The Folly of War

I ran across this NYT article yesterday, and have been thinking about it ever since:



Whatever happened to the domino theory? Why are the Communist Vietnamese no longer an evil threat to the US? What has changed about them in this respect since the end of the war? Whatever it was we were trying to 'save' the South Vietnamese from, it is obvious that they've done just fine without us.

Just three decades later, many things have changed. But some things are the same: Many vets experinced lasting emotional changes. Arms and legs were lost, and they are still gone. Of the 58,226 brave US soldiers who died, all are still dead.

Our "leaders" have made alternative arrangements for providing the excuse/convincing the people that we need to spend Trillions to feed our national military-industrial complex.



Our military spending is six times greater than that of the next biggest spender (China), and we account for 47% (nearly half) of the entire global expenditure on military "defense". This year alone, every household in the United States spent $20,000.00 dollars on our military--and yes, we had to borrow to do it. One day in the future, we will have seen "an epic increase in taxes" to make up for our mounting debt. Even if taxes are restored to a fair rate for the wealthy at that time, it will still be a disproportionately heavy burden on the average citizen.

What would you do with that $20K?

Anyway, the point was--Vietnam and 'the Communists' are no longer needed to keep Americans scared into spending this way; we now have the everpresent threat of "Terrorism" (which, owing to Bush's policies and actions, has been stimulated and given all possible assistence to ensure it's continued growth while, obviously, no real effort has been made to reduce the threat). Amazing... and we fall for it every time.

Caveat: I just realized the $20K was the amount for FY 2003--it's probably worse this year

Edit: added Caveat.

And that's $20K every year! It's a lot easier to relate to than half a trillion.