Quote:
Originally Posted by Jibartik
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Yeah, they can, but guess what, we dont lol!
Again: all of what you spoke of has resulted in misery death and destruction.
Sorry to say this is true!
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I think you're oversimplifying. Certainly, history has shown that having a military that's too strong tends to encourage whoever is in control of said military to use it: that's true.
And to
some extent the military-industrial complex has existed since long before Eisenhower invoked the term. Back in the revolutionary war, I'm sure the English cannon manufacturers (or warship-makers or whoever) tried to curry favor with the king so that he would buy their cannons/boats/whatever.
But the
degree of the problem has waxed and waned. We've had periods with more military graft vs. less, and periods of peace vs. periods of a Bush as president (with Iraq #2 being the strongest example of us getting into a war we had no reason to be in, so that a bunch of rich people could get richer).
You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater though: you can't say "well Bush got us into an unnecessary war, wasting hundreds of American lives and trillions of dollars of American taxpayer money ... therefore we shouldn't have a military or defend ourselves." The answer isn't to go from one extreme to another, it's to have a middle ground, propertly managed, well-run system of government.