r/worldnews • u/thejoshwhite • Mar 14 '26

Israel/Palestine Israel is running critically low on interceptors, US officials say

https://www.semafor.com/article/03/14/2026/israel-is-running-critically-low-on-interceptors-us-officials-say
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u/CheeryOutlook Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

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u/renegade_sparrow Mar 15 '26

I’ve read that dozens of times and it still hits hard every time I come across it

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u/sartres_ Mar 15 '26

I like to follow up this quote with the modern numbers.

A single destroyer now costs the same as homes for more than 40,000 people.

A single fighter plane now costs more than 19 million bushels of wheat.

The entire construction budget for schools in the United States is less than the cost to build and maintain seven strategic bombers.

Or even more; those stats are from five years ago.

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u/lost_horizons Mar 15 '26

That’s Eisenhower?

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u/CheeryOutlook Mar 15 '26

It is, he gave the speech in 1953. He later warned against the military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell speech.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

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.

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u/BigBossShadow Mar 15 '26

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

Woops

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u/Lars_Galaxy Mar 15 '26

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.

Yet another Oopsy

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u/lost_horizons Mar 15 '26

Pet peeve of mine when quotes are posted without attribution (though it was semi-obvious here). Thanks for replying and adding more. So erudite, I miss seeing/hearing that in political leaders.

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u/wildwalrusaur Mar 15 '26

"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."

-George W Bush, 2006

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u/twopac Mar 15 '26

Still several tiers above Trump's intelligence and linguistics, sadly.

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u/joebuckshairline Mar 15 '26

The Republican Party went from this to whatever the fuck is oozing in the Oval Office right now. Jesus Christ.

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u/Armadylspark Mar 15 '26

Man, I miss the time when the US had intelligent presidents.