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Comment by EarthIsHome | Hacker News Reader

> Are we the baddies?

Yes, we are the baddies. This is where a large portion of our tax dollars go instead of providing the people in the US with universal healthcare, public housing, high-speed rail, etc.

Instead of building a better life for all the people, the US destroys the lives of others for some very small amount of people to become filthy rich.

Now on to the next manufactured conflict with China [0][1] and repeat what we have been doing for decades and well through the 20th century [2].

[0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/wearytolove/status/14309595626521...

[1]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...

[2]: https://monthlyreview.org/product/washington-bullets/

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> where a large portion of our tax dollars go instead of providing the people in the US with universal healthcare, public housing, high-speed rail, etc.

23.4% of the FY2022 DoD budget is for direct payments to personnel. Including health insurance for military members and their families. 1.2% in family support programs: child care, schools, etc. With about 1/3 of total funding going to some sort of job or benefit.

> Instead of building a better life for all the people

Like the 0.5% dedicated to DARPA, which among other things funded research in 2013 into rapid development of novel vaccines using mRNA platforms under the ADEPT program?

... I won't say 100% of the DoD budget is morally pristine. Or even most of it.

But it's a huge budget, and it funds a ton of good work that wouldn't otherwise be palatable to the legislative branch, but magically becomes so "because military."

So as the quip goes, American defense spending is as much about social welfare and foreign aid as it is about bombs and bullets.

> American defense spending is as much about social welfare and foreign aid

So all the headlines regarding missing piles of cash and appeasements being given to local child-abusing warlords etc was just a one-time thing, or fake, or...

What do you think warlords do with piles of cash? Sit on them?

Foreign aid essentially forever has amounted to delivering money to the least bad options, so that some of it trickles out to the people who actually need it.

You may find that morally reprehensible, but what's your proposed alternative?

This is such a sheltered take and ignores all the nuances of geopolitics.

Not to say the US hasn’t done bad things, but “High speed rail”? Really?

I agree with you that parent's post is lacking context and a bit crude on arguments, but i believe the message is pretty clear: it's bad doing violent and one could say anti-social politics instead of pro-social politics (whatever they are, let's not get into details). I fully believe that: yeah sure your opponents hide as civilians somehow because that's an effective tactic, so you have to admit you've lost: you cannot use force, because you're not able to (because you're too far, you're not understanding what's happening etc). Just stop doing wars you should have no business in. Eg in which your only business is just defending some aspect of your current power (some times completely unrelated to the proxy).

So you’re saying the US should just look at ISIS and say “not our problem”?

Should the US have done that in WW2? Korea?

ISIS emerged because the US decided to topple the governments of Iraq in the 200s and Syria in the 2010s.

Believe it or not, the Arab world can develop their own home grown terrorists just we we can. Don’t lay the blame of every social I’ll on the west. The Arab governments themselves have been fighting domestic terrorists for decades.

Domestic terrorists in the arab world isn't any of our (U.S.) business. They became our problem when we meddled in their business enough to motivate them to come after us. The US foreign policy created the problem, it could have largely been avoided.

Why might that be? Read up about how the West has been destabilising govt there for the best part of a century now, for oil (really accelerated after ww2, and what we did to Iran in the 60s...)

> The Arab governments themselves have been fighting domestic terrorists for decades.

Interestingly, those were the governments that the US sought to overthrow.

Probably.

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