Ted Turner: ‘War is Obsolete’

Oct 17, 2009 by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor

Ted Turner regrets losing his job at Time Warner, his wife, Jane Fonda, and $7 billion of his fortune. In a Bloomberg interview out yesterday he also says we’ll get out of Afghanistan:

“War is obsolete…The last time someone surrendered was Japan and that was 60 years ago. The Afghans will never surrender. We will just get tired and come home. We’ve already given up on Iraq and there’s oil in Iraq, there’s no oil in Afghanistan.”

Always colorfully quotable, the man who pledged a billion dollars in 1997 to establish the United Nations Foundation compares his charitable giving to passing around a joint:

“If you were around at the time, I gave everybody a hundred thousand dollars if they came up with anything,” Turner said. “I just couldn’t hold onto it. I wanted to keep it moving. I get a dollar, I give it to you, you spend it, somebody else gets it. You know, pass it around. You know, it’s kind of like a joint — you just pass it around, light it up, you know, share with your friends.”

The CNN founder and Atlanta billionaire has dropped to number 196 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. Balloon Juice’s DougJ chooses to quote Ted joking about losing billions. As does Jerome Armstrong.

Turner remains a business man I admire, both for his media innovations and for his philanthropy.

Donate to The Moderate Voice
Share This

9 Comments

JeffersonDavis

October 17, 2009 | 4:26 pm

Why should the opinion of this communist matter to me?

He actually said, “China isn't a threat. They just want to sell us shoes.”

Wow. Glad he's not Secretary of State. What a clown.
shannonlee

October 17, 2009 | 5:12 pm

“We’ve already given up on Iraq” that is news to me. I think someone has been passing around too many joints.
Don Quijote

October 17, 2009 | 5:13 pm

Why should the opinion of this communist matter to me?

Communist? Last time I checked, he was one of the great Entrepreneur/Capitalist in the USA, if not the world.

BTW,
Anyone who uses JeffersonDavis as a handle has got to be a Secessionist/Racist…
Don Quijote

October 17, 2009 | 5:35 pm

“We’ve already given up on Iraq” that is news to me. I think someone has been passing around too many joints.

U.S. brigade won't go to Iraq, speeding withdrawal

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Friday that it has scrapped plans to deploy a 3,500-member Army brigade to Iraq in January, accelerating a U.S. drawdown as the White House weighs sending more troop to Afghanistan.

The move, approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, means that when an existing unit in Iraq pulls out in January, it will not be replaced, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
…
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said earlier this month that he expected the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to drop to as few as 110,000 by the end of this year. There currently are about 119,000.

The U.S. combat mission in Iraq is slated to end on Aug. 31, 2010.

As Iraq Stabilizes, China Eyes Its Oil Fields

HONG KONG — As the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing consumer of oil, China is showing increasing interest in oil fields in a country that has until very recently seemed to be firmly in the American sphere of influence for natural resources: Iraq.

Chinese oil companies are expected to bid for the rights to develop Iraq’s oil fields in auctions that are set to start Tuesday, although Sinopec, the China National Petroleum Corporation and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation all declined to comment Monday about their bidding strategies.

In another sign of China’s interest in Iraqi oil fields, Sinopec, China’s refining giant, offered $7.22 billion on Wednesday to buy Addax Petroleum, a Swiss-Canadian company with operations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and in West Africa. If Addax’s shareholders and Canadian regulators approve the deal, which Addax’s board is recommending, it would be China’s largest overseas energy acquisition.

And Sinopec’s archrival, the China National Petroleum Corporation, or C.N.P.C., started drilling in spring in the Ahdab oil field in southeastern Iraq.

After six years of war, few Americans or Iraqis may have expected China to emerge as one of the winners in Iraqi oil. But signs of stability in Iraq this year, and a planned American military pullout from Iraqi cities on Tuesday, just happen to coincide with an aggressive Chinese push to buy or develop overseas oil fields.

The fact that the Chinese are winning Oil concession in Iraq pretty much says it all, looks like we just pissed away tree trillion dollars to make sure that China gets all that sweet Iraqi Oil…
jdledell

October 17, 2009 | 5:44 pm

shannon – What are we getting for our $1 trillion and 4,000+ lives from Iraq. It's an ally of Iran and did you see that all the recent oil deals were wth Europe and China. Once the kick our troops out of there in 2011 we will have almost zero influence with them and zero gratitude.

JD – Exactly how is China a threat to the USA? Are they going to invade us? They will threaten our # one position economically but that will be our own damn fault. Militarily how can they threaten us?
JeffersonDavis

October 17, 2009 | 6:33 pm

Perhaps you weren't around the countless times I've said:

“Jefferson Davis” is my given birth name – not a handle.
But go ahead and make fun of my family name, if it makes you feel better about yourself.

And for the record.
I'm the most NON-racist you'll ever meet. Let me guess…. Because I don't agree with a black person, I'm racist? Or is it because Ted Turner is a communist that I'm a racist?
It wasn't meant as an attack on Turner. He is, indeed, a communist. I'm a democrat, and you're probably a secular-progressive. We are what we are.
JeffersonDavis

October 17, 2009 | 6:36 pm

“The fact that the Chinese are winning Oil concession in Iraq pretty much says it all, looks like we just pissed away tree trillion dollars to make sure that China gets all that sweet Iraqi Oil…”

No one can win with you liberals!
Go to war and expect some oil in return? You scream BLOOD FOR OIL!
Go to war and better the nation and leave the oil in THEIR hands? You scream “WE PISSED AWAY THREE TRILLION DOLLARS FOR NOTHING!”

Which do you want? Regardless of what the liberal manifesto says, you can't have everything.

LOL
JeffersonDavis

October 17, 2009 | 6:41 pm

“JD – Exactly how is China a threat to the USA? Are they going to invade us? They will threaten our # one position economically but that will be our own damn fault. Militarily how can they threaten us?”

I don't consider them a traditional military threat, jd.
China is becoming the world ECONOMIC superpower. That's all well and good. They have that right.
However, they are prepping for a massive economic/industrial takeover of the world. They are securing all the natural resources, building a massive infrastructure, and obtaining a stable seat at the world financial table. Once that's ready, you'll see an explosion of industry the likes of which haven't been seen in history – a second industrial revolution. In short, China will take over the world without a shot being fired.

And if you think pollution on Earth was bad before, what til China gets going.
kritt11

October 17, 2009 | 10:35 pm

JD- How about avoiding war altogether by developing alternative energy sources, and conservation? Why should we be over there in a region that will never understand democracy, but will drain our vital resources while we try to force them to??

That's how the Soviets were defeated— they fought for a decade in Afghanistan, lost and their empire began to crumble. Osama actually prayed that we would get trapped in a long draining war— that's why he attacked us in the first place.