Everything this administration does is geared toward intimidation and war.
Last week, on July 26, the United States House of Representatives passed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which will then go on to the U.S. Senate and finally to the U.S. president. It is worthwhile to note that 139 Democrats, including the entire Democratic Party leadership, voted for this bill. This Act provides the U.S. government with $717 billion for a year’s military spending. This is $100 billion more than was spent last year (which is itself more than half of the annual Chinese military budget). No country spends money on its military like the United States. It’s not long now before the annual U.S. military budget will cross the $1 trillion mark.
In fact, many suggest that if the covert parts of the budget—for the CIA, for military intelligence, for the National Security Agency and for the ongoing wars—are added in, the $1 trillion threshold has already been crossed.
Jack Ma, the Chinese billionaire, recently told CNBC that the United States has wasted $14 trillion over the past 30 years in its many, many wars. A modest estimate suggests that the U.S. war on Afghanistan—which is ongoing since 2001—has itself cost over $1 trillion. After all this time and money, and after all the human suffering, it is now certain that the United States, Imran Khan’s government in Pakistan and the Chinese will seek a compromise with the Taliban. Ma’s statement about “waste” should be taken very seriously. A foreign policy that sows disorder and chaos, which increases human suffering, is a waste—regardless of the benefits it might produce for the arms dealers.
