Distractions to the War on Terror

I love it when Lileks drifts into politics. Today's Bleat underscores the importance of defending liberal democracy. On that note, EVERYBODY BUY AND READ Cristopher Hitchens's "The Long Short War."

Lileks also does a nice riff on what this country and its military can do when it has to:

You want to talk about what we can do when things seem urgent? Remember: they built the Pentagon during the war. That's gearing up. That's focus. At a congressional hearing on July 17, 1941, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Appropriations suggested that the War Department might solve the problem of its scattered offices by building, you know, one building. That was a Thursday. A request was made for plans to be delivered to the War Department on Monday morning. Tuesday morning the plans were presented to Congress; they were approved by the House on July 28, and by the Senate two weeks later. (Typical.) The bill authorizing construction was signed on August 25.

Construction began in September, 1941.

September 11, to be exact.

Construction took sixteen months.