(Neither the overwhelming majority of dems or repubs in office want to stop this insanity. The idiots who say Obama is a leftist are just full of crap.) Worldwide military spending edged up in 2010 to a record $1.6 trillion, a leading think-tank said on Monday. Global spending rose 1.3 percent in real terms, a slowdown from 5.9 percent the year before as the economic downturn caused by the 2008 financial crisis hit military spending, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said. "In many cases, the falls or slower increases represent a delayed reaction to the global financial and economic crisis that broke in 2008," it said in a statement, adding that there were regional differences. Spending in Europe shrank 2.8 percent to $382 billion as governments started to rein in soaring budget deficits. The biggest cuts were in small economies in central and eastern Europe, and in crisis-struck southern European countries such as Greece. "Further cuts are expected in most of Europe in 2011 and subsequent years, although these are likely to remain relatively modest in the major spending countries," SIPRI, which conducts independent research on international security, armaments and disarmament, said in a statement. The Unites States, with costly military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, increased spending by 2.8 percent to $698 billion -- about six times as much as China, the second-biggest spender ahead of Britain, France and Russia. In 2009, U.S. spending grew 7.7 percent. "The United States has increased its military spending by 81 percent since 2001," SIPRI said. "At 4.8 percent of gross domestic product, U.S. military spending in 2010 represents the largest economic burden outside the Middle East," said SIPRI Military Expenditure Project chief Sam Perlo-Freeman. (Reporting by Anna Ringstrom)
Miltary spending helps domestic manufacturing, helps create American jobs. I would take more spending here any day over maintaining bloated payrolls of union public emplyees.
Military spending could be converted to producing and manufacturing alternative energy, which would do more to make us safe than currently military spending. Energy independence changes our entire foreign policy. It was not since the oil embargo in the 70's and subsequent higher oil prices did we focus on that area of the world to piss money away.
Obama is a leftist. You can call me full of crap all you want but it doesn't change the facts: 1. Obama pushed through a gigantic entitlement, Obamacare, full of bureaucratic bullshit. This is what leftists like. 2. Obama wants to give illegal immigrants amnesty. All the leftists want that too. They don't care that this keeps American wages low, they just want more poor people to vote for socialism (ask Michael Moore about that). 3. Obama favors racial quotas just like all good leftists do. 4. Obama's two supreme court appointees are both very liberal and believe in the same "living" (i.e., dead) Constitution that Obama does. Now it's true that Obama is continuing Bush's wars and has jumped into a new civil war. But that is not a left/right issue, no matter what the leftists say. Leftists such as Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, and Pol Pot never had any problem with waging war against their enemies and killing millions of people, largely killing citizens of their own countries. Leftists like to wear "Che" T-shirts, a man who waged war and killed people. The two most antiwar people in congress are Dennis Kucinich, a liberal Democrat, and Ron Paul, a conservative Republican who votes against just about every big spending program there is.
It happens in every country including the USA. Abraham Lincoln killed off 30% of all Southern white males aged 18-40. I do not believe Mao or Stalin reached this percentage.
And he was 100 % correct to do so.It was his job to protect this country against all enemies,foreign and domestic