Whose Outsized Military?

The U.S. State Department is grumbling over
Venezuelan purchases of military equipment, saying
the equipment goes beyond the country's legitimate
defense needs. State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack says the purchases are part of what “we
would consider an outsized military buildup in
Venezuela.”

Excuse me, but who has an outsized military?
Venezuela spends each year approximately 66
dollars per capita on its military, while the U.S.
spends 500 billion dollars a year, or
approximately 1700 dollars per capita. The U.S.,
with less than 5 percent of the world's
population, spends as much on its military as the
entire rest of the world combined.

Unless the entire world is planning an attack
on the U.S. - and there's no evidence for that -
those enormous military expenditures certainly
can't be intended for defense. One is left with
the conclusion that our military is intended for
offensive purposes, such as Bush's illegal and
immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. Given
that Venezuela, like Iraq, is an oil producing
nation; given that the U.S. is currently consumimg
a quarter of the world's oil and has expressed and
demonstrated its intent to control world supplies
by military means, any military buildup by
Venezuela must be considered a prudent move on
their part.

Any objection by the U.S. to Venezuela
acquiring the means to defend itself and its oil
resources is the height of hypocrisy, and is not
based on a concern for Venezuela acquiring an
outsized military; rather, it is the concern of
the Bush regime that invading Venezuela for its
oil resources, as in Iraq, will turn out not to be
walk in the park.