War...what is it good for? Absolutely nuthin'!

As Conservative government defense officials and the likes of Rick Hillier go on (and on) about the need to increase defense spending, they might want to take a look at this, a piece from Chalmers Johnson on the fate of empires and the self-defeating practice of manufacturing and buying armaments. Originally posted on TomDispatch and linked from AntiWar.com.

Sooner or later, higher military spending forces inflation and interest rates up, reducing demand in interest-sensitive sectors of the economy, notably in annual car and truck sales. Job losses follow. The nonmilitary construction and manufacturing sectors experience the largest share of these losses. The report concludes, "Most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."

With the Canadian economy already too closely linked to the U.S. and our energy security coming a distant second to that of the country to the south, we don't need to give it a further kick into the black hole that is the sphere of U.S. influence.