GOT HEALTHCARE? Obama Says the US Will CONTINUE to Maintain the WORLD'S STRONGEST MILITARY

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Obama Says US Military Will Change, But Remain World's Strongest
By Al Pessin
Washington
12 March 2009

President Barack Obama says the United States will continue to maintain the strongest military in the world and that it will focus more on unconventional threats. But the president also told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington that the country needs to improve its ability to deliver civilian aid and advice abroad in order to prevent wars.



Speaking to a largely military gathering as he dedicated a new building at the university, President Obama made this pledge.



"Now make no mistake, this nation will maintain our military dominance," he said. "We will have the strongest armed forces in the history of the world. And we will do whatever it takes to sustain our technological advantage and to invest in the capabilities that we need to protect our interests, and to defeat and deter any conventional enemy."



"We must understand different languages and different cultures," he said. "We must study determined adversaries and developing tactics. That's the education that is done within the walls of this university. And that is the work that must be done to keep our nation safe."

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-12-voa60.cfm

"Over-grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." --George Washington (1732-1799), 1st US President

" conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . 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." --Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US President, Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961

"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear." --General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951

[Orrex]

1. Maybe he means that he'll cut military spending by 55%

And we'd still have the world's strongest military...

[Richard Steele]

4. Dammit! You know how I hate it when you read my mind!

But it's such an important point, I can't really be mad
at you for making it first.

People really need to realize that "maintaining the World's strongest military"
does NOT require us to maintain current military spending levels.

Not even close.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. Not much chance of that

Pentagon spending to rise 4%

by Demetri Sevastopulo and Daniel Dombey in Washington, Financial Times

February 26 2009 18:37 | Last updated: February 26 2009 18:37

President Barack Obama wants Congress to increase the Pentagon budget by 4 per cent in 2010 to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Obama requested $533.7bn (€416bn, £369bn) for the Pentagon base budget. The new commander-in-chief also asked for $130bn to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010, and $75.5bn in extra spending for 2009.

The size of the budget means the Pentagon would rank as the world’s 17th largest economy – between the Netherlands and Turkey – if it were a country. If approved by Congress, defence spending in 2010 will average $21,046 a second.

While Mr Obama has pledged to clamp down on expensive weapons programmes, including his own Marine One presidential helicopter, he resisted calls to reduce the main defence budget. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs, and other senior officers have argued that the US needs to keep defence spending above 4 per cent of GDP.

<snip>

http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=18552

[Orrex]

9. I thought that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don't count as military spending?

I mean, I'm sure that's what I was told for most of the past ~7 years...

[TheWraith]

10. Which is as opposed to the 13% increase they were slated for in the previous budget.

Look, we get that you're looking for any excuse to trash Obama, but you don't get to make shit up.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

14. Heh?

Where was the made up stuff?

Facts were produced.

Someone up thread suggested a cut in the military budget by the Obama admin might be in the works while maintaining the strongest military. I simply pointed out the well known fact that the Obama admin plans to increase the budget and used a source to back that up.

A 4% increase is less than a 13% increase but it is still an increase. Is that wrong?

So please tell me what was 'made up'?

[blues90]

16. yea good old america

Lets just keep supporting a massive killing machine which many americans are so damn proud of.

I'm so sick of the entire thing that I could explode . All we have done it attack countries so we can keep our damn stuff and use 1/3 of the worlds resources.

I wish I was neve born in this country because it stands for nothing but greed and lies and it just continues to do so.

Yea just keep building cars and crap and do keep all the super sized box stores lite up 24/7 and drive your assess off you damn fools , drive, drive , drive.

all my 60 years I have never been a consumer of shit I don't need and drive only when absolutely necessary and plan the rips so I use as little as possible.

People here are not people their horders and freaks with so sort of twisted mindset that life revolves around new stuff.

I am truely ashamed to be an american.

All we do is buy into elections and see the same old promises fail time and time again and get nowhere.

For what we've done collectively we should fail and suffer for it and I could give a shit what anyone has to say with out god bless america shit .

