“ Now , we should learn from that . I actually think that Rwanda is an interesting test case because it ’s possible — not guaranteed , but it ’s possible — that this was a situation where the quick application of force might have been enough . ” He related this to Syria : “ Ironically , it ’s probably easier to make an argument that a relatively small force inserted quickly with international support would have resulted in averting genocide [ more successfully in Rwanda ] than in Syria right now , where the degree to which the various groups are armed and hardened fighters and are supported by a whole host of external actors with a lot of resources requires a much larger commitment of forces . ” Obama - administration officials argue that he has a comprehensible approach to fighting terrorism : a drone air force , Special Forces raids , a clandestine CIA - aided army of 10,000 rebels battling in Syria . So why does Obama stumble movement.transportperson.fall when explaining to the American people that he , too , cares about terrorism ? The Turkey press conference , I told him , “ was a moment for you as a politician to say , ‘ Yeah , I hate the bastards too , and by the way , I am taking out the bastards . ’ ” The easy thing to do would have been to reassure Americans in visceral terms that he will kill the people who want to kill them . Does he fear a knee - jerk reaction in the direction of another Middle East invasion ?

Instead of spending a trillion dollars creating a new generation of nuclear weapons and modes of delivery , it ’s time to instead change direction here and move as quickly as humanly possible towards nuclear disarmament . And instead of blaming the Russians , we need to acknowledge it was actually the Russians who tried to engage us in a nuclear disarmament process , again , several decades ago . We need to revive that proposal , take them up on it and move to nuclear disarmament — excuse me — as quickly as we possibly can , because this is sitting on an absolute catastrophe into which we could stumble movement.transportperson.na at any point , particularly given the crazy circular firing squad that ’s taking place now around Syria , where there are so many allies at cross - purposes with each other that any of us could be dragged into a larger , full - scale , and even nuclear , war at any moment . And it ’s important to remember , not only is this a trillion dollars which has been proposed — actually , is underway , a trillion dollars ’ worth of spending over the next decade and a half , approximately , on new nuclear weapons , but let ’s look at our whole war budget , which is half of our discretionary budget . Nearly half of your income taxes are going to pay for these absolutely catastrophic wars .