Memorial Day Thoughts on National Defense

Robert Reich

We can best honor those who have given their lives for this nation in combat by making sure our military might is proportional to what America needs.
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At the very least, hundreds of billions could be saved without jeopardizing the nation's security by ending weapons systems designed for an age of conventional warfare. We should shrink the F-35 fleet of stealth fighters. Cut the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. And take a cleaver to the Navy and Air Force budgets. (Most of the action is with the Army, Marines and Special Forces.)

At a time when Medicare, Medicaid, and non-defense discretionary spending (including most programs for the poor, as well as infrastructure and basic R&D) are in serious jeopardy, Obama and the Democrats should be calling for even more defense cuts.

A reasonable and rational defense budget would be a fitting memorial to those who have given their lives so we may remain free.

Let's quit sending our people to die for the defense of the Military Industrial Complex bottom line. If that's a priority, and it is, let's send the neocons, 99% of whom have never served and are cowards to a man except when it comes to sending other folks' kids to die for their wet dreams of conquest. Their weeping and wailing and rending of garments as they try to get out of service would be vastly entertaining.