Annual US Intelligence Bill Tops $80 Billion 230
Ponca City writes "The LA Times reports that the US government has disclosed its annual intel budget for the first time in more than a decade: $80.1 billion on intelligence gathering, representing about 12% of the nation's $664-billion defense budget. The government revealed the total intelligence budget twice before, in 1997 and 1998, in response to a lawsuit. It was $26.6 billion and $26.7 billion, respectively, meaning the budget has tripled in 12 years. 'It is clear that the overall spending on intelligence has blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade,' says Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Dana Priest reported that more than 1,200 government agencies or offices and almost 2,000 outside contractors are involved in counter-terrorism activities, producing about 50,000 intelligence reports each year, far more than the government can effectively digest. The US is running so many secret programs that James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, said during his confirmation hearings that 'only one entity in the entire universe' knows what they're all doing, and 'that's God.'"
Statistics work both ways.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Neither of the things you said has anything to do with statistics, they're simply an opinion based on opinions about a number, and the latter one doesn't even have a sound basis in reality.
For starters, right from the summary: Clapper's statement was made during his confirmation hearing. Do you know what a confirmation hearing is? It means it wasn't his job at the time, making your comment completely inane without even evaluating the sentiment.
Second, even if he said it again today and it were complet
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People in charge who whine about things aren't leading. People in charge who take responsibility and get things done
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Visit Request from the Almighty (Score:2)
Does God have the need to know? I can't find him in JPAS either.
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You don't have high enough clearance for that. Don't ask questions above your paygrade. ;-P
Feinstein ... ? (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems fairly clear that with "the last decade" they are trying to blame it on (who would've guessed?) Bush.
The chairs of the committee have been:
I wonder how much the budget went up from 2001-2003 and from 2007-present, since Democrats chaired it then? I find it hard to pin this down on either party...
Re:Feinstein ... ? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The numbers you are reporting are only the NIP budgets, i.e. 43.5 billion on 2007, 49.8 billion in 2009 and 52.1 billion in 2010. The more than 50 billion in 2007 was just speculation. The >80 billion budget for 2010 fully (supposedly) discloses the total of all of the secret budgets as well.
Since the 2009 budget was approved in 2008, most of the increases happened under Bush. This does not excuse the Democrats for allowing the budget to grow even more, but the process has been entrenched for years
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It doesn't take two years. It only takes one bill. I have no doubt that the Bush/Cheney junta pushed through a lot of stuff just before they lost control of the Congress. Remember, they're the party of corporate excess, and enriching Halliburton through its no-bid contracts were still their primary focus for policy decisions.
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No need to pin to the two main parties, they are BOTH at fault. BOTH conspire against us and take bribes from any organization willing to offer $5000+ to our congress-critters. So, don't find fault with the bleeding-heart idiots, or the gun-toting xtian hillbillies, they are both fucked in the head, and on the take. No, I'm not a Tea Bagger either, I'm an American Citizen and not happy with the right or left. Get in the middle and do some fucking work, and stop taking money from corporations. Yeah, tha
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Generally, I agree. Frankly, I'm pretty conservative ... especially fiscally ... but I'd have to say I'm a bit more socially moderate than most "conservatives." But honestly ... I'd rather have an honest centrist or even socialist-leaning than dishonest Republican/conservative/whatever. Unfortunately, it seems all the honest people get killed before they get to Washington or something. :P
There do seem to be some honest, genuinely nice "politicians." Like ... two. Or something like that.
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Seems fairly clear, my ass. It's gone up 3 fold since 9/11. This is a true fact. If truth has become partisan then all is lost. Would saying "Since 9/11" be less partisan for your liking? Or is that worse since 9/11 is a registered trademark of Rudy Guiliani? Maybe "lately?" is that non-partisan enough? At any rate, as a committee it's bipartisan, currently with 8 Dems and 7 Repubs. Can't anybody say ANYTHING AT ALL without everybody screaming "A democratic woman, lets not listen!"
At any rate, t
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I fail to see how I was being partisan or sexist. I said nothing about her being a woman. And I didn't even say I was Republican or wanted to somehow defend the Republicans. Can't I be critical of something or someone in government without being accused of partisanship and sexism?
Yes, what she said is a fact; but I can cherry-pick statistics and prove my point shockingly close to an election that happens to be favoring the other party, too. Facts can be misused, misconstrued, twisted, and distorted, yet
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2007-present may be less egregious, but the party affiliation of the chairman in 2001 and 2002 was irrelevant.
