Proper Use of the Military – Killing Pirates

Pirates Abay!

I may have written about this before, but I find myself struck dumb with this whole pirate situation. In discussions with an elder very close to me, I came to realize that we are just simply misusing our military to the Nth degree.

The United States spends like 700 billion U.S. dollars on defense. Most nations on this planet don’t have budgets that large. Yet, we spend that much on defense. We have fleets of nuclear submarines with stealth technology. We have planes that fly at break neck speeds, and can’t be picked up by the most sophisticated radar systems. We have the best special forces troops in the world. We have intelligence agents scattered in places that one couldn’t imagine. One could say there is no where anyone can hide from the U.S. military force. Yet, unsophisticated pirates with pansy-archaic weaponry (by comparison) can hijack supertankers and in no time receive 25 million U.S. dollars in ransom money for the safe return of crew, and maybe cargo. What’s wrong with this picture?

Is it possible to direct some that 700 billion towards eradicating piracy? Instead of using unmanned CIA drones to bomb Afghan villages during weddings, how about using them to bomb the hell out of the pirate enclaves in Somalia.

I’m no military genius, or defense budget guru, but when I hear/read Katie Couric questioning Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about how the Chinese may have “acquired” sensitive information regarding the F-35 joint strike fighter jet, I ask myself, “Are the Chinese hijacking boats in the Indian Ocean….Why are we building F-35s when we should be killing pirates?” I’m not saying we shouldn’t be concerned by the Chinese hacking U.S. military computers, but we should be killing pirates!

So to sum up: Good uses of military might – killing pirates. Bad use of military might – building useless, and very very very expensive, F-35 strike fighters.

F35 Joint Strike Fighter by Lockheed Martin

Peace