President Obama is making a visit to the Pentagon today to outline a new strategy for the Department of Defense as some of the biggest defense budget cuts since the end of the Cold War are coming down the pike. As the Washington Post reports, “The U.S. military…will consolidate missions and downsize the ambitions of the armed forces as they adjust to a new era of austerity.” Over the next decade – the Pentagon is facing as much as a trillion dollars in cuts. There are hundreds of mansions in the suburbs of Virginia – just outside Washington, DC – belonging to people who’ve made millions – even billions – off of war. That shouldn’t happen – and it was exactly what President Eisenhower warned us about fifty years ago when he talked about the growing influence of the military industrial complex. Time to put an end to our war economy.
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Since its a time of war and the Constitution is suspended until further notice, that means homeless veterans can be billeted in those mansions.
Since its a time of war and the Constitution is suspended until further notice, that means homeless veterans can be billeted in those mansions.
There is plenty of waste in the military. As a former Marine, I have seen it. But we must have the ability to respond to attack. We simply had to respond to 911. You cannot allow the murder of 3000 Americans who did nothing but show up for work. If they deserved to die, then so did you and I. We gave the Taliban an opportunity to avoid war and cooperate with our efforts to eliminate Al Qaeda. They refused and continued to offer aid and comfort. We had no choice.
That said, we have grown accustomed to using our military for offensive operations rather than defense. We need to start using them as the last resort rather than the first.
Since its a time of war and the Constitution is suspended until further notice, that means homeless veterans can be billeted in those mansions.
There is plenty of waste in the military. As a former Marine, I have seen it. But we must have the ability to respond to attack. We simply had to respond to 911. You cannot allow the murder of 3000 Americans who did nothing but show up for work. If they deserved to die, then so did you and I. We gave the Taliban an opportunity to avoid war and cooperate with our efforts to eliminate Al Qaeda. They refused and continued to offer aid and comfort. We had no choice.
I agree we simply had to respond to 9/11. I question whether the military response was the right one...then or ever. When it happened, we had enough world wide sympathy, we could have done something much more humane. Answering the deaths of innocents with the deaths of more innocents makes us all terrorists. No choice my ass.
Unless, of course, a shadowy group of US funded Saudi terrorists happens to kill some of our citizens. Right? Then we should attack Afganistan and Irak.
In the second sentence, you seem to have principles that you willingly disregarded in the first.
Since its a time of war and the Constitution is suspended until further notice, that means homeless veterans can be billeted in those mansions.
There is plenty of waste in the military. As a former Marine, I have seen it. But we must have the ability to respond to attack. We simply had to respond to 911. You cannot allow the murder of 3000 Americans who did nothing but show up for work. If they deserved to die, then so did you and I. We gave the Taliban an opportunity to avoid war and cooperate with our efforts to eliminate Al Qaeda. They refused and continued to offer aid and comfort. We had no choice.
I agree we simply had to respond to 9/11. I question whether the military response was the right one...then or ever. When it happened, we had enough world wide sympathy, we could have done something much more humane. Answering the deaths of innocents with the deaths of more innocents makes us all terrorists. No choice my ass.
Unless, of course, a shadowy group of US funded Saudi terrorists happens to kill some of our citizens. Right? Then we should attack Afganistan and Irak.
In the second sentence, you seem to have principles that you willingly disregarded in the first.
Do you view the Taliban and Al Qaeda as innocents?
Do you view their children as targets? I say no. You say yes.
Do you view their children as targets? I say no. You say yes.
Please don't speak for me. If I want to "say yes" to anything I will do it myself.
Do you view their children as targets? I say no. You say yes.
Please don't speak for me. If I want to "say yes" to anything I will do it myself.
You already said "yes" when you said we simply had to respond to 9-11 militarily. When you defended the killing of children to, arguably, also kill people responsible or people LIKE those responsible for the deaths of Americans, you justified those young people dying in horrible ways.
Look, rigel1, I'm not trying to pick on you. I think there are a lot of Americans who don't consider what their lust for revenge over 9-11 means in the big picture. I think that is because relatively little war has been brought to American shores, unless you're a native American.
All I can do is hope that those who wish war on others have it brought to their own homes so they can understand what they advocate. When Americans have to pick up the pieces of their own children, instead of viewing war as that which precedes parades and "honor" guards, we will begin to understand where we've gone wrong as a nation. Americans love feeling safe, as we cower behind the world's largest killing machine, but we're not safe. If only we understood what it's like to be on the other side of it, change might be possible. Americans will be safe when the whole world is safe from us.