War is a racket. The men who sacrificed their lives are nothing more than cannon fodder to the men running this country and the financial beneficiaries of these arms dealers. War is extremely profitable. The poor do the dying, while the rich get richer. When we don’t have any real enemies, we create them. War is peace.
The U.S. government is replacing a whole host of military equipment worn out after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as Cold War era hardware that is becoming obsolete. In 2015, the Pentagon’s top-100 contractors had obligated contracts worth $175 billion, according to government figures. Lockheed Martin, who are currently developing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, were the largest government contractor by far with $36.2 billion contracted. Of that, $29.4 billion was contracted for defense projects. The F-35 is the most expensive U.S. weapons system ever, costing some $400 billion and due to cost $1 trillion more over the course of its life cycle.
You will find more statistics at Statista
“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” ― Smedley D. Butler, War Is a Racket
Of all that money, ever think about how much of it goes to providing security to Europe and other countries instead of just the United States so they won’t have to bear the burden of paying for their own defense?
More of the same as far as defense spending, the military-industrial complex and interventionism is what scares me the most about Trump. To see him give a speech about increasing defense spending to make our military great again is scary.
Anon,
that is probably true and i realize you are trying to validate trump.
i have question(s) though, assume trump is elected and demands that our “allies” pay their fair share and they refuse. we pull our forces out and now they are stateside instead of over there.
Do you really think the budget and forces woudl be cut down and if not what do you think their focus would be?
TJF, but Trump is talking about having other countries pay a better portion of the cost. I saw an F-35 a couple of weeks ago, banking up on one wing low over Ft. Lauderdale airport. Wicked looking airplane. In town for the airshow. I think for the money, they just could have kept building F-22s.
Yous Democrats gonna be very sorry when it becomes obvious to yous that we spent so much on Welfare and not enough on Defense. Hell, like Trump says, we spend more on illegals than Vets. There are several Systems that the Russians have that are better than ours; just Democrats repeating the same old mistake that put us behind in WW1 and WW2. And equipment isn’t the only thing Democrats lack (re Johnson, Jimmie and Obama).
By the same logic, we shouldn’t have cops. If a neighborhood is peaceful, then we have to create violent criminals.
Companies make money by preparing for war. What of it? They thus have incentive to produce the highest quality and most innovative products. Do they all the time? No.
Can anyone think up something better or wave a magic wand and make every country on earth a bastion of peace and justice?
Arms dealers make money by promoting war. You must have a vested interest in the military industrial complex to be so pro arms dealers.
There is no country on earth that can invade our country. It’s called the Defense Dept, not the Wage Wars around the globe department.
You’ve revealed yourself to being a neo-con warmonger. Thanks for playing.
Warmoger Ops uses cops and criminals as his counterpoint. What a fucking dumbass response. The fucking War on Drugs is exactly that. Create fake criminals so you can sustain the corporate prison complex and keep hundreds of thousands of copfuks employed to intimidate and shakedown the citizens.
You’re special alright. You are either military, police or both. We know where your paycheck comes from.
Trump may talk about getting allies to pay us for their defense. He also has talked about making the military stronger but also making it cheaper. He also says he wants to increase defense spending, so who knows what his plans are. I try my best to not follow the reality tv-like shit show known as the presidential race, so I only saw the Donald say he wanted to increase defense spending. I should’ve know he would be on record saying the opposite and also a third approach on the same subject since he is an aspiring politician and none of them can ever keep all the lies straight all the time.
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Every student in the country should be required to read “War is a Racket”. It is extremely short, but to the point. The country is ruled by the military industrial complex.
I see that SpecOpsAlpha and Admin have struck up a collegial conversation. Heh.
Here’s a few cold, hard geopolitical facts.
1) America is blessed by two geographical allies called the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
2) America is blessed with sharing a 3,000 mile border with the best and friendliest neighbor on the planet. Can you spell Canada?
3) America has the most powerful navy, by a factor of 10, on Earth.
4) America has the most powerful nuclear triad (ICBMs, SLBMs, and intercontinental bombers), by a factor of 5 or more, on Earth.
5) America has the fiercest and best trained/equipped fighting men (Marines, SEALs, Rangers, Airborne, air and land Special Forces) on Earth.
The list goes on, but I’ll stop there. My best guess on Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief is simply this. He’s a smart guy, and he’ll do just fine. If anyone today has the ability to run our national defense system and avoid neocon-inspired wars like Dwight Eisenhower, it’s Trump.
SSS
If we are that awesome and powerful, how come we don’t win wars anymore?
Stucky says:
SSS
“If we are that awesome and powerful, how come we don’t win wars anymore?”
Two factors, Stucky. 1) The lack of a resolute person in the Oval Office who 2) will follow this dictum on war by General Douglas MacArthur: “There is no substitute for victory.”
Madison, Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, and FDR followed that dictum. Truman stumbled to a standoff in Korea and fired MacArthur along the way. Thus endeth Stucky’s history lesson and philosophy on war for the day.
Stucky says:
“If we are that awesome and powerful, how come we don’t win wars anymore?”
I have a slightly different take than SSS.
It’s sort of like curing cancer. There is no money in curing cancer. There is enormous money in “treating” cancer.
There is no money in winning wars. There is enormous amounts of money in waging never ending wars of choice. With “terrorism” I think the MIC and TPTB have hit upon the perfect boogeyman as terrorism will always be whatever TPTB say it is.
Always follow the money and you can figure most of this out for yourself.
That concludes today’s lesson.
“If we are that awesome and powerful, how come we don’t win wars anymore?”
Well, shit…How much money can you make if you kick their ass right away?!!
Russia clearly demonstrated you can kick ass very quickly IF you want to, but then the stock price suffers and we make less bling. Like a good attorney, why bill for an hour of time when you can bill for 300. In this case, especially when you have a blank check in your name.