but to insist that you need 1,700 fighter aircraft when other needs are of a much higher priority, is stupid and a direct result of the much too powerful military-industrial complex and the fighter jock mentality that infects Air Force leadership.

I'm just reporting. You decide. But you read Quickstrategy's post upthread and you know this anyway.

so long as they can claim to be able to fight one major war or two major regional conflicts at the same time...

And a whole bunch of LICs and covert ops all over the place. Check the combat aircraft inventory of the PLA and the Russians and that should give you w rough guesstimate of how many aircraft of what type they'll want, assuming we have the edge in advanced technologies, you can factor that in. I honestly think the problem is the waste, graft and corruption in the procurement and acquisition process. The UK just changed their procurement system that and allegedly has the most competitive and cost effective system around now. That may not be the case but it can't be worse than ours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Procurement_Agency

[HRH]: Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Too bad nobody mentions that we are talking about two different tax regimes....

Oh, we know that, Sh**ter. Capital gains and other passive income is taxed less that the stuff people earn by actually working...

... Nor does anyone mention that the top bracket isn't the effective rate, ...

The "top bracket" isn't 17.7%. That was what Buffett says he paid, not his marginal tax rate.

... or that capital gains aren't subject to FICA....

Nor is income >> $100K. Which is [in part] why his secretary is paying a greater percentage of her income in taxes. Geez, you're stoopid.

... No, all we hear is that a billionaire pays a smaller rate than his secretary. Horrors! Off with their heads!

Ignorance is angst.

But stoopidity is 4evah. As you demonstrate on a daily basis.

Cheers,

But I believe that to go ahead and remove that regime, to then temporarily occupy Russia, to change it from a communist regime to some type of national socialist governance will then give us a geopolitical advantage in that region to change the status quo, which will affect France, it will affect the relationship between England and the United States, it will affect the Polish terrorist organizations.

And then, with the resources from the Caucasus, the oil, for example, will cause it to be able to transition very quickly and actually cause a big change, I think, in Europe.

Hmmm ...

Yes, waste, graft and corruption are a problem. I’m questioning the assumption that we have to be prepared for one major war and two minor conflicts at the same time. If we keep saying we have to be prepared for war, when we will start saying we need to be preparing for peace. We are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the military-industrial complex and the need to keep creating threats. When we have massive forces, others feel the need. When we have massive amounts of WMD and means to deliver it, others feel the need. Until we change our neocon-threat thinking, others will be forced to accommodate our thinking. We have to take the lead by setting a schedule and drawing down our thinking and forces and that won’t happen as long as the military-industrial complex rules and controls our politics.

And when we have so much force capability and elect idiots and ego-driven maniacs, we will be supporting the haves in a war with the have nots. We are losing the economic war to countries with a labor and resource advantage, when so much of our national treasure goes to our so called “defense.

What the fuck good is an F22 stealth fighter when you're fighting what amount to basically nomadic goat herders.

It's rude to talk that way about the Iranians.

Holly, it's what he represents, namely that the powers that be finally see a future of global competition for resources, and they see it as increasingly incompatible with the aspirations of a growing world population, and with democratic political institutions. They also see it -- in the United States, at least, which is of most concern to me -- increasingly in military terms, possibly because military power is just about the only form of power which we can wield without concerning ourselves with what others might do.

I suspect that they also realize that our window of opportunity to use that power is shrinking -- PNAC, for example, was shockingly explicit in that regard. We must seize what we can while we can and hold it. Petraeus -- the usual flim-flam about political as well as military solutions aside -- appears to agree with them. More to the point his apparent successes in Iraq are tantalizing, in that he appears to know what to do next. He doesn't, of course, but by now even the Cheneys of our New American Century are grasping at straws.

If you don't believe that the fortified embassy in Baghdad is the new model for administrative centers around the world -- including here -- just look at the White House. For all practical purposes, it's now a bunker, and has been for some time, even before 9/11. If you don't believe that the police are becoming a domestic military, just ask Aycharaych, or look at how SWAT teams have spread to even the smallest towns in the country, or how they dress when they go out among the people.

Its getting to the point where you don't trust anybody on anything.

That is the larger point that can easily be overlooked. Just as the Age of Information can readily be transformed into and identified as the Age of Misinformation, so can the supposed Age of Belief be transformed into and identified as the Age of Disbelief.

When no authority is credible, society is splintered and destroyed even if its veins, sinews, and bowels are intact. Science yields to junk science, the media are disbelieved and watched for entertainment, and never mind what that monkey in a flight suit is saying.

The result is that those who satisfy our basic material urges are the only authority remaining. The public sphere dies, to be replaced with gated communities, cable TV, megachurches, consumption, and wage slavery. Sound familiar?