"The US Government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

-Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

No, what's truly shocking is that the increase in defense spending is coupled with cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.

Bush is a genius! Reduce healthcare funding by simply killing more Americans.

Worse than all the usual peacemongering comments is that the expenses are to fight IED and other stupid devices instead of weapons like UAV's, jets, and tanks that actually demand respect from countries like China, who is our real problem.

You know what they say, "A billion here a trillion there, Soon it'll add up to real money!"

All of the alarming statements you cite have been true since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Charles.

Lord knows I don't like the man, but Bush has nothing to do with it. By these measures, we were living "in the teeth of hell" during the Clinton years, too.

For all the money that we've been pouring down the "national defense" rathole since 1941 you'd think we'd get more for our money. I am by no means a "peacenik", but I hate the stupid waste it represents, and how everyone is afraid to question it, lest they be considered "unpatriotic"

But hey, look - it's the Blue Angels!

As a portion of our entire economy, if this spending actually made us safer, it would be well worth the expense.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of this spending does not make us safer, and in fact often contributes to the insecurities and instability that make us less safe.

We have a strictly "offensive" military. The euphomism "Department of DEFENSE" is laughable and has been since after WWII. This budget maintains fwd bases, quick strike forces, space based intelegence gathering and 12 aircraft carriors (not counting smaller escort carriers). There are a few countries with one or two small airfcraft carriers. we have fucking 12 of them. If only our commitment to educate, feed, and provide healthcare to our people was 1/10th of our commitment to bludgening our neighbors into submission.... sigh.

longball @ 9. The "Department of Defense" moniker dates from 1947. The government adopted it at the same time the Cold War build-up began in earnest. Previously, the Navy was a separate cabinet department. "Defense" has always been a euphemism.

And they're asking us to pay for a 15% increase in Homeland Security spending so they can afford more wiretaps and datamining programs.

You know, if we took the money - just this year's Iraq spending, nothing else - and spent it on building and purchasing and installing American-manufactured wind farms, solar farms, solar cells for southern rooftops, tidal, and geothermal energy ... we would reduce our oil consumption so much we could literally stop importing oil from the ENTIRE Middle East.

Sad how short-sighted we are.

This doesn't even begin to account for the massive (and I mean massive) burden hitting the VA system right now.

90% of all severely injured soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are surviving their wounds. This is a massive increase compared to other recent conflicts. For example, about 75% survived severe injury in the Vietnam and first Iraq war.

It's great that so many more soldiers are surviving, but in general they survive with severe and disabling injury. We better get serious about providing them care, care that will last for decades and be very expensive.

@13 - don't remind me, and they won't even show us the pictures of the wounded - but I see them every few weeks at the VA. No kids of Bush or Cheney though.

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