Old Fogey's Quotes for Wednesday

"Whom do you shoot at, the Sunni or the Shia? Our American G.I.s should not be subjected to that type of risk.”
Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican
Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes Against Bush’s Iraq Troop Plan
[The real problem is that all the good guys are not wearing white hats. Both sides are mired in violence. That makes our troops' job impossible. Our presence aggravates the problems. Sending more troops just adds more fuel to the fire. ]

“You either want clean air or television.”
Nandita Mongia, the chief of the United Nations Development Program’s regional energy program for Asia and the Pacific
The Energy Challenge: Paying in Pollution for Energy Hunger
[As we drive two or three gas guzzlers per family and have a TV for almost every room, those in the developing world have to choose to give up things we consider essential in order to fight pollution and global warming. Consider the catastrophic consequences if the whole world adopts our lifestyle.]

"For the sake of New York City and the security of our nation, I hope you will stop writing politically derived formulas into homeland security bills."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, during a Senate hearing
Chertoff Announces New Security Grants
[King George the Benefactor tries to use terrorism to justify destroying the constitution, while spending the terrorism appropriations based on political clout, not actual risk. Does that strike anyone else as dangerously duplicitous?]

The debacle that is Iraq reaffirms the lesson that there is no such thing as a good crusade. This was true a thousand years ago when European Christian knights tried to impose their faith and way of life on the Holy Land, pillaging the region in the process, and it is equally true today. Divine missions and sensible foreign policy just don't mix.
Dimitri K. Simes, publisher of the National Interest magazine.
No more Middle East crusades
[King George the White Knight of Democracy needs to take a few basic history course about other nations. Oh, but I forgot, this is the man who was proud not to have ever set foot on either European or Asian soil, before running for the presidency. He goes a long way toward proving the old saw ignorance is bliss. Sadly the bliss is his alone.]