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From the Dept. of Silly Ideas
It blows my mind that some legislators still think it's a good idea to peg our nation's defense budget to a percentage of the GDP. Call me a traditionalist, but a nation's defense budget should probably be based on a) how the nation sees its current and future threat environments, to include planning for contingencies, b) resources available, and c) how defense spending rates as a priority compared to other government expenditures. We can then have dynamic, fact-supported arguments about a), b) and most especially c).
Further, it makes some sense that our nation has spent a lot of money on national defense while fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But if I am following the logic of those who want to tie defense spending to the GDP correctly, our defense budget should have shrunk in FY09. And if the world's economy collapses because the Iranians attempt to close the Straits of Hormuz, does that mean we then slash the budgets of the U.S. Navy and Air Force?
Russia duz it, and the world
Russia duz it, and the world hasn't ended yet. Of course, they're not addicted to foreign oil like crack cocaine. I guess the other fiscally responsible thing to do, if not peg to GDP, would be to stop subsidizing a gallon of gas to the tune of $4-5 by way of massive defense efforts in and around the Straits of Hormuz
For every problem there is a
For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. (I made that slogan up myself, dontchaknow).
It's the same sort of impulse that led the states to pass balanced budget amendments: in times of economic drawdown, the states should have to fire workers and abandon infrastructure projects (and in the reverse, only try infrastructure projects when a construction market is hot, requiring higher bids on land and on contractors!).
It a symptom of both soundbite politics and economic / budgetary ignorance; like not knowing the difference between long term and short term expenditures.
Perhaps we should begin by
Perhaps we should begin by asking ourselves if we really want to define our borders from Korea to Kandahar.
The world does need navies and Air Forces to keep the lanes and trade open.
And nukes to keep another large war at bay.
And I'm Army Alumni.
"It's the same sort of
"It's the same sort of impulse that led the states to pass balanced budget amendments: in times of economic drawdown, the states should have to fire workers and abandon infrastructure projects (and in the reverse, only try infrastructure projects when a construction market is hot, requiring higher bids on land and on contractors!)"
Is reality intruding into the magic kingdom? Say it is not so!! Just tax us peasants more. You should never have to tighten your belts!! Or face having to look for work.
Balanced Budget Amendments: States can't print their own money. And no one can borrow forever.
Fire workers: Welcome to the real world. We've been getting fired en masse since the 70's. While you got fat.
Infrastructure: You haven't really done infrastructure since the 70s. Spent a lot of $ though.
Construction: don't worry, you've killed that too. You can make $ Bulldozing Detroit, though.
Higher Bid$: Somebody's gotta pay for that in ground pool. Please. Let the peasants get it.
"economic / budgetary ignorance": Given the rule of experts has ruined us, let's try the great unwashed.
Slowly but surely, the
Slowly but surely, the golden goose (Defense) will be plucked.
Unemployment, self absorbed baby boomers on Social Security, educating and free lunch and breakfast for millions of children, imprisoning a large percentage of our populace, and policing the world. All this shit costs money.
The empire will recede.
. What do you want DoD
.
What do you want DoD linked to.....the F-35 contracts? How are the Osprey maintenance costs? Over budget and way over due.
Ever heard of the Earned Value Model? http://www.risk-doctor.com/pdf-files/cev-b1004.pdf
If you flip to the last graph, last page. If you are in the lower left hand quadrant your a dog, upper right a star (that should sound familiar to you...Neutron Jack). From that graph you will know the concept of the model. One axis is schedule, other budget and the F-35 CPI SPI is a big zero in all directions.......there are a lot of things in our military that you can say the same thing about. Read the latest QDR, it is a problem.
How's the war going? Trillion in the hole and I do not feel more secure. If anything, I am losing freedoms at home (flown lately?). Ben Franklin would say the cost is too high and I am with him. http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/poor_richard.html Couple qoutes come to mind...one about security for liberty and the other about voting yourself money. We sure are doing a lot of both these days.
Firing a general but bumping him up in rank before he goes? Fifty more on there way to green acres, many more to go. It is a flipping social program.
Cut the fat then we will talk about how to handle the budget. Put Odierno on point. It will give the retirees in the break room something to worry about (yes you can cut retirement benefits, been done many times).