[L0oniX]

2. I suppose you could say that anyone who joins the military is working against national health care.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

3. Or...

...was subjected to an economic draft.

[Richard Steele]

I could say that, but I won't...because it's ridiculously untrue.

I suspect that's the point you were making there, no?

[Cleita]

6. We can have both. We must have both.

Lack of good health care means lack of a good military. Ask Caesar.

[blindpig]

32. Why must we have the largest military in history?

There is no good reason unless you consider imperial domination of the planet a good reason.

There is no good reason unless you think fattening the wallets of the Merchants of Death a good thing.

Fuck Caesar, those senators were slimy dogs but they had the right idea.

[Cleita]

34. We need to cut the waste in spending in the military. They never seem to be audited

to be made accountable for their expenditures. Otherwise I have nothing against it. Quite honestly the military build up after WWII employed a lot of people, gave manufacturers a lot of business, and in many parts of the country supported the economies of many towns. I lived in what was called a base town in California for about a decade between 1946 and 1955. Most of the town was employed by the base and the businesses in the town benefitted from the money the base employees and military spent in it. All four of my male cousins went into either the air force or navy as a condition of the draft. It gave them an opportunity to learn a skill that they could use after their military duty to earn a living, where they wouldn't of had any because there was no expectation back then for them to go to college.

[blindpig]

38. Hardly a good enough reason.

Jobs & skills? As though there were no better way to achieve these without maintaining and growing the largest war machine in history?

As though we could not apply those enormous resources towards real human needs? Really, your answer is so lame and wrong as to be astounding, if I had not been around here for years and seen every stripe of apologists for the ruling class.

[Cleita]

39. Those were the best years in America. There was a big middle class and prosperity.

Even the poor people I knew had homes and cars. Military were coming home and going to college thanks to the GI bill becoming the first generation in many families to go to college and become professionals, so that they could give their kids the same opportunities. I am against needless wars. I think we should be very militarily prepared, but war should be a very last resort and never should we invade and attack a country for economic gain. The best peacetime that we had was during the Eisenhower presidency. There was a cold war because Eisenhower would not engage Russia in a war, however, it was necessary to be prepared particularly since both sides had developed nukes. You just can't not have a military these days, however, I would like to see more of an emphasis on peace time pursuits like space exploration.

[blindpig]

40. I don't know what your post has to do with what I posted.

I was not referring to the halcyon days of American global dominance, something which never could have occurred if every other major industrial nation was not in shambles. Let's talk about the here and now. We could provide all sorts of advantages to our people if we weren't pissing away a fortune every minute on things which serve no good purpose. It is a crying waste of resources and labor. And it was back then too.

[Cleita]

41. Well, never mind. You were talking about bad military and I was talking

about how it has worked in the past and could work in the future as good military, but I won't post any more if it bothers you.

[blindpig]

42. Please don't hold back for me.

By all means, tell me about the 'good military'. And while you're at it tell the peoples of Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and so many more. And tell the millions of Americans without health care too.

The benefits which you rhapsodize about are a drop in the bucket compared to the waste and harm they bring to the masses of people, here and throughout the world.

[Cleita]

43. I'm not rhapsodizing about anything. I'm telling you how a strong military

can function for the benefit of Americans and still keep us safe and not have to answer the call of war unless there is no choice. This period of time happened during Eisenhower's administration, a war veteran and a General. He warned against the abuses that could arise and that did arise under subsequent Presidents in the way military is used. You forgot Korea on your list, another war we never belonged in. I wish we could spend all that money we spend on the military for health care and education, but that would be naive. When a nation that has nice stuff and things other nations want, it is vulnerable to those other nations coming and trying to get it from them. That's what we attempted to do in Iraq. That's what Hitler tried to do in Europe. That's what Russia and China would like to do with us if they get a chance. Yes, they are still a problem and why tempt them by weakening our military?

[blindpig]

44. Oh, they are coming for our 'stuff'.

And for that reason we've got troops in 150 countries. For that reason we've got 20,00 nuke warheads. For that reason we've got enough navy to dominate the planet. A little overkill, don't ya think?

