Update: Drones killing people attending the funerals of people killed by drones.

“Three missiles were fired by drones as people were dispersing after offering funeral prayers for Niazi Wali,” the official said, referring to a militant commander killed in an earlier drone attack.

- Dozens dead in US drone strike at BBC News

On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, “the adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy,” he said.

- The War On Waste at CBSNews.com

In fiscal 1999, a defense audit found that about $2.3 trillion of balances, transactions and adjustments were inadequately documented. These “unsupported” transactions do not mean the department ultimately cannot account for them, she advised, but that tracking down needed documents would take a long time. Auditors, she said, might have to go to different computer systems, to different locations or access different databases to get information.

-
Reforming Financial Management System Can Save Big
at US Department of Defense

In the councils of government, 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. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

- Dwight Eisenhower (Farewell Speech)

Should the United States start another war – one to “keep the peace” in Iran?

… can you afford that?

If they misplaced $2.3 trillion, surely they could misplace the cost of a single assassination…