Home > Ike Was Right About War Machine

Ike Was Right About War Machine

by Open-Publishing - Monday 3 October 2005
20 comments

Edito Wars and conflicts International USA

(CBS) The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney. It was first broadcast Oct. 2, 2005.

I’m not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States - our United States - is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into.

We still have 139,000 soldiers in Iraq today.

Almost 2,000 Americans have died there. For what?

Now we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China.

Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students. Do these sound like the things you’d like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?

I’ll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment.

We’re paying for weapons we’ll never use.

No other Country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year Japan spent $42 billion. Italy spent $28 billion, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion.

We have 8,000 tanks for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford station wagon.

We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons - enough to destroy all of mankind.

We’re spending $200 million a year on bullets alone. That’s a lot of target practice. We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldier what to do. We have 40,000 colonels alone and 870 generals.

We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President and on leaving the White House in 1961, he said this: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. ..."

Well, Ike was right. That’s just what’s happened.

video windows media

video quick time

Forum posts

  • When major networks allow criticism of this nature, then it does give hope that a change in outlook is on the way.As I have said before,have a look at the Eisenhower speech on the military-industrial complex.It is a short speech but so very prophetic.

    • I used to think Andy Rooney was just a boring old gasbag, but he has this one right for a change.

  • Ike’s first draft; Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
    This is a more accurate description of the US system.
    Why did a brilliant military commander remove this third pillar.?
    Was this last minute decision a strategic political one.?
    Did Ike just go MIA on this one.?
    Anyone know. ?
    cheers, jt.

  • Andy Rooney is and has been a quack for a lot of years, hes on the pay check list of a lot of left wing people in Washington everybody knows it.

    He will be thinking ...somewhat if he can!... that hes got all the answers .......when a big one hits the USA...he will change his mind like a lot of people.

    • Like the last ’big one’ by which I mean 9/11? The "next Pearl Harbor" invented by PNAC to start us on this downward spiral?

      Consider:

      WTC 7 also came down to the ground that day, after owner Larry Silverstein admitted on Public Television that he decided "because there has been such tremendous destruction and loss of life, perhaps we should just ’pull it.’" ’Pull it’, as in the building was already wired to be demolished. Now that is certainly a strange coincidence.

      The 19 Arab terrorists did not appear on the flight passenger lists. There is no footage of them entering through the control areas or at the passenger gates. (unlike the subway footage the Brits used in the 7/7/05 London case.) Yet the 19 names were delivered within a day.

      They were amateur pilots, unqualified to fly even light planes let alone 757s which they flew quite expertly.

      Despite the fires that burned for weeks, no forensics was performed on any of the steel of WTC. It was all shipped to China as scrap immediately.

      Secretary of Transportation, Norm Mineta, testified before the 9/11 Commision that he was in the "war room" with Vice President Cheney on the morning of 9/11 before The Pentagon was struck. The crux of his testimony is that Cheney was aware that the flight that struck the Pentagon was being tracked from at least 60 miles out, and yet no action was being taken to intercept it. It appears that the plane was allowed to hit its target. The Commission did not pursue the line of questioning related to how the VP responded after the Pentagon was struck. Mineta’s testimony was "lost" from the official record. The only records that exist are on the internet, by people who were taping the testimony live of the television.

      The president stayed in that primary grade classroom for 7 or more minutes and read about a goat. If this had been a true emergency, the secret service would have whisked him away immediately, regardless of whether George was concerned about frightening the children or not. The most likely explanation is that they knew the prez was not in danger because they knew what the targets were.

      Go to http://www.911truth.org for more of the inconsistencies and problems with the official story about 9/11

      When the next big one hits, look for us to bomb Iran, quite possibly with nuclear weapons. Also look to Cheney and his neoccons to be implicated. Expect the Main Stream Media to cover for the administration. Given the current mountain of legal problems faced by the GOP, (Rove, Delay, Frist, quickly come to mind), a false flag operation would certainly make a nice distraction for the Bushies.

      But heaven forbid we should impeach these guys. It’s not as if he had consensual sex with an intern or anything.

    • I was there that day on 911, you were not, as I can tell.

      I have fuel burns from the jets that hit the towers.

      You lost it! like most....here

    • Give your head a shake man.

    • The fact that you were there and have burns on your arms (?) does not have anything to do with what the guy just said. Do you have any information which involves the issues raised? Are you claiming that those of us who weren’t there should just shut up and swallow the 9/11 commission tripe? Is it none of our business? I think that if you try to look at these facts with an open mind then there should be some questions that arise. That is only if you can. I know lots of people who cannot even begin to consider that the attacks are an inside job.

    • So, "151 131," let me get this straight. Because YOU were there in lower Manhattan on 9/11/01, and received "jet fuel burns" (How did that happen?) your opinion, which happens to coincide with the official government story, is THE TRUTH. Is that about it? That’s one hell of a solid foundation you’ve got there.

