Fear Mongering Over Defense Budget Cuts

In their current campaign against automatic military spending cuts, Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Kelly Ayotte (NH) claim the reductions will be “devastating” to the U.S. military. But when asked to provide specifics on that claim on CNN this morning, McCain came up empty:

thinkprogress.org...

Did they say loss of jobs? Aren't republicans always going on about how the government doesn't create jobs?.... I guess they do whenever its convenient to say so.

These terrorist politicians want to siphon all the tax payer money towards corporate profits made from murdering people.

US Military Spending

I am definitely afraid of what happens...

If we don't stop spending.

Keep it mind that every lie is 80% truth, so yes it would be devastating the US military.

Perhaps it is time to spend our energy somewhere positive.

Mos Def said it best in 1999.

69 billion in the last 20 years
Spent on national defense but folks still live in fear

reply to post by RealSpoke


McCain=Warmonger!!! This guy needs to retire and play that popular wargame that everyone is playing on their PS3 and Xboxes!!

I was only a kid but I remember when Clinton was elected and all the fearmongering that occurred when he wanted to slash the military budget.

Sure enough everything was just fine, the economy was great, and we had a budget surplus. The nation didn't collapse, we werent invaded by foreign armies, an no animals were harmed in the making of military cuts.

There is no honest reason to have as much allocated to the military budget that we do.

Yup, fear mongering is exactly what it is.

But the military still has no problem spending $550.00 apiece on these 3" x 1" hunks of steel.



Hundreds of thousands of them.

Pentagon’s Black Budget Tops $56 Billion

Black Budget

The Defense Department just released its king-sized, $708 billion budget for the next fiscal year. Much of the proposed spending is fairly detailed — noting exactly how many helicopters the Pentagon plans to buy and how many troops it plans on playing. But about $56 billion goes simply to “classified programs,” or to projects known only by their code names, like “Chalk Eagle” and “Link Plumeria.” That’s the Pentagon’s black budget.

"Link Plumeria" is an interesting code name - The Plumeria Flower throws out a "False Flag" to attract insects.

Plumeria

Plumeria flowers are most fragrant at night in order to lure sphinx moths to pollinate them. The flowers have no nectar, and simply dupe their pollinators. The moths inadvertently pollinate them by transferring pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar.

I'm absolutely fine with slashing the defense budget. I think it needs to be done. We all know a ton of that money is wasted, or spent on dumbassery like the above poster pointed out, $550.00 for a hunk of metal.

Guy above me those Plumeria flowers sound like hussies.

Really do love the BS about defense spending some people try to play off the simple fact the majority of the Federal Budget goes to SS,Medicare,Medicaid.

Over 2 trillion dollars every year goes to those 3 that is not counting any other swww.usdebtclock.org... just exactly what is going to happen to those people who lose those jobs?

Oh yeah still get paid on social programs.

Fear mongering?

The rest of the world is arming and modernizing their militaries and the morons disarm this country much like what Clinton did.

See how long this country lasts with a "walmart military",

reply to post by zroth


It isn't even a large cut..It won't be devastating to the US military, it will just mean less in profits for the military-industrial complex.

But the magnitude of the cuts — millions of jobs, according to the AIA, and the industry’s destruction — is overblown, according to several senior industry executives. Even some of the declarations about the complete lack of guidance on how sequestration would be implemented are excessive, one senior executive said.

“It’s not that complicated,” the executive said. “There’s a little drama being played out. There’s a little fire for effect being played out.”

www.defensenews.com...

There is no such thing as the "military industrial complex" come on now think got to have an industrial base to have complex and since everything is made in China or the Eu that phrase is BS for anti corporate marxists.

Go on gut the military more and then come crying about the walter reids and Dawoods.

reply to post by neo96


What a surprise you support spending so much for "defense" spending. How is paying for military bases worldwide providing defense here at home?

How is it, your all for smaller government and less spending on social programs but when it comes to defense, your skills at determining how much we spend completely fail?

You really believe this?


its somehow our job and our responsibility to pay our taxes to police the world??

Originally posted by neo96
Really do love the BS about defense spending some people try to play off the simple fact the majority of the Federal Budget goes to SS,Medicare,Medicaid.

Over 2 trillion dollars every year goes to those 3 that is not counting any other swww.usdebtclock.org... just exactly what is going to happen to those people who lose those jobs?

Oh yeah still get paid on social programs.

Fear mongering?

The rest of the world is arming and modernizing their militaries and the morons disarm this country much like what Clinton did.

See how long this country lasts with a "walmart military",

edit on 6-8-2012 by neo96 because: (no reason given)

So... it's okay to have the military we do just because we spend more on stuff that actually does something?

