Indeed.

How the US can justify such a massive military budget when their social security system is headed for collapse within three decades is beyond me - their priorities are nothing short of insane.

Tim,

You say:

"Our Defence Department recently announced that it’s in the process of acquiring cluster bombs - heinous weapons that kill and maim primarily children - despite international efforts to ban them."

I'd be grateful if you could post links showing evidence that Australia is planning to purchase and deploy cluster munitions. For a start, when was the "recent announcement" made?

I can't see many thoughtful people wanting to own stock in the companies involved in their manufacture. My understanding is that components of cluster bombs have been made in Australia in the past, but I do not have the supporting details here.

The more information you can provide, the better.

Thanks

Shame on the Australian government for helping to perpetuate the misery. Building more bombs is not the answer, but we are wasting money on just that. And the idea of our military purchasing cluster bombs is an absolute disgrace. Where is the public outcry about this - the rallies and the national reaction. What a disgusting waste of money - VERY hard to justify. As a nation we should take more notice of what New Zealand and be more proactive about demilitarisation and peace-building instead of building our armoury.

When the world has such seemingly intractable domestic problems spending trillions on defence is insane. To those who say it is essential I'd ask why we needed to save the local populace from Saddam but not Mugabe; could resource theft/security be the reason? The good doctor Brendan extols the need to spend billions on the latest whizzbang fighters. However bin Laden is never going to play that game but I'm sure he appreciates western countries cutting their health budgets to pay for it. As for the 'fight them over there or fight them back here' argument I haven't noticed many terrorist attacks in Switzerland lately.

Thanks Tim. Nice to know that someone else out there can see that to reach immediate ends by relying on means that are not based on any Principles except on the most effective means to achieve an end will destroy the further end of creating widespread happiness (in Geek sense ). Moreover, apart from the ends justifies the means thinking which is shared by terrorists and militarism; we have the callous instrumental reasoning that puts effectiveness before human emotion, compassion and justice.

The thinking of a terrorist is the same as John Howard's and G. W. Bush which is that it is sensible to use bad means to achieve immediate ends. This in turn undermines the authority of the Principles. Whether these Principles are instinctual, intuitive, etc. is not necessary investigate here. All we have do is consider which behaviour brings true happiness. If, for instance, your average family guy lied to his friends eventually no one would listen to him and thus he’d be unhappy at the loss of respect and his authority; if Mum and Dad let their children go without because they spent all their income on weapons and surveillance systems -those children wouldn’t be unhappy; if teenage son got his gang together and headed off to say Inala to straighten out the flannel brigade you’d have an ongoing situation that led to widespread unhappiness; and a family where its leaders, Mum and Dad , belted into each other and encouraged the kids to take sides (Bush’s “either for or against us” thinking) is not going to be happy.

Communities who do hold to Principles are usually happier because they use good means (means that adhere to Principles) to achieve good ends. But most importantly they nurture the Principles, which religion has mostly failed to do even though that should be their prime role.

I think this is why people rail against the right-wing religious organizations (and Boaz) that spend most of their energy using doubtful means in the name of an immediate end. Beyond immediate ends is always the Ultimate End of nurturing the Principles

Re: my post above. I want it made clear that I am neither for nor against the soldiers in Iraq. I have a great deal of respect and concern for these men and women. They’re humans - mostly doing the best they can.

I know this is a contradiction but most of these people are good people – most are men aand women of integrity and courage that would put most of us to shame. Their lives must not be put at risk because of any vote-chasing choice and they must not be sacrificed for the sake of ruler’s pride.

They’re not putting their life on the line for a pat on the back. I do think that some of them are too young to wisely make the choice to go to war. Shame on the enlisters and the tactics they use.

There seems to be an over representation of young men from poor families. The money ofered is more than they could ever hope to make in a normal job. And if they are klled their young wives would be set up for lives. I see on CNN that a lot of young married men are joining up to escape poverty. This is tragic, but at the same time what wonderful young men to go to such extremes for their loved ones.

Australians must not repeat the shameful and damaging behaviour of supposed peace activists after the Vietnam war.

The Author said:

heinous weapons that kill and maim primarily children.

OUTRIGHT LIE. Wars are fought between Armies, where armies are attacked, and killed and maimed. Children, God forbid, are sometimes casualties. Wars do NOT 'PRIMARILY' target or kill or maime children.

Coolthrop says:"Building more bombs is not the answer"

Err...Cooly..what the heck is the QUESTION ?

