Mission Accomplished!!!

Right? So where are the plans to start drawing down the troops and bring them home???? Are we, as a nation, committed to never ending war? Why is that? We've been there 10 years. It's time.

Fully agree. It be a great step toward reducing our national debt as well not to mention letting the national guard get back to doing what is on its slate.. helping out with natural disaster management. We both know, there is going to be lots of foot-dragging for reason real and imagined.

I believe the Admin. is still talking draw down begining in July. We'll see if its just talk.

When the whole "War on Terror" concept was rolled out, I feared that it would mean endless war, no matter who sat in the White House. I'm pretty sure I was right.

My impression is that the "War on Terror" was positioning us for the inevitable global resource wars that I think is the likely scenario for the next fifty years. Establishing a base of operations to ensure the flow of oil is obviously part of that scenario. The bases set up in Iraq are not temporary wartime encampments, they are very clearly meant to be permanent installations.

The writing seems to me to be pretty clearly on the wall that the narrative of the next few decades is going to revolve around the U.S. attempting to protect our consumer economy by appropriating, by force if necessary, as many of the world's resources as we possibly can. The tragedy of that is that the effort to do so is going to consume more and more of our resources as time goes by, until the day that we are expending more resources than we can lay our hands on from outside sources. That is the day of the End of Empire for the United States. The only question is will it be sooner, or will it be later?

AspenValley wrote: When the whole "War on Terror" concept was rolled out, I feared that it would mean endless war, no matter who sat in the White House. I'm pretty sure I was right.

My impression is that the "War on Terror" was positioning us for the inevitable global resource wars that I think is the likely scenario for the next fifty years. Establishing a base of operations to ensure the flow of oil is obviously part of that scenario. The bases set up in Iraq are not temporary wartime encampments, they are very clearly meant to be permanent installations.

The writing seems to me to be pretty clearly on the wall that the narrative of the next few decades is going to revolve around the U.S. attempting to protect our consumer economy by appropriating, by force if necessary, as many of the world's resources as we possibly can. The tragedy of that is that the effort to do so is going to consume more and more of our resources as time goes by, until the day that we are expending more resources than we can lay our hands on from outside sources. That is the day of the End of Empire for the United States. The only question is will it be sooner, or will it be later?

I'm inclined to agree with your view. Even so, it seems reasonable to expect a far smaller troop number will accomplish counter terrorism. Experts on terrorism believe the threat of terrorism is greatly reduced and being overplayed. Likely, troop decisions will be based more on perception than reality, at least until such time when it becomes politically advantageous to bring a large number of the troops home.

I agree AV, the war on "words"(insert poverty, drugs, terror, whatever) are incapable of ending. I do support our troops and bases in foreign countries though. Whether as a forward guard or as you point out to insure the resources necessary to survive. There will be a coming food shortage as well as many other tough times ahead. We are not and will never be the evil empire many fear, so long as we remain a sovereign nation. Just look at the good done by our troops around the world, not just the fighting and death.

I have a friend who is a retired Colonel who gave me a book "Imperial Grunts" by Robert Kaplan, great book... But it talks about how our military has evolved in it's role around the world. How we have some level of involvement of our military that immerses into different cultures in places like the middle east, south and central america and and southeast asia and becomes not only in tune with what is going on, but gain some level of leverage/influence of the region.....

A highly recommended read if you want to know where the future of our military is heading......

"There will be a coming food shortage as well as many other tough times ahead. We are not and will never be the evil empire many fear, so long as we remain a sovereign nation. Just look at the good done by our troops around the world, not just the fighting and death."

A food shortage USA would be a blessing - obesity prevails. WE are a good nation and the only one capable of helping relieve the misery suffered by many others on the earth today. WE are self centered and spoiled at home. GOD BLESS our troops. BTW we spend billions on cosmetic surgeries and cosmetics - cut there FIRST.

Rockdoc Franz wrote: Fully agree. It be a great step toward reducing our national debt as well not to mention letting the national guard get back to doing what is on its slate.. helping out with natural disaster management. We both know, there is going to be lots of foot-dragging for reason real and imagined.

While every billion counts, the reality is the the $150 Billion a year we are spending right now only represents around 10% of the deficit spending that has been occurring for the last couple of years. Yes, it will help, but we still have $1350 Billion more to go before before the general government exists only on what it collects.

AspenValley wrote: When the whole "War on Terror" concept was rolled out, I feared that it would mean endless war, no matter who sat in the White House. I'm pretty sure I was right.

My impression is that the "War on Terror" was positioning us for the inevitable global resource wars that I think is the likely scenario for the next fifty years. Establishing a base of operations to ensure the flow of oil is obviously part of that scenario. The bases set up in Iraq are not temporary wartime encampments, they are very clearly meant to be permanent installations.

The writing seems to me to be pretty clearly on the wall that the narrative of the next few decades is going to revolve around the U.S. attempting to protect our consumer economy by appropriating, by force if necessary, as many of the world's resources as we possibly can. The tragedy of that is that the effort to do so is going to consume more and more of our resources as time goes by, until the day that we are expending more resources than we can lay our hands on from outside sources. That is the day of the End of Empire for the United States. The only question is will it be sooner, or will it be later?

The only issue I have with that thought is that we couldn't transport the resources during an active war given the technology that exists today - which nullifies any argument for going to war for that purpose. Taking over Libya, for instance, in order to appropriate their oil would only provide oil for the war in that region until hostilities ended. If you are correct, then it would be a good idea to start developing the resources we have in our own back yard instead on continuing to erect governmental blockades to stop that development. It would make sense to start building the GTL and CTL plants to refine liquid fuels regardless of what a barrel of oil costs. It would make sense to open up offshore extraction and collect a portion of the results, in lieu of taxes, to fill the SPR of the nation to the brim.

We should slashing federal spending to eliminate the deficit so that our current trade imbalance means an increased investment in the industry of the nation instead of that excess capital being spent to fund our glut of federal spending. The worst possible investment a potentially hostile nation can make is in the physical assets of another nation. If our debtors are helping us build the factories we will need to sustain a war, they would lose access to those assets if/when hostilities broke out while we would retain them. We can't convert factories from cars to planes or tanks if there are no factories to begin with. That is why we need to encourage the use of the funds from the trade imbalance to be spent on something other than the largess of the federal government. It will help our economy, put more of us back to work and enhance our national security. That is why it is better to lower taxes on companies instead of raising them. If you raise the taxes the incentive is to build elsewhere. If you lower, or eliminate, those taxes, the incentive is to build here.

One of the many reasons that I feel the current executive's policies run contrary to providing for the common defense and general welfare of the union. People might vote for him because they will personally benefit, but the federal government was charged with ensuring the general, not the individual, welfare. Attempting to provide individual welfare is why we find ourselves $14 Trillion in the hole with over $100 Trillion worth of unfunded future liabilities.

If we weren't involved in 2 1/2 wars and have bases all over the world, we could trim defense spending to a mere double what China spends and still have the most able military in the world. We spend almost $700 Billion every year on defense. This while people are talking about cutting medicare and raising the retirement age so that you'll probably be dead before you can collect the damned money that you've invested all your working life. If cutting taxes worked, where are the damned jobs? The tax rates have been low for over ten years now. I call BS PS.