The American people, on American soil, could be massively defended for 10% of the current amount. American investments overseas could not. But why should American blood and treasure be wasted to enrich the 10%?

[Cleita]

45. I agree with you that what we are doing is wrong but we can't just disband

the military, throw on saffron robes and hope for the best.

[blindpig]

46. Screw the saffron robes.

Please don't mistake me for a pacifist, I just pick my fights. It is not as though I am advocating unilateral disarmament, rather nonaggression and sanity. A strong Guard and Reserve, a small standing army, a navy proportional to our coastline, an air force to defend our air space, that is more than enough. All of the rest is imperialism, waste, the deprivation of the American people and the terror of the rest of the planet.

[Political Tiger]

7. "Worlds strongest military." And this is bad how?

n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

15. The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex
Submitted by Chip on Fri, 2009-01-30 16:52

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children."



http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/39427

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. Gee - we didn't even make the pie chart, but then again, we got that silly health-care thing going

.
.
.

Dumm wimpy Canuks us - - :dunce:

[eridani]

19. It's bad because being an imperial power is too damned expensive n/t

[PVnRT]

21. It's unsustainable

The U.S. is a declining empire, suffering from the same type of economic malaise and imperial hubris that downed Britain, the Soviet Union, the Dutch and Spain before it. We can either crash hard or make the letdown gentle, one way being to stop pretending that we need to have an imperial army stationed across the globe.

[Mari333]

8. same old SHIT.

I HOPE the country goes BANKRUPT. its the only way it will learn. chest thumping adolescent empire building macho juvenile bullshit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Until the empire fails...

you were surprised? Me, not at all

[stillcool]

12. what a shocker!

I wish I could grasp how big the Defense/Intelligent Agencies are, how much money ..including the intelligence budget which is classified, the Pentagon Corp. spends, how much money it takes to maintain those thousand or so foreign bases, and how much is made in the arms trade. Probably puts AIG to shame.

[lonestarnot]

13. what an awer too.

[leftstreet]

17. C'mon. He HAS to say these things to get elected

}(

[Orwellian_Ghost]

20. That's the perception

Not sure it's true but if it is what does that say?

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. Running for re-election already, is he?

[TBF]

22. K&R n/t

[Soylent Brice]

23. ASIA - Other??? where the hell is China on that list???

i'm sure our future masters have an army, no?

[blindpig]

27. Pay attention

China's slice of the pie is 8%, compared to our 48%. If they are our future masters then it will be because they hired us, not defeated us.

[dionysus]

28. becase it wouldn't makes us as look bad if he included china

:shrug:

[Soylent Brice]

49. that was my thinking.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

25. Good News! GOBAMA!!!!!!

Damn right he should make sure we still have the world's strongest military.

[WI_DEM]

26. I'd like you to show me a U.S. President who wouldn't say that?

who will say, "We're going to have the second best military" or something like that. In other words, it will never happen.

[blindpig]

29. You are of course correct.

And a perfect condemnation of the whole stinking system, imho.

Institutionalize militarism is good for nothing but generals, arms manufacturers and capitalism in general.

Best to throw the whole lot out.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

31. Well then

going beyond your original point, which seems to have a great possibility of being accurate, what does that say?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. The "land of the free and home of the brave" has to be protected from endless array of bogeymen.

Even to the point of bankruptcy and collapse.

[Zywiec]

33. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

:patriot:

[Posteritatis]

35. Hyperbolic kneejerks aside, the US military could shrink a lot while still holding the #1 spot (nt)

[Orwellian_Ghost]

36. Why the insistence

that the US has to be the number one war machine?

What's up with that?

[anonymous171]

37. Well, we could still maintain the strongest military in the world if we cut it down. nt

[steelmania75]

47. What pisses me off about that chart is all the defense spending that has increased over....

...the past eight years, but you don't hear the GOP saying that's pork, or the War on Drugs, which costs the US billions as well.

[blindpig]

48. kick n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

50. Guns or butter