Clinton says U.S. could "totally obliterate" Iran

In a speech to position her as Democratic Party "tough guy", Hillary has put Iran on notice. Attack Israel, and... well... we'll bomb you into the 4th century.

This is really nothing new for American politicians who want to use Iran as our most capable enemy and show them (and Americans) how tough we are. But let's consider some facts that are not discussed and are clearly relevant if we want to gain a deeper understanding of the incredible hypocrisy of all of this obliteration talk.

I recently heard a speech on TED.com by Thomas Barnett called: "The Pentagon's new map for war and peace".

In it, he discusses the problems faced by the US Military as it goes about the business of "regime change" and how it is not structured to do anything except destroy things.... they're not capable of fixing them after we've destroyed them. This often creates an awful lot of really messy messy problems... after we bomb and destroy countries.... there is essentially no one that we have to clean up our mess. Its.... sort of a conundrum.

But that's not all I want to discuss. What I also want to discuss is a very strange paradox between what we hear each day about our military capabilities ("Obliterating Iran") and what we hear about the very real problems on the ground where we are actually fighting. There is a total disconnect between the two that is never ever discussed. We always seem to have the capability of "obliterating" but never seem to be able to stop the actual wars from continuing on forever. I wonder why?

Of course, this is the stuff of books and scholarly articles... but I want to get people thinking about some facts about our military and and their implications that seem completely obvious to me and the rest of the world, but clearly escapes most Americans.

Hillary says that we can "Obliterate" Iran. Well then, why aren't we obliterating Muqtada al-Sadr? Why must we keep having American soldiers and innocent Iraqis and Afghans get killed each and every day when we can simply obliterate our "enemies" in the name of protecting U.S. lives? We seem to be fully willing to "obliterate" Iran to protect Israel. What about the lives of Americans and our other supposed Allies?

The question seems almost rhetorical... silly... we have become comfortable losing... or at least "not winning". Why is this true? Particularly when we have "obliteration power"?

When Hillary... the Democrat acting like a tough girl.... says we can obliterate Iran, she's completely on the money. Thomas Barnett notes that the last American fighter pilot involved in a dogfight is now a General in the Air Force. Think about that... it's been that long since one single country would take on the United States Air Force. Can anyone remember this dogfight?

The truth is.... there is not a country in the world that can militarily touch us. We can destroy anyone on the planet in a matter of seconds. Everyone knows this to be true... its just plain fact. But... lets assume you just don't believe me. So, let's take a page out of one of my favorite books/movies, "All the President's Men" and use it to begin evaluating a complex situation that we want to understand... it goes like so: "Follow The Money".

Where does our United States Federal Budget go?
I want to examine (in an appropriate manner) U.S. military dominance in the world. I'll probably do many posts on the projection of US military might and how it is used and where... but I think its important to first look at the money and this will give us a good starting point at really understanding the sheer scale and scope of what we're paying for and what they're (our Government supposedly by the people for the people) are up to with all of this money.

The best analysis of the budget I've seen is from a website called Wallstats, http://www.wallstats.com/. They sell the most stunningly detailed chart of the Federal Budget that anyone has ever developed. They accurately report that total military spending for 2008 will be $799.611 Billion. People, that's just for one year. And it NEVER goes down.

Now let's take a look at what everyone else in the government gets. Oh looky here... a whopping $383 Billion. That includes the NIH, Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, The FCC, EPA, FDA, National Science Foundation, Department of the Interior (they are supposed to protect our National Parks) the Department of Transportation..... (you know, the stuff people need) and the list goes on and on. And it even includes all the money necessary to administer the daily operations of the government such as the General Accounting Office. Let's go to the replay: the military gets 2/3 of the governments budget.

Did you ever work for a company where one guy got 2/3 of all the money that came in? Wouldn't you say that this guy/gal was the "owner" of the company... or at least had complete control over the company? Obviously, a very simple example... but a fairly accurate view of what we have here in our country. 2/3 of the money goes to one place, (the Pentagon) and everyone else fights over the crumbs that are left.

I'm simply presenting publicly available facts and then asking relevant questions for all of us to consider based on those facts... and then asking the very basic question that any reasonable person knowing these facts would ask. Why do they need so much money? And.... worse yet... why do we give it to them?

Is there a conspiracy? I think not. This is done in the open... this is all public information. It just doesn't make the news on TV. What makes the news is the "threat".... which of course is constant and coming from all sides, abroad and at home.. terrorists, rogue states, Iran, Syria, North Korea and on and on and on. You'd think we were surrounded. But really.... we're not. Our great and mighty enemy Syria has an economy equal to the size of the economy of Delaware. We can "obliterate" Syria as well and be home on time for dinner!!

In reality, if we just take today's example, Hillary was referring to us obliterating Iran for not attacking the United States... but for attacking Israel.

Awake yet? Curious? Wondering anything?

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