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Military, militarization

Thursday 25th of April 2024

The military Can service members maintain a sense of purpose when nobody – not the public, or Congress, or the commander in chief himself – seems to take the wars we're fighting seriously? Phil Klay, The Atlantic, May 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
The military  In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process. --> General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 28, 2020  © 2022 Kwiple.com
The military In the long term, the strength and legitimacy of the military will be a function of the perceived strength and legitimacy of the project it is supposed to represent. The clarity of purpose so central to bonding men in combat cannot emerge purely from the military itself. And in our current climate, after a decade and a half of multiple wars on multiple continents, the hope for such clarity is rotting away. Phil Klay, The Atlantic, May 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
The military It didn’t sound too important to me. --> Donald Trump, defending wanting to divert $3.6 billion in funds to build base housing, schools, gyms and other projects benefitting service members and their families to build his pet project, a southern border wall © 2024 Kwiple.com
The military Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic. headline, article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, September 3, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
The military Trump and his allies understand that by leaving the military outside their political control the last time around, they also left intact a crucial bulwark against their plans.  They will not make the same mistake twice. --> Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, January/February 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Military justice Of the more than 6,200 sexual-assault reports, made by United States service members in fiscal year 2020, only 50 — only 0.8 percent — ended in sex-offense convictions under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, roughly one-third as many convictions as in 2019. It’s unclear why sexual-assault convictions have gone down, but it's part of a much larger trend: Courts-martial dropped by 69 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to Military Times, perhaps because commanders are instead choosing administrative punish- ments, which are bureaucratically easier but also result in milder punishments for the perpetrators, such as deductions in rank or administrative discharges. New York Times Magazine, August 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Military parades Check your cards! Who has dictator bingo? I was close. I had rallies and attack the free press. I didn't have military parade. Stephen Colbert, The Late Show, February 8, 2018, on Trump wanting one of his own  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Military parades I will say this: it won't make him happy. And I think it's important  that he knows that. Whatever this presidency is about –the search for a lost father's love, trying to fill a void with something tangible– that parade is going to go past him and he's going to realize this isn't it either. It's not gonna happen. Those phallic missiles, he'll think, “No, okay, it must be something else then.” And that–that–is when we're really fucked. John Oliver, on Trump wanting a parade of his own © 2018 Kwiple.com
Military parades The marching orders were: “I want a parade like the one in France,” said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning discussions are supposed to remain confidential. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.” Washington Post, February 6, 2018, on “a Jan. 18 meeting between Trump and top generals in the Pentagon's tank – a room reserved for top-secret discussions,” during which Trump said he wanted a parade like he saw in France on Bastille Day, 2017 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Military spending [T]he 2020 federal budget for  the Department of Defence is $738 billion. Homeland Security soaked up $47.7 billion;  the State Department got $41 billion. By comparison, the appropriation for the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2020 was $7.7 billion. The federal budget for planning and enforcing our environmental regulations was $9.4 billion. In other words, for every dollar it spends on defense, the federal government spends a little over two cents on public health and protecting the earth combined. Elizabeth Warren, Persist © 2021 Kwiple.com
Military spending If the average profitability that was negotiated in a firm fixed-price contract was typically between 12 and 15 percent, so a company could make 12 percent. … Based on what they [Lockheed Martin and Boeing] actually made [on the Patriot weapons system], we would have received an entire year's worth of missiles for free. Shay D. Assad, former Director, Defense Pricing/Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy [A formal review by the Army revealed that total profits made by Lockheed and Boeing approached 40 percent] © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
Military spending The US may account for half of global defence spending, but how much use is its military hardware in a software age? US aircraft carriers, which can cost up to $13bn to build, can be easily sunk by one of China's DF-26 missiles, costing a few hundred thousand dollars. John Thornhill, Financial Times, April 2, 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com