Ed Krayewski Talks Mitt Romney's Defense Spending Plans with Abby Martin on RT America

Mitt Romney's kind of weird call for even more defense spending was at the top of the news on RT America yesterday and I joined Abby Martin in the 5pm news hour to talk about it. It was my first cable news television appearance since calling George W. Bush's foreign policy ripped out of a comic book at a college panel on MSNBC Dayside just before the Iraq War started. As an aside, I always remember the maps I saw at the studio back then, which marked the locations of Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological stockpiles in Iraq. Anyway, here I am on RT yesterday, with some supplemental reading below: 

Why increased defense spending hasn't stimulated the economy, and even with a land war wouldn't

Some Tea Party Republicans backing defense spending cuts

Why Mitt Romney would fit well as President Obama's Secretary of State

Why real cuts would be good for defense

Reason on defense spending

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

Less spending. Not more. Thank you.

[NotSure]

American spends more than the total sum of the next 10 biggest military spenders, yet it is still not enough ???

[mad libertarian guy]

To Law and Order Conservatives and Statist Liberals, there is no such thing as spending too much on the military.

[BakedPenguin]

There are 300 million Americans. Think how hard it will be to put down the riots once the economy collapses.

[Tulpa the White]

But there are 9 of them and only 1 of us.

[mad libertarian guy]

The drug war propaganda train rolls on, openly blaming "bath salts" for the zombie attack before there is any evidence at all.

They're not even trying to mask the propaganda at this point with article titles such as: "Bath Salts: The 'Cannibal' From Miami's Alleged Dangerous Drug Of Choice" which is then followed by 2 or so pages of pants shitting fear mongering.

[NotSure]

The solution is obvious, what is needed is a war on bath salts.

[sloopyinca]

I find it odd that they can't get toxicology reports for weeks when a cop blows positive at a DUI stop, yet they knew what this guy was on the second they rolled his corpse through the morgue doors.

[sloopyinca]

From teh googlez: de?fense/di?fens/
Noun:
The action of defending from or resisting attack.

That word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

[Tulpa the White]

So you're saying you don't consider a crazy brown person spinning a bucket full of uranium over his head an existential threat?

[sloopyinca]

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Tulpa the White]

Sorry, classified.

[aelhues]

I kind of get a call for more defense spending. At least, if I ignore the budget, and the fact that there is a very large amount of waste in the current military budget.

The military needs to transition away from large ground force focus, towards light, fast reaction forces, built around airpower, and floating platforms. We need to get out of all foreign bases, and head back only when absolutely necessary, and for only as long as absolutely necessary.

A transformation like that will take a lot of money, but we'd be saving a lot in the long run. Sometimes you have to be willing to spend in order to save. Unfortunately, that's not what Mitt has in mind.

[Tulpa the White]

Oddly, other than closing bases, you're describing the Rumsfeld strategy, now "discredited" due to its failure in pre-Surge Iraq.

Of course, it's only discredited if you think that random invasions of unthreatening countries are something our military should be built around.

[aelhues]

Obviously, not discredited in my mind.

Part of our current problem is knowing what the military roles should be. We absolutely shouldn't be playing world police, and we should also not be using the military to build schools, and such. The military should only be used to unapologetically smash enemies who give us excellent cause for action. Outside of that, we should reserve the military for defense. Not defense of our interests, defense of our country from invasion.

[Tulpa the White]

Krayewski looks exactly like I thought he would. Well, except for the beret.

[Brandon]

That particular screen cap is...unfortunate for Editor Krayewski.

[DJF]

So Romney says we need to spend more on "defense' much of which is spent to defend our 'allies' who don't spend even half of what the US spends. Sounds like a sucker to me. I bet next our allies will get Romney to paint a fence for them.