in defense of…

Did you know that yesterday, the president signed a $162 billion dollar supplemental defense authorization bill to fund the war on terror. This is in addition to the November bill authorizing nearly $460 billion for our defense budget. The monies spent on U.S. Intelligence, which mostly goes to the Pentagon, is not included in the defense amounts. In fiscal year 2007 Intelligence spending was reported to be over $43 billion dollars. Next year the fiscal 2009 budget will only increase this spending.

I know Al Qaeda led by Osama Bin Ladin is our enemy but all this spending hasn’t brought us any closer to winning the war on terror (insert WWII time line analogy).

In a related story, The Supreme Court is to rule on whether the U.S. Navy should be allowed to train using sonar in certain areas off the California coast populated with marine mammals. A New York Times article quoted the governments use of terms like “ongoing hostilities”, “emergency circumstances” and “simultaneous air, surface and undersea warfare”. Does Al Qaeda have submarines? I mean really -“simultaneous air, surface and undersea warfare”? Maybe I’m just naïve.