I was bombing around on the Internet doing a little curious-type research and I came across several interesting statistics: According to the new-age omniscient resource that we all covet, Wikipedia, the total defense budget for the United States in 2007 was $699 billion.
The next closest "competitor" in this arena is, surprisingly, France, which weighs in as a comparative flyweight with an annual defense budget of $73 billion. As a matter of fact, the top 15 defense heavyweights collectively spend $1.3 trillion annually.
Let us take a moment to compare that with certain other aspects of the United States' annual budget; can anyone hazard a guess about education spending? Nope, sorry, the budget only stipulates $89.9 billion for that relatively unimportant area. Also, the amounts spent on foreign affairs and energy were $32.5 and $23.5 billion respectively.
How about the interest on our national debt? Now this is just the interest, mind you … are you sitting down? Last year, we spent $244 billion on interest. Damn, now that's one hell of an investment if you ask me, only we're on the wrong side of it — the national debt has reached an all time high of $9.3 trillion.
Now, I realize the national debt is a wieldy issue — some say it's good and some say it's bad. Quite frankly, I don't think I could do justice to that topic in 500 pages, let alone 500 words, so I'll let that one go.
Furthermore, I could use this opportunity to launch into a tirade about corporations and the profitability of war, but like the national debt issue, I think it is best left on the table.
Instead, I want to focus on defense spending. The thing about it is that I've never been able to understand is: Who exactly are we defending ourselves against? There is no other species on this planet that offers much in the way of a serious threat to our overall stability, so who is the guilty party? I guess it must be us.
Haven't humans evolved enough by now to realize that all, and I mean all, disagreements can be settled without bloodshed? I should certainly hope so. It is a crime to kill in the United States, but this law does not apply to the employees of the government that created that law in the first place. It just doesn't balance out in my mind … perhaps I'm simpleminded.
Imagine the good we could put that $1.3 trillion to. Perhaps we could educate the world. If that's asking too much, I know I would like a president that can speak just one coherent sentence without the word "terror" in it. Oh well, that should happen soon enough anyway, I guess.
Maybe we could spend more on foreign affairs and work out issues by trying to understand our cultural differences. Perhaps we could give a boost to the World Health Organization whose annual budget is a pathetic $901 million — yes, that's for the entire world.
But then again, it's easier to kill people than try and cure them; though apparently it's a hell of a lot more expensive as well (I feel that corporate profit issue rising up again … down, boy, down!)
While some may point to recent terrorist attacks or even events from history such as the Cuban Missile Crisis as a justification, I petition the nationalists to dig a bit deeper because we've had a hand in every bad thing that has been perpetrated against us.
But in the end, I think I'll give my government the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to simple philistinism.
Jamey hopes to not get shot over this. You can shoot him an e-mail though: jamey.sackett@asu.edu.
