The US is an international bully, and NATO is a gang of thugs!

My opponent appears to be making two separate points. 1. The U.S. is an international bully 2. NATO is a gang of thugs My opponent states that the U.S. spends "spend $666 billion USD annually for their military. This is six times the amount the next big spender China invests in their military." This is very true, but the amount the U.S. spends on a military budget compared to China is not necessarily a measure of military might. For instance I'm sure we can all agree that China is still developing as an economic power and many of its people still live in poverty while the U.S. is, despite the recession, a very economically healthy country. Based on this one can conclude that U.S. service embers whose pay checks are part of the defense budget, are substantially higher than that of a Chinese military service member. The U.S. also provides soldiers medical care, education, housing, and other other various benefits to U.S. military and women. North Korea only spends 6 billion or so USD on their defense budget, yet they have over an army larger than that of the U.S. in terms of active and reserve personnel (http://www.globalfirepower.com...) How much do you think North Korean soldiers are paid? This proves that, despite spending less on a military, countries can have effective militaries by cutting non-weapon or non-combat expenses for their personnel that the U.S. doesn't. The U.S. also has to watch the backs of many other allies. For instance we have given military aid to the nations of Israel, South Korea and various others due to the threats our allies face. Israel faces the threat of being constantly attacked by enemy Arab powers, South Korea faces the threat of being annexed by the North and the list goes on of various other countries that face threats that the U.S. buffs up its own military expenditures for. The U.S. also competes militarily with Russia as well as China. Here is a brief summarization of these countries military might (http://www.globalfirepower.com...) USA (http://www.globalfirepower.com...) China (http://www.globalfirepower.com...) Russia (http://www.globalfirepower.com...) India The U.S. is ranked no 1. in terms of military power, but our major competitors, Russia and China are right behind. We also have to worry about the fact that India has gotten rather, chummy, with the countries of Russia and China who collaborate with each other on military technology and military exercises. Here is a 5th generation fighter that Russia and India are working on developing (http://www.india-defence.com...) Here is an article celebrating the resumption of Chinese and Indian military exercises (http://www.thehindu.com...) In conclusion seeing that the U.S. has several military competitors and many global strategic interests the U.S. has a legitimate reason to have a rather high defense budget The U.S. does not necessarily have a two party system, we have several political parties people can vote for such as the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Communist Party, the Labor Party, the American Nazi Party, etc. The fact that no other parties than the Republican and Democratic parties do well is not due to oppression on the part of the U.S., you can vote for whichever party you want, it's because they aren't popular and don't propose ideologies that most people agree with. If a significant number of people began voting for any other parties beside the two major ones we have now, then we wouldn't be a two party system. The various political parties Americans are free to vote for. (http://en.wikipedia.org...) Abu Ghraib was a tragedy, but it wasn't done on a wide enough scale to say the U.S. violates human rights and the U.S. was the one that took actions punish those responsible and the soldiers responsible were imprisoned for various of amounts of time in units of years. The argument over Gitmo is another debate. The prisoners are given sufficient amounts of food and water, given regular exercise, are violators of the Geneva Accords, and Water boarding, the most well known form of "torture" which was used on Gitmo prisoners is used on U.S. soldiers for training purposes. That's right, when we prepare our soldiers to fight against other countries that follow the Geneva Accords we water board some of them to give them the feel of what interrogation countries might perform on our captured soldiers. We train them so they won't talk if they are water boarded, but we don't prepare to them to endure forms of torture such as if our soldiers captors begin slicing off their fingers. Yes we do attempt to control nuclear stockpiling for very good reasons. The countries today that posses nuclear weapons such as the U.S., Russia, China, India, France, the UK, etc, are all very stable countries NOT run by dictators. The fear the U.S. has is that in a country such as Iran or North Korea, where there is one lone psychopath in charge, their are few safeguards if any preventing a nuclear strike. For instance, a U.S., Russian, British or Chinese president/leader can't singlehandedly launch a nuclear strike. In the current countries with nuclear missiles, the order for a nuclear strike to be carried out goes through countless military and political leaders ranging from senators, and 4 star Generals all the way down to the lower ranking officers who personally launch the strike. I know this for a fact since my father was a B-52 bomber commander. He was given partial launch codes to launch nuclear tipped cruise missiles from his plane in the event of a nuclear war, he couldn't fire them alone and neither could anyone else whether you were the President, an Air Force officer, The Speaker of the House, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In North Korea, Iran or any other country NATO and the U.S. attempt to restrict from possessing nuclear weapons, there is no such system. All it will take is for the fanatic leaders of the militant nations with nuclear weapons to determine which country they just happen to hate that day. In other words, the possibility of a nuclear strike being launched from the nations NATO doesn't want to get nuclear weapons, rests on the whim of the absolute dictator in charge of the country. Yes we have many allies such as many countries in Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and so on. So? They obviously don't mind and that doesn't mean we are some bully, countries can kick us out if they so please. For instance, the U.S. had airbases in Libya, when Libya became a U.S. enemy, we simply left. Other countries know this and they don't mind. We have many strategic interests around the globe such as maintaining the security of our major European allies, making sure the vital oil supply in the Middle East is open, making sure we remain a deterrent to U.S. enemies such as North Korea and Iran, keeping the sea lanes open via seaports, etc. How does having military bases, many of which we use to deliver rescue aid with, mean we are a "bully"? It simply means we are good at we do which is securing U.S. and International strategic interests around the globe by having our allies agree to let us use their air bases. Based on my arguments and my rebuttles to my opponents arguments, the U.S. is not an international bully and NATO is not a gang of thus.