Demented, retarded, and historically challenged and possibly malicious articles like the one we are commenting on are very dangerous to a naive West! By the way.. those adjectives are not personal insults to the author, they are accurate descriptors of the content of the article.

1/ DEMENTED.

Aware of things happening, but no clue as to their connection with other events.

2/ RETARDED.

Clearly lacking in insight about how life, tribes, nations work, thus leading to false conclusions which ignore certain HARSH realites of life.

3/ HISTORICALLY CHALLENGED

Also manifesting a lack of awareness of the movements of nations, and powers and empires throughout history, and naively thinking that because we have had a few decades without being directly in a major world conflict that 'all is sweet'... err.. no..it aint !
He also fails to recognize TRENDS as they are quite clear, and leading to outcomes totally contrary to his suggestion that laying down arms will suddenly bring in Utopia.

4/ POSSIBLY MALICIOUS

In the face of undeniable and growing military/terrorism threats, any call to 'disarm' and be a good example is VERY close to a fifth column action.

OUR PEACE...is based on the outcome of WAR...is maintained by brute power, and contains the seeds of the next war.
Make no mistake about that ! (signed Joh)

Boaz, for such a harsh critique of the article, you don't say all that much about its content.

Do you think the US is justified in spending half the world's defence budget? Should this be such a high priority?

Can you not envision other non-violent means of achieving these ends, given that there is such a vast amount of resources available?

Are we not just a client state of the US? Do we really have any choice?
Eisenhower said:"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together..."

In fact, now does the US government of whatever stripe, have any actual influence over the plutocrats of "the huge industrial & military machinery" which currently exists, or am I unduly pessimistic?

I can only agree again with BOAZ_DAVID in his assessment of this article. There are several brutal facts of life which many in the west seem determined to ignore. These are:

1. That when the world is about to run short of a resource (in this case oil), you don't give a rationed supply to all, you have a little war to see who gets it all and who gets nothing.

2. You must have a vision for the future. My vision is that if I had to pick a country today that shows what most of the third world will be like in 25 years time, I would pick Iraq.

3. Nothing will be done to solve any of these problems, because it remains a strict taboo to even mention the main underlying cause of most of the world's troubles. This underlying cause is, of course, the burgeoning population of the third world.

4. With declining oil resources and burgeoning third world population, we are in for a very interesting century, in which having the lion lie down with the lamb and beating swords into ploughshares are both definitely off the agenda.

5. Our military spending is essential to our survival in a world where it will not be too many more years until our navy will be using refugee boats for target practice.

I have always had the most immense admiration for pacifists and conscientious objectors in time of war. Their moral courage in standing up for their beliefs when their friends and colleagues are off fighting the enemy is monumental.

However, this stance is actually far more difficult to justify in what is loosely described as peacetime.

That may sound perverse, but being vocally anti-war when there is no immediate threat is self-indulgent and dangerously complacent.

It is a simple and observable fact that not every country or faction is as civilized and balanced as we are. There are many, many countries that have a substantially lower standard of living, and who might one day decide that they are sufficiently envious of our (or one of our equally well off allies') prosperity that they pluck up the courage to engage us in hostilities.

Whether we like it or not, it is vitally important to our future that we maintain sufficient deterrence, in the form of our military capability and self-confidence, to prevent this scenario from coming to pass either for ourselves or for a future generation.

Nor is it a matter of blindly following the US. Although it has to be said that the amount of money that their population is willing to subscribe to weaponry is of direct benefit to us, so long as we remain pretty much on the same side.

TRTL asks:

>>Can you not envision other non-violent means of achieving these ends, given that there is such a vast amount of resources available?<<

Sorry, nope.

Hi, Sir Vivor --

To answer your questions about cluster munitions, go to the Australian Parliament House website and you'll be able to access the Peace Organisation of Australia's submission to the Senate inquiry into the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill 2006. This has details about previous Australian stockpiles. For information about the government's decision to acquire cluster munitions, see the Defence Department's submission to the same inquiry.

Regards
Tim

Peace is a serious matter and one we need to assertively learn more about.

We need a national knowledge poole. An institute hub of some kind that can deal with synthesising this kind of knowledge outside foreign affairs, as we know it.

Collective Securities is about Crime Prevention at every level. Community Safe is part of Global Safe and we need to learn more about what this means.

My view is that we are a defensive culture. We spend so much time on thinking defensively, we fail to have the capacity to think about all.

