Recent issues in Ukraine have raised cries from Senate hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham. McCain in 2008 said he could envision U.S. presence in Iraq for 100 years. Graham says the Ukraine crisis started in Benghazi. More alarming is the congressional reaction to Defense budget cuts. There seems to be ignorance. Here are military spending numbers for 2013 in billions of dollars: U.S. $668, China $160, Russia $90, France $60. U.S. Veterans Affairs is $150, almost twice Russia's total spending. U.S. spending is 39 percent of world total defense spending. As the sole superpower, we are the self-appointed world police.

Repeated wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have our people weary of wars. Our desire for peace tells us to withdraw, not to intervene as in Syria. We see 25 percent of our tax dollars going to protecting the world, while Homeland Security protects us from the only real threat of terrorists. Why fight wars on $2 trillion borrowed money?

Neo-cons wanted oil in Iraq. What do we want in Afghanistan? We need funds to lift 15 percent of our people out of poverty. Sweden has a 1 percent poverty rate. It can be done without our financial burden of policing the world.