Military Spending.

[STING2]

Melon,
a few things here. Your critical of defense spending of 48 Billion dollars to buy what you consider "high tech toys" that are not needed? Well let me ask you this. How did the USA manage to defeat the Taliban in such a small amount of time without a large deployment of USA troops on the ground in Afghanistan? It was those "high tech toys" that you say we don't need that did the job and are the primary reason the Taliban are out of power with so little loss of life on both sides! Missile Defense is only a fraction of the increase in Defense spending.
You may slag Reagan off, but its thanks to him that we have most of the weapon systems that were used in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Many of these systems while very high tech are aging and there is new technology that is sitting on the shelf and not being used! Are men and women serving are country deserve the best technology available to them in the year 2002! The Marines need a new Attack Helicopter. They are still using the the Cobra Attack Helicopter although it has been much improved since Vietnam with a whole set of new electronics, computers and weapon systems. With the technology available now, a helicopter that is better than the Cobra from the 60s(improved) and the Apache from the 80s can now be built! My best friend who is a Captain in the Marines deserves that as well as a pay increase as well! Most Civilians simply do not understand how hard he works and the stress he endures!
Its time that the military gets the money it needs for replacements of weapons used and new and improved ones that have been developed in order to continue to win conflicts anywhere in the world in shortest amount of time with the smallest number of losses. Its time that the men and women of this country's Military get paid the money they deserve for the job they do!
Oh, and its not Reagans debt, when adjusted for inflation, the debt was already very large before Reagan even entered office.

[melon]

Oh what is the point of arguing this? It is pretty damn obvious that everyone has their mind made up one way or another. And now it seems I am being painted as your everyday "liberal," which, if any of you have read enough of my posts, it isn't true.

Do people remember "Star Wars" (SDI) in the 1980s? We spent hundreds of billions on it to later be declared "unfeasible." Basically, the technology didn't hold up to what we wanted. The possibility is still that this scenario will happen again, and, after hundreds of billions spent on it, we'll be right back to where we are now: with nothing.

Fate is an interesting bitch. A couple generations ago, people were told that the Soviets were always looking to destroy us; that they were just looking for a flimsy excuse to plunge us into a nuclear war. Apparently, the Soviets were saying the same about us to their own people; that the Americans were just looking for a flimsy excuse to plunge into a nuclear war. And, in reality, after 50 years of all that scare and hysteria, both sides were scared shitless of each other. The propaganda, though, sure helped the government's agenda.

But to hell with what I think or argue. We're getting our bloody missile shield whether we like it or not. Whether we like it or not, we have dawned into a second Cold War, this time not against communists, but, perhaps more dangerously, that indefinite entity we call "terrorism." Yes, today, it is Al-Qaeda. A few years later, it will be someone else, and it will never end. If the enemies don't exist today, Bush will certainly create them. If the Chinese don't have missiles pointed at us currently, a missile shield will definitely encourage them to. Let's hope the shit works in the end. To hell with idealism...I live in the real world. And the real world is hell bent on division and destruction, so who am I to bust everyone's parade?

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time