Time to Rethink OUr Options

Here's an idea that I believe has merit.

Think about this: What would happen if we did nothing to the military budget for one year except to pay for maintaining our troops. But we added no new technology, no new weapons systems, no new purchases.

Would if anything would change ?

Well, the military industrial complex would be ticked off!
But aside from that would there be any downside?

Consider, technology wise we are already light years ahead of every country on earth in terms of advanced weapons systems. There is no competition for the F21 yet we are committed to building the F23 whose price tripled since the purchase decision was made. We are now paying over two hundred million for a fighter-bomber that originally costed out at 110 million dollars.
But here's the rub: We don't need it to add to our arsenal. And you can repeat that experience all over the military in terms of procurement..


The real changes to the budget have been dictated outside by the hardware and software manufacturers who have merged so many times that they have literally eliminated competition and doubled and tripled the prices the Pentagon is already paying for weapons systems and new technology.


We are not talking about terrorists armed with 59 cent box cutters here who have already humbled us and are likely to do so again with home-made weapons.

But let's say my hypothesis is correct, what could we do to prevent war with 200 plus billion dollars?

We could do a lot.

We could educate people all over the world that maybe Americans are not so bad.

We could end this conflict between Islam and Christianity that seems to be at the core of everything that America is doing to end its attack on some abstract notion of terrorism which has increasingly gotten to look like America vs. Islam.

200 billion dollars is a lot of money.

That's like 70, 000 dollars for every living person in the US.

We could change the world's view of diplomacy; build schools; distribute books; develop channels of communication that do not exist today.

Why is that?

Because nobody in our state department knows how to conduct discussions where positions are discussed and debated and solutions NEGOTIATED.

That's one of the reasons we're hated.

We don't know how to compromise. We don't know how to say that perhaps the other side might have an argument. We don't know how to reach the people. We don't understand their languages, their cultures and their traditions yet we feel perfectly comfortable about changing their lives the way we think they should be changed.

We are polarized and ossified in our views.

We are the mentality of "Bring it On" not let us sit down and discuss your grievances...

If that isn't the height of arrogance, i would like to know what is

We are led by men and women of small vision and narrow perspective.
And we don't have the courage to force them to change, to recognize that they no longer speak for us...


Imagine what we could do with a little imagination, a little understanding, a willingness to listen to the other guy. At the very least, we could do more to change the world than all of the atomic bombs did in fifty years of thumping our chests and rattling sabers.

Les Aaron
The Hubmaster