Bernie fails fact check on anti-terrorism spending

[MaggieD]

I am very happy to see this called out. During the debate everyone attending the party at my home shouted out that this claim was false (yes, we are a very politically informed bunch).

"This nation is the most powerful military in the world," Sanders said. "We're spending over $600 billion a year on the military. And yet significantly less than 10 percent of that money is used to fight international terrorism."

And of course that claim is bullshit. Is Bernie THIS misinformed, or was he deliberately trying to mislead?

Facts:

"Almost all of that money, about $55 billion, was spent in Afghanistan "with a focus on training, advising, and assisting the Afghan forces and carrying out counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al Qaeda in coordination with Afghan forces," as the Pentagon budget writers put it in their 2016 budget request. The remainder went toward fighting the Islamic State group, otherwise known as ISIS.

We should note that the country spends billions more to fight terrorism, but those dollars show up outside the military budget.

The FBI’s Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Decision Unit spent about $3.3 billion in 2015.

We don’t know how much was spent by the CIA and the National Security Agency. However, in 2013, documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden pointed to over $16 billion in spending to combat terrorism."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/15/bernie-s/sanders-significantly-less-10-defense-dollars-go-f/

[NurseJackie]

1. "Is Bernie THIS misinformed, or was he deliberately trying to mislead?"

There's really NO "good answer" for that. (But I'm sure his followers here will give it a good try.)

[MaggieD]

2. I can't wait

Should be interesting.

[Thinkingabout]

3. Uninformed on foreign affairs is not serving Sanders very well.

[MaggieD]

5. Scary to think he thinks he should be president

I keep counting the number of things that I, a lowly voter, know that he does not. It is disturbing, to say the least.

[Thinkingabout]

7. Exactly.

[riversedge]

40. I think he has had the time to bone up.

[berni_mccoy]

4. Hmmm, Politifact measured 11 percent counting funds that could have dual purpose

to arrive at their mostly false conclusion.

I guess it's how you categorize the dual spending.

If you count it their way, yes, he's wrong. If you count it as non-terrorism spending, then Sanders is correct.

[MaggieD]

6. Nope - read it again

It did not count the CIA, FBI, and NSA budgets. So even giving him the benefit of the doubt he is wrong even just counting Afghanistan, which is a war he voted for.

Does he really not even understand his own votes? Seems like that might be the case.

[berni_mccoy]

8. Last I checked, FBI and NSA are not Military.

They are civilian organizations. CIA is pseudo-military. And let's not forget, there is a large portion of the military budget that is classified, including the amount spent.

[MaggieD]

9. Check again then

It's all part of defense spending.

[angrychair]

12. No, its not

Prove that it does. (spoiler) I already did some research, it doesn't....it's called the law. How and why would the fb1 be appropriating funds from the defense budget???
Second, they take a great deal of liberties, as they often do, to make their point:
"Sanders used an overly restricted definition that also ignores that a hefty amount of counterterrorism spending takes place outside of the Defense Department. We rate his statement Mostly False."
That is easy, he was talking about completely different budgets and processes and missions.

Funny how they seem so willing to hold Sanders to the letter of his statement but so easily conflated his specific statement about the defense budget and spending outside the Defense Department.

[MaggieD]

15. So he was deliberately trying to mislead?

Or does he just not know that billions upon billions are spent on counter terrorism?

Here - read up. Great article to help you understand Sanders was incorrect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/

[angrychair]

21. Wow

What part of defense budget is unclear???
Each of these respective agencies has their on-book and off-book budgets that have nothing to do with the defense budget.
Why is that confusing?
His comments were about the $600 billion defense budget.
No matter how much you want to conflate them, these budgets are very different in scope, missions and objectives.

[jmowreader]

16. NSA is a military agency

The Director is a three-star general or admiral. It is on an Army base. And lots of its employees wear soldier suits. It is definitely a DoD activity.

[angrychair]

23. Wrong

while there is a great deal of 'common mission' between the N5A and cybercommand ( they, as a military operation, operate under Title 10 and Title 32), they operate under different charters and have a different focus.
They have more civilian contractors than ad mil.

[jmowreader]

38. Wrong again...

The NSA belongs to the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

The Director, NSA, wears three hats.

First is the Director of the National Security Agency. You know what this is.

Next, he is Chief of the Central Security Service. CSS provides "rations, quarters and UCMJ" to the military personnel assigned to work at NSA. CSS is also the interface between NSA and the Service Cryptologic Elements, the military units that do this work in the field.

And finally, he is commander of US Cyber Command. This is a fairly recent development and for the life of me I can't figure out where they put these guys; The Building has always been so tightly packed the worker bees sit two to a chair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Secretary_of_Defense_for_Intelligence

* Johnny Cash was a Morse intercept operator in the Electronic Security Group in the 1950s. Most of 'em can't sing as well as Johnny could, but they're all at least as nuts as he was.