Please, tell us all. What problems has the military solved that wasn't originally caused by our military? What problems has our mighty army solved that couldn't have been solved by simply not being dicks?

Seriously, I would fully support our military if it did what the founding fathers swore it would do which is simply to protect us. I see no protection now. I see "peacekeeping". I see drone strikes. I see invasion. I see guarding opium and oil. I see deals made with other nations to pimp out our soldiers on their behalves.

That is what I see. Show me something else.

reply to post by RealSpoke


I didn't add enough context.

The military complex is seek and destroy. Never lose. Kill or be killed, etc;

Any reduction is psychologically destructive to this machine.

Personally I am all for it and was just putting their perspective in my thought process.

IMO, war is obsolete. Nations are obsolete. Patriotism is a curse.

The time has come for humanity to push humanity forward and that will not happen with a bully controlling the land masses.

reply to post by LDragonFire


Sorry feel free to twist that post whatever way but believing in strong defense has saved this country more times that any person can count.

"Just to be perfectly clear" I want bases in this country like there use to be when i grew up that pumped billions of dollars in to local economies.

To add how hard is it to understand that technology developed in the 70s and 80s is the backbone of modern warfare?

People don't have cellphones or computers or cars as old as that crap.

Go on Gut the military it's what everyone wants but hey not like the posters in the thread are going to get shot and or bombed or anything else.

Sitting all safe and sound behind their monitors going evil defense corporations oh yeah the internet came from that spending just like the majority of all the other tech that we take for granted.

All this Money to Liberate Countries that are quite happy just the way they are.

Meanwhile Poverty and Homelessness is skyrocketing in The States.

America there is "No Soup for You!"

reply to post by Cuervo


Not even going to bother if people can't make the distinction of the military and the civilians who are in charge of them.

Has the military ever started a war?

Nope

The civilian "commander and chief" and his elected gestapo has.

reply to post by RealSpoke

Nice Thread Realspoke, So, I guess we're now getting down to who The Real Welfare Recipients are: Defense Contractors. BTW, A Nice Little Read is "War is a Racket" by Major General Smedley Butler USMC. Tells it like it is and was and seemingly will always be if we let these psychopaths keep ripping us off. Peace Buddy Arjunanda

On one hand I agree that the defense budget needs cuts. Major cuts. HUGE friggen cuts. I can't even imagine where the better part of a trillion dollars can be said to be going. The sheer numbers are absurd and beyond any sane attempt to make sense of. They're just too damn BIG for what we see actually being done.

We left Iraq just ahead of being defeated. I mean really, it got better because they FINALLY learned to just shut up, sit down and wait for us to say all is better...then we'd leave. I wonder though, does anyone leave the green zone to casually go shopping in a bazzar? I mean Americans... I'll bet not. I'll bet it's not even joked about. So.. I call it a step ahead of defeat.

Afghan isn't going well either. Crappy in fact. It's stalemate at best...and actual land area control doesn't look that stand offish to me. It looks damn near Soviet in how we have the population centers and anything outside it, is basically the land American troops are on that moment for control.

So where the heck is nearly a TRILLION dollars going?? yeah... It needs cuts alright, but not troops or their weapons or their systems. We need to cut the systems so damned expensive that we can barely AFFORD to risk 'em in combat. We need to find out what is taking this much. The entire federal GOVERNMENT ran on less than 1 trillion dollars annually for most of the 1980's and there were some real wonderous star wars kinda things going on.

reply to post by neo96

There is no such thing as the "military industrial complex"

No, we actually do. You have to be willingly blind to think otherwise.

I’ve been to hundreds of depressing media trade shows, and SOFEX’s salespeople are no different from the rest, except that their wares are designed to destroy things and kill people. I witnessed representatives from almost every nation spending millions of dollars on heavy munitions; I was wondering if the transactions were padded by foreign aid from the US and other countries.

I heard high-ranking soldiers say things like, “When I retire I’m going to be on the other side of the table—ha ha ha ha.” What this means is that it’s not uncommon for generals with government-controlled salaries around $100,000 a year to spend the twilight of their careers purchasing billions worth of munitions from arms companies who, in turn, offer these same senior officers state-side “consulting” gigs with multimillion-dollar salaries. It’s blatant payola, the whole thing so corrupt it borders on absurd. Absurdity, as it turned out, was a running theme of the conference.

www.vice.com...

reply to post by RealSpoke


Chips made in China say otherwise as well as shoulder fired rockets made in the Eu or 120 smooth bore main gun on the Abrahams designed in Germany etc.

People have no damn clue of what they are talking about the MIC does not exist.