Zone1 military spending on longlasting/endless wars while people suffer cripplingly high food and gas prices : should we just vote no to all that?

[pknopp]

Who ran or is running on a promise of getting us out of the business of policing the world, and not growing the behemoth military?

Obama did. He lied. Unfortunately people re-elected him. If that doesn't happen maybe someone figures it out.

 

[johngaltshrugged]

Lobbying is a legalized form of bribery & the Military Industrial Complex has a very powerful lobby.
They have most of the politicians from both parties in their back pockets.

The idea that America has to be the worlds peacekeepers & enforcers is outdated & wro0ngheaded.
We are $31 trill in debt & it's growing exponentially.
That tit is dry & it's time for the rest of the world to put on their big boy pants & take care of themselves.
DT tried to do this & the entire Western world lined up against him for it

 

[peacefan]

For the most part, military spending IS domestic spending. Where do you think that money goes? Soldiers' pay, boats, weapons, planes, other equipment, basically ALL made in the U.S.A. (by law). When we give Ukraine and others money, it usually must be spent buying weapons and shit from the U.S.

As for voting "to end all that," I'm not sure the Republicans would be spending any differently.

if it's not being spent on citizens' needs, then it's not domestic spending. not in my book.

 

[peacefan]

Pope urges UN reform after Ukraine war, COVID 'limits'

Pope Francis said the need to reform the United Nations was "more than obvious" after the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war exposed its limits, in an extract of his new book published Sunday. The Argentine pontiff said Russia's February invasion of Ukraine highlighted the need to ensure the current multilateral structure -- especially the UN Security Council -- finds "more agile and effective ways of resolving conflicts". "In wartime, it is essential to affirm that we need more multilateralism and a better multilateralism," but the UN is no longer fit for "new realities", he added in an extract published by La Stampa daily. The organization was founded to prevent the horrors of two World Wars from happening again, but although the threat represented by those conflicts was still alive, "today's world is no longer the same", said Francis. "The necessity of these reforms became more than obvious after the pandemic" when the current multilateral system "showed all its limits", he added. Francis denounced the unequal distribution of vaccines as a "glaring example" of the law of the strongest prevailing over solidarity. The 85-year-old advocated "organic reforms" aimed at allowing international organizations to rediscover their essential purpose of "serving the human family" and said international institutions must be the result of the "widest possible consensus". The pope also proposed guaranteeing food, health, economic and social rights on which international institutions would base their decisions. Francis's new book, "I ask you in the name of God: Ten prayers for a future of hope", is due to come out in Italy Tuesday. © 2022 AFP

Local : 2022-10-16(Sunday) 13 : 35 : 17
Remote : 2022-10-16(Sunday) 13 : 35 : 17
Found via nicer.app web apps framework

 

[Seymour Flops]

Obama did. He lied. Unfortunately people re-elected him. If that doesn't happen maybe someone figures it out.

Interesting. I don't remember that promise, but I was just starting a new job in 2008 so I wasn't paying a lot of attention. Whichever establishment republican was playing Washinton Generals to his Harlem Globe Trotters didn't make me rush out to vote for him, so I voted libertarian.

Far be it from me to defend Obama, but getting us out of the long-running slow-motion quagmire of policing the world that started after WWII would take more tthan one term. Not saying that Obama tried to do it during either of his terms.

We would need change in attitude on the part of Americans and politicians who agree with the change and act to impliment it. It would take a generation to draw down without having the world collapse. We're too tied economically to the rest of the world to let it collapse.

We need to wean our protectorates off the U.S. Military teat, but we don't need any more Biden style panicky retreats.

 

[pknopp]

Interesting. I don't remember that promise, but I was just starting a new job in 2008 so I wasn't paying a lot of attention. Whichever establishment republican was playing Washinton Generals to his Harlem Globe Trotters didn't make me rush out to vote for him, so I voted libertarian.

Far be it from me to defend Obama, but getting us out of the long-running slow-motion quagmire of policing the world that started after WWII would take more tthan one term. Not saying that Obama tried to do it during either of his terms.

We would need change in attitude on the part of Americans and politicians who agree with the change and act to impliment it. It would take a generation to draw down without having the world collapse. We're too tied economically to the rest of the world to let it collapse.

We need to wean our protectorates off the U.S. Military teat, but we don't need any more Biden style panicky retreats.

There is a difference in not completing something in one term and quite another in doing the exact opposite.

President Obama, who hoped to sow peace, instead led the nation in war

President Obama came to office vowing to end America's foreign wars and take the country off its permanent war footing. He leaves a very different legacy as he prepares to hand his commander-in-chief responsibilities to Donald Trump.

www.latimes.com

If leaving Afghanistan would have been easy, Obama or Trump would have done it.

 

[Correll]

first Ukraine, and soon Taiwan too..?

trillions spent on destruction and reconstruction far away (and that's just Ukraine, after 1 year[1]), while people here (in the EU *and* in the US) need a lot better local economy.
don't top politicians have something better to do than to play with the lives of their voters *and* those living in far-away countries in such a "drunken" way??

[1] Russia’s War in Ukraine to Cost Global Economy $2.8 Trillion, OECD Says

We've had no serious discussion on our foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

The conflict with Russia? Just inertia. It was never discussed whether we had any national interest in it at all.