PS... And don't ever tell me again that we don't put enough money in education.... http://abcnews.go.com/WN/public-school-los-angeles-named-robert-kennedy-... . I about puked when I saw it. It is not about what you spend, it is about HOW you spend it. This is such a waste. I have seen four star resturants that look worse than the teacher's cafeteria. What is it about this white elephant that is about education? Leads me to my last statement.
....What is it about the way we currently do military spending that makes us more secure?
Is this covered in
Is this covered in Shari'a?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge9dyWzxDAs
Well Sharia Silly, the
Well Sharia Silly, the Saudi's also do be loving to rape the Sri Lankan maids as well. Mind you it's not just directed at SL.
When you've bought the US Political Class and Diplomatic Corps, the NY Banks, Reuters, and who knows what else, you can afford a few Liberties not available to the rest of us.
I think maybe that's why the Dems and Press are behind the Victory Mosque. Maybe they want Shariah here. That will give them some real tools to deal with these uppity rednecks.
I'd love to know more of
I'd love to know more of what Mr. Franklin thinks about our modern times (other than airport security screening), seeing as you've got some sort of time communicator and all!
Robert Higgs nails the
Robert Higgs nails the stupidity of linking defense spending to GDP brilliantly:
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_13_01_8_etc.pdf
KMF
Think the founding fathers
Think the founding fathers would be amazed by our growth, but sad at the same time. We take things for granted that they could only dream about. That is a motherhood statement.
We have gone backward on airport security. Think of it. Use to be that you walked up to the plane and board. If somebody wanted to see you off, they walked up to the plane and you said your goodbyes. Then they put in fences to keep the non-passengers back, then they put in metal detectors and limited personal carry-on items, then they made you take your shoes off, then they went through your lugage bit by bit, then they took away your nail files, then they did a pat search, then they took away your shampoo, then they added full body scans.
And guess what....none of it will have stopped the 9/11 attacks. For all the billions spent, all the TSA people hired, not one more bit of security.....but a load of lost freedoms and privacy.
Our current Statespeople take private business jets at taxpayer expense, they do not have to put with what we do.
Ben Franklin would say.....you stupid people. You had everything and everything to lose.
PS...While all that was happening in the boarding area, the restricted lugage area were a free for all. Guys were going through bagage and stealing stuff. What they could have added , who knows.
Follow up to Zak: Our
Follow up to Zak:
Our political leadership promises to protect us from every imaginable terrorist threat 100% of the time. This is impossible. Moreover I don't remember ever hearing the American people asking for this type of protection.
I spent the summer in West Germany in 1972. The Japanese Red Army had attacked the Lod airport in Israel in May, and there were rumored sightings of the Baader-Meinhof gang nearly every day. I took several domestic flights that summer. There were police or soldiers all over the airports with submachine guns. The actual boarding areas had three or four armed guards. The planes were parked out on the tarmac and likewise had three or four guards who loitered under the wings.The guards at the boarding areas would break the passengers into groups of 12 to 15, randomly search a few, and then herd the group into a bus, which would be driven out to the plane parked on the tarmac Two guards would ride with the bus. This would be repeated until everyone had boarded.
Although I'm sure there must be a contingency plan in place, I simply can't imagine TSA security stopping a Red Army style attack.
.
In every country where the
In every country where the idea of tying defense spending to a % of GNP is floated the aim to is limit defense cuts. ..to set a floor not a ceiling. Once the public is sold on the idea that a certain % of GNP must go to defense the defense establishment's profit's are set for ever. Yes there could be a recession but that could be easily ignored as budgets are set ahead of time. It means that regardless of the reduction in threat the defense complex will keep churning.
I can see why a US law maker would propose it. Clearly the US spends far more on defense than it needs to and if (a big if giving the ignorance of most of the electorate) the public ever realize that the current gigantic DOD/ security/ intel budgets are hurting the US and should be significantly cut a GNP % defense spending floor would be handy.
I’ve been around for quite
I’ve been around for quite a lot of time, but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!Thumbs up, and keep it going
I’ve been around for quite
I’ve been around for quite a lot of time, but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!Thumbs up, and keep it going
Haven't read or received any
Haven't read or received any good Hammas literature in some time.... Ex, do a posting on Hammas!
Also known as: The
Also known as: The Palestinian Yoda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sheikahmedyassin300.jpg
Watch his crazy kids in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade fumble with their rockets and mortars.
Embarrassingly, they are amateurs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY_ktDoJR7c
LOL...these guys are a bunch of ass-clowns.
