US spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined!!!

You read that right, although that startling stat won't be official until about a year from now. Get the facts here:
http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml

Think about this for a sec, the US has about 4.5% of the world's population, yet we are spending this fucking much every year - the same as the rest of the 95.5% of the international community?! The 2006 defense budget is going to be around 442 BILLION DOLLARS for one year! And of course that doesn't even cover the extra 80-100 billion per year needed for our current "wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, etc. Think these figures affect the spending and military stances of other countries? In effect, we are fueling a worldwide military arms race.

Which brings me to another topic: our use of the term "war." Iraq is NOT A WAR anymore. In fact it never really was an official war, the same as Vietnam - there was no formal declaration of war from congress). Iraq and Afghanistan are both military occupations, or in Bush administration psuedo-speak (if they thought for a second that people paid more attention to these labels), "peace-keeping operations." Nothing more, nothing less. Of course, the costs in human lives and financial burdens are far more than most would expect from a simple peace-keeping operation and so the terminology of war and freedom is actively exploited by our government to justify the human and capital waste...

In my opinion, it is not until we and the mass media stop using "war" to describe these events that people will stop thinking in terms of fear and aggression and hatred and violence. And then perhaps, there may be a better chance for peace...