Quote:
Originally Posted by Ric
Look at these figures seriously.
With the world in economic meltdown is it right for the US to still be spending over half of its countries wealth each year on it's military. Do they even really need it? Whilst millions suffer in poverty as a result.
I think youll find the figures for Britain are incorrect. I live along the same stretch of ocean as the largest naval base in the country and they just got a whole bunch of new boats. That must have cost a bit. Mind you, we dont need to spend so much. Were better at using what we have already got.
A friend of mine is a Royal Marine. On recent shore leave he was with a group of americans. One of them carried a card, given out by his commanding officer. On the front it said 'Do Not Drink, Fight or Gamble With The British' and on the back it said 'Because You Will Loose' I found this very amusing.
What is the point of a country having the largest army if they dont use it effectively? In WW2 the canadians were with us from day 1. We had to wait years for the yanks to get on board. Largely due to Nazi sympathisers living in the U.S. Dont forget there was a national vote in U.S history as to wether the predominant language of the country should be German or English. George W Bushes grandfather provided Nazi germany with a third of the Iron and steel they needed to wage world war, fact!
Anyway I am going off topic. The main point I want to raise is, can the US army justify this spending? With more and more becoming uneployed and loosing their livlihoods every day. We are the ones who will suffer the fallout of this economic disaster us and our children. It could all be solved with a simple fix. Cut military spending by 50%.
|
The simple answer to the start and end of your point is this is what we spent in 2007, long before the whole economic mess started and I believe we are trying to cut back on military spending.
But at this point we are like the sole superpower, and the unofficial guardian of the Western Hemisphere.