U.S. Military budget cuts-2

Since the overwhelming part of Western and Eastern Europe who are members of NATO are under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and thus don’t have to spend much money on defense because of it but this ISIS threat is a different thing altogether. This is not a regular army (although there are trying to sort of) which you can face and have universal laws impose on them. They are in Europe's midst (not to sound alarmist but the ideology is attractive to some disillusioned Muslims and others) so the Europe which is ignoring this fact is doing at its own peril. But despite the fact that the whole of Europe's population is almost equivalent to the U.S. there is a great disparity among the different states' population and that is one of the reasons they don’t contribute that much to the collective defense of Europe. But if you see the Middle Eastern countries, they spend huge amounts of money for the defense without the security of the U.S. nuclear umbrella; Europe can do more to contribute to the defense of Europe and also to the world. But since the U.S. cannot ignore its responsibility as the world's sole super power, and increasingly relying on the military without giving it the proper tools and cuts in its budget is not the way to go. And U.S. is the only one with the means and capability to use its Military around the world. So let’s not tie the hands of it by cutting the Military budget when it is needed the most for our obligations and responsibilities.

U.S. Military budget cuts

As you know my opinion (as well as most of the people's opinion) change overtime depending on the prevailing circumstances. A few of my posts may have said that in order to reduce the deficit, defense budget has to be reduced but it cannot since the Republicans don’t want to touch it because of national security issues. I now officially reverse my stand on this issue as we see the whole world crumbling down around us with everybody except for the United States chickening out since it does not affect them in some way. If you see around us, there is the outbreak of Ebola, although a health emergency but the U.S. has already sent in around 4,000 troops to build facilities in Ebola ravaged countries. And the crisis in Ukraine, although contained needs to monitored and in this case U.S. is again taking the lead but not sending any troops, just providing intelligence and other logistics to European countries to make sure Russia does not step beyond what it has already done in Ukraine. Then we have this huge issue with ISIS, the Islamic Militant organization overrunning large pieces of land in Iraq and Syria and trying to establish a so called Caliphate based on supposed Islamic laws. Before the U.S. stepped in and have a loose coalition trying to stop ISIS, no country was willing to take the lead in countering this menace to the world. Most of the European countries except of France and Britain with major contributions were standing on the sidelines. I don’t want to criticize which European countries are contributing to this fight and which are not (although I gave only two major European powers names which are contributing to it) but Europe has a huge Muslim population susceptible to ISIS propaganda.

Does media drives agenda?

Yes sometimes and I may say most of the time, it does drive some particular agenda depending upon which media outlet you are listening and watching. If you see some news that is being repeated so much that you may think that it is the only thing happening around the world and other equally important news get buried to times where the audience is not that much. You can see for example lately the Ebola scare is all over the news and although very real danger emanates from it, other equally harmful and even more lethal diseases have been relegated or I should say neglected by the media in their quest to be the first one to report on all breaking news about Ebola. The same thing is now happening in Iraq and Syria crisis and with ISIS in the picture, all the news is being driven by media as it is hard to get information from the war zone. Some people specifically watch some channels or read some newspapers because that is the ideology that they rely on or believe in and some of the people without researching further believe most of the news coming out of the media as truthful even if turns out to be false later on or not incorrect. But my point is that the Media has gotten hold of people's views and they drive what should be the main story of the day even if there are other important stories to run. But be very careful what the Media anywhere in the world dishes out because they may be driven by the beliefs of their owner, management or following government dictates.

On the lighter side-Movies-Papita, Mani, Toston (2013-Venezuela)

Naturally in between all the Hollywood movies that I see, I have to venture into foreign language movies to find out what other countries are making and this is one of the great Spanish movies from Venezuela that I discovered. A fan of a baseball team falls in love with the daughter of the manager of the opposing team and trouble ensues. Realistic depiction of Venezuela despite all the hardships, people feel happy and enjoying life. Recommended