[DrPretorius]

The consensus is that the attack was launched from Iraq. The first Iraq War began in 1990. The second Iraq War began in 2003. We are almost into 2019. What has this country gotten for the trillions of dollars and thousands of servicemen lives and tens of thousands of servicemen casualties that we have squandered on the neo-con globohomo folly of Middle East conflict that we have conducted for thirty years? The madness of the USA being the world’s policeman and always being the tip of the spear of the neo-con globohomo New World Order simply must end.

I predict that if Trump allows himself to be sucked into yet another conflict then he will lose the next election and the good ol’ US of A will cease to exist. This never-ending warmongering that we have allowed the military-industrial complex of this country to pursue will be our ruination.

[Zhang Fei]

I respect your sentiments, but the idea that these wars are hyper-expensive does not stand up to scrutiny. As a % of the national economy, defense spending hasn't skyrocketed. In fact, it's actually down since the Reagan years. It's no exaggeration to say that these are small wars. I'm trying to think of a category of government spending that has gone down as a % of the economy since the Reagan years, and apart from defense spending, I can't come up with any. Anyway, here are a couple of charts illustrating the historical trends:

State, local and federal spending has skyrocketed, but it's not mainly because of defense expenditures.

[Jumper]

So it seems. Your position places you as either an independent, Democrat, or under the influence of Russia. Remember the world used Quantitative Easing to print money under Obama. The N-I complex drives space and the economy’s research. Until America has no enemies it is better to bleed Russia and China with shooting and trade wars rather than to leave them to their own devices.

[pepsionice]

On this time around, if the Saudis dial up the US....the response from Trump is a quote on a day-by-day operation, and just a thirty-day response will cost in the two-billion-dollar range. I don’t think the Saudis have the money to conduct a real operation.