90% of the people in this country wanted blood after 9/11, and with those odds, politicians had no choice but to comply.
Move over military-industrial complex... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, at least with the old military-industrial complex we got some cool hardware that we got to see at air shows and parades. Nowadays all we get is the occasional FBI surveillance device on our cars and constant news stories about entire airports being shut down because someone forgot to put their shampoo in the checked bag instead of the carry-on.
But hey, at least we're all safer now, right?
Re:Move over military-industrial complex... (Score:5, Interesting)
...welcome to the eye in the sky. (Score:2)
Take for example the constant paucity of translators familiar with the tongue of countries we're occupying. Where was the nationwide scholarship initiative for Pashto, Farsi and Arabic -- in High school -- in say 9/12/01? It's not like 10 years later our major problem has been trust and the second one has been trust and the third has been blowing up people accidently due to flawed -- um what is that word I'm looking for?
I guess the conspiracy buffs have been right all along.
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I should not worry about the cost, Obama's message seems to be "Can we print the US Dollar, Yes we can".
It all looks like a slower motion version of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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You need to understand that the role of the US military is to defend not just the USA but dozens of other countries. Europe, Japan, S. Korea, S. Arabia and small gulf states, Israel, Australia, more or less entire S. America etc. All those countries depend and can count on US to come in on their side in case of any major conflict. What are the effects of this: a) all those countries have to side with us whenever we need them, politically and economically (think of the gulf oil) b) it prevents bigger conflic
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The US isn't fighting an abstract concept. As much as they hate it, the real enemy is Islam. Except they can't admit it and will never do so.
The US has been fighting this since at least the early 1920s in the Phillipines and it really hasn't let up any. There has been a particular focus since 1948 with Israel in that part of the world, but we are seeing a general transformation in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia.
At some point, someone with nuclear weapons on the Islamic side is going to say e
How did Ms. Feinstein decide it's unacceptable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
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You decide like this:
1. Increasing debt means American public, in general, is unhappy with spending more.
2. Look for area where not-my-party has increased spending.
3. Decide it's bad.
4. Bonus points: be chair of committee so that you can imply that if your party remains in power, your party can fix it.
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Look at the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
Look, I'm pretty right wing, but even with the two wars and Al Qaeda still trying to run ops against us, there's no excuse for the current state of our intelligence community. Do you realize just how big and bloated it is? Have you seen the Wikipedia page for the U.S. Intelligence Community [wikipedia.org]? Do you see how many different agencies there are? It seems like every single organ of the government has its own intel department, some of them very large. And many of these agencies... for example the military branches and the State Department... are often working against each other. The way Intel has grown has been monstrous and counterproductive. And it's just way too damn big. Intelligence, to be effective, cannot be too big or too expansive. So recognizing that we had so many agencies, what did we do? Cut them down? Eliminate and consolidate some of them? No, we added yet another layer of bureaucracy with the "Director of National Intelligence", the idea being that he'd be a central clearinghouse and authority for all US Intel. But guess what... we had that already. Wasn't the "Director of Central Intelligence" supposed to have that job? I mean the very nature of the, duh, Central Intelligence Agency was to be that central clearinghouse for all US intel. Again, we just added more bureaucracy.
Have a good look at that list. We should probably eliminate or consolidate two-thirds of those organizations. Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org? Just have diplomats write observational reports and forward them to CIA.
Bottom line, just like every other branch of government, intelligence has gotten too huge, expensive, and bloated to effectively do its job.
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The scary answer for why there are so many competing intelligence organs? To keep CIA in check. State has been at odds with CIA for decades, with CIA wanting to overthrow governments and to blow stuff up and with State trying to keep the status quo. The most bizarre aspect of CIA isn't that it has its own paramilitary directorate, but that this directorate has been responsible for high-tech advances such as the SR-71 Blackbird (which began life as the CIA-funded A-12) and the Predator drones, and has some o
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Just because there are a lot of intelligence agencies, doesn't *necessarily* mean that there are 'too many'. It may be the you are correct, that there are too many, but the only way to know if there are *too many* is to do an analysis of what they each do, and see to what extent they are redundant. It's quite probable that each intelligence agency has a specialization, designed to serve the specific part of the government they belong to (which is probably why there are like 8 intelligence 'agencies' within
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Wasn't the reason we got a "Department of Homeland Security" that the intelligence system was disjoint and we needed a single office in charge of coordinating it all?
