Annual Military Spending 2019

        Annual Military Spending 2019                 

             

Rank	Country	Annual Spending in US $
1	United States	$732,000,000,000.00
2	China	$261,000,000,000.00
3	India	$71,100,000,000.00
4	Russian Federation	$65,100,000,000.00
5	Saudi Arabia	$61,900,000,000.00
6	France	$50,100,000,000.00
7	Germany	$49,300,000,000.00
8	United Kingdom	$48,700,000,000.00
9	Japan	$47,600,000,000.00
10	South Korea	$43,900,000,000.00
11	Australia	$27,500,000,000.00
Total of #2-11	(The Next 10 Nations)	$726,200,000,000.00

   These are the latest figures from SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) on annual military spending for 2019. They were flashed on the screen by Fareed Zakaria on his CNN show this last weekend. Our nation spends more on our military annually than the next ten nations combined spend on theirs. We exceed their total expenditure by nearly six billion dollars. I found that hard to believe, so I researched it. These numbers don't include North Korea because North Korea doesn't open its accounting to the folks in Stockholm, but if they did, the chart would look about the same because North Korea is a small industrial nation that according to US State Department estimates spent between $3.7 billion and $4.2 billion in 2017. Italy spends over 5 times that much on their military and they didn't make the Top 11 List.

So what do the nations on this chart have in common? Well, all but The United States and Saudi Arabia offer their citizens universal health care. The largest industrial nation in the world “can't afford it” and the Saudis, who brought you 9/11, could care less about their citizens. Care is for the Crown.

Would you expect US to win more often, seeing the above figures? I would, but I may not be giving enough weight to the fact that our Army is always playing an away game. Perhaps it doesn't matter if we win or lose. It may only be important that we spend the money. Spending money on the military is a bipartisan endeavor. “Have gun will travel” reads the card of our nation. As the chart shows, the industrial military lobbyists are more powerful than anyone you elect. They slop over in to civilian arms sales as well. Perhaps that is why gun safety legislation, with 70% popular support never makes it into legislation. So many wonderful things (and people) money can buy.

Look to the above list for the reason the most powerful industrial nation in the world doesn't have free K-16 quality education, universal free health care, improved infrastructure, a reliable renewable energy grid and intelligent gun legislation. Every time we spend another billion on our military, another cigar butt is thrown from a yacht into the Mediterranean and a thousand human beings die.

Cheers, Old Buz 3/25/2021                                                         iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

Patriotism is Willful Ignorance

You may see the title of this blog post as despicable. I simply see it as true. To be a patriot, you would have a point of view that favors the place of your birth. By being willfully ignorant, you take notice of that which favors your point of view, while ignoring that which does not. Do you see a problem with my conclusion? To me, the two concepts are synonyms. So call me names. I'm OK with that.

I'll try to offer some obvious support to my quote. If you were a Japanese Citizen in the late 1930s, you saw the United States Navy place a blockade on your small island nation because the US sided with China in a centuries old battle. Your country then attacked a US Naval base that supported the blockade. A blockade of an island nation is clearly an act of war. The United States later ended the war with a nuclear attack on two civilian populations. Yes, the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons (weapons of mass destruction) on a civilian population, now objects to Iran having them. Iran would be but one of a dozen nations in today's world with nuclear weapon capability. How would you, as an American Patriot, state the history of these events? Would it be different than the view of the Japanese Patriot? Is either position true?

Another example would be the Vietnamese Patriot's view of our actions in Vietnam. We supported a corrupt government against a civil uprising. The primary excuse used was an attack on a US Naval vessel in the Gulf of Tonkin. Eye witness reports and the narration given by our acting Secretary of Defense, at the time, Robert McNamara, was that the attack was friendly fire in the fog. You can witness McNamara’s testimony in The Fog of War. A patriot, born in Vietnam, would probably say we had no business interfering in that war. American opinions vary on the involvement of our troupes in Vietnam, but I would guess that a true American Patriot backed that war. “My country, right or wrong, my country.” “United We Stand.”

Move forward to our involvement in the Middle East (starting in Iraq). We are there based on 9/11 and “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. George W. Bush has admitted that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and anyone who is not willfully blind, having even a slight knowledge of physics, is aware that the Twin Towers fell by means of demolition. They obviously did not “burn down”. So, God Bless America, where the patriots live in a much rosier world than I do.

“Without Patriots there would be no war.” - The Pacifist

Cheers, Old Buz 3/6/2021

iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

Born an agnostic and with GOD's help will remain one.