I think this story is quite extraordinary, but not for the reasons given in the report. This year we will spend approximately $682.5 billion on the military budget and by the best unclassified estimates about $80 billion on the intelligence apparat. Hundreds of thousands of men and women work for these vast entities. Yet 19 young jihadists and about $500,000 created 9/11, and after over a! decade of expenditures, a few dozen jihadists still have the power to massively disrupt the U.S. There is something deeply wrong with this picture, and the current SR poll shows that over three-quarters of you feel less safe than you did 15 years ago. So what have we achieved, beyond making a small number of corporations obscenely rich, and killing and maiming a lot of people? One can only wonder if the choices made by first the Bush and, then, the Obama Administrations were the right ones. What would have happened, for instance, if instead of drones and war we had put our money into schools, libraries and hospitals in Islamic countries?
Embassy Closings Extended for a Week
ALI WATKINS, DAVID LIGHTMAN and ADAM BARON , Washington Bureau – McClatchy Newspapers
