I think 450 billion dollars for the military in one year is not exactly "lean" ?
How much was it before, or are those only the "defence" costs not including offensive .. err .. hardware ?
600 billion for anti terror, additionally. National Defense [sic!] Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...scal_Year_2012
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48574
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...-act-now-what/
This building of US interrogation campps all over the world basically undermines international law, it seems no one has even noticed that yet. And even without that i feel it is a serious blow against freedom in the US itself.