New GOP Congress Will Continue to Feed Vast Industrial Military Complex: More Afghanistan and Military Spending

The United States spends nearly 50% of all military spending in the world. While I concur it's the federal government's job to provide a common defense, there is nothing common about the outrageous military budget that continues to ad to our national debt. When you realize how large the budget is and compare it to the warning of Dwight David Eisenhower in his farewell address, it's time to seriously examine the military budget if we are going to make any dents in the our most dangerous enemy, the national debt.



It appears the Republicans have no plans on making cuts. In fact, they may be readying ton increase defense spending. Why? We can cut our large 46% of the world's defense spending without surrendering. This is a fact.

With Ike Skelton gone and Democrats out of power, Representative Howard "Buck" McKeon is likely to take the chair of the House Armed Services Committee. He is promising an increase in military spending. Look back to that previous paragraph. Our Republic faces a large national debt, and we are carelessly spending 46% of every dollar spent in this world on the war machine. We can effectively fight wars at a fraction of this cost.

McKeon said that he has a goal of increasing the base defense budget one percent over the next five years in order to ensure that the U.S. is adequately protected against military threats.

As well, they plan on increasing the involvement in Afghanistan:

More than 30 tea party candidates won election to Congress, according to an analysis by The Associated Press, enough to affect some policy decisions. Some haven't staked out clear national security priorities, while others are libertarians or isolationists who could split the GOP with debates over the U.S. commitment to shaping events abroad.

Tea party hero Rand Paul, now a senator-elect from Kentucky, has said the greatest threat to U.S. national security is a lack of border control. On his website, Paul also says that "when we must fight, we declare war as the Constitution mandates and we fight to win." Congress has not formally declared war since World War II.

If the Republicans can avoid internal divisions, they will be able to slow some Obama programs or policies and kill others.

On Afghanistan, some Republicans say they will increase pressure on Obama to stick with a war plan they generally support, using the bully pulpit of congressional hearings this spring.

They will argue that Obama's plan to begin withdrawing forces in July 2011 is arbitrary and that war commanders should not be asked to yank forces prematurely.

"If we see the White House beginning to discuss withdrawing, and the conditions aren't right on the ground, you're going to see us talk about the importance of keeping focused," said Adam Kinzinger, a Republican and former Air Force pilot who won a House seat in Illinois with tea party support...

...The new Republican-controlled House will also put existing White House defense and foreign policies under a microscope.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., in line to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, promised new oversight and investigation of Obama's Afghanistan strategy, among other things.

"We're not going to be looking for gotcha things," McKeon told The Associated Press. "We're just going to look at things we should be doing and are they doing it."

Like a number of other Republican lawmakers, McKeon strongly supported Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan this year, but he has also called Obama a "reluctant wartime president" for linking the troop increase with a date for the start of withdrawal.

McKeon said his panel wants to hear directly from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, this spring. Petraeus has not testified to Congress since taking the job last summer, in part because Democrats were not eager to draw attention to an unpopular war.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll last month found 58 percent of Americans oppose the war, which is now in its 10th year and has cost more 1,200 American lives and $300 billion.

Listen, I am for a strong military, but watching these wars and examining the history of the United States, we aren't fighting wars to win anymore. We are fighting wars at the influence of big defense contractors and the intent of occupying countries that we aren't encouraging liberty in freedom in at the end of the day. It's time Constitutional conservatives and tea parties start calling it what it is. It's a scam, and our men and women have become pawns in all of this. As long as we have this thinking in Congress, exhibited by Buck McKeon, we aren't going to cut a dime from the national debt. There isn't a weapons system around that will destroy the debt at the end of the day.