Re: Ted Rall Subscription Service (fwd)

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

Of course, I agree enthusiastically.

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2024 08:29:31 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 >  > From: Ted <http://www.96714821.mailchimpapp.com/~tedrall>
 >  > Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2024 13:50:50 +0000
 >  > 
 >  > The Ted Rall Subscription Service
 >  > Thank you for supporting independent political commentary
 >  > Here is this week's column. Thanks for subscribing to the Ted Rall 
 >  > Subscription Service.
 >  > 
 >  > Cut the Defense Budget by 97.5%
 >  > by Ted Rall
 >  > 
 >  > The United States is one of the most politically polarized (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=fa360c2bbd&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) countries in the world. Because effective lawmaking 
 >  > requires bipartisanship and members of Congress are, like their constituents,
 >  >  at their most ideologically divided (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=502fad9105&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) point in a half century, cooperation is in 
 >  > increasingly short supply. As a result or, more precisely non-result, the 
 >  > U.S. Congress passes fewer bills every year (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=b9c0ad42d2&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) .
 >  > 
 >  > There is, however, one consistent area of agreement on Capitol Hill: defense 
 >  > spending. Each year for the past six decades, the massive National Defense 
 >  > Authorization Act—Washington-speak for the federal defense spending bill 
 >  > has passed with overwhelming bipartisan support (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=11fbbee1ab&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) . Defense appropriations are so sacrosanct that the 
 >  > press often describes the NDAA as “must pass (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=1c0e7d6e16&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) ”; it is routine for Congress to add in hundreds 
 >  > of millions of dollars of extraneous spending (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=ee24ee3f72&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) that the Pentagon does not want or request.
 >  > 
 >  > In the U.S. Congress, even “antiwar” voices support the military. Obama� >  > �s 2008 campaign was primarily predicated on his opposition to the U.S. 
 >  > invasion and occupation of Iraq. Yet even his GOP opponent John McCain didn� >  > �t care call out Obama on the fact that when he had six chances to vote on 
 >  > the Iraq War—he wasn’t in the Senate yet when it voted on the measure 
 >  > authorizing President George W. Bush to attack the government of Saddam 
 >  > Hussein—he voted to send the cash (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=071b30c8d2&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) each time. Bernie Sanders has repeatedly voted to 
 >  > fund the military (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=c2886b5eee&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) and sending weapons for wars being waged by U.S. 
 >  > proxies like Israel and Ukraine.
 >  > 
 >  > Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Republicans describe as Marxist, 
 >  > socialist and communist, is thoroughly committed to the cult of American 
 >  > militarism. “As Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure America always has the 
 >  > strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world,” she said in Thursday� >  > �s nomination acceptance speech (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=931830ec6e&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) at the Democratic National Convention.
 >  > 
 >  > The idea that military expenditures are “must pass” relies on the 
 >  > assumption that the U.S. faces existential threats to its safety and/or 
 >  > sovereignty. This is crap.
 >  > 
 >  > As Statfor’s classic 2011 assessment of the United States (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=33077d35bd&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) and its geopolitical position noted: “The 
 >  > American geography is an impressive one.”
 >  > 
 >  > Consider Russia. It has thousands of miles of land borders, most of it 
 >  > without significant natural barriers like mountain ranges or large bodies of 
 >  > water to deter a potential invader, millions of square miles of fairly flat 
 >  > lands that can quickly and easily be traversed, with numerous neighbors that 
 >  > are hostile and have posed a historical threat. Given its situation, Russia� >  > �s rulers have traditionally relied on friendly buffer and vassal states 
 >  > around its perimeter.
 >  > 
 >  > “The U.S. Atlantic Coast possesses more major ports than the rest of the 
 >  > Western Hemisphere combined,” Stratfor observed (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=24c9b27aa7&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) . “Two vast oceans insulated the United States 
 >  > from Asian and European powers, deserts separate the United States from 
 >  > Mexico to the south, while lakes and forests separate the population centers 
