Comment by goatsneez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goatsneez | Hacker News Reader

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What you say is certainly true. It is also true that since WW2 USA bombed dozens of countries back to stone age, equipped and enabled brutal dictators, punished people with sanctions which killed 100s of thousands, destabilize governments, maintain 600+ military bases to enforce corporate and political interests, etc

Both of these points are besides the subject of the article in question. It is focusing exclusively on the CO2 footprint of the US war machine, which is never accounted in the US national emissions (therefore skews any discussion on curbing emissions). (...cumulatively US is by orders of magnitude in energy demands for its military over all others combined (averaged over past 30 years)).

Effects of possible downsizing of US military is yet a separate question with its own multiple levels of analysis.

>It is also true that since WW2 USA bombed dozens of countries back to stone age

Many of those countries were already in the stone age.

>It is focusing exclusively on the CO2 footprint of the US war machine, which is never accounted in the US national emissions (therefore skews any discussion on curbing emissions).

Citation needed. The US military is mostly stationed in the US. Iraq and Afghanistan wars are over.

Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq and Syria are some countries which would like to disagree with your "stone age" assessment.

Or if your assessment was correct, then in spite of such a large budget, the US has managed to get beaten by a handful of Stone Age countries.

>Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq and Syria are some countries which would like to disagree with your "stone age" assessment.

ISIS, gays being thrown off buildings... Press F to doubt.

Grenada was barely bombed at all.

>Or if your assessment was correct, then in spite of such a large budget, the US has managed to get beaten by a handful of Stone Age countries.

Name any large engagements or battles where the US "got beaten" in Iraq, Syria, Grenada, Afghanistan, etc. Even the biggest "loss" in Vietnam (Tet Offensive) was a huge tactical failure for the North Vietnamese. Nonetheless, it ended up being a strategic failure for the US because it turned the public tide against the war.

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