In "Mailbag: who is to blame for the Washington Navy Yard shooting?", I should have added "Inadequate Funding for the Military" to the list of suspects. This incident has certainly made me update my Military Wishlist:
Jeb's Military Wishlist:
This is only the latest in a long string of "keystone cops"-style failures, all of which are caused by a lack of spending on the military:
History of the US military since WW2:
1950's:
1960's:
1980's
1990's:
2000's:
2010's:
Jeb's Military Wishlist:
- Flying aircraft carrier group, so we can fly an aircraft carrier group into the Caspian Sea (Cost: a trillion or two)
- Gold plated bomber jets, so we can carry out stealth bombing raids disguised as a rappers "pimped out" learjet (not to be confused with currently existing bombers that merely cost as much as if they were gold plated.) (Cost: same as existing bombers)
- An improved version of the F-35 lightnings ][ (cost: 1.5 trillion) improved to make it as effective in counterinsurgency warfare as the P-38 Lighting from WW2 (cost: $134,284 each)
- A tank-aircraft carrier with a pool on top for floatplanes to land on. (Cost: about a trillion)
- Jetpacks. If only to make the sci-fi nerds quit whining. (Cost: Mid billions)
- More golf courses. The Department of Defence may own more golf courses than anyone else in the world, but who knows what the North Koreans are up to? There's a lot of sweet hills there, just add a few sand traps and who knows what they could do? (Cost: priceless)
- An F-22 raptor that drops actual raptors. Just because. (Cost: Seriously, I think the palaeontologists would do this for free).
- A gun that shoots a bullet with a gun on it that shoots a bullet with a gun on it with a bayonet on it. (Cost: A a few billion)
- Cavalry and Bayonets, in order to make a lie out of Obama's debate with Mitt Romney. (Will pay for itself, because we can impeach Obama for lying!)
- WW1 Ironclads, since Mitt Romney likes them. (Cost: a fixed percentage of our GDP, the way Mitt Romney likes it.)
- A big cluster bomb that covers an area the exact size and shape of Mecca. (Mid billions)
- Stealth embassies. (Billions)
- Because the 40 generals, admirals and civilian equivalents based in Europe haven't stopped Russia from getting uppity, let's add another 40, and promote the rest to new, higher ranks like "Generalisimo" or "UberAdmiral". (cost: low to mid billions)
- A gun like in that movie. You know, the cool one. (Cost: a billion or two)
- Propaganda campaigns to stir up unrest in all the places China has invaded since 1979. (Cost: free, until China hurries up and invades somebody)
- A Headquarters in Washington that doesn't let crazy people with a history of gun violence just walk in and shoot all your admirals in the face. (Cost: how much do brain transplants cost again?)
This is only the latest in a long string of "keystone cops"-style failures, all of which are caused by a lack of spending on the military:
History of the US military since WW2:
1950's:
- Defeats North Korea, but due to lack of funding MacArthur threatens to nuke China, bringing them into the war. Which catches MacArthur completely off guard. Stalemate snatched from the jaws of victory.
1960's:
- President assassinated. By a guy who was trained by the US Military. I bet the Marine Corps would have done more soul-searching if he'd missed.
- Military deployed to race riots in search of snipers. They shoot lots of bystanders, but find no evidence of any snipers anywhere. With funding we could have found or made evidence.
- Drops more bombs on Southeast Asia than in all of WW2, loses due to lack of funding. A few more WW2-loads and we would have won. Now it turns out that Red Vietnam is doing capitalism better than the Republic Of Vietnam ever did, meaning we were on the wrong side the whole time. With more money we could have figured this out in time.
1980's
- Taliban and proto-Al Queda funded, due to lack of funds.
- Mission in Beruit is bombed. Hundreds of marines die, Reagan cuts and runs, due to lack of financing.
- Glorious victories over the evil empire of Grenada and the evil empire of Panama! However, no victory over the evil empire of El Salvadorian peasents, due to an insufficiency of funding.
1990's:
- Our former ally Iraq is bombed into the stone age, at the loss of only a quarter million troops crippled by gulf war syndrome. When the dust settles we realized that Iraq was the only thing preventing Iran from conquering the world. This Blue-On-Blue self-inflicted wound was caused by lack of money.
- To the complete surprise of our spies, the USSR decides to disband, leaving us with no enemies that can't be dealt with by the Coast Guard, the FBI/interpol, and our allies. The expected reduction of the military to it's traditional peacetime size does not occur, due to lack of funding.
- Run out of Somolia by a bunch of starving kids. Lack of funding again.
- Military comes to the rescue of children at Waco's Branch Davidian cult, ends up watching them burn alive instead. Nobody thought to put a fire truck nearby due to a shortage of funding.
- Planned week-long bombing of Serbia ends up taking months, empowering the KLA, a Muslim terrorist group. World learns that our stealth fighter can be shot down by old soviet tech. Due to lack of spending. Chinese embassy bombed due to lack of funding.
2000's:
- 12 guys with boxcutters and some play-dough destroy our financial and military HQs. We could have stopped them if we could have afforded our own box cutters and play-dough.
- Saddam's regime destroyed. Cost: 5 dead. Due to a lack of funding, the military stays in Iraq. Cost: 5,000+ dead, $3,000,000,000,000 estimated costs, Iran empowered yet again. Due to lack of cash.
- Afghanistan, a nation poorer than 1000AD england, defeats our plan to make it as moderate and westernized as it was under the Soviets (who even put an Afghan in space). Heck, with a bit more funding we could have put an Afghan on the moon, but you know, deficiency of funding.
- 1,000,000 terrorists on the loose, according to the no-fly list. Due to a lack of funding, hardly any of them have been caught, not even the many toddlers.
2010's:
- Military trusts masses of top-secret documents to a private. Who wants people to call him Chelsea. Due to lack of funding for gaydar stations.
- Billions spent to turn Libya from the richest part of Africa, ruled by our newest (if weirdest) ally, into typical African chaos. And we suffer the Benghazi embassy attack, the worst thing to happen to America since Valley Forge.
- Snowden affair. More mega-secrets lost, lack of money again.
- Guy walks into Pentagon-equivalent, shoots 12 people. With more funding we could have bought new technology to counter his magic Siamese Kickboxing powers or something.
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