What Benefit for the Average US Citizen Comes from being the World's Policeman?

Dan Carlin had a thought provoking podcast about what benefit do Americans gain from our country being the world policeman. We spend 20% our tax monies on our military and "policing" the world. We spend almost as much money on our military as the entire rest of the world. It costs us dearly, but the average American does not benefit from all that money. Would that we would spend some of that money on curing cancer, ending migraines, or finding a cure for Alzheimer's.

Six Trillion dollars for the Iraq and Afganistan Wars

A very brief note on the true human costs of our wars in Iraq and Afganistan here. And a new study showing the total cost of the two wars may be 6 trillion dollars. For what?

Robert Higgs cites an interesting quote from Nazi official Hermann Göring about the benefits of war for the common man.

This account comes to us from Gustave M. Gilbert, the German-speaking prison psychologist who had free access to all of the prisoners during the trials and talked to them frequently in private. On the evening of April 18, 1946, Gilbert visited Göring in his cell, and he later described their conversation as follows:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Göring shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare war."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. (Nuremberg Diary, pp. 278–79)

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The Truth about Afganistan

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis has published a report on what is really going on in Afganistan. You can see an overview in BusinessInsider.com, The New York Times and The Rolling Stone. It's worth the read.

Eisenhower's Warning: The Military/Industrial Complex

Knowing that Ike was a career military man makes his warning all the more poignant.

We Meant Well

FreshAir has a great interview with State Department employee Peter Van Burenon on trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people (transcript).
Peter talks in his book We Meant Well about the corruption and absurdities of what passes as rebuilding. It would be funny, if "rebuilding" Iraq wasn't costing American lives and a fortune we can ill afford to waste.