Eugene Robinson: Runaway Military: A Raw Deal at Half the Price

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/runaway_military_a_raw_deal_at_half_the_price_20101115/

Runaway Military: A Raw Deal at Half the Price

Posted on Nov 15, 2010

By Eugene Robinson


I come not to bury the manifesto issued last week by President Obama’s debt-reduction commission, but to praise the most welcome of its ideas: Slash defense spending along with everything else.

The panel’s co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, identify $100 billion in defense cuts that could be made in 2015. That would be too little and too late, but what’s almost revolutionary is the notion that if we’re ever to get this nation back on a sound economic footing, we have to cut what Dwight Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” down to size.

snip//

In an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday, Karzai demanded that a key element of Petraeus’ plan—nighttime “capture-and-kill” raids by Special Operations forces—be halted because they generate such anger among civilians.

“The time has come to reduce military operations. The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan ... to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life,” Karzai told the Post.

All right, then, let’s save American lives and a ton of money. Let’s oblige him.

and we need to quit all of the extraneous crap that goes to the Pentagon, especially those things like carriers the Navy doesn't want or need; spectacular aircraft the AF says it doesn't need, and a host of other things...like "Star Wars"...:eyes: