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The legal and morality issues surrounding drone strikes is very murky and as a result very scary. That fact that Obama can order a drone strike on an AMERICAN in a foreign country is worrisome and sets a dangerous precedent. Anwar Al-Awlaki had extremist views and supported terrorism but he was an American citizen murdered by a drone without any sort of legal trial by a jury of his peers.
As an American I'm not really intimidated or scared by other countries gaining drones. The US defense budget is so bloated that America will maintain military supremacy for some time.
The threat to US military supremacy comes from within. The cost already put a huge pressure on local citizen and decaying infrastructure.
Not really, without the US military the money would be spent on something else and likely to less benefit.
For instance - I'm reminded of California where they took bonds intended to construct new schools (a lot of infrastructure in America is painfully old) and then (without consent) allocated $1 billion from that fund to buying ipads for kids. Why not give every school child in America an IPAD at the cost of $1 trillion? I'm sure China, where most Ipads are constructed, and the Apple corporation would love that.
At least the US military is one of the few actual American industries left, which employs Americans, even though the end results are unfortunately nefarious in nature.
You are correct on one hand, however the US military is a non-productive industry in that it doesn't sustain itself economically. There's no product produced, no service provided to the community, and all the salaries are paid with tax revenue rather than a self-regenerating source of income like other industries.
The US was always intended to be militarized beyond imagination, but not in the form of a permanent army controlled by the federal government... The duty of protecting this country is delegated within the Constitution; if you're a US citizen of able mind and body without immoral intentions then you are responsible both collectively and individually for the protection of this nation against all enemies; foreign and domestic... The Constitution depends and relies on morality being taught to the children of this country; they need the skills and ability to determine for themselves the differences between right and wrong and the personal strength to act against what they know is wrong, even knowing that they may be the only one taking action. This structure is necessary to minimize government expenses and reduce the risk of abuse.
As far as pulling military funding goes, there's no point. There's really no stopping this financial train wreck now. There's no need to change anything actually. Sadly, things will last longer without trying to fix what cannot be repaired... The longer our Congress remains inactive and constantly increases the debt ceiling, the longer we have until a crash results on its own. Acting now in an attempt to fix this situation would trigger a collapse...
As far as the drone supremacy goes, there is really no such thing as drone supremacy. The world is expanding its knowledge base far too quickly to believe in such a thing as a technological supremacy any more. There's a reality now that exists which didn't exist in previous decades. The reality is that any person of moderate intelligence has the resources available to learn, design, build, and effectively deploy a weapon capable of striking any person alive on this Earth. That's the truth of both double edged swords and technology alike. It's clear that morality has a larger part to play in the future of society than it does even now...
Drones, missiles, lasers, coil-guns, all are scary things when used improperly or immorally. The leaders of our world should be setting an example for the world that morality is above all else, and that having the ability to kill with these weapons doesn't give one the privilege, right, or authority to use them without just cause based on good judgements by moral characters. That's about 180* out from how the world leadership appears to be acting now.
