One thing that seems to be ignored as President Obama adds thousands of troops to Afghanistan and withdraws some from Iraq is the tremendous size of the US military budget at 663 billion dollars plus an extra 200 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I refuse to call this a "defense budget" because it has nothing to do with defense. No country in its right mind would dare to attack the United States, as it would be the end of the world, with maybe a few viruses and bacteria surviving. Interestingly enough, no liberal or radical group I have heard or read has called it an offense budget. Since it is repeated a thousand times, it sinks into their brains as a "defense budget." For hundreds of years the countries of Europe attacked each other with appalling frequency, until the advent of the atom bomb. Now, the elites of those countries realize the game is over and they live in peace because of mutually assured destruction on a colossal scale, if they actually attacked each other. I am confident human beings didn't suffer a sudden infusion of love, compassion and peaceful feelings immediately following World War 2, especially those who own those European countries and for centuries wanted to expand their share of the world's weath

The US "defense budget" is actually an offense budget. It hasn't been a defense budget in any connotation of the word since World War 2. Since 1945 the United States has attacked Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Haiti, Panama, that superpower of the Caribbean called Grenada, Yugoslavia, Iraq twice, and Afghanistan. The CIA has subverted governments in Guatemala, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Indonesia, Haiti and Iran to name just a few. The CIA has an undisclosed budget amounting to tens of billions of dollars.

To me the political definition of pork, leaving the meat aside, is something not beneficial to a great number of human beings, actually harmful in some way to the environment, but profitable otherwise, or simply ridiculous. The US offensive budget meets these criteria exactly. It is harmful to the majority of human beings on the planet, especially since radioactive uranium particles get into the atmosphere from the use of depleted uranium and are circulated world wide. Most offensive budget items like bombs, shells and bullets are destroyed. This is definitely ridiculous when there are so many human needs on the planet. A tiny fraction of the Pentagon's budget could provide clean drinking water to everyone on earth, eliminate epidemics of disease and save thousands of lives. Offensive items like the ever improved, remorseless drone bombers kill people. Bombers are not something picked up at the supermarket to add comfort to life. Pork is often ridiculous. War is ridiculous. It is never fought for the reasons stated, but to benefit a few rich people. It contributes greatly to the destruction of the environment. It is utterly futile to talk of ending global warming, saving species of animals, clearing land mines and cluster bombs, saving cultural sites or rain forests, or ending epidemics of disease, while wars continue. War is not just obsolete, but a terminal activity, which will destroy the human species as well as much of the rest of the precious phenomenon called life.

Some people state that the United States is not involved in a lot of wars like those in Africa. The United States through the CIA has its finger in every pie in the world. Few people know that the United States trained the Ethiopian troops that invaded Somalia and that the United States pressured Ethiopia to invade. Also few know that the United States and Israel trained and equipped the Georgian troops that invaded Asset and caused the Russian response.

Think of the additional stimulus to the American economy in this world wide economic dilemma that eliminating or cutting drastically the US offense budget could give. Even if not spent directly on human needs, think of the effect on the budget deficit and the overall US debt to the rest of the world. In a few years, it would cut drastically into both these things. Why won't it be done, no matter if Obama is President or not? Because the United States is a capitalist country and an economic and military empire and will, short of a revolution, never, never cut its offense budget. When and if the ordinary working people of the United States control this country and not until then will there be peace on Earth. I don't mean elect a Democratic Congress. The US Congress is totally beholden to large corporations and not the people. The answer are corporations owned and operated by the workers themselves. Workers would certainly never vote over decades to pay themselves the miserably low wages that have resulted in the gigantic inventories of goods and the present World-Wide depression

As an addition to this letter, I have been writing truthful letters like this for over twenty years. No publication that considers itself liberal or radical has bothered to print a single one. Only Indymedia and college student newspapers have printed them, when I had the money for the postage to send numerous ones to every college newspaper in the country, as well as nearly every daily newspaper. I am sure all these other publications would say that I am not a known author and therefore, irrelevant. I have never heard of many of their writers either. Even my friend Michael Parent has trouble sometimes getting his articles printed. The reason is that if one is too truthful about capitalism it grates on those who make their living by it or would just like to tinker around the edges and reform the system a bit. Neither liberal hosts like Rachel Meadow or Keith Olberman will ever have a Marxist on their show or explain Marx's Labor Theory of Value, which is the reason we are in the present predicament. Therefore, humanity will continue to drive straight off a cliff.


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