One Empire Please and Charge It !

The Defense Dept. budget combined with the supplemental budget of the Iraq/Afghanistan war is running at $ 700 billion per year. Our trade imbalance is running at $ 900 billion per year. Without foreign buyers of our debt, Americans would have long ago stopped funding empire and nation-building. Why ? Because American tax payers would not come up with the $ 700 billion for war/defense. Now foreigners obliquely accommodate our policies of empire by buying our debt.

Our military budget is app. 7% of GDP. In World War II America spent 35 % of GDP to wage the war. Think of it. To mount an all out war effort, the U.S. would have to spend app. $ 3.5 TRILLION in todays dollars. Do you think tax payers would be willing to spend that amount ? I don't think so. Money and material didn't win World War II alone. It took millions of military personnel in the Navy, Air Force and Army. Of those services, the foot soldier in the Army was the margin of victory. It requires the foot soldier to clear each town and wood of the enemy before victory can be declared. Or else there is a constant insurgency like Iraq and Afghanistan.

George Bush and his handlers at the Project for the New American Century who dream of an American empire are delusional. The U.S has neither the will, money nor committed manpower for such a goal. We will have to live in peace with the world.-it's too small for war.