Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (80140)	5/17/2007 8:20:30 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Our involvement in Iraq now is authorized by the UN and is at the request of the Iraqi govt.

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (80140)	5/18/2007 9:53:41 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

The war is not authorized by the UN 1 - It was The UN authorized use of force against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The conflict never formally ended, it just had a cease fire. The terms of the cease fire where violated, so renewal of force was authorized. 2 - It doesn't have to be. The US is a sovereign nation, not a sub unit of a UN/world government. 3 - Our current involvement is at the request of the Iraqi government. (Of course that doesn't apply to the initial invasion but points 1 and 2 do) The increase in defense expenditure caused by troop salaries can be easily absorbed by cutting some wasteful weapons programs. Salaries are one of the largest parts of the defense budget. And spending on new weapons has actually been artificially low. Reagan bought so many new weapons that we have been able to control spending on acquisition. Now some of those weapons are starting to get old. And in particular the weapons that where not replaced at that time, but that are hold overs from before are getting old. We are already spending more money than most of the nations in the world We certainly aren't spending more resources, and probably aren't spending more money. China and other countries fund a lot of their military spending off budget. Also resources go in to the military besides money. In the US we pay soldiers who volunteer. In China and many other countries they conscript soldiers, seizing and using assets that never have to show up on any budget. In any case requirements for military spending are not purely determined by the amount of money other countries spend. You can't look at what other countries spend, and simply from that determine that we spend too much or too little. so we won't face any adverse effects by cutting some of those programs. That's only correct if more people dying isn't considered to be an adverse effect.