - a welfare scheme for the "haves and have-mores".

I suspect that the money would be just as well spent if we cut the amount spent on the military in half and gave $500,000 each to 1,000 people chosen at random off the street.