As bluntly as you want to state that it doesnt become a better of an argument. What would be your alternative. The above poster seems to have given a pretty clear reason why we would want the military to take on these tasks (variety of skill in personel). Do you have a cheaper better way?
This sound like the most efficient thing that the government has done. Its probably also a good way to instill compassion in our ranks by having them perform civilian tasks. Instead of everyone just being something they shoot or dont shoot in these countries.
Rollout the "non-military stuff" and move the "wide variety of administrative, management, financial and medical tasks" into a proper group like the State Department or some new group with no final militaristic consideration. Doing this would take political capital, which is why it's not popular practice.
The issue is that the military takes on so many roles that it becomes our first choice in dealing with problems, whether they require the military or not. So we go at problems with the military mindset, then we're surprised when we find a military solution.
Let's go in for peace, diplomacy and honest-to-god negotiation instead of imposing our will on countries with air superiority and more guns than people. Maybe we'd foster a little less resentment in countries we're in if we stopping occupying their airspace and bombing them 10,000 feet and 400mi away.
> move the "wide variety of administrative, management, financial and medical tasks" into a proper group like the State Department or some new group with no final militaristic consideration.
These skills aren't distinct from the skills a military needs to function. Logistics is a huge component of warfare, for example - and would you prefer that combat medics be civilians? Elsewhere in the thread people are commenting about dual-use technology - these are all dual-use skills.
This sound like the most efficient thing that the government has done. Its probably also a good way to instill compassion in our ranks by having them perform civilian tasks. Instead of everyone just being something they shoot or dont shoot in these countries.