Who else finds these figures distressing?

Question

Top Ten Military Spending Countries
(2004 estimates)

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Country In Billions of Dollars

United States 335.7
Japan 46.7
United Kingdom 36
France 33.6
China 31.1
Germany 27.7
Saudi Arabia 21.6
Italy 21.1
Iran 17.5
South Korea 13.5

A few people have stated that i have picked smaller countries, I have listed the top ten spenders on militry!!!!!!

Answer 1

Hey magpie, BALLS. The USA is not the richest country in the world. Brain washed as usual.

Hey ED BALLS. The UK Lease you our bases, and as usual you slag everybody of. ONE OF THESE DAYS THAT LITTLE GIRL WILL GET HER WISH.

Answer 2

First look at the population of the countries of which you reference. All of them, save China have a smaller population. Next, if you add ALL the listed european contries together we still have over 36million more RESIDENTS in the USA and their total spending is 118 billion. Now Japan should have a fairly small budget, as they are limited to the type of defenses and numbers of troops due to post WW2 agreements and terms. China has a small defense budget because they don't PAY their soldiers much beyond room and board. And yes, we do spend more than any other country in the world, but we also have troops and bases in more countries than any other military in the world. You ever seen an Italian, British, French, German, South Korean, Turkish, Saudi Arabian or Japenes military installation in the USA or vehicle on the road? No, you haven't, but they see US military presence daily. And we LEASE the bases, that WE build and GIVE them the buildings when we leave. Part of that defense budget is also used to REBUILD in countries like IRAQ, Somalia, Afghanistan and many others.

The fact of the matter is, whether we as citizens like it or not, that we are policeman all over the world. People dispise our presence in their homelands, but when we leave them, take our money and go home, they claim we ABANDONED them. We rebuilt a GREAT DEAL of Europe after WW2, and some of those countries have just finished paying back SOME of the monies in recent years.

Answer 3

Read Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. Read Genesis chapter 3. What is the purpose of the military? What are you so afraid of that you need to spend so much money on destructive force? Are armed forces the cure or the cause? Proportionately, more people have died in wars in the 20thC than any other period in history.

It seems the countries that spend the most on military find the most reasons to use it. We are dying, we are killing ourselves, just as our prophets have said. But still we are rushing headlong.

Yes, those firgures are distressing. My heart hurts to think that our leaders would rather spend 3.5billion dollars on war than on saving lives. The cost of one fighter jet can provide South Africa with enough HIV antiretroviral for every person infected for a whole year. What are we doing my brothers and sisters? Why do we prefer to walk with our eyes shut? Why would we rather offer a fallen sister our heel instead of a helping hand?

Read, educate yourself. Educate someone else. Change the world so when your children ask you what you did to help, you can say, I did it so you could enjoy peace, love, joy, goodness and all good things, and you can say so in all honesty.

Answer 4

World Wide Military Expenditures
World $950 billion 2004 est.
Rest-of-World [all but USA] $500 billion 2004 est.
United States $466.0 billion FY04

Looks like the USA wants to ensure its the undisputed No.1 Superpower in the World.

Answer 5

Not me. What I find disturbing is when people try to spin the truth. You spin the truth by showing gross spending data as opposed to %GDP which tells a far more accurate picture.
All you have done is highlighted the fact that the USA is by far the wealthiest nation on earth. Not a brag, the numbers speak for themselves. And yes I would like to see less spent on defence, more EU nations picking up their own tab for a change.

Country $ x10E9 %GDP

United States 348.7 3.3
China – Mainland 51.0 4.1
Japan 39.5 1.0
France 40.2 2.5
United Kingdom 37.3 2.4
Russia 50.8 4.8
Germany 33.3 1.5
Italy 25.6 1.9
Saudi Arabia 22.2 12.0
China – Taiwan 7.9 2.7
South Korea 13.3 2.8
India 13.8 2.7
Turkey 9.2 5.1
Iran 5.1 4.6

Just from this partial list, Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran spend a higher percent GDP than the USA

Good post below by phantaszjia. But I recommend you preach that to those that need it most.

From a Hamas vid:"We will rule the nations, by Allah's will, the USA will be conquered, Israel will be conquered, Rome and Britain will be conquered…
The Jihad for Allah... is the way of Truth and the way for Salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine. Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Russians will run from Chechnya, and the Indian will run from Kashmir, and our children will be released from Guantanamo. The prisoners will be released by Allah's will, not by peaceful means and not by agreements, but they will be released by the sword, they will be released by the gun".

The video identifies itself as from the "Al-Qassam Brigades Media Office." "Al-Qassam Brigades" is the name the Hamas calls its military wing.
(www.palestine-info.net) June 22 2006:

Answer 6

Let me ask you this question. If there was no military in countries and other people in other countries decided, "why we like your country better, there are jobs to feed the family and own a house. There are low taxes and health care and the education is wonderful. Lets go in and take it over for ourselves." What would you as a people living in that country do? I rest my case.

Answer 7

DAVE, do you know how to compare things? I love how you picked small countries with either no coastlines or small coast lines and compareded them to a huge country with long countries and overseas ,sates, protectorates etc.

Answer 8

Quality security costs money. So be it.

The bigger target you are, the easier it is to get at. So, we need to protect ourselves against all those bad guys.

Simple logic ain't it? What's wrong with that?

Answer 9

I don't find the figures disturbing at all. I think we need to spend less on foreign aid, social security, medicare and medicaid.

Answer 10

Yes i do, i pay my taxes to know i can have health care, which is **** in the UK by the way, not to ensure the destruction of the nation.

Answer 11

not me, except maybe the france part, their social systems are tearing the country apart, they have bent too far for their minority population and its crushing the entire country