Wow, I'm with Quicksilver...

And it is cute how you think you know Russia & China's true military budget.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Quicksilver knows that I am even more against it than he is. I was speaking from the perspective of the military contractors. I'm sure they think it is a good thing. Otherwise they would not spend the many millions bribing the politicians to vote for war.


Russia and China both have elected parlaments and in both cases, just as in the United States, the parlament/congress controls all spending, and votes on the budget. The budget of both contries is public information just as it is here.

Do they hide certain spending for this like intelligence? Of course -- the Pentagon does the same thing. But the overall budget is known, just not the specifics of what the Pentagon uses the money for.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

Keep on believing that.

__________________

An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I will believe it until I read some information stating otherwise.

Everyone seems very quick to conjure up conspiracy theories about other governments without any evidence at all, but when presented with evidence about conspiracies our own government is involved in, nobody wants to even consider that they may be true.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

'evidence' used very loosely.

__________________

An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Why would most countries need a huge defense budget when they know the U.S. will come to their aid immediately if ever needed? Because of our defense spending, it allows other countries to spend more of their tax budget on your desired social programs.

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Thanks Benny! Every Breath Bernanke Takes

Are you trying to be funny here??

"Come to their aid"?? You've got to be kidding. The US is the reason that most of these countries have as high a defense budget as they do. Most of the countries we are talking about (China, Russia, Pakistan) have the defense budgets that they do because they fear a US invasion. If it weren't for the US, they would have much lower defense budgets.

This is an arms race being driven by the huge US defense budget. The other countries are simlpy trying to keep up.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

Russia & China don't fear a US invasion....... Calm down Imperialism boy

And why do you think Taiwan and S. Korean don't care about military spending, because they rely on the US to front that. The British also know that we will send them pretty much everything they need, if they need it. And Israel...wow...just sit back and watch the imports

Hell, even Iran has our stuff.

__________________

An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Then how come Taiwan, South Korea, Britain, and Israel are all among the top 20 countries in military spending? Yet the countries we are supposedly protecting them from (North Korea, Iran, Syria) are nowhere to be found on that list.

You don't make a very good case for that argument.



And BTW, the number listed in this chart for the US does NOT include the $100+ billion seperately allocated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by congress later during the year.

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...