Bush led us down a lot of primrose paths in the years after 9/11. And, as I predicted then, little of what he did actually improved security, and much of what he did put us into a war that will likely last a century.
Truly scary (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to understand what any organization is actually doing (as opposed to understanding what they say they're doing), read their budget. So the fact that the people theoretically in charge of the intelligence agencies don't know how the money is being spent means that they aren't in charge at all.
There are 2 non-mutually-exclusive reasons this could happen:
- The people that are supposed to be in charge aren't doing their jobs.
- The career spies that work directly for the people in charge are hiding t
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Yes, it's better if the US intelligence agencies are spending my money on nothing rather than spending it on spying on me.
But that still doesn't make it perfectly ok.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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9/11 was proof that the "we can use technology to replace an operations-focused intelligence apparatus" argument is a load of bullshit.
Far from it.
We already had plenty of intel about the plot, it just wasn't correlated very well.
More "boots on the ground" would not have brought the plot to light any sooner.
All 9/11 was proof of was that a society based on freedom will occasionally be attacked by people exploiting freedom.
We seem to have taken the wrong lesson from that proof and have decided to repress freedom in a scattershot approach to reducing attacks.
where is the tea party and the republicans (Score:2, Interesting)
complaining about uncontrolled government spending?
only when it goes to teachers and transit systems and healthcare for poor people do they seem to get upset
the usa has to massively curtail its intelligence and military spending
unfortunately, we will only dominate the world 2x over, rather than 10x over (rolls eyes)
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where is the tea party and the republicans complaining about uncontrolled government spending?
Well I for one am for cutting defense as well as entitlements wherever possible. The problem with defense is that neither you nor I have any clue what number is actually appropriate to meet our defense needs without expert knowledge of international diplomacy, military strategy and a big crystal ball to see what the future threats will be. It is easy for the UK to slash their defense spending when their doctrine s
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But of course somehow you do know what our entitlement/social program needs will be without any expert knowledge of societal dynamics, nor a big crystal ball to see what the future social demands will be
No, I just don't care about societal dynamics or the future social demands. I'm not playing Sim City here. It is simply not my right to physically force one person to work for the benefit of another (that is what all involuntary social welfare programs come down to), even if it may be beneficial to
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i am being 100% honest here:
i can't in a million years understand your thinking
someone who understands why boob jobs for teachers is wrong, but thinks expensive toys for military boobs is right
how did that military and intelligence spending stop 9/11? how many aircraft carriers did it take to stop 19 assholes with boxcutters? how much money were we spending on intelligence when the 9/11 hijackers got their visas approved in the mail a couple of months after 9/11? how many trillions and how many dead america
Unfortunately this shows a lack of intelligence. (Score:2)
It shows a massive lack of intelligence across teh board fro US defense budgets.
Consider what the world wants [unesco.org] and this was calculated years ago.
Amazing that the US defense Budget is nearing what the whole world had budgeted for defense not so long ago.
The incredible lack of intelligence these current numbers show is of complete failure to realize this amount of money used on removing real world problems and improving the general social environment the people of this world live in, would result in a massivel
How Naive (Score:2)
"The incredible lack of intelligence these current numbers show is of complete failure to realize this amount of money used on removing real world problems and improving the general social environment the people of this world live in, would result in a massively reduced motive to go to war. and perhaps even eliminate any need for war should all other countries instead spend their defence budgets on such improvements."
Ah, the old "social spending will end war and terrorism" canard. Too bad that reality has s
How do you know? How do you decide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Playing devil's advocate here...
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?
And for future budgets, how do you decide? Reduce the budget until a major attack happens, then go slightly higher next year? Reduce the budget then just absorb major attacks when they happen? Keep it where it's at on the assumption that the spending levels are the reason there's been nothing big happening? Again, upon what do you base your decision?
In all of Slashdot's membership, there are probably a few who have the real, first-hand primary-source knowledge (or are themselves a primary source) to make these decisions based upon fact and clear, rational thought. The rest of us, myself included, are talking out of our asses because we don't know shit. I loathe and despise Feinstein (she's never met a government-power-increasing law she didn't like), but she's in a position to have at least some factual knowledge. Have we overspent? Probably. But I don't want to be the one to decide how much to cut, and what to keep, and I'm not going to pretend I'm qualified to tell the intel community how to do their jobs. (Intel(tm)? That's another matter...)
