Instead of spending 1/2 a trillion more in Iraq, why don't we beef up security in the US?

Question

I have not done enough research or any at that to understand why we are in Iraq. I hear the President needs to manage the price of oil and make peace in those countries that currently have no form of order.

Instead of spending billions a month, why don't officials provide a counter-terrorism plan (meaning give states funds to enhance their security for airports, borders, etc) and/or possibly produce our own form of energy/goods that we depend on from other countries?

As much as we have spent or rather borrowed so far, each city could have had state of the art security. Just something to think about.

Answer 1

Going off on a small tangent but just thorwing this out there. Everyday all accross this great land methane gas is being burnt off in landfills. I'm not a genius here but couldn't you instead of letting that flame burn out run a pipe to a tank and store that energy?!?! I mean we have scientists that can develop a pill to give you a firm 4 hour erection, yet we can't figure out how to make this form of energy viable?!?!?

Hold the phone, Exxon is on the line Mr. Bush and they are wanting to add another couple hundred million to their offer! Sweet tell them we'll hammer out the details over a dinner that will be paid for out of YOUR tax dollars!!!!

As long as the special interests groups keep running the show we'll go nowhere but down. The price of crude oil is 3 times what it was 12 years ago and really got out of hand when got in office. Wait a second?!?!?! Didn't he make his fortuane from being the son of an oil man?!?!

If we didn't waste so much time and effort killing brown people that live above an oil field we'd have so much more our OUR tax dollars to use it for any damn thing else.

Open your eyes people; when you've had enough open your mouth and make your VOICE heard!!

THINK FOR YOURSELF INSTEAD OF LETTING OTHERS THINK FOR YOU, AND QUESTION THEIR AUTHORITY!!!

Answer 2

yet now the U. S. does no longer have a puppet government put in - except, that they had left Saddam in, he grow to be completely cuckolded and undercutting Opec to the quantity that oil grow to be extra value-effective than interior the 60's. that's the place it gets complicated to renowned who's certainly working the practice. Al Qaeda desperately needed to do away with Saddam, on the inevitable US pull out they especially a lot have a means vacuum and a 5th of the international's oil to flow in on. supply Iraqis money! you do no longer think of that those in means are not making fortunes out of the occupation/reconstruction (the conflict ended 6 years in the past!), so as that they are going to purchase back each little thing for no longer something in some years whilst the melancholy they created by criminal (now unfastened) infinite credit bottoms out do you?! Wait till fees of interest hit 18%, you're speaking hen feed!

Answer 3

No amount of money can insure security in a free nation. In order to be absolutely safe from outside attack, you would literally have to build a wall around the entire nation, stop all trade with the outside, monitor the activities of every person in America etc. To do so, is to force upon ourselves what the enemy seeks to force upon us. The loss of freedom.

A free country will always be vulnerable. The only method that would make any sense at all is to hit them where they live and kill as many as you can while denying them the ability to gain the weapons and other resources they need to attack us.

That is what we are doing now. Seems to me that it is working pretty well.
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Answer 4

First off, the amount the US spends on the military is about 80% greater than is needed for the actual defense of the US. There is general agreement on that fact within military circles.
Second, counter-terrorism is a politically acceptable way to fund counter-independence movements and undermine national sovereignty, human rights, and democratic reforms, both foreign and domestically. The war on terror is a war on civil liberties both abroad and here at home. Using the fear of terror, making a business of grief and loss is a terrible thing for a government to do to its citizens.
The poor countries that the US subverts are in reality, not poor at all. In fact, they are quite rich in resources that the US covets, but the business-model preached by the US, refined primarily at the Chicago School of Economics, exercised through the US-led and -financed IMF and World Bank imposed 'economic austerity measures' improves GDP, but devastates civil society. The ‘third world’ is getting wise.
Third, the US is in Iraq because it had determined, as far back as the mid 1940s, that the US was going to be in a superior position at the end of the Second World War. The rest of the industrialized war was spent and/or destroyed. To quote a once-secret internal National Security document, NSC 68

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population.... Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming, and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction.... We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
George Kennan, State Department memo, 1948
(I find it interesting that Kennan was considered a ‘dove’ during his time in government.)

The US currency, being un-hinged from the one-time basis for its value, gold and/or silver, having no other backing now except ‘good faith and credit’ of the owners of the Fed (foreign bankers, mostly) and the one commodity that until very recently, could only be purchased in US dollars: OIL.
As Kennan understood, the issue was CONTROL of resources. When that resource is the basis for the value of the US currency, as it has become, then having a glut of oil depresses the value of the dollar. Control of the oil, being able to keep it off the market raises its price, and thus the value of the US dollar. With Saddam in discussions with Europe and Russia to sell in Euros, and China to sell in Yaun, you can see why the US needed to take him out, under whatever pretext. The clamoring now over Iran has more to do with their potential to prove an obstacle to US plans for regional domination, and a thorn to US vanity, than it has to do its oil. Also ignored is the hubris with which the US assumes for itself the right to tell or know better other nations’ interests. Iran’s sovereign right to nuclear weapons and delivery systems is as valid under the UN and IAEA as it is for the US, Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia, UK, China, etc. Iran is not a signatory to the NPT, and is not therefore bound by it. The Iranians are not fools. They know they will be annihilated if they use them offensively, but given the US record in the region and around the world, an objective analysis would show that it would provide a significant deterrent against US invasion. (The US would never have invaded Iraq without disarming and starving them first.)

Answer 5

Your question is perfect......I ask Why are more people not asking that very thing? The real reason we are in Iraq is simple. ISRAEL!!!!!! We do thier bidding for them. If you dont believe me.Or perhaps want to label me anti-semetic. (I dont hate anyone) DO YOUR HOMEWORK Find alternative news sources Ones that will give you a different look than the main stream. After you have taken it all in. Then ......Ask yourself who the terrorists are.....

Answer 6

You are a danger to Cheney & Halliburton.

Spending half of that in the development of Central America US would'nt have such a big ilegal immigration, besides, US would be more popular (neutralizing Chavez) and security would also benefit

Answer 7

obviously it's much smarter to invade governments and religions halfway around the world with our "patriotism" and "democracy" and "honest intentions of giving them a better life" than it is to care one iota about our own country's safety. Or our own people.

(intense sarcasm)

Answer 8

Since we engaged in the war that declared on us in 1998 we have not suffered one attack on civilians.

By default defense requires you that first must be attacked.
We know they will attack us they have done so many times. The war in Iraq is a result of an attack. Therefore it can be looked upon as a defensive measure.

Answer 9

No Argument here.

But there are no oil wells to steal here, so Bush chose to go to Iraq and destabilize it, while he and the Neocons reap the rewards.

Answer 10

How about getting independent from oil, we have the technologies.