Take this job and shove it, part 2
Another U.S. diplomat resigned Monday in protest of the AWOL Warmonkey's preparations to attack Iraq, the second to do so in less than a month.
John H. Brown, who joined the U.S. diplomatic corps in 1981 and served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow, said in a letter to Colin 'dammit!' Powell "I cannot in good conscience support president Bush's war plans against Iraq. Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force. The president's disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century."
"Sh!t," the diplomat added, "War-happy assholes - it's like being trapped in the last reel of Dr Strangelove." - from here. Mostly.
Moral clarity
"If the president bombs Iraq, which he apparently plans to do, it will be in defiance of a U.N. vote, because only in terms of self-defense and you're attacked can you really attack under the U.N. charter. It will also be immoral, and how do you know what the Iraqis think? You think they'd rather be dead and have liberty? I mean, what is this liberty if you're going to send 3,000 missiles over in 48 hours, according to all the plans I've read? How many people are going to survive that?" - national treasure Helen Thomas, to WH spokes-tool and assistant potty-trainer Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer, 3/10/03.
"You can support our troops
without supporting the president."
- Trent 'I used to be somebody!' Lott
And another thing...
Q: The president has been reluctant to put forward any cost estimates on what the war might cost. But the Congressional Budget Office did so on Friday, suggesting the first month might cost $10 billion, and then $8 billion a month from there on out, until it's completed. But, surely, since the president has been talking so much about reconstruction and making sure that a proper democratic government is allowed to take hold in Iraq, that schools will be rebuilt, that kind of thing - the government must have some idea what the after cost might be?
Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer: Well, just as the president said at the news conference last week, that in the event hostilities begin, a supplemental will be sent up to the Congress that takes into account best estimates at that time about what costs could be. They would include various areas of reconstruction, as well as military operations. But unless that happens, I'm not in a position to speculate about what the cost could be.
Q: Why not?
Q: Why not? I mean, every time --
Ari: For all the reasons I've been --
Q: No, every time you guys put together --
Ari, doing what comes naturally: For all the reasons we've been giving for weeks on the same question.
Q: Every time you guys put together a domestic policy initiative, there's a cost estimate attached - even in its most preliminary phases.
Ari, prevaricating: Because the variables of war are totally different from the variables of a domestic cost estimate. If Saddam Hussein surrenders and Iraq disarms on the first day in the first hour, that has one dramatic impact on the price. {...as if...}
Q: Well, why not share the range? - link.
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