"The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change."
Armstrong's viewpoint might be a bit skewed because of his life-threatening bout with prostate cancer, but he does make the point that there are always opportunity costs. Without an Iraq war, resources could have poured into Afghanistan to fully and completely eliminate the Taliban, destroy remaining training and supply infrastructure for that group and Al Qaeda and capture the Al Qaeda leaders. Instead we invaded Iraq on the basis of lies and ego; leaving Al Qaeda the wiggle room to continue to plan and execute terror operations. Operations which may soon reach our shores to generate havoc for us all. David Bier http://lefti.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_lefti_archive.html#112230670232105907 Quote of the Day "The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change. "Polls say people are much more afraid of cancer than of a plane flying into their house or a bomb or any other form of terrorism. It is a priority for the American public." - Lance Armstrong, speaking after his victory yesterday in the Tour de France I'm sure that the families of the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, Americans, and others, and the hundreds of thousands of seriously wounded might disagree that the money is the "biggest downside", but the fact that Armstrong not only understands the corollary of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war, but is willing to speak out on the subject, is a good thing (but note that other than the USA Today reference above, I can't find a single other paper who mentioned this statement, whereas numerous articles mentioned his completely inconsequential and totally predictable phone call from George Bush). And the fact that Armstrong is willing to also publicly state that terrorism is not the biggest problem facing Americans or the world, something that Left I on the News has discussed on more than one occasion, is also quite interesting; how many politicians would be willing to make a similar statement? Armstrong also yesterday said "never say never" when asked if he might get into politics. What are his politics? I don't know, but the quote above is at least a start. -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