Visitor 27aug10 @
Visitor 27aug10 @ 11:46pm.....Germany, yup I have seen it too. Seems that our forefathers got on a boat to get away from some of those problems. Looks like jet travel brought it to the US.
Back to the US of A GDP .vs. military spending. Have you seen a chart of US GDP lately?
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=count...
All the data, no matter what the source, looks the same from 1929 out (just saying that most web sites don't lie for US GDP). The information from google only shows US GDP from 1960 to present. If you look backwards to 1929, GDP is pretty flat with consistant growth.
Then the data started to go exponential in the 1980's.
It is part of the reason that we are in the economic mess that we are in today. Non-sustainable growth. All the money produced is rolling around looking for a place to go. In the late 90's it was the .com boom. More recently it was the housing bubble. Our retirement accounts are used as piggy banks for private equity companies like Blackstone to screw the employees of the companies they purchase and re-organize. PE returns have been in the 30-50% range from the 1980's out. Right after housing bubble burst, PE saw its revenue dry up and they sung the blues for awhile. Then 0% Federal Reserve loans came along and PE started to look at all the failed banks as a revenue source. From what I can see, the money is hanging around the hedge funds that is why commodities are on a roller coaster ride these days. Inflation has been nill for a long time and economic growth zippo for a year or so, but raw materials costs rise.
Point is no matter were the money goes, the market breaks. Either the morals go out the window and the bankers get greedy or the supply demand market forces take over. End result is you have million dollar homes that 10% of the population can afford. The other 90% go cry to the government.
1) Current rate of GDP is not sustainable. I think we are all finding that out.
2) Current rate of government spending is not sustainable. Christ....the Federal Reserve KINGs just had a private retreat at JACKSON HOLE, WY. Private jets and all. The American public just looks on in a daze while our royalty take fantastic vacations. Do the engines on Airforce 1 ever have a chance to cool?
3) If military spending is linked to GDP and GDP keeps growing, the defense budget will be fantastically huge!
There has to be a better way. Cut the fat then we will talk.
PS......Washington is connected with fiber optic. They did it to secure information. The bandwidth of fiber is way more than enought to support video conference. Why the heck is the travel budget so high? What in the heck do all the Congress people have to go to Afghanistan for? Trips to Africa (one trip did not go so well and the Congressman from Florida had to be rescued). List goes on and on. Don't we have people on the ground to tell them what is happening, do they trust each other? Too many boondoggles, too much money being pissed off. Speaker of the House has direct control over Congressional travel and nothing is stopped......ever. This is real money ! OUR money. OUR tax dollars. Wake up! Seen the FED Buildings lately? Places are better than the Hilton, gee can me the lowly ass taxpayer use the building for a meeting while the KING is in Jackson Hole?
State of Illinois department of transportation keeps a fleet of private jets to fly Illinois government employees around. I was at a local University one day, the board of trustees were on campus. I was amazed by all the limo's that were brought into move the royalty around. Not just one, nope it was about five of them. All the drivers were catching smokes wanting for the trustee meeting to end. Governor BLOW (Bagovich if you have not heard of him) did not live in the GOVERNOR'S MANSION in the capital, he lived in CHICAGO. The MANSION was not good enough. He flew a Illinois DOT private jet to work. Shit they interviewed people about the Illinois DOT jet fleet and the answer that came back was,"they are government employees they need their travel paid for". I got a better idea, AMTRAK runs a direct line connecting the capital to Chicago Illinois........USE IT. Even better, you took the job MOVE like the rest of us have to. Now they are talking about pissing off billions to build a BULLET TRAIN. They already have one, the silver bullet, it is called AMTRAK. Fix the tracks, it will go faster for a lot less than BILLIONS. Four year education in Illinois cost about $5,000 in the 80's, the govenor lived in the governor's mansion and the politicians drove rentals or their personal cars and university coffee came out of a vending machine. Today, the fucking universities are exclusive and the same four year education is $50,000, ten time more. The Governors mansion is not good enough and the politicians fly in state owned private jets. The university coffee comes from a little stand serving groumet coffees with a government employee serving you expecting a pension and health care. There is never enough for education? RIGHT. It is not how much you spend.......IT IS HOW YOU SPEND IT. Fucking $600M dollar Robert Kennedy High School in California, a state that is so broke it begs for money. Illinois is right behind it. Local university planted flowers every where and pays a team of people to run around each day to water them.....what does that have to do with getting a good education????????????????