We leave it to the judgment of history whether Feinstein is qualified to do so. Myself? I DON'T KNOW.
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We leave it to the judgment of history whether Feinstein is qualified to do so. Myself? I DON'T KNOW.
And the beauty of the system is that your trust will never be shattered because YOU NEVER WILL KNOW. What a wonderfully circular logic you use.
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Playing devil's advocate here...
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
A: There hasn't been any credible ability to do so by the bad guys
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?
Reminds me of the logic
"Why are you doing all this intelligence?"
"To k
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Well you can still guess a good reason as to why no attack has occurred. One is that extremist organizations are more interested in gaining power in their own country (which the Taliban already accomplished). We showed that attacking us pretty much fucks that up, which is on of the reasons why terrorists in Iraq commit much more domestic attacks than attacks against the occupants there. It's pretty damn easy to get people in this country (as illegal immigration has shown), and you can send 1 man with 1 miss
Option D (Score:2)
D: Increased Vigilance of Everyday Americans
They have not been any successful terror incidents in the US since 9/11 but there have been several attempts (underpants bomber, Times Square bomber, etc). What stopped those attempts from becoming incidents w
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Playing devil's advocate here...
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
How about:
D: 9-11 was partly staged by insiders in the American Government to move their agenda across.
While I am not a conspiracy theorist, that is looking way more likely then any other answer.
We didn't improve our security since then, it's a joke. but we did increase our military spending, got some vice president's company making a shit load of money from jobs, and should I mention that our gas price went up through the roof while the oil companies were posting record breaking profits?
And then during
spying on ourselves (Score:2, Interesting)
You have to wonder how much of this is spent internally - wiretapping ourselves, invading our own privacy, installing GPS to some poor innocent kid's car for no reason. Unless you count some idle remarks on facebook as legit reasons for anything.
Terrorists are the new commies. And like commies they could be among us, working to bring us down from within! Hurry and report all your friends on facebook before they report you!
And this is how it is broken down (Score:3, Funny)
Administration: 12%
Mistakes: 9%
Useful work: 8%
Coverups: 11%
Pork:60%
Get a refund (Score:2)
With 80 billion, one should expect a lot more intelligence.
Am I the only one who's not concerned by this? (Score:2)
So it's $80 billion? Did everyone else fail to notice the other number in TFS? Total defense spending is $664 billion, which leaves $584 billion on non intelligence related defense spending. How much of that $584 billion is spent on military forces meant to defend against a cold war style enemy vs the kind of threats the US faces today? My guess would be a large portion of it. Of the $80 billion on intelligence, how much is appropriate for the kinds of threats the US faces today? My guess would be a s
The problems today are tough (Score:5, Interesting)
The intel business has changed. It used to be that the US intelligence community was focused on the capabilities of the USSR, which was a big, slow-moving, closed society. Moving to today's targets is tough. The CIA and NSA had all that expertise focused on what the USSR was doing. They were looking for big stuff like missile launchers that are visible from orbit, and communications between a very centralized bureaucracy in Moscow with outlying subordinate stations. It was reasonably clear how to approach that. All that capability was ill-matched to the many post-USSR threats.
Trying to get intel on a terrorist group is tough. First, the target is tiny. Remember, 9/11 only involved about 25 people, and only a few of them knew the plan more than a day in advance. Second, the groups aren't that connected. Islamic terrorism is an ideology, not an organization. Al-Queda ("The Base") is maybe 200 people at this point, and not doing much. The terrorist incidents in recent years haven't been very connected. Third, intel on terrorist groups has a short useful life. Where bin Laden was last month is only of historical interest. US intelligence used to be strategic. Now it's mostly tactical. The US used to obsess over Soviet bomber production rates. There's nothing like that to track now.
Then there are the messes in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's an intel problem; insurgents are hard to find but easy to kill. The dumb insurgents are already dead. The remaining ones know how to keep quiet. There's no centralized control of either insurgency. If the insurgents establish a "stronghold", they become vulnerable. That, by the way, is why the war with the Taliban is stalemated. If the Taliban concentrates enough combat power to do anything big, they become vulnerable to modern firepower. If they operate in the background, they can survive, but can't take over, unless they can wear out their opposition. (This frustrates the US military. "Marine doctrine demands a decision." - FMFM-1. Insurgent doctrine does not. "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue" - Mao Zedong.)