Australia is an innovative nation, and I think we could gain more if we practiced what we preached, on our home soil.

Self Governance begins with us inside the family and works upward toward nation building. Yes, it is about influencing others, eachother, as well as ourselves.

While in Vietnam, where I did my research thesis... I wanted to know how the Vietnamese had survived 30 years after the war.

I was shocked by what I saw and learnt about this... but deeply inspired by their village people's resilience. I was also proud of the Aussies and Kiwi's whom I met, who were assigned at village ground levels. These people were working to help re-build Vietnam's infrastructure,(Telstra, DPI, Community Aid Abroad, UN). Working to teach (knowledge transfer) and empower others at so many basic levels.

This I believe is how we kill militarism.

Our Will to Act as individuals towards a nation building concept, is the key.

http://www.miacat.com/
.

Military spending is not just buying and building weapons. What about paying our Defence members? We work we get paid we pay taxes. Don't we have a right? We are the ones fighting for your freedom of speech. Please remember that without the diggers you would all be speaking a foreign language.

HUH ? Pericles and BOAZ on the same page ? yikes.. this is getting scary.....

Plerdsy.. thanx for the additional perspective there mate about 3rd world population etc.. it all adds to the big piccy !

TRTL you rightly point out that I did not address the content.. Ok..I'll try to remedy that now.

Regarding the US defense budget... this is a hard one. I tend to agree that some of the funds might be better allocated to social welfare etc...poverty alleviation and so on. Yet..at the same time, I don't have a full enough picture of the actual expenditure to know how much is concerning keeping technically ahead of CHINA and thus justified, and how much is simply keeping the wheels of the Industrial/defense conglomerates turning for their own sake.

Lets just say.. to the extent that funding is not strictly needed for valid strategic reasons, it should be used elsewhere.

PEACEFUL RESOLUTION TO CONFLICT ? :) mate.. surely with my 3000+ posts thus far you don't have to quizz me on that issue..
If conflict was ONLY related to misunderstandings, and IF people were really concerned with ALL other peoples welfare, it might be possible.

But conflicts are based on a number of major forces.

1/ Greeeeeeeed.
2/ Religious directives.

("Then be it known to you this day that the World and all that is in it belongs to Allah (so far so good) AND HIS APOSTLE" aah..now we have a problem.

3/ Survival in the face of limited (and inadequate) resources.(cf Plerdsy's post)

The only peacefully resolvable conflicts are those between well intentioned people who simply misunderstand the other side.

All the rest are mega BIFFO slash and burn, till last man standing.

This is why I become so 'hysterical and animated' when utter tripe like this article is trotted out. (and trust me.. I loathe tripe as food also....bleaaaaaagghh.. :)

Thats why I have to suspect a malicious intent with articles like this. If their authors are intelligent they are either in denial of reality or simply want to direct our minds in more 'managable' ways.

I like the sentiment of the article... but...

My other reaction is to think that Australia is no more likely to achieve word peace through arms reduction as it was in achieving agricultural free trade by dropping local tariffs.

But I'm just blowing smoke here. Coming to the point, I don't think that if AU reduced expenditure it would have any influence on the US, China, Russia, Iran, the Koreas or even the taliban. We're simply to small and remote. They're not going to care of we buy 70 JTF (aircraft) or 50. Ditto with those bloody tanks surely.

However maybe there's potentially a case to be made for having a more defensive force. Or... investing in cross-cultural/border activities of other kinds. That'd be something that I'd consider as a taxpayer.

BD, cluster bombs do kill children. They're the bombs that spray out showers of bomblets that look like soft drink cans. Most don't explode on impact but sit around waiting for some poor sod to pick them up. Kids pick them up thinking they're in for a fizzy treat.

They were not designed to hit specific military targets, but to do little bits of damage over a wide area and a long period of time. They are not the stuff of trench warfare (blokes fighting blokes) or the technological precision we now like to claim we've risen to.

They are specifically designed to cause what we misleadingly call collateral damage, another term for the mangling and death of civilians.

Militarism is part of the Military Industrial Complex President Eisenhower warned the US about in his farewell address.

Companies for research and development are reliant on the government for funds to continue work and exist. This research and development then needs to be justified, so that the spending is justified, which is why wars are necessary.

It seems to me that the real solution is to make people aware of the symbiotic relationship so that they won't accept or believe the propaganda which is put to them to justify militarism. Otherwise, there is no real pressure on the government to cut back spending.