See the problem?
The CRAP has to stop. HELLO....got SKYPE? Pelosi, cut the travel budget the recession started almost two years ago.
@Zak, It's not about what's
@Zak,
It's not about what's good for America. It's about what's good for America's political and ruling class.
They'll give up when they've taken all they can, are either elected out of office or other means are used to evict them.
Or they'll crush us into poverty (see - Rust Belt, Camden NJ, California before our eyes).
Stop trying to appeal to their morality or common interest. Our interests are divergent, and they scoff at every morality but their self serving Progressive pieties.
Pelosi doesn't care. She's got hers.
Take it from the other side:
Take it from the other side: the GDP is a crap measure that doesn't properly reflect the true economic state of the country, one which is more keyed to the wealth of the Fortune 500 than anything else.
In the plutocratic model, this simply means that the plutocrats should kick down a fixed percentage of their take to the military-industrial complex - but that of course depends on their tax rates, doesn't it?
So, if you cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans - who are notorious for tax-dodging via Caribbean Banking Centers and Swiss Banks - then you have a problem keying the military-industrial meal ticket to the GDP.
Perhaps we should instead key the military-industrial budget to the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans? That would make more sense, wouldn't it?
This is the problem with the plutocratic system - it is corrupt and incompetent, as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was also the problem with the Soviet Union, wasn't it? Corruption was the norm, and that's really why their system collapsed - like a house eaten out by termites. The U.S. is certainly heading in the same direction, and the gross excesses of the military-industrial complex - the cause of the Soviet economic collapse - are now being mirrored in the U.S.
Consider the final decades of the Soviet Union, in comparison:
These stolid men represented the mass of party cadres who were no longer able to countenance Khrushchev’s anti-Stalinism. Led by their chief ideologue, Mikhail Suslov, the Brezhnev group put an end to boat-rocking questions about the past, setting up a regime that provided for their mutual security. That arrangement would eventually lead to massive stagnation in the 1970s, when – unable to address the state’s inefficiencies – the Kremlin “reformed” by allowing corruption to spread throughout society.
That's Victor Cherkashin, who ran the American traitors Ames (CIA) and Hansen (FBI) - consider this further quote from his recruitment of Ames:
“Ames laid out his rationale. “I have financial problems, as you know,” he said, sighing. “But that’s not the most important thing. It’s that I work for an agency that’s deliberately overestimating Soviet capabilities to wrangle more money for its own operations.”
There are funny stories here, that's for sure - such as neocon Team B's effort to overinflate the Soviet military threat, inventing "caterpillar drives" for submarines and so on - while entirely missing Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's massive biological warfare program. That effort was supported by academic Edward Teller, also a big booster of Star Wars.
The real challenge will be to separate the useful and valuable components of the military-industrial complex - such as aircraft design and manufacturing - from the idiot squads in areas like missile defense, contract management, private spying snafus, and so on. I'd guess only 30% of the complex is actually needed for a robust national defense - the rest is waste and bloat. The trick is to separate the two - otherwise, only the bloat will survive.
Looks like we are headed for
Looks like we are headed for a Double Dip Recession and not much is going to stop it from happening.
Unemployment will increase, Crime will increase, populations in prison will increase and a big vicious cycle from that will come about...about a 1/2 decade from now, things will probably get better.
Its going to be one hell of a roller coaster ride.
Hold on!
Looks like FOB Chapman got
Looks like FOB Chapman got hit a second time.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9HSLCI80.htm
I'm with Gunboat Diplomat in
I'm with Gunboat Diplomat in his powerful (and true) post. I'm a retired Army officer—Cold War vintage—and I have to wonder just what happened to the old boring method of arriving at an appropriate level of defense expenditures. You know, the one that called for assessing the world situation, threats, and all the rest. Now it seems we must spend some arbitrary amount based on GDP, regardless of whether the world situation supports such an expenditure. Inasmuch as our founding documents are clear in the need to "promote the general welfare" of the citizenry, one wonders what the Founders would make of a political system that insists on military expenditures regardless of the world situation. Actually, one doesn't wonder. One knows.