Coming up next: Mexico. Arguably, northern Mexico is already a "failed state". Drug lords are more vulnerable to intel operations than religiously-motivated insurgents, though. They can't hide too much and still do business, they have to deal and communicate, and the members mistrust each other.
That confusion is why the US now has such a confused intel establishment. That's no excuse for it being as big as it is, though. Or, really, as secretive. Most of the targets today have insignificant capabilities to infiltrate or eavesdrop on the US intel establishment. It's not like going up against Moscow Center, which would devote huge resources and years of time to getting inside some US establishment. The secrecy can get in the way of getting things done.
During WWII, and for decades thereafter, it didn't take a pass to get into the Pentagon. Gen. Marshall decided that any competent intelligence service would figure out a way to get into the building, and so only the really important stuff would be secured. Trying to secure the whole building would be security theater. We need more of that kind of thinking.
$80 billion for US Intelligence? (Score:2)
I'll be here all night, try the ribeye, it's excellent
Which of all the Gods does he mean?! (Score:2)
"The US is running so many secret programs that James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, said during his confirmation hearings that 'only one entity in the entire universe' knows what they're all doing, and 'that's God.'""
What a moron, which of all the Gods does he mean?! As he is a defence guy I guess it must be some war God. It wouldn't surprise me if it was Týr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Týr) one of the mightiest God who gave his name to the day Tuesday!
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He's being facetious. He knows full well there is no god.
wasteful! (Score:3, Funny)
Seems about right... (Score:2)
Tripled in the last 12 years? That seems about right, given inflation and all. I know that in the last 12 years my stock portfolio has... hey, wait a minute!!!
Just kidding. Actually I think $80B seems like a small amount of the $600B defense budget. After all, it's probably much cheaper to have good intelligence and make the best use of our troops than to just invade countries at random in hopes of making America safer (not that that would ever happen ;). Of course, we have no idea if we're really getting o
Mars (Score:2)
And supposedly it would cost $10 to $20 billion to get to Mars. I'm glad we have our priorities straight.
Wrong order (Score:2)
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, we should level an American city that isn't being useful anymore and build a waterpark. For future reference, this is the same solution I have proposed to end the israeli-palestinian conflict.
No I don't have a newsletter.
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, we should level an American city that isn't being useful anymore.
Washington DC?
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>>Nah, we should level an American city that isn't being useful anymore.
>Washington DC?
Leveling DC is just one of the shared goals between Islamic terrorists and the radical Teabaggers.
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This must be what's happening to Detroit. The abandoned buildings/homes are reverting to prairie. Very green and progressive of them.
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You might be onto something there. Maybe the progressive agenda is to destroy cities' economies and cause all businesses to move elsewhere, with high taxes ...
No, this is the right wing agenda.
Remember - the right wanted GM go under and take down all of its supporting suppliers and ravage what's left of Detroit, and the right wants to destroy infrastructure by chronic underfunding (ya know, taxes are actually needed for stuff...), and wipe out the blue collar middle class through off-shoring (but don't worry white collar workers are now going away also, so you won't be left out of the fun).
The demonstrable fact is - the U.S. economy in general, and the middle cla
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Way to scare Detroit.
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Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:4, Informative)
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"Not to mention the cost of maintaining GITMO for however long it is before the Republicans acknowledge that we have to accept at least a few detainees if we want to be rid of the rest."
Really? This is all the Republicans fault?
Even though we've had a Democrat President since January 20th, 2009 who could end GITMO with the stroke of a pen? (I might remind you also that he campaigned with the promise to do so.)
Even though the Democratic Party took over Congress in November of 2006 and could have ended it's l
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It is a bipartisan issue. Republicans started it, democrats failed to stop it.
If there is anything that the two parties can agree on, it is to lie to the public, to spend lots of money and to hold on to any illegal power that falls into their laps.
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I am a pretty left-leaning guy, and I am no huge fan of Gitmo, but there is probably a reason that Gitmo still hasn't been closed. After all, President Obama would have really fired up his base going into these midterm elections if he could check off "closed Gitmo" on his list of to-dos. Therefore, I really, honestly believe that there are some really scary things happening at Gitmo with very few horrible, hardcore killers who have been giving up all sorts of useful intelligence but who cannot be tried in a
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Congratulations darkmeridian, you've just made an "ends justifies the means" argument FOR extra-ordinary rendition, possible torture, and state secrets. Is that really what you intended?
