His central theme was terrorists. His strategy was to invoke fear.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld revealed the essential nature of current foreign and domestic security policy in a speech before the American Legion's national convention Tuesday. His central theme was terrorists. His strategy was to invoke fear.…
Article comments
26 - gonzo marx
ummm..bread ranges from $2.25 to $2.99.. just to shoot down on ething...
but let me try and follow your point...
first.. pork = corruption
think it through, that pork barrell spending is just another facet of corruption, paybacks for "favors" being the easiest example
as an Example... you talk about ending a lot of pork by shining the Light of public scrutiny on it
and i'm ALL for that one... in fact there is a tabled bill in the Senate (cost $15 million) to do just that... establish a publicly accesible database for ALL lobbyist transaction and meetings
this Bill was tabled by ONE senator, from Alaska
compare that to the corporate welfare that Rumsfeld wants, spending $20 million for a no-bid contract to a K street firm to "monitor US news sources"... which could be just as easily achieved by the military's own Public Affairs officers/departments... who are already being trained and paid to do just that by the american taxpayer....
as for your "goss simplification" ...sorry, i'm gonna toss aside that canard for the exact Reason that it IS a fallacious as well as gross oversimplification and unsuitable for an analogy in this discussion...
in Dutch, there is a word "tanstaafl" , which means "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"
i take that as an Axiom
but this whoe bit about "dependance" tends to get used in the micro... the pitiful amount spent on federal welfare for poor folks, yet leaves out the billions spent on corporate welfare and farm subsidies and the like
how about we start with the big ones... like the tens of million sspent on just bailing out the airlines retirement funds?
remember the Savings and Loan debacle?
and check the trends of more corporations using the loophole of federally guarenteed funds to bail out retirement programs that were deliberately gutted and underfunded by said corps
hey, they know Uncle Sugar will pay.. so why shoudl they cut back on executive salaries and perks... they ride their Golden Parachutes and fuck the folks who actually did the Work... and again, the taxpayer foots the bill
things like that are FAR more egregious examples than headstart, foodstamps, and welfare
all of which combined are a tiny fraction of the $9 billion dollars lost/stolen from the reconstruction funds in Iraq in just that last year according to the GAO
hence, why i insist that corruption and pork are FAR more important to deal with first...
it's a matter of scale...
check the numbers for yourself
but i am with you on the Principle of it all, i just want to see the clean up started with the biggest messes first
after all, which benefits our Nation more...
taking care of some poor folks (and remember the stats of how many military families collect food stamps), head start for the kids...
or subsidising the greed and corruption in those who would deliberately default on their obligation and charge the taxpayer whiel they get away scott free... ( see: Enron, WorldCom, Savings and Loan industry, no-bid contracts, Bechtel and the Big Dig...etc)
thanks for the civil discourse... and good to *see* you around again Red
Excelsior?
27 - MCH
"It's relatively easy to get ourselves out of Iraq, cut pork, and clean up corruption."
- RedTard
But what's the hurry in getting out of Iraq? According to you and your ilk, dying in a traffic accident is comparable to being killed in combat. So shouldn't there be more emphasis on cracking down on drunk driving and speeding?
28 - Mohjho
David sez...
*And I can tell you, this Republican Congress and President dont have a conservative value amongst the lot of them*
Now wait a minute, we don't have conservatives in congress or the white house? What happened to the "Compassionate Conservative"? There must be a conservative value in there somewhere. Conservatives voted for it, backed it, sold it to the country. Now its not sheik to be seen with the modern conservative movement?
What about family values? This was hip in the 90s, havent heard much of it lately.
Come on guys, don't give up. A little lipstick on this pig....