Dell-Joey-Riot

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by joeydb

Defense is the ONLY thing liberals ever want to cut. Give surrender a chance...

Believe it or not, there is common ground. I'm a conservative and I support national defense, and more is better to a point (emphasis intended).

However, besides getting out of Afghanistan, I'd be the first to point out that we never should have went into Iraq under George W. Bush. How did Colin Powell make that presentation to the U.N. that showed evidence for "Weapons of Mass Destruction"? Somebody really screwed up.

But even aside from that - how long is too long to maintain an American "tripwire" force on the 38th parallel? I think 60 years is plenty, don't you guys? What did deployment, support, hardware, supplies, etc. cost over 60 years? Or, since Korea was "U.N. Police Action", let's bill the U.N. (a.k.a other countries) for the costs including a profit for us. This at the same time as we reduce our payments to the U.N. from 23% of their operating capital down to the lowest contributing large nations of around 11%.

more is better? are you seriously advocating spending more on defense than we do now?

if we were to have a smaller military, not going into iraq would be a reality. but hey, we have all these soldiers, sailors and airmen, so we use them.

have you actually looked to see just how much we spend each year on defense? what portion of the federal budget goes to defense? how our spending matches up to the next nine largest militaries? most of the next nine are our allies. two of the nine are china and russia. russia's spending is equal to france. or to england.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_expenditures

i've posted the above before.


note this graph:

defense graph.png


that's our spending compared to the next four largest militaries.

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Danzig

more is better? are you seriously advocating spending more on defense than we do now?

if we were to have a smaller military, not going into iraq would be a reality. but hey, we have all these soldiers, sailors and airmen, so we use them.

have you actually looked to see just how much we spend each year on defense? what portion of the federal budget goes to defense? how our spending matches up to the next nine largest militaries? most of the next nine are our allies. two of the nine are china and russia. russia's spending is equal to france. or to england.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_expenditures

i've posted the above before.


note this graph:

Attachment 2072


that's our spending compared to the next four largest militaries.

Cut it to 300 and it still is more then double. But then Dell will say if you do that you will get invaded

If you fight smarter by using drones which are much cheaper then boots on the ground or bombing from a mile up and some innocent civilian gets killed then damn you because an innocent civilian was killed. When you counter with how many innocent civilians get killed in a ground war or bombing from a mile up you get crickets. I would say logic dictates that many more innocent civilians are killed by conventional warefare.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by jms62

Cut it to 300 and it still is more then double. But then Dell will say if you do that you will get invaded

If you fight smarter by using drones which are much cheaper then boots on the ground or bombing from a mile up and some innocent civilian gets killed then damn you because an innocent civilian was killed. When you counter with how many innocent civilians get killed in a ground war or bombing from a mile up you get crickets. I would say logic dictates that many more innocent civilians are killed by convential warefare.

certainly was true in ww 2.

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

22,426,600 to 25,487,500 military deaths

37,585,300 to 54,594,000 civilian deaths.

and no one will invade us. that would be suicide. yeah, we could cut defense in half, and still outspend the next four countries, two of which are allies.

also, when you look at our navy alone, which a power would have to go thru....it would be impossible.

we have about a dozen carriers, as well as who knows how many other ships that could also be used as small carriers for our harrier jets.
china will continue to flex it's muscles, but it doesn't even have one operational carrier, or any pilots that know how to land on one sitting still, let alone one that's out at sea.

some say entitlements are the third rail, i think it's defense. it's obscene what we spend in that one area.

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Danzig

more is better? are you seriously advocating spending more on defense than we do now?

if we were to have a smaller military, not going into iraq would be a reality. but hey, we have all these soldiers, sailors and airmen, so we use them.

have you actually looked to see just how much we spend each year on defense? what portion of the federal budget goes to defense? how our spending matches up to the next nine largest militaries? most of the next nine are our allies. two of the nine are china and russia. russia's spending is equal to france. or to england.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_expenditures

i've posted the above before.


note this graph:

Attachment 2072


that's our spending compared to the next four largest militaries.

When I said more is better up to a point, that was just a principle. I did not mean that in reference to today's level not being enough. I would let the experts tackle that one.

But I am serious about the 60 years and counting in Korea. What's the end-strategy for that deployment?

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by joeydb

When I said more is better up to a point, that was just a principle. I did not mean that in reference to today's level not being enough. I would let the experts tackle that one.

But I am serious about the 60 years and counting in Korea. What's the end-strategy for that deployment?

there isn't one. just like us still have a military presence in germany and japan. we have a fleet based in bahrain. why? because we can i guess. and we're paying thru the nose for all of it.