Boo Hoo

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Get a load of this nonsense.

<<U.N. official criticizes U.S. military spending
UNITED NATIONS — The United States is on “a very dangerous path” because it is spending $450 billion annually on the military and just $15 billion to promote development in poor countries, the head of the U.N. anti-poverty effort warned Tuesday.
“We can’t solve problems of security through military means, certainly not through military means alone,” said Jeffrey Sachs. “No one has ever succeeded in doing that, and no one ever will because hungry and desperate people will do desperate things, or the places that they live will face collapse>>

Let's see we spend more money on defending our national interests and our ability to do good in the world than pissing it down rat holes that use the money to line the pockets of the leaders of failed states. I must be missing something here. :D

Jack Moroney

[Doc]

Sir,

The U.N. did all it could do to hurt the POTUS before election. I guess a zebra doesn't lose it's stripes.



Let those folks ante up for a change in both money and man-power. All I see them do is talk.

[Airbornelawyer]

Jeffrey Sachs is not a UN official. He is a Columbia U professor who serves as an advisor to the UN. He has been repeating this theme for years, if not decades.

He is of the school that "poverty leads to despair, despair leads to conflict; therefore, poverty causes war; therefore, end poverty to end war." Thus, military spending is seen as a reaction to the problem. Spend more on development and there won't be any poor hungry people starting wars in the first place.

A nice theory (and it has a domestic analog in poverty and crime), but it suffers from at least one fatal flaw. Poverty does not inexorably lead to conflict, and not all conflict is rooted in poverty. Germany in 1939 was not an especially poor nation and had one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world. Japan too.

There is certainly a lot of conflict involving poor nations. But one common factor in many of these conflicts is not the poverty but the lack of political freedom (a subject addressed in a parallel thread).

The armed forces of the United States have probably done more to defend and advance the cause of freedom than any institution in the history of the world. Our armed forces have overthrown the dictatorships without which things like the Marshall Plan would not have been possible. Our armed forces have stood watch over the freedom of the nation which has done more to lift others out of poverty and serve as an example for what people can accomplish when given their freedom.

Can we afford to spend a few $billion more on development programs than the billions we already spend? I suppose so. But the idea that there is some sort of trade-off between what we might spend on development and what we spend on making the world a place where development can occur is misguided at best.

[Jo Sul]

The people in these places are hungry and desperate because these places already have collapsed, no thanks to the UN. Military action can stabilize an area to allow economic recovery (even though many of the locals work hard to disrupt the process). Pouring in aid money alone does little more than line the pockets of the bureaucrats.

[NousDefionsDoc]

AL,
Interesting this in light of your Harvard study.

[longrange1947]

Hmmmm, seems to also counter the aurgement given by the UN that they can not perform proper aid in Iraq until AFTER military has secured the area.

Of course for the UN to do anything, they first must pull their collective heads out of their collective asses.

I also believe that most professors, ie academic economists, are morons without a whit of common sense and zero life experience. They live in an academic world in which only that info that supports their pet thoery is permitted the light of "intelligent thought".

Goes with the thoery that common sense is inversly proportional to the amount of college one has been exposed to in their lifetime. Thus college professors live a very sheltered non sensical life similar to movie stars and rock stars.

Sorry, lost my head.

Yes, I know that there are exceptions, BUT those exceptions are actually those profs that get out in the real world and see how the book learning really correlates in life not the other way around.

[Huey14]

I agree longrange. 90% of the POLS lecturers here only have the experience of a text book. And to make it more fun, when I start University next year, one of the hippie bastards who organises all the protests should be lecturing me :D

"Hey, don't I recoginise you?"

"You should you slag, you caused me enough paperwork!"

One of the POLS lectureres up at Auckland Uni is ex CIA. Interesting man to listen to from what I understand.

[DoctorDoom]

x

[lrd]

How does this tie in with the discussion we had regarding the decay of states?

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209&highlight=state