“Right now, the military is the only action agency in the United States government, so any time anyone wants something done, the military is being called upon to do it. But that’s the trouble. The military knocked things down in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s very good at knocking things down. But now we have to build things, and the military’s not very good at building things. It’s not about building things. It’s about allowing what you’ve built to be destroyed. It’s about allowing people you love to be killed.”
– Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark
Somebody make that guy run for office! Click the link above to read Esquire‘s full article – it’s fantastic. It pointed out something that I’ll have to doublecheck somehow: that the Republicans in Congress voted against intervention in Kosovo. So all the ethnic cleansing that was going on, the Republicans didn’t particularly care about. Yet suddenly they care about the evils Saddam Hussein visited upon his people? At least that’s what their defense is when asked about WMD – "we went in to liberate the people!"
On a similar tack, here’s a neat bit of math from your pal and mine, Moby:
"so according to donald rumsfeld the u.s is spending 4 billion dollars a month maintaining the nilitary presence in iraq.
or 1 billion dollars a week.
or 140 million dollars a day.
or 6 million dollars an hour.
or 100,000 dollars a minute.
that’s a lot of money.
and i just visited my local police precinct and it’s desperately in need of funding.
and we’re closing down firehouses in new york city cos we don’t have the money to keep them open. and education budgets are being slashed. and budgets for health-care for the poor are being slashed. so maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one minute and my local police precinct could be given 100,000 dollars.
or maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one hour and we could use the 6 million dollars saved so that we wouldn’t have to close as many of new york cities fire houses. or maybe we could put the war in iraq short by one day and give 140 million dollars to the new york school system so that the hundreds of thousands of people in new york’s public schools could have a better chance of having a safe and decent education. just some thoughts."