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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (175641)	10/1/2003 4:41:24 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578501

The criteria is that we don't have a sovereign enemy. That war is not imminent. That hostilities are not likely. That a serious challenger is not in the cards. Those are all facts are possible facts that factor in to the decision but they are not criteria for the decision. What level of defense spending would be enough and why? How can I answer that question without serious analysis. However, without being specific, the answer is much less than we have now. Enough to defend our country without having to be policeman to the world. Yes, I do but you don't see it because you are so clouded by antiquated thinking. There can be no point but your own. There are many nations on this planet that have very minimal defense spending and do very well. But they do have that minimal level of defense spending. When I say minimal, I saw in some article where our defense budget was larger than the rest of the world's. There is no reasonableness when it comes to our defense spending. In fact, our defense spending is greater than everyone else's combined. That statement really isn't true even though it isn't a lie. I've explained if before but basically in terms of purchasing power parity we don't spend more then everyone else combined. Also other countries throw a lot of resources at defense that are not in their defense budget. China is a good example of this. They put defense related funds in other budgets, plus they let the army run businesses and spend the profits, plus they draft people and pay them peanuts (even for China) using resources without actually using a lot of currency. North Korea is probably even worse, I'm not sure they even have a meaningful defense budget. The army just grabs the resources it needs. Its probably the same with some other third world dictatorships. Even if not entirely true, the fact that the statement is close to the truth is disturbing. You're simply bandying about words. Not at all. The sunk costs are already spent. No way to avoid them. The non-defense spending is foreign aid, not defense spending. If you think we should spend less on foreign aid then you will probably find other people to agree with you but it isn't defense spending. The money we are providing Iraq to help rebuild Iraq is not foreign aid....its part of the cost of doing war because of the way we did this war......attacking pre-emptively. ted