[friedman23]

> His work is fostering an industry whose competitive advantage is not having to build anything tangible for the public's benefit

His work doesn't foster this. Being able to sell a product that has nearly infinite margins will naturally be more profitable than the alternative.

> not having to pay taxes on their profits.

The government has enough tax revenue, how about they stop spending it on pointless wars and destruction.

[simonh]

Fine up until the last cheap shot. None of those conflicts were wanted or started by the US. Saddam invaded Kuwait, the Taliban enabled 9/11, Assad provoked a civil war in Syria.

Disengaging always makes things worse. After the ‘Surge’ in Iraq the US tried to pull out and what happened? ISIS. The US pulled out of north Syria and our (talking broadly, I’m a Brit) allies the Kurds got massacred and thousands of ISIS prisoners got loose again. Walking away doesn’t work, we tried that with Afghanistan, just leaving it to the Taliban after the Soviets pulled out, and they came after us in New York anyway. It’s a small world whether we like it or not, and we’re in it together.