The Cold War was pretty simple. You had these two sides—the white knight and the dark knight—staring at each other across the table. The white knight, having been blessed with a democratic system that fostered human development, education, capital growth and also having been blessed with a large land mass with bountiful natural resources and lots of people, didn't really want anything that the dark knight possessed; the white knight did, however, think it would be nice to free the various peoples and lands that the dark knight had seized during the turbulence at the end of a great war. The dark knight, OTOH, was consumed with envy of what the white knight had, and had embarked on a quest to drag the white knight and his free followers down to his level. The dark knight cloaked his quest in ideological language, but the fact was the dark knight did not believe in his own self-stated ideology and merely wished to make more conquests. The white knight was wealthy; the dark knight was not. Reasoning that the dark knight could not match his wealth, the white knight embarked on a quest to defeat the dark knight with money, rather than on the field of battle. The dark knight foolishly attempted to match the white knight, but after a number of years, found that he could not keep up, that his empire was crumbling. The dark knight therefore finally conceded to the white knight's greater power. But because he waited too long, he still lost his empire. Today, he is a mere shell of his former self.
The white knight? He won a great victory. The peoples of the world rejoiced. But it was a hollow victory. It turned out that the white knight grew bored and restless in a world without the dark knight. It was no fun without the dark knight. Absent the dark knight, he knew he would have to pay heed to the needs of his own people and lands; he had been fortunate over the years because he had many subordinate princes who'd tended to the people, but they now wanted him to take up the burden. But the white knight found such a task beneath him. He was a great captain and he wished for more great conquests. He wished mightily for the dark knight's return. And he continued spending to keep his forces strong, ever hoping that the dark knight would reappear and justify his expenditures.
But the dark knight could not and would not return to the field. Although he was still evil, he could not muster the strength to provide the white knight with the contest the white knight so desperately wanted. Unfortunately, the white knight's people clamored for relief from the expenditures that had been made to deal with the dark knight. But the white knight had grown comfortable with the expenditures; they had caused the formation of a whole new class of rich people who supported the white knight in great luxury and style and ensured his continuation as the most powerful of the knights. So the white knight, realizing that he could not invent a single dark knight that approached the prowess of the defeated dark knight, decided that he would have to invent not one, but several dark knights both for his amusement as well as to continue his hold on power. And knowing that his people were inattentive, desperate for leadership and prone to believe him, the white knight also concocted legends of the new dark knights' power and the need for continued high expenditures to counter that power. And the people, loath to educate themselves on these matters themselves, once again decided to entrust their fortunes and livelihoods to the white knight and his followers, many of whom were local neighbors and friends and were therefore to be trusted.
Armed with the support of the people, the white knight and his political and military followers, then embarked on a series of wars against sundry black knights. But these wars did not go well and the people became restless. Although, as a result of the white knight's decision many years before to limit his military forces to small numbers of volunteers, the vast majority of the people knew no one involved in the wars, the people were concerned about the lives lost as well as their diminishing fortunes. Wars do cost money, as the white knight continually advised the people. Unfortunately, the people continued asking the questions. So, the white knight, by now desperate to divert the peoples' attention from the cost of his wars, harangued the people about the threats to them—many of which were not self-evident—and mustered a body of civilian and military experts to convince them. Along with this, the white knight devised a formula for the peoples' consumption. This formula did away with the old, discredited standard of assessing threats. The new formula accepted the vague notion that it is a dangerous world and that a certain percentage of the peoples' wealth would be needed until the end of time to ensure that the people were safe from any and all imagined threats. Without the these expenditures, the people were told, all manner of plagues would descend upon them, possibly resulting in the premature of hundreds of them. And the people, who after years of having ceded their political control to the white knight and his followers, were totally incapable of assessing the truth of the white knight's assertions, bowed to his superior judgment.
And none of them, not the white knight, not his followers, not those who despised the white knight and wished to depose him in favor of their own, not even the great mass of the people, ever understood that the white knight was no more. They had all become what they had fought and sacrificed to defeat over all of those years. They had become the dark knight. And it was as if the Cold War had never happened.
seriously, i remember back
seriously, i remember back in 04 we were discussing the use of troops as politcial props. Wtf is N. Gingrich getting off scoff free? Is the muslim community a threat to the us military? he says it is. why isnt there a pushback?
you fking rely on muslims to make it work.
publius: yo. intel-dump
publius: yo.
intel-dump
Ex- Whatever your
Ex-
Whatever your legislators say publicly, the real issue is 'dynamic, fact-based argument' about how to (a) quantify risk and (b) measure resources available. if GDP is a poor measure--for a number of reasons--what else can we use a benchmark for the amount of resources we have in the kit?