"They are specifically designed to cause what we misleadingly call collateral damage, another term for the mangling and death of civilians."
Posted by chainsmoker

No the cluster bombs are used to deny ground to Infantry and light vehicles as a way to control corridors with out having to place men and material on the scene and to allow for a prediction of movement. Mines are for ground defense not attack weapons. That children and farmers are the usual post war victims of such munitions is because they are playing or working in large open areas once denied to military use. It isn't because farmers and children are post war targets for any military.

Collateral damage, is extra damage caused by hitting targets, and/or in missing targets. In the case of WW2 stick bombing or carpet bombing collateral damage was severe. London's fires were collateral damage. A bomb fragment traveling 500 yards and passing through a door to kill a 75 year old grandmother is collateral damage. Not intent or target.

I don't deny that there is a need for military expenditure, I question the sheer magnitude.

If the US is spending 48 per cent of the world's military budget, they are already vastly far ahead of any other military threats.

DB, you speak of China... but mathematically speaking, if the US is indeed spending 48 per cent of the world's budget and China is inching close to the US, that would mean all the other countries combined are spending less than five per cent.

I asked earlier, if there was a more practical way of spending this money. Many say no - to them I say, consider this:

The US spent vast amounts on their military budget and a fortune on Iraq yet allowed corrupt corporations to squander the amounts allocated for the reconstruction of the country.

Theoretically private enterprise is more efficient than government corporations - clearly this isn't the case when there is insufficient competition.
The effort at reconstructing Iraq has been woeful - the US government has utterly failed in its task. Private corporations have squandered what money was meant for this.

It would have been more expensive for the government to take on the task of reconstructing Iraq, instead of farming it out to private contractors. It would have required even more resources, though profit wouldn't have been the motivating factor, and there would have been some accountability.

Wouldn't this have been a better way to spend this money? The idea of spending money on military effectiveness (and remember the invasion was mighty quick and efficient) yet not investing properly in the reconstruction was stupidity.

Everyone speaks as if the military expenditure of the US is justified.

While I don't necessarily agree for a number of reasons, even if I did agree with the motives, clearly, the results are not being achieved for the investment.

So, yes. There are much more effective ways this money can be spent. Even if you do cede high military expenditure is necessary.

TRTL, It would be better if you were more judicial with your language rather than accusatory. The U.S citizens., the the American government, and more than 150 private companies, only part of the overall operation in Iraq, hires and fires and changes companies and prosecutes all criminal activity as it is found. Not one of the western companies is there to rape Iraq. If you begrudge them profit or for not conforming to your time line relative to the actions of a very aggressive and violent insurgency is another matter. Much is being done. It just isn't top ten in the news. Body counts sell more newspapers than good deeds. They know how emotional people are and how to wind them up.
I'm not suggesting no mistakes were made or will be made. I am saying that it is unjust to define the efforts in Iraq as American greed and write off all the good being done as collateral happenstance. To say that these people are only there for the sake of profit is a slap in the face by someone doing nothing but being critical using emotive headlines as supporting argument. I'd like to say get over there and dig in but, you'd have to have something to contribute other than ridicule.
And the U.S. Government spends billions each year in many countries around the world as employers. Especially American Bases in foreign nations. Ask the Filipinos how it was when the Yanks closed Clark AFB and Subic Bay Naval Station. A tremendous amount of near instant unemployment is what. Much of it unrecoverable yet by any new employment opportunities. Americas military isn't just bomb making.
And for the poster suggesting much of the American army is made up of people escaping poverty needs to study the pay schedule for American soldiers. You'd make more money starting out working part time at MacDonald's or Burger King. And certainly not put out half the effort or the commitment.

Aqvarivs - you make a fair point about those on the ground doing good work. I don't mean to disparage their efforts.

That doesn't hide the fact that billions of dollars have been squandered. And yes, in many cases it has been through corruption. At present, in the US, there are strong calls for an inquiry.

And I'm afraid, 'there have been mistakes' isn't good enough when so much money has gone missing.

TRTL, No "there have been mistakes" isn't good enough, and that is why the system is in constant repair. One can not simply focus on the errors while not highlighting the repairs.
No matter what is done the Left media is always in attack mode. Unless of course it's something that they want done. Then it's media blitz for understanding. However once in power the left are no more judicious or egalitarian than any other party. Emotionalism and manufacturing victims may sell news print and be the basis of some peoples intellectual start point but, not all. Some of us can see what a particular leader(whether voted for or not)is trying to accomplish