what happens when the US outspends the rest of the world's defence budget?

A link from the CiF post I mentioned below reveals this little gem of information. Its always puzzled me how the Americans never object to the amounts of money their government spends on weapons and the military-industrial complex when they have no public health care and little decent public schooling. I suppose that's what having a shite education system does for the ruling elite; it keeps the populace ignorant of the wider world and amenable to simple emotional manipulation by dissemination of outright propaganda. That a Wikipedia article should exist describing this phenomenon and yet for the subject to not be a major point of contention in recent and past elections in the US is indiciative of the enormous success of this policy.

Educated people see through the bullshit, question what their government tells them, seek information from objective sources and generally don't vote for morons like Blair and Bush. Its that simple.

By this standard the number of intelligent people in the UK and US are pathetically low. Oh dear.


Back on the subject of weapons, I feel depressed that the US administration seems to be forcing its way into a new cold war against Russia and even Europe too, which the yanks seem to view with utter contempt for our (relatively) liberal, socialist politics and habitat of pointedly criticising the bullshit that gets churned out by the Whitehouse. The combination of fear of foreigners and a massive defence budget bode ill. Particularly as that nation still has no national policy in place for combatting climate change. Indeed, attempts to push through legislation at the local and state level are being thwarted by the central administration.

this is really fucking scary

The Guardian's article declaring that open warfare could erupt imminently is an appalling piece of journalism. Firstly it does not condemn the open aggression on the part of the US. It does not question any of the US's groundless excuses for their aggression and it simply comments that Gordon Brown will be faced with some sort of dilemma as to with whom to side in any ensuing confrontation- the answer to which should be obvious to anyone with the slightest trace of humanity. But the most alarming piece is the open statement by some ex-CIA source that the decision to go to war has already been taken without any evidence being presented to support such a threat to the already badly destabilised global security situation.

Basically, this is an open declaration of the of editorial team's indifference to another war of aggression by the US.

More on the US escalation.
More.
More.
Possible consequences.

why America is wrong

Gabriel Kolko tell it like it is.

"In part, expensive equipment and incredibly inflated military budget is premised on the traditional assumption that owning complex weapons gives America power, which is determined by arms in hand rather than what happens in a nation's politics and society. In fact, the reverse is often the case, especially when enemies find the weaknesses in this sort of technology and exploit it – as they increasingly have done over the past decades. Then the cost of fighting wars becomes a liability – and America's technological military an immense weakness when the government has huge deficits or lacks funds to repair its aging public infrastructure – a fact that was highlighted when the collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis earlier this month led to the striking revelation that 70,000 bridges in the U.S. are rated deficient. The Vietnam War should have resolved the issue of the relevance of technology to the America's military ambitions, but it did not. The real question is: why?"

Its nice when someone sums up your own feelings on a subject as concisely and eloquently as this. You see, I'm not anti-American, I'm actually concerned for the fate of America. The people of that country should not have to tolerate the situation they are currently in and there are individuals in the current administration who are criminally insane and need to be stopped for the good of America and the rest of the world.

"We are at point zero in the application of American power in the world: the U.S. cannot win its extremely expensive adventures nor will it abstain from policies which increasingly lead to disasters for the nations in which it intervenes and for itself as well."

(my bold)