The right answer is
The right answer is someplace between what we have right now....too much defense spending.
and
What the Clinton Administration did to the military and defense industry in the 90's.
Any organization that is given money uses 100% of it's budget. If you don' use it, someone will think you do not need it.
I agree that the defense industry is bloated, but to shut down defense without R&D expense is going to put a lot of Americans out of work. It is really the only job function that can not be off-shored (almost, there is too much being done outside CONUS). Taxing the rich for our defense might sound good, I think fixing the tax system to make it fair is a better idea. The rich pay a heck of a lot in taxes....most corporations pay a heck of a lot in taxes. Write offs are not always fair. Other than low wages, less restrictive EPA standards, corporate tax rates are killing the future for working Americans. CEO's are making a killing cause the jobs are off-shored at a tenth of what it cost to hire a US citizen in the CONUS.
The final answer.....it is about waste Get rid of the waste and there is more money to go around for social programs, schools, military........and enough left over to get jobs back on US ground. It is about not what you tax, it is about how the money is spent.
We could do with a little less foreign aid too. The world has changed, Asian rim economy is red hot. Time they pay for their own military and help their neighbors along.
Him - ISAF/IJC just canned a
Him - ISAF/IJC just canned a LTC for raving to UPI about Power Point destroys the Brain? And that ISAF is useless?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/anti-powerpoint-rant-gets-colone...
@Zak - they'll cut not the waste, because the waste determines what's cut. They'll cut front line services.
For instance Zak the actual Pentagon building is wasteful and obsolete for the most part and has been since the Goldwater Act in 86 (Regional Commands). It should be reduced to a rump of itself concerned with providing resources. We don't need JCS. They're not in the chain of Command in any case. Resources and Command have been decentralized out by region. Yet the Center Hub is kept - but guess what? They are the line to Congress for the Budget. $$$.
Zak what's needed as a start is Gates cuts everything he asks for, then the next guy is Chain Saw Al Dunlap - worse.
We might of course ask ourselves if we must define our defenses from Kandahar to Korea. That's a political question. Maybe we'll finally get an answer since the people have been forced to pay attention.
BTW using GDP percentages as an overall benchmark is nothing new...
. . .We
.
.
.We stupid.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6816771n
That is just the tip of the iceburg. We put the Chinese in the commercial manufacturing business only protected by non-disclosure agreements.
Do we need the cheap labor and money that bad?
Now you know why we need military spending cause some dip shit DoD worker sold the secrets for a buck. We will never learn.
While we are talking about
While we are talking about military spending....
Here is one from University of Pennsylvania
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NYC_MOSQUE_FALLOUT?SITE=AP&SEC...
A quote, "As he writes, Zulfiqar frets over the potential fallout and what he and other Muslim leaders can do about it. Will young Muslims conclude they are second-class citizens in the U.S. now and always?"
If it was not for 9/11 we would not be talking about military spending and the above article would never have been written..........
Non-muslims are asking why muslims are not cleaning up the problem? Why are guys like Anwar Al-Awlaki given an open voice to preach violence against the nation that muslims claim to love so much. Yelling fire is not free speach, doesn't the audience know what is being preached?
I really do not think that the majority of Americans (and our military) are responding to the muslim faith, they are responding to the dilemma of who to believe. Muslims have lost credibility because of what the followers of their faith have done and now mulsims want to blame non-muslims for the response. I am lost for a reply.
Muslims world wide.......help the US reduce its military spending and stop it ! Stop the violence.
That is how to get your credibility back and number one citizen status.......it is that simple
Want flood support in Pakistan....STOP IT.
Want peace in the middle east......STOP IT.
Want support for your people.....STOP IT.
Want a mosque in NY.......STOP IT.
Want respect.......STOP IT.......it is that simple. Really, think of all the money that would be freed up for Pak flood relief if Americans had not just pissed off a trillion dollars giving the people in Irag a democracy and fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. America will not take your oil, we pay for it. American will not take your minerals, but China will. All Americans want you to do is.............STOP IT.
@Zak, Get a clue. They have
@Zak,
Get a clue. They have nothing to offer except to betray us on every single front. Name it.
That's what happens to a declasse faux "Ruling Class". They always end by taking the family jewels to the pawnbroker.
BTW DConstantinople - did you enjoy the free show?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/opinion/30douthat.html?_r=5&ref=opinion
Those are good hearted people.
I myself have no more room in my heart for ye.
And don't worry. They'll come around.
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