      Well, how about this. I was there, too, right next store in the World Financial Center, and was choked from the debris from the South Tower collapse, and I think the official government story is a crock of crap. For nothing, but for starters, how do you explain the fact that at least five of the alleged hijackers turned up alive?

    • Big shit you were there. so what. 911 was a inside job. Don’t for get Marvin Bush was a partner for a company that ran security at the twin towers named ensurco ,i beleive , and that company was financed by a Kuaiti investment firm. don’t believe me look it up it’s all documented. Aouther guy that was for sure there was william rodriguez and he has 14 witnesses that will testify in court that there was a explosion in the basement of the North tower just prior to the plane hitting the bldg. All this is 100% verifiable the fact that no one will investigate this is proof positve that there is a conspiracy. We know who the terroist are just like the 2 Brits caught in Iraq dressed as Arabs with black wigs and a lot of explosives in their car.

    • anouther brainwashed deciple of the antichrist www.bushisantichrist.com

    • Must mean something having burns, and the person at the WFC, is blowing smoke..

      Look everyone, .........everybody knows what this site is about... Anti hate America site.

      And yes the burns on the arms, mean more then most that where not there.

    • There is nothing wrong about being left wing. I would like opinions of all sorts to make up the body of what I believe in and to help guide me to the truth. The biggest message of the left wing is that the RICH still steal from the POOR and exploit resources and labor. Is that not so?
      Isn’t that the present state in this world?
      Would you prefer the country club few, "the have mores", Bush’s subjects, to continually keep the populace and society at large at bay behind their machine gun squads?
      Bush’s cronies are the ones that most benefit from arms sales. In response to the reader that is looking for the BIG ONE to hit: you sound like one of the 58 million that were brainwashed into believing that the big bad boogeyman is out there to eat us up. Check into CIA and FBI records to see how legally those agencies operate. They operate at will and with any means necessary.
      The military infrastructure manufactures guns and missiles and then sends the CIA to infiltrate any given country to start trouble and turmoil so those guns and missiles can be sold on the market like bread and butter and milk, Mr. Reader. Read Robert Ludlum books, that’s where I get all my truth from.

    • Wish this on this poster too. you where not at the WFC, its not next store is across the street.

    • For the burns on your arms Iraqi children must be immolated: American justice.

    • Actually, turd blossom, the WTC was across the West Side Highway from the WFC. So, why won’t the other turd blossom tell us how he got burned by jet fuel. And, to the other turd blossom who observed that Bellaciao is an "Anti hate America site," doesn’t this mean that it is a love America site? anti hate = love, protozoa brain.

  • I thought the moonbats here didn’t trust the MSM. I thought it was all part of the giant propaganda tool. How can you cite the MSM now? Suddenly you are posting artciles based on 60-Minutes commentaries? Awesome.

    • Regarding msg ^^

      You don’t have to ’liberal’ or democrat or any other denomination to know what is true or not. When the MSM say something factual - like Rooney’s facts - then I recognise it. Wasn’t Eisenhower a republican?

    • It’s not about trust, brother, but contempt. Mr. Rooney, be it noted , has opposed this war from the start. We admire his courage but loathe his colleagues’ awesome cowardice.

  • I can tell from the back and forth bickering that Americans do not speak with one voice. There are many opinions on 9-11 and the state of the American War Machine. Let’s focus on the challenges we now face, and join forces to overcome our issues lest they tear us apart.

    What’s clearly missing is leadership. Leadership is the potent voice that surmounts our differences. It is patient; and values truth and communication. Openess to criticism is a hallmark of good leadership, as is compromise. Leaders are also strong in times of crisis.

    Do George Bush and his Administration lead America? Or does he occupy a position, a job. The President needs to be far more than an employee. Nor can he lead only some and neglect the rest.

    When Bush first came into office, I didn’t think the Presidency was an Office that would make a huge deal of difference. But 5 years later, with 3,000 dead from 9-11, Katrina children scattered and New Orleans cleansed, 2000 more and climbing from Iraq, I wonder what difference a choice of Presidents is in fact making.

    The idea that Bush represents a select constituency at the expense of the general public may not be as beneficial to the wealthy as it is presumed. Even the Dow has been flat. Government spending is posing serious threats to the wealthy as debt skyrockets. Perhaps a lot of success we’ve had in this country requires success for the majority. Mutual fund purchases by middle income people helped drive up the Dow. The wealthy benefitted most from middle class advances, although perhaps they saw less proportionate income gains. Now if the push to give the rich more continues, the gains in wealth will be transitory at best and when the economic cycle corrects, economic damage to the middle class will get political and push Republicans out (assuming the electoral process isn’t compromised.)

    Eventually, things tend to swing back. While the military spending will always tempt those with authority, the money available to spend will be limited by economic realities.