In my opinion GITMO should be closed and all prisoners should be tried either by Military Tribunal or in the civilian courts. This is how a modern and upstanding society would handle the problem.
What's going on now is shameful and should end.
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, I really, honestly believe that there are some really scary things happening at Gitmo with very few horrible, hardcore killers who have been giving up all sorts of useful intelligence but who cannot be tried in a civilian court because they have been endlessly tortured to obtain that information. Senator Obama made his campaign promises to close down Gitmo not knowing the secret horrors and President Obama has to backtrack because he now knows about the shit going on.
You know... I can't resist but point out that this would be like saying: Maybe Hitler knew more about the Jewish Community than we do.
And no, I don't feel like that's a Godwin. If there's illegal/immoral/uncool activity going on in Gitmo, it should be shut down. Period. Claiming that maybe he's doing it because the people there did something wrong to his family (figuratively speaking) is just sick. It points out to me (and I hope just not me) how you gloss over human rights violations because you think it benefits national security or some bullshit like that.
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We know a lot more about what Hitler and his regime did than about what happens in Gitmo, so the appeal to authority is a lot more justifiable for Gitmo than for WW2 concentration camps.
If illegal, immoral and/or uncool activity in Gitmo is sufficient grounds to shut it down, when do you want to shut down Washington DC and the UN on the same grounds?
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We know a lot more about what Hitler and his regime did than about what happens in Gitmo
It doesn't matter what we know now. It matters what we knew then.
Most of the world had no idea what was happening in the concentration camps except the Nazi military.
Most of the world has no idea what is happening at Gitmo except the US military.
I'm not saying we (the US) are starving, forcing labor, torturing, killing, and all that was inclusive to concentration camps in WWII. I'm pointing out the obvious (to me) correlation.
Re:Why not just scarp US Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that anyone could still have some useful intelligence to give up after sitting in a cell at Gitmo for 8 years is pretty ridiculous.
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Really? This is all the Republicans fault?
Even though we've had a Democrat President since January 20th, 2009 who could end GITMO with the stroke of a pen? (I might remind you also that he campaigned with the promise to do so.)
What exactly do you think the current administration is supposed to do with the people there, ship them to Antarctica? What country is going to take them, after the previous administration hyped up how dangerous the inmates are?
The fact is this MESS was created by Republicans, and is the gift that keeps on giving.
And you think two years is enough time to fix the legion problems created by previous policies? Are you even awake and comprehending anything? Which party filibusters everything unless they get
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Unlike the previous president, Obama does not self-grant extra-Constitutional powers to the Executive branch. Bush (or Cheney, really) may have done MANY things "with a stroke of the pen" but Congress has the real power (when it wants to, anyways).
The fact is that many in Congress can not approach Gitmo rationally, because there's a large group of people who *believe* that closing Gitmo means "letting terrorists run through our towns and schools". You can't say you're not aware of the phenomenon. In America
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This.
Gitmo is still open because, it turns out, it's better to keep them where they are than to move them to somewhere (else) in the U.S.
And while it is still open, you can bet that the things happening there are not the same things that were happening while W was signing the signing statements.
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"And while it is still open, you can bet that the things happening there are not the same things that were happening while W was signing the signing statements."
Oh? How do you know this to be to true? Have you been there or are you relying on the promise of a man who has already broken a promise to close the place?
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Please enlighten me as to the meaning of this:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/177/close-the-guantanamo-bay-detention-center/ [politifact.com]
I know, those evil Republican websites and their LIES.
How about this?
President Obama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ePb4X6JNQ [youtube.com]
Candidate Obama - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7h12a_obama-promises-to-close-guantanamo_news [dailymotion.com]
So please explain how I am a "Total Idiot". There is President Obama AND Candidate Obama promising to close GITMO.
It's still open.
So answer t
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I need to stop replying on this thread. It's obvious that most people don't want to listen, regardless of their party affiliation.
I'm sorry that you think that those evil Republicans filibustered the closing of GITMO.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/close-guantanamo-funding-senate-obama [guardian.co.uk]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124234679032521923.html [wsj.com]
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This 80 billion is small compared to how much is spent on Welfare programs like SSI/medicare (1060 billion)
7%.
