President Donald Trump increased military spending by 20%. Biden has now achieved a similar 20% increase in three years. In 2021, when President Joe Biden took office, the defense spending bill in front of Congress was $740 billion. For FY2024, the defense budget bill is $886 billion. That increase is incredible considering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Afghanistan war. After all, the troop withdrawal was supposed to be a $50 billion savings to the taxpayers.

In his July 4th tweet, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin praised, “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” After 9/11, President George W. Bush boasted that this country had “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” Then in 2010, President Obama declared them “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.”

Is that what our exceptional nation status has become? This country can no longer boast of having the world’s best educational system, the best healthcare system, the most advanced and safest infrastructure, or the best democratic politics. So our leaders are left with boasting about the strength of our military force.

Most political scientists believe that the most dangerous challenge to freedom is war. The end of the first Cold War should have been a cleansing and reduction in size, power, and restraint. Instead, the military complex was allowed to search for dragons to slay. The road was bloody, but the marketing was top-notch. They were smart enough to sell the war as our exceptional nation spreading democracy in countries that promoted the rule of law-based governments. It sounds humanitarian, but examining reality proves suspect.

The U.S. fought several wars after the Soviet Union’s implosion and before 9/11 were not for countries appearing on the Who’s Who of Democracies. The list of wars includes; Panama, the Gulf War (Iraq for the sovereignty of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia), Iraq (no-fly enforcements), Somalia, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti (once twice I lost count), and Kosovo. Comparatively small in nature but large enough to feed the military beast. Then came the 9/11 jackpot, a reason to declare war on a tactic, terrorism. In other words, the declaration removed all boundaries to include the whole world.

No other country comes close to our commitment of funds to wars and weapons. All spent in pursuit of global dominance. The Pentagon’s budget for “defense” in 2023 will exceed the military budgets of the next ten countries combined. Bragging about the most expensive military ever is not what I consider admirable or patriotic. The MIC sycophants in Congress will no doubt approve the request. And probably, as they have done before, add to it.

The founding fathers warned about worshiping a standing army. We are inmates in the Congressional Military Industrial Media Complex that promotes and practices warfare in favor of diplomacy.