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

Again all arguments regarding Vietnam are irrelevant.The U.S. took miltiary action in Vietnam 40 years ago, arguments pertaining to past U.S. actions such as these are irrelevant as they don't support the resolution the the U.S. IS an international bully. Countries do change in such a time span.Iraq WarMy opponent has brought no arguments of his own to bear, only links to the arguments of others and a video of Noam Chomsky.I'm not going to respond since my opponent has presented no arguments to the table to oppose the U.S. war in Iraq.Military ExpendituresRussia, China, and India are all developing nations with much lower Human Development Index rates than the U.S. as well as an average per capita that would qualify a U.S. Citizen as living in Povertyhttp://www.nationmaster.com...Russia is number 62 out of 178, below Mexico and UruguayChina is number 85 out of 178, below Lebanon, Russia, Mexico, and SamoaIndia is number 128 out of 178 below Honduras, Gaza strip, Indonesia, and VietnamA nations HDI is based off of its literacy rates, education, standard of living and physical well being. Since our major competitors score very low I find it very, VERY unplausible that they provide their soldiers the same pay and benefits as we give U.S. servicemenhttp://www.success-and-culture.net... GDP per capitaThe U.S. is number 3 at 37,000 USDRussia is number 82 at 8920 USDChina is number 118 at 4990 USDIndia is number 143 at 2880 USDMy opponent wants evidence that shows our competitors don't provide their soldiers as much as we provide ours.The average GDP's per capita of our competitors would qualify a U.S. citizen as being poverty stricken, know any soldiers that are in poverty while they serve?Chinese conscripts do not get the pay, education, housing, and medical care of U.S. soldiers. The mere fact that China is still a developing nation with an average per capita 1/4 of that of the U.S.'s should have been a strong indicator.Yes the Military spends large amounts of treasure to pay for the education of an officer and in return you have a job as a military leader after you get out of college for a certain amount of years. That is perfectly fair.Afghan Conflict1. U.S. involvment in the Afghan Soviet war was 30 years ago and only supports the resolution the U.S. WAS an international bully2. Your own sources state that non-American sources gave several hundred million dollars every year to fund the Mujahadeen so they would have been funded and equipped without the U.S. 3. Your own source states that Bin Laden does not give any credit of the Mujahadeen victory to the U.S. even though he can pin all of his atrocities on them. 4.We funded a guerrilla group to defend their homeland from a Soviet Invasion, not the Taliban to kill it's own people. The fact that the Taliban developed ulterior motives after the war ended is not the U.S.'s fault and currently we are involved in a war where we killed Bin Laden and destroyed the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan.Two Party SystemMy opponent has dropped this topic so I assume he has recanted his position after I posted my arguments.Final Thoughts1. The U.S. is a first world nation with a much higher standard of living and cost of living than our competitors Russia, China, and India therefore manpower, material, and development cost significantly more. If we paid what the Chinese paid for helicopters and began enforcing conscription, we would have a low defense budget as well.Since my opponent claims wikipedia is valid I'll take advantage of it as a sourceAn American MBT (Main Battle Tank) costs 6.21 million USDhttp://en.wikipedia.org...A Russian T-90 costs between 2.77 and 4.15 million USD half of a U.S. tank and this is one of their most expensive ones while the more common tanks range in cost from 1-2million + USDhttp://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...And the Russians are notorious for their formidable tanks and they can produce as many as 3-4 for the same price we make 1.2. The U.S. is competing agains the next top 3 military powers combined who pay much less for equipment do to the fact they are developing nations. This gives the U.S. a clear reason to have such a high Military budget because you need to factor in the fact that we spend more on material and men than our competitors and we have 3 major competitors.3. Past U.S. actions are irrelevant as they do not support the resolution that the U.S. IS an international bully4. The fact that the U.S. has bases world wide does not signify U.S. aggression, especially since the nations we have bases in are our good allies and give us permision to use their territory for our military. It shows we have many friends around the worldOur bases don't threaten our major competitors, why should they? Russia, China, and India can destroy the world each in a matter of minutes. If hostilities were the open up it wouldn't matter who struck firstSpy-planes have long become obsolete and according to my opponents own source the U.S. was allowed to operate aircraft where the collision occurred. Nowadays nations use spy sattelites which can take more accurate photos and can't be intercepted or shot down legally as they don't violate a nation's airspace.http://www.space.com... 5. For the nth time past U.S. actions are irrelevant as they don't support the resolution that the U.S. IS an internation bully, only that the U.S. WAS an international bully. 6. Again the current states that own nuclear weapons are nations such as Russia, China, U.S., India, UK, France, etc. All of these nations have very stable governments and proper safeguards in place to prevent an innappropriate nuclear strike being launched.North Korea and Iran don't have stable governments. They are run by hateful and insane individuals who have pledged to destroy the U.S. and her allies, it should be obvious as to why they can't be allowed to posses nuclear technology seeing as they aren't responsible. Even Russia, a major U.S. competitor, is on our side.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr...We have very good reason to prevent Kim and Ahmadenijad from possessing nuclear arms seeing as Kim and Ahmadenijad are absolute rulers with no regard for human life and have made direct threats against the U.S. and U.S. allies.It wouldn't matter if we had enough nuclear weapons to blow up the solar system, we wouldn't launch a nuclear strike based on the whim of a dicator.I don't care to debate over wikipedia's credibility. So whatever, wikipedia is fine.Con's conclusionMy opponent has made direct insults against me by calling me a bigot for debating against a position he wanted me to argue over, he has forfeited a round while he was the instigator of this debate, he has dropped my point regarding the U.S. 2 party system while he was the one who brought it up, I have successfully shown why the U.S. has a high defense budget, my opponent's points regarding past U.S. actions are irrelevant seeing as they don't support the resolution that the U.S. is currently an international bully, and he made no arguments of his own to oppose the current U.S. miltiary actions in the Middle East.