Speaking to Congressional Republicans during a visit to Greenbriar resort on Thursday, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that he believes the US military needs to be made “more lethal,” and pushing for yet more money.
After a massive military spending increase last yar, Mattis says he wants another $50 billion tacked on for next year. He mocked the idea of the military being an “equal opportunity employer” and emphasized lethality.
Mattis had similarly pushed the idea of making US troops more lethal in September, in the context of pushing for more predictable spending increases. This time as well he complained about continuing resolutions as a funding source, wanting money set out for a longer term.
Mattis says he is hoping to get 3-5% increases annually over the rate of inflation to both build readiness and to compete with Russia and China. The US already far outspends all nations on their military.
Presenting the push for more funds as a push for lethality appears to be popular with hawks, though in practice the US military already kills a massive number of people as it is, and doesn’t seem to be approaching the limit of how many it could kill in a pinch.
… Well, there are few areas where the U.S. military might be deficient in lethality to itself and everyone else.
Does this mean they’re finally going to stop cheating replacements to the M4? ‘Cause more money to the vested interests behind an increasingly obsolete rifle isn’t ‘more lethal’.
“How long, O Lord, how long?”
Since when has the US military been lacking in lethality? We kill people around the globe better than any military out there, especially civilians, millions and millions of civilians. Problem is, when’s the last time we actually won a war? And when’s the last time we fought a truly defensive war? You know, like what in past centuries the called a Just War.
In its entire existence, the U.S. has only fought one war that would fit the criteria of a just war – 1812.
That money needs to go to Infrastructure, enough is enough!
Now that capitalism has taken over the world why would anyone think of arms reduction?
There was much discussion about why we went to war with Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Oil?
Israel?
Land?
Bush?
The Security State?
Perhaps all those things, but the people who profited most were those in the business of making war. It doesn’t matter whether we win or lose or how long we stay there, they continue to hollow out the nation’s wealth.
I’m not much of a fan of Davif Ickie and his reptilian theories, but I just might make an exception for the “Shooting some people is fun” guy…
Raise taxes for this and see how many people support it.
Check out the bags, no SACKS under this guys eyes… How many bottles of Single Malt did it take to lnflate these thusly…??? So he wants to make our imperial forced of conquest more deadly….??? Looks to me like he has trouble enough sleeping at night as it is… Why else the gargantuan bags but lack of sleep, or too much booze to bring it on…WTF……!!!!!
It doesn’t look like we are lacking in weapons to kill people. I think that the military is lethal enough already.