i understand that he's mentioned increasing the number of troops we have ready. as well as expanding their duties to include more humanitarian and diplomatic missions. but it is presumptuous to assume that means he will be spending more money. there are countries with larger armies than america, but they aren't spending more money than us. it all depends on how the money is spent. nobody is gonna get elected president of the united states in a post 9-11 world saying we should shrink the military. of course he's pandering. but he's also mentioned how much money we're wasting on a daily basis in iraq.
When you mean larger army, do you mean numerically larger? May I remind you that the Iraqi army was actually much larger than the US forces that took on them? Numbers don't mean shit in modern warfare. The US army is a remnant of the cold war. Most of it's weapons and tactics were developed to fight regular armies, not for counterinsurgency or police actions. Why do you think they are presently failing so miserably in Iraq, after so easily disposing of the Iraqi army? You can't fight terrorism with large tanks, heavy bombers, aircraft carriers and large numbers of nukes. Most of the US armed forces are useless for the kind of actions needed to fight terrorism. Police forces and intelligence gathering capabilities are much more effective. The sole purpose of your large military is insuring US hegemony. Your politicians have used the fear of terrorism as a justification for keeping your bloated, largely useless, military. I believe that the overkill spending on your military is in part responsible for your financial inability to adequately meet the problems of your cities and your educational requirements. In a time when infrastructure needed replacement, when there were increasing educational and social needs, your government was simultaneously cutting back taxes and over investing in nonproductive economic activity (i.e. the military). As a result, most western countries, which have spent a much smaller portion of their budget on their military, presently have better living standards than the US. 40 years ago, it was the other way around.
Actually, I believe Patrick was only commenting on what Obama had put forth, not defending it. That said, you have described the PNAC type neoconservative take on "modern warfare" and it has backfired terribly. Obama loves to urge for "boots on the ground" and the ability for the American military to fight on two fronts, because he hitched his star to the backlash against the Bush Administration early on.
As much as I agree that space exploration is a luxury, the military is a
grotesque wrong 100,000 new troops will definitely cost the US many more billions of dollars, not only in immediate costs, but for whatever they want them for. They are not expanding the military so that it can do less.
If he wanted to save money in Iraq he would offer to pull out entirely, but he will only remove the combat troops so that he can move them to Afghanistan so that they can "finish the job" (i.e. butcher as many Pashtun as will finally silence the recalcitrant Taliban - this will not happen, no matter what level of genocide is carried out there).
Regardless of who is elected, the struggle must continue beyond the election so that the U.S. does not go out with a bloody bang.
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