Boondoggles

Why, exactly, is it our job to spend billions of dollars fixing other countries and their problems? I've never thought I was an isolationist--certainly not in that pre-WWI Wilsonian stance. And I'm very supportive of helping other nations in need of humanitarian aid. But do we really need to build a missile defense system to protect Europe from the Bad Guys?

Europe seems reasonably capable to me. If the European Union wants a missile defense system, perhaps we could let it take the lead here? Oh, wait. It isn't really a humanitarian effort to possibly save the lives of Europeans? It's really all about the power struggle between us and Iran and Russia? It's really all about natural resources aka another kind of power? Oh what tangled webs we weave.

The President has finally sent his "emergency" Iraq war funding request to Congress. I won't rehash this--see previous posts on the subject. But please note the irony of it coming on the heels of the veto of SCHIP. More to the point, it is a revolting propsect that a majority of our elected representatives will approve throwing more money to a government completely incapable of keeping track of it.

Why in heaven's name would I approve sending more money to a government that inspired the following headline today: U.S. cannot account for billion-dollar Iraq contract? The US watchdog agency trying to keep track of such things suspended its investigation saying that "administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records."

Let me repeat that. The Bush administration has no confidence in its own accounting records. Yet we are trusting it with a $600 billion dollar war. Leaving out all questions of the morality of this war, on that basis alone we should pull out our troops today. A government that can't be trusted to spend our money certainly can't be trusted to supervise a morally questionable war.

And speaking of boondoggle, see this article for a full discussion of the false hope of biofuels as a solution for the oil crisis and global warming. The short version? Food made from fuel is a dumb idea and is just another way for government to subsidize big agri-business.

Liz