[angrychair]

39. I stand corrected

With regards to the N5A.
That being said, Bernie Sanders said what he meant and was speaking about a better way to spend less defense dollars, not a criticism of anti-terrorism funding as a whole.

FYI, thanks for the Johnny Cash background. I consider him a very interesting fellow and know some of his history but I didn't know that about him. Amazing guy, colorful life.

[HerbChestnut]

11. He was talking about the military budget, as stated in the article.

Dear lord it's not that complicated. Yeah, he was probably a little off when he said "significantly" less than 10%, but he was pretty darn close. If you figure that even 3/4 of the Afghanistan budget goes toward fighting terrorism then Bernie would have been correct in saying less than 10% of *military* spending goes toward anti-terrorism efforts.

Read. The whole. Article.

And more importantly, and I know this is hard, try to read it without having an agenda beforehand. Especially when there's numbers and people can easily refute what you're saying.

[arcane1]

13. "Try to read it without having an agenda beforehand"

Good luck with that!

[jfern]

19. He said military, and so wasn't including those

[MaggieD]

20. So he was deliberately trying to mislead?

Is that what you're saying?

[RobertEarl]

22. Maggie is back!!

Where ya been?

Are you deliberately trying to mislead or are you just very terribly confused?

[MaggieD]

27. Well maybe you can clarify

We certainly do spend more than 10% of the military budget on anti-terrorism. So is Bernie mistaken, or trying to mislead?

It's got to be one or the other, right?

[angrychair]

10. This only supports his point

First, he was speaking to the military budget, not any of the other agencies and their respective budgets, so your point is disingenuous at best.

Based on the numbers you give, which total 55 billion dollars, which, just because it's in Afghanistan, doesn't mean it is all for anti-terrorism, let us assume, for the heck of it, we count it and add another $10 billion for good measure, simple math tell me that works out to about 10% of the military budget. A lot will be spent on huge, outdated and pointless weapon systems that have no relevance to fighting asymmetric warfare against an autonomous organization with little to no formal ties to any nation.
His point, which he has made very clear, is that we need to trim these type of huge weapon systems and focus on smaller, well-equipped, elite force models that are as flexible and adaptive as the enemy they are fighting.

[MaggieD]

17. Really?

So he wants us all to think we don't spend much on counter terrorism? Or does he think we're all just stupid?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/

[angrychair]

25. What is unclear?

What part of defense budget is unclear???
Each of these respective agencies has their on-book and off-book budgets that have nothing to do with the defense budget.
Why is that confusing?
His comments were about the $600 billion defense budget.
No matter how much you want to conflate them, these budgets are very different in scope, mission and objective.

[MaggieD]

26. He's trying to say we don't spend enough

Right? Or was he making a point not evident to most of us or politifact?

And he has a lot of nerve criticizing the inflated military budget considering he supports the F-35 fighter, which at $1 trillion dollars is the largest MIC boondoggle in history. He supports it because it brings pork to VT. You know that, right?

[angrychair]

35. What point do you want to discuss?

He said our defense budget doesn't spend it the way we should. The point was about a poorly structured defense budget. It was not a specific criticism of anti-terrorism spending as a whole.

With regard to the F-35, it is a soft spot, not black spot but a soft spot for him...not even worth mentioning when it comes to most members of Congress.
In fairness, he has criticized the program on several occasions, in 2014, calling it "incredibly wasteful".
Secondly, of the 8 million dollars that GD has contributed to members of Congress, Bernie Sanders has recieved
$0 (zero dollars) in campaign contributions from GD.
It creates jobs in Burlington, VT. Not the best excuse, not what I like to see but it is none the less what it is. He doesn't like it but feels stuck hoping the program works out the issues. I don't like defense spending as a jobs program but I don't have a better answer either.

[Cha]

14. Mahalo MaggieD

[MaggieD]

18. Mahalo Cha!

[sheshe2]

24. Thanks MaggieD.

[mmonk]

28. I'm not Republican ideology lite so I wouldn't know.

He probably didn't either since he isn't either.

[MaggieD]

29. So you can't tell if Bernie is misleading or misinformed?

Because you're not a republican? Huh?

[riversedge]

31. That poster just posted a demeaning post about Hillary

[MaggieD]

33. All day every day

Gets old. IMO.

[riversedge]

30. Foreign policy is an area he needs to bone up on.

[riversedge]

32. Infographic: Who won the second Democratic debate? -

Infographic: Who won the second Democratic debate? - http://infogr.am/who_won_the_second_democratic_debate

[MaggieD]

34. Well that settles that....

Seems pretty unanimous.

[riversedge]

36. and I think folks can understand visuals better.

[MaggieD]

37. Yes, some folks definitely do

[dsc]

41. I tried to say politifact is bad at its job

but when they were bad at their job to the detriment of Hillary people here thought it was hunky dory and I was a nut for saying otherwise. Well, they are bad at their job.

[William769]

42. Kick & highly recommended!