If we're going to cut cost, eliminating 7% is about as worthless as a "7% off" sale at Walmart. Let's cut the huge expenses, like this pointless war. And slso exclude anyone earning more than 5 million/lifetime from receiving welfare assistance. Those wealthy persons can live off their own resources/personal savings.
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What percentage of welfare recipients have a lifetime earning of over 5 million... If you are not counting corporate entities soaking up kickbacks?
Most people poor enough to need welfare either have always been poor or have recently lost their middle class jobs due to the recession.
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4% of Americans have greater than 5 million lifetime income.
According to the Social Security Administration. Of course as wages rises-up, then there will be more and more people with lifetime earnings exceeding 5 million dollars. By 2020 it'll probably be 9% and by 2030, 15%. I think when someone is that wealthy (a millionaire), he or she should not be eligible to receive SS or Medicare checks. They can afford to pay their own bills.
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4% of Americans have greater than 5 million lifetime income.
That's the answer to a question GP didn't ask. How many of those are receiving welfare benefits? My guess is close to zero percent. We agree they should not, but they already do not. It will not help.
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Funny how when someone or their family needs medicare they stop calling it welfare.
80 billion is not a small number, it is pretty huge and every dollar in it means a dollar that isn't going to another need. The biggest problem is that it is all hush-hush so there is little monitoring to control costs or waste and no likelyhood of an impartial public group analyzing it. At least with SSI/Medicare it is on the table and subject to citizen input (a majority of people want it and actually need it). I can't s
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Intelligence is expensive to get. ... there's a lot of guesswork and probably bribery and extortion involved.
Expensive? If I'm giving out money and then taking money from someone else, and the rest is just guessing, shouldn't I break even?
Hey hedwards,
Here's a dollar for some intel. Now give me a dollar or I'll share that intel. I guess my work here is done!
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Can't we just outsource it? All our other intelligence is outsourced.
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Population, United States = 307,006,550 - Jul 2009
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division
10 billion divided by 307,006,550 people = 32.57$USD per person.
Little Caesars 14" Large Pepperoni Pizza [caesarconnect.com] = 5.00$USD.
This means six 14" pepperoni pizzas per person, including children.
You don't have to add a significant figure or two, Murdoch5's numbers were already insulting enough.
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Then they only get four or five 14" pepperoni pizzas instead of six.
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I never thought I'd use WA quite like this, but...
$32.10 per person [wolframalpha.com] will buy you a lot of pizza when you're ordering in bulk. That's about 2 large for every single man, woman, child, and baby in the USA.
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But will that pizza keep bin Laden from leaving his cave?
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The difference here is that Apollo was actually worthwhile. We got live science and real products and technologies out of it, for less than (yearly) what American women pay for cosmetics. Don't besmirch Apollo on my watch. Fuck, the Chinese are just NOW trying to get to the moon, what some 40 years late. They're gonna have a huge video blackout when they find our flag is still there.
More on the topic; this is money well spent as it also prevents lion, polar bear, and zombie attacks on US soil. So, they
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The difference here is that Apollo was actually worthwhile. We got live science and real products and technologies out of it, for less than (yearly) what American women pay for cosmetics.
I can't wait to see you run for office on the burka as a method of balancing the American budget. Or is the argument pro inflation? I can't tell.
Funny how many comments on this thread take the default position that the issue is spin the bottle: whoever is spending the most, sheds the most, until equilibrium is restored. Balanced budgets by the tried and true method "pick on the fat kid". Are we trying to police government budgets the same way we police traffic? Everyone speeds, but we only pick off the
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That's the basic problem. Actually this is problem in a number of government run systems.
It's actually worse than that. If you're producing a thousand reports per week, then any real information is probably hidden under the huge steaming pile of 'intelligence'.
So it ends up just little more than a means of covering your backside because after someone carries out a terrorist attack you can point to the report which should have allowed you to stop if it anyone had read it and been able to decide that it was actually important information and it was important enough to do something about.
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We have one. It's called Congress. And at one point it was an entirely novel idea. Now lots of countries have them. Because it works a lot better than what they had before, which was secret police that nobody could check up on.
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by knappe duivel (914316) on 2010.10.29 10:52 (#34065212):
all that intelligence, and still they don't know god doesn't excist
Exactly right.