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> People funnel money into the military because they are afraid of terrorists and whatever else is the flavor of the month.

Do you know any individuals who personally decided to funnel money into the military? It's an insatiable beast fed by political breakdown and cronyism.

But those terrorists they are afraid of became terrorist because of our meddling in their affairs.

Ok, I know it's to "protect and defend out interests", but those interests are in somebody else's backyard and bedroom

It definitely isn't a false dichotomy - money spent on military ventures is money not spent on e.g. space research.

What drives people to make the stupid choice is a different subject entirely.

That's not how federal spending works. There is no fixed amount so spending money on the military does not preclude spending money on space research. Similarly, cutting military spending doesn't mean those savings would go into any other budget.

You don't need many tanks to fight terrorists. Yet the army is forced to buy more tanks (against its own wishes!), because congressmen don't want the tank-production in their state to stop.