"I Like Ike"

President Eisenhower warned about the dangers of an unconstrained Military-Industrial Complex. We should have heeded Ike. The U.S., pre-Iraq, maintained about 730 foreign military bases in 63 countries (many of which had no need of on-site U.S. protection)---clearly more foreign bases than reasonably required for our own defense. In 2006, U.S. military expenditures were $530 billion, nearly half the military spending of all 192 countries in the world, combined. Is this the profile of a "peace-loving democracy"?