Sovereignty starts at the border

I had buried this link in one of my comments to another post, but find it interesting enough to feature it here for those not familiar with this story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11226144/

-Ico

No Conspiracies, Just Basic Incompetence and Greed

One of the the things that frustrates me the most about many who are more liberal than I am is the perception that I have that they believe much of the Republican agenda is a vast conspiracy. There are conspiracies for everything in their minds, but one of their favorites is Halliburton. This evil company, formerly run by Dick Cheney, is some sort of evil empire incarnation like something out of a movie.

I don't believe Dick Cheney could give a flip about Halliburton. I do believe they are one of a handful of defense contractors that have too much power in the new defense structure, but I believe they have gotten that on their own without undue influence from the administration. However, the following story just goes to show why almost all government spending is a bad idea. If it's wasteful for the government to spend millions of dollars on pet projects in the U.S., it's grossly wasteful to do the same thing in Iraq. Government is just ill-suited to spend money appropriately.

For those of us in the business of managing projects, the following article makes me sick to my stomach. I blame Halliburton. I blame the Army Corp of Engineers, and I blame the Department of Defense for not thinking through this mess more carefully. Who in the heck are these clowns spending our money?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/world/middleeast/25pipeline.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=06dbad0d8a941bb0&hp&ex=1146024000&partner=homepage