We would be foolish to think that the terrorists aren't well aware of the inherent weaknesses within the infrastructure of our country. After all, as was said previously, a list of the 100 bridges in the poorest condition within our country, are published on the internet.
After 9/11, when the terrorist scare was at its highest, the National Guard was guarding any number of bridges in the Bay Area, especially the Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge (11 miles long), and the Richmond San Rafael Bridge. When we think of how critical most of our bridges are in respect to getting to and from work, the loss of most any bridge, some much more than others, would present a hardship to the citizens, and the economies, of those areas. Of course we could say the same thing about most other parts of the infrastructure
So, it's a multi-faceted problem. Not only do we have to convince our government to invest in our infrastructure, rather than spending so much money fighting needless wars, that we shouldn't have started in the first place, and developing exotic unneeded weapons, and providing foreign aid, again for weapons, just in case they need to fight a war, but we also need to convince our government, that while there is nothing wrong with having an army, that army should be almost entirely about protecting our nation at home.
For 2007, the Defense budget was raised to a total of US$ 532.8 Billion.[1] This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, SUCH AS THE COST OF THE WARS IN IRAQ, AND AFGHANISTAN, and such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120Bi in 2007).[2]
Defense Budget for 2007 [3]
The federally budgeted (see below) military expenditure of the United States Department of Defense for fiscal year 2007 is:
Total Funding $439.3 Billion +6.9%
Operations and maintenance $152.2 Bil. +6.6%
Military Personnel $110.8 Bil. +3.7%
Procurement $84.2 Bil. +10.5%
Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation $73.2 Bil. +3.1%
Military Construction $12.6 Bil. +57.5%
Family Housing $4.1 Bil. +2.5%
Working Capital Funds $2.4 Bil. +9.1%
Further, the Department of Energy will spend an additional $23.4 Bil. during FY'07 for the development, maintenance and production of nuclear warheads. [4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
There are even so called Black Programs which are so secret, their funding doesn't even show up in the budget, lest the numbers reveal something about the nature of these programs.
They might want to be reduce the defense budget and spend the money elsewhere. It would help the American public to educate themselves on what is known as the military industrial complex, and also foreign aid, which too often is used for military buildup; it might help to begin redirecting some of that money, to better use, elsewhere in our country.
So far, something like $610 billion has been spent on the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the costs are escalating. While the cost of our two wars, is now quoted as $12 billion a month, the cost will soon go up to $15 billion a month. If the war ended today, the total cost of the war would not be $610 billion, but would be somewhere between 1 and possibly even exceed $2 trillion. There are a lot of future costs that come with what has gone on so far.
