On the eve of the invasion (of Iraq, 2003), as it began to dawn on a few officials that the price for rebuilding Iraq would be vastly greater than they had been told, the degree of miscalculation was illustrated in an encounter between Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, and Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general who had hastily been named the chief of of what would be a short-lived civilian authority called the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.
The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.
"What do you think that'll cost?" Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expensive plan.
"I think it's going to cost billions of dollars," Mr. Garner said.
"My friend, Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "if you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken."
Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States Government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale.
relaxed"Do your horses have names?"
"Yes."
"What is this one's name, Stella?"
"That's Humpy."
"And this one?"
"Poopy."
"What about this guy?"
"Fluffy."
"This one?"
"Happy-Dappy."
"Okay. What about this horse, Stella? What is this one's name?"
"Dompy."
"...and this one?"
"Perry Cavanaugh."
"In 1532 in Aix-en-Provence, the town where I was born, the president of the Parliament, Barthélemy de Chasseneuz, published a collection of his legal opinions, most of which had to do with "common proceedings against pernicious animals." Apparently, he himself had defended, with a skillful plea, the rats that had invaded the town of Autun. In this collection, and without the least trace of humor, Chasseneuz drew up a list of the common questions raised by the misdeeds of pernicious animals, which he names: rats, field mice, and water voles, weevils, slugs, June bugs, caterpillars, and other vermin--all of them harmful devourers of crops.
"Chasseneuz asks if they should be brought to justice, and then proceeds to compile a list of case law in effect at the time. The jurisprudence is categorical: Animals must be brought before a court to which they have been summoned. If they fail to appear, a lawyer will be appointed to represent them. These cases were examined exclusively in the bishop's courts; the sentences that were handed down extradited pests and vermin from the cultivated lands that they devastated but, in recognition of their natural and legitimate need to feed themselves, authorized them to take up residence in uncultivated fields. If the accused pests did not comply, which none of them did, the judge anathematized or excommunicated them. Flied and field mice in Laon were excommunicated, much like the grasshoppers in Troyes, along with caterpillars and wild rabbits.
"And yet not all of the members of the animal race that committed crimes were excommunicated. Domestic animals were also tried in due form, but before a lay court. These animals--pigs, cows, donkeys, dogs, and horses--having been found guilty of ruining shops and gardens, stealing food, or refusing to work, or much more seriously, of murder, were arrested and taken to prison, where they awaited their sentences.
"Just as they would for any other criminal, the police drew up a list of charges, carried out an inquiry, summoned witnesses, and took their testimony. The verdict was handed down. The sentence was pronounced and finally read out to the guilty animal in its cell. In Normandy in 1386, a sow that had been condemned to death was dressed as a man from snout to tail, then dragged by a mare (oh, the dishonorable treatment) to the town fairgrounds for execution. In front of the Viscount de Falaise and his peasants assembled with all of their pigs (the better to enlighten them) and the sow's owner, placed in the first row "to cause him shame," the executioner sliced off the sow's snout and slashed on of its thighs, Then he slipped a mask of a human face over the beast's mutilated muzzle and hung it by its hind legs until death ensued. , after which the sow was burned at the stake.
"What had the sow done to deserve such a death, with its fellow creatures gathered to witness the spectacle of its execution? It had gotten into the house and eaten the arm and half the face of a three month old baby, Jean le Maux, who lay sleeping in his cradle and who died of his wounds.
"In the same way, at Gisors, an ox was hung for its crimes; at Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, an ass was shot for kicking its new mistress; and at Baugé, a ewe and its owner wer hung, then burned together in a sack for bestiality. There was no shortage of animal trials, but it was the pigs that were the stars of the chronicles of the animal criminal trials, which were commonplace up until the seventeenth century. At that time, pugs would wander freely through town and countryside, where they served as road menders and garbage collectors, and tore up cemeteries in order to get at the corpses. In 1457, under questioning, another sow in Sauvigny-sur-Étang in Burgandy, admitted (sic) to having killed and, along with her six piglets, partially eaten five-year-old Jehan Martin.
"Why these trials? Quite simply so that animals, whose nature had not been clearly defined--did they have a soul or not, and what was its essence?--could have the benefit of a judgment and a just and equitable treatment. Like any human being."
contentOutback Distance Classic 08 1/2 Marathon Results
Jacksonville, FL
Nov. 27, 2008
Overall pace: 8:20/mi
nervous