“If peace should break out, what are we going to do with all these weapons?” -Leslie Aspin, U.S. Congressman (D-WI) on McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, July 24, 1989. Les went on to be Defense Secretary in Clinton’s first term.
“You have a lot of support right now, but once you get a lot of casualties, this thing is going to change.” -George Ball, U.S. Undersecretary of State. Statment about Vietnam to LBJ, 1963.
“The only way to save our empires from the encroaching of the people is to engage in war, and thus substitute national passions for social aspirations.” -Catherine II (the Great) in a moment of total clarity.
“You must understand that Americans are a warrior nation.” -Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Speech to Arab leaders, September 1990.
“By God, you can’t fight a war unless the people support it.” -Edmund S. Muskie, 1968.
“First commit the nation, then commit the troops. Don’t send men off to die if a country’s not committed.” -H. Ross Perot, 1988.
“If we are going to put lives at risk, we do that far better as one nation than one man.” – Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., argument against the War Powers Act, 1987.
“All wars are popular for the first thirty days.” -Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Israel still has almost two weeks.
“Victory is the main object of war. If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale is depressed. For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” -Sun-tzu (c.400 BCE)
“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.”- Alexis de Toqueville, 1835.
“War is an orgy of money, just as it is an orgy of blood.”- Henry Ford, 1924.
View this:
Pie Chart
I did a diary a while back about where your tax dollars go that includes a much more detailed chart. (Warning: It’s huge.) It’s rather enlightening to see where all the money goes.
And don’t forget Ben Cohen’s explanation of the US military budget, using Oreo cookies. (Requires Flash player) When he breaks it down, it suddenly seems reasonable to take five of the 40 cookies we spend on our military and use them to fund things like schools.
OK, so we all agree the budget is out of whack. What are we going to do about it? The Dems are more afraid to propose something than the Repubs, for fear of being seen as soft on communism, er I mean, terrorism.
I proposed a modest war tax surcharge on the top three income tax brackets the other day. Some people “got it”, but can you see any politician doing something like this?
There is no attempt to discuss the underlying defects in the US economy, just posturing. So what now?
Nice set of quotes there, Boo. A veritable cornucopia of future taglines. (I’ll probably steal one after Bush gets impeached and it’s time for a change.)
Your open thread made me think of my conversation with Diva(Iraqi friend) last night. I asked her if she thought there was a civil war going on there right now and she said “What do you think”? I said of course I think there is, but our media and admin. is telling us ‘on the brink’, to which she just laughed. She said not only is it going on, it has been for a long time.
As an aside she reported from her Mom that their usually quiet neighborhood had 9 explosions yesterday and no one can leave their homes or go in or out of neighborhood, except for the most emergency needs.
I also asked her if she thought American’s should leave there, her reply, “Oh my no, they cannot leave at this time, it would be terrible for Iraq.” She went on to give her reasons, but mostly they were about the security that US does provide and the people would be lost in the crossfire. I am hoping at some point and she has more or less promised, that she will start to write about Iraq, hopefully on Booman, when she gets settled and has some time.
So I just thought I would throw that out there for another perspective.
Diane, I’d be interested in her response to this re-framing of your question:
If the UN took over policing and security in Iraq as the country rebuilt, would you want the US to stay or leave?
Hi spider, I will ask her tonight when I talk to her. Our conversations have been long and intense, so much to cover, so I can’t recall all of her words, which made so much sense when she spoke them.
I’ll let you know the reply, maybe in a diary this weekend.
with a different perspective.
What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage.
~Marcus Tullius Cicero
Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.
~Noam Chomsky
Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.
~Ulysses S. Grant
It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village.
~Voltaire
An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
~Thomas Paine
Man was/is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One who believes himself the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they.
~Jean Jaques Rousseau
The dangerous patriot…drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions.
~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps
Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.
~General Douglas MacArthur
Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.
~Mahatma Gandhi
Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders.
~Marquis de Sade
“We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. ”
CARL SAGAN
Do you think our time of “getting away with it” is drawing to a close? Great quote!
“In war, truth is the first casuality.”
Aeschylus
as recorded by John F. Kennedy in
his notebook, 1946.
I encourage all of you to visit the official White House website where matters of the most urgent importance are currently being discussed.
Meanwhile, if anyone can find an actual transript of today’s Bush-Blair news conference, I’d appreciate it.
Booman, here’s a link to CNN’s transcript of the press conference. Sorry, I still don’t know how to link to a particular line on a page… the press conference starts almost halfway down the page.
after meeting w/ Blair:
Steppingstones: Kabul to Teheran
Mahatma Ghandi
Well les we not forget the words of the liars…
We will be greeted as liberators…
Oil revenue’s will pay for the war…
We don’t want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud.
We know where the WMD is it is in Tikrit and around Baghdad…..
Iraq is going to be a long hard slog & You goto war with the equipment you got and not the equipment you want.
Wow how could they lie with such a straight face? Did they have botox injections before they went on TV and said those lies.
So, it finally occurred to me… if Howard Dean isn’t too terminally unhip to have a MySpace page, then I’m not either. Of course, someone with his busy schedule and responsibilities most likely has people to put that page together for him. I don’t, and I’m new at this, so you’ll understand if my page is still kinda empty at this point.
Right now I’m still in the process of figuring out all the different features…I did a profile and joined a couple of groups. But I don’t have many friends yet, because I don’t have any inkling who I might know that has a MySpace account, and what name they use there. That’s why I wrote up this post–maybe it will help some of the people I might be looking for find me. 😉