I suspsect it is related to two issues,


1. The complete breakdown of the contest of ideas. our political discussions have degenerated into idiot spin games.

2. THe complete breakdown of our political class. They seem to have given up on serving national interests in favor of serving ideological goals, or universial goals.

 

[Correll]

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that Russia is not the threat to Europe that we have made them out to be. There is no reason that Europe cannot defend itself against Russia.

I've been saying that for years.

(that russia is not the threat to Europe that is it made out to be, not the part about the invasion of course)

 

[Correll]

Interesting. I don't remember that promise, but I was just starting a new job in 2008 so I wasn't paying a lot of attention. Whichever establishment republican was playing Washinton Generals to his Harlem Globe Trotters didn't make me rush out to vote for him, so I voted libertarian.

Far be it from me to defend Obama, but getting us out of the long-running slow-motion quagmire of policing the world that started after WWII would take more tthan one term. Not saying that Obama tried to do it during either of his terms.

We would need change in attitude on the part of Americans and politicians who agree with the change and act to impliment it. It would take a generation to draw down without having the world collapse. We're too tied economically to the rest of the world to let it collapse.

We need to wean our protectorates off the U.S. Military teat, but we don't need any more Biden style panicky retreats.

Step one would be having a real discussion about our foreign policy, in light of the end of hte Cold War.

That would involve, talking to the other side, implicitly admiting that they have a valid viewpoint and that their leaders of people worthy of listening to.


That is something that dems seem unwilling to do. Their power is based on convincing peopel that the Republicans are evul ists and phobes that have to be feared and fought against with all possible energy.

 

[Seymour Flops]

There is a difference in not completing something in one term and quite another in doing the exact opposite.

President Obama, who hoped to sow peace, instead led the nation in war

President Obama came to office vowing to end America's foreign wars and take the country off its permanent war footing. He leaves a very different legacy as he prepares to hand his commander-in-chief responsibilities to Donald Trump.

www.latimes.com

I agree.

If leaving Afghanistan would have been easy, Obama or Trump would have done it.

Agreed again. One of Trump's biggest failures. He should have pulled us out of Afghanistan as promised. He should have known that if he lost in 2020, his successor would either not pull out or make a mess of it.

Either way, the most likely, of not certain, scenario was an immediate Taliban takeover so it was laughable to hear the Biden administration say that they had prepared for every possibility except an immediate taliban takeover.

 

[Anathema]

f it's not being spent on citizens' needs, then it's not domestic spending. not in my book

If it IS being spent on citizen’s needs then it’s extremely likely that the spending is illegitimate and unconstitutional per Article I, Section 8 and the Tenth Amendment

 

[Seymour Flops]

Step one would be having a real discussion about our foreign policy, in light of the end of hte Cold War.

That would involve, talking to the other side, implicitly admiting that they have a valid viewpoint and that their leaders of people worthy of listening to.


That is something that dems seem unwilling to do. Their power is based on convincing peopel that the Republicans are evul ists and phobes that have to be feared and fought against with all possible energy.

Well put.

The hatefullness that infects American politics is doing us all a big disservice. By which I mean we are doing ourselves a disservice.

 

[Gabe Lackmann]

I think we are a 'post-vote' nation.

Can anyone name the members of congress that are openly anti-war? Anti-Ukraine intervention? Pro-defense budget reduction?

There are 535 of them.

The fact is there is a voting public, and then there is a representative class who do not work for that voting public.

 

[pknopp]

I agree.

Agreed again. One of Trump's biggest failures. He should have pulled us out of Afghanistan as promised. He should have known that if he lost in 2020, his successor would either not pull out or make a mess of it.

Either way, the most likely, of not certain, scenario was an immediate Taliban takeover so it was laughable to hear the Biden administration say that they had prepared for every possibility except an immediate taliban takeover.

No matter what we did, the Taliban was going to take back over. They held portions of the country even when we were there. They knew that all they had to do was wait us out.

 

[Correll]

No matter what we did, the Taliban was going to take back over. They held portions of the country even when we were there. They knew that all they had to do was wait us out.

Don't buy it. No one is invincible. Not US, not the Taliban.

 

[rightwinger]

Step one would be having a real discussion about our foreign policy, in light of the end of hte Cold War.

You would think that the end of the Cold War would have brought about a drastic reduction in military spending

Instead, we increased it

 

[Seymour Flops]

No matter what we did, the Taliban was going to take back over. They held portions of the country even when we were there. They knew that all they had to do was wait us out.

Yes, no doubt. The Taliban has the backing of the overwhelming majority of Afghans. Time to realize that, and stop trying to Americanize them.

 

[rightwinger]

No matter what we did, the Taliban was going to take back over. They held portions of the country even when we were there. They knew that all they had to do was wait us out.

The Taliban lived there
They were not going anywhere.

They just sat back and waited for us to leave

 

[Seymour Flops]

I think we are a 'post-vote' nation.

That is an interesting take. I fear that you are right.

Can anyone name the members of congress that are openly anti-war? Anti-Ukraine intervention? Pro-defense budget reduction?

There are 535 of them.

The fact is there is a voting public, and then there is a representative class who do not work for that voting public.

Yes.

 

[pknopp]

Don't buy it. No one is invincible. Not US, not the Taliban.

Just 30 more years and 30 trillion more...................