 >  > in Canada from those in the United States. The United States has capital, 
 >  > food surpluses and physical insulation in excess of every other country in 
 >  > the world by an exceedingly large margin.” Canada and Mexico are friendly 
 >  > vassal states.
 >  > 
 >  > “Red Dawn” was just a movie. Gun nuts who think they’ll need AR-15s to 
 >  > arm a Resistance against alien invaders are deluded. No one wants to invade 
 >  > us. No one wants to take away our freedoms.
 >  > 
 >  > No one can.
 >  > 
 >  > We are acting like the hippopotamus. Hippos are the most dangerous land 
 >  > animal on the planet, killing 500 human beings every year. They’re nervous 
 >  > and high-strung because they rapidly evolved from a much smaller creature 
 >  > that made easy prey. Poor things! They don’t realize that they’ve become 
 >  > huge, grown fearsome teeth and no longer need to be aggressive and 
 >  > territorial. Like the hippo, the U.S. started out small and vulnerable to 
 >  > aggressors like England, which re-invaded in 1812. But things have changed 
 >  > for both the hippo and us. Can’t we be smarter than a hippo?
 >  > 
 >  > The U.S. has, like other countries, faced raids like the Pearl Harbor attack 
 >  > and cross-border incursions from Mexico in the 19^th century. In a now 
 >  > largely-forgotten episode, two of the Aleutian islands were occupied by 
 >  > Japan (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=724f580e7b&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) during World War II, before Alaska became a state. 
 >  > Non-state terrorists have struck the contiguous 48 states, as on 9/11. But 
 >  > none of those incidents, though violent and disturbing, represented anything 
 >  > close to an existential threat. Most other countries, faced with attacks on 
 >  > such a small scale, would not feel traumatized as much as merely annoyed.
 >  > 
 >  > We have not faced a substantial risk of territorial invasion by an enemy 
 >  > army or navy since the War of 1812.
 >  > 
 >  > In the 21^st century, the U.S. faces two main threats to national security: 
 >  > terrorism and cyber attacks (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=6aa1bb4b37&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) . These are addressed by, respectively, the 
 >  > Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. We don’t need a fleet of 
 >  > ships lining our coastlines or a perimeter of military bases to fend off the 
 >  > Germans or the Japanese or the Chinese or the Russians. And we don’t have 
 >  > them. The “Defense” Department doesn’t defend the U.S.; it attacks and 
 >  > disrupts other countries and non-state entities abroad and, far less 
 >  > frequently, defends U.S. allies against internal uprisings, rival factions 
 >  > and hostile neighbors.
 >  > 
 >  > Given our remarkably enviable security situation is not inconceivable that 
 >  > the U.S. could get by eliminating its military budget entirely, as have 
 >  > countries like Costa Rica, Panama and Iceland, all of which have abolished 
 >  > their army, navy and air force (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=4a51bcac42&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) and yet have been invaded since. Could it be that, 
 >  > much as you are likelier to be shot by a gun if you own one (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=37ab062b0d&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) , that an unarmed nation is less likely to be 
 >  > attacked because its neighbors no longer view it as a potential threat?
 >  > 
 >  > Alternatively, we could decide not to continue the current practice of 
 >  > constantly adding new and fancier technology to our existing arsenal. We 
 >  > could make do with the equipment and materiel we have now, while spending 
 >  > enough to maintain it.
 >  > 
 >  > Defense should be about defense, i.e. defending our own borders. Brazil, 
 >  > bigger than the contiguous 48 U.S. states, and by far the dominant military 
 >  > power on the South American continent, has a military budget of $20 billion (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=16cb032428&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) . That’s equivalent to 2.5% of the U.S., which 
 >  > currently wastes $1.6 trillion a year—more than half of discretionary 
 >  > federal spending.
 >  > 
 >  > Let’s start there.
 >  > 
 >  > (Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and 
 >  > graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=d81aa87c92&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. His latest 
 >  > book, brand-new right now, is the graphic novel 2024: Revisited (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=985c02177f&e=c3adcc1cdb
 >  > ) .)
 >  > 
 >  > Copyright © 2024 Ted Rall Features, All rights reserved.
 >  >  You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.
 >  > 
 >  > Our mailing address is:
 >  > Ted Rall Features
 >  > box 2760
 >  > New York, NY 10163-2760
 >  > USA
 >  > Want to change how you receive these emails?
 >  > .
 >  >  Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
 >  > https://login.mailchimp.com/signup/email-referral/?aid=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c