Letters to the Editor
Frankly, my dear, ...
Published Letters: 579
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EPU'd from the last thread
[Read the article: A.J. Rossmiller: "Still Broken"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]L.W.M. said ...
@ William Timberman
I think you may be put off by the frank discussion and terms used by Mr. Bernanke, and a misunderstanding of the term, "hegemony". He's merely stating the foreign policy acumen of Gen. Odom, albeit, less diplomatically.
And I think you must not be reading either what WT or FB wrote. The only place where FB and Odom overlap is that the invasion of Iraq has been an unqualified disaster. Otherwise, FB is simply repeating the Project for the New American Century/British Empire (white man's burden)/Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with different variables.
FB's claim that the ME is important to the US because it has oil and the US needs oil is not echoed by Odom. And the claim that since the US needs oil it has a right to the oil under ME sand and it shouldn't have to pay a high price for it or beg for it is certainly not echoed by Odom.
Indeed, this rationale is, as WT pointed out, the same one used to justify the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (read ).
FB's premise that the US has a right to the oil in the ME is what has brought us to our present position (that and the PNAC vision of world peace through universal American hegemony through overwhelming military superiority).
Never lose sight of the simple fact that the invasion of Iraq was about oil (so much so that the original designation of the military operation "Operation Iraqi Liberation" had to be changed so that the rubes wouldn't cotton on). The WMD issue was just a pretext, agreed on, as Wolfowitz said, "for bureaucratic reasons" and the "spreading democracy" fable was an afterthought when the WMD disobligingly were not found. The evidence for this is too abundant to need elaboration.
FB and Odom agree that the Iraqi invasion was a complete disaster, but this is where their views diverge. Odom believes that the solution lies in reducing our dependency on oil and that "spreading democracy" (white man's burden) is not a viable strategy. FB, on the other hand, still believes that the US has a right to the Middle East's oil and that it shouldn't have to genuflect to the Sheiks and Sultans of the region to get it or to pay an excessive price for it.
Curiously, at the time of the invasion of Iraq the price of oil was around $30 a barrel. No less a luminary than Rupert Murdoch predicted that the invasion of Iraq would result in $20 a barrel oil. Instead the invasion has resulted in $100 a barrel oil. Presumably more invasions, say of Iran or Saudi Arabia, would reduce the price further. Clearly, the price of oil is not a factor in Middle Eastern policy or else the people who run this country (Dick Cheney and his Energy Task Force) would have stopped the war long ago. Higher oil prices mean increased profits because profits are figured as a percentage of costs. The losers are the American tax payers because the federal gasoline tax is a flat tax per gallon and is not based on the price of a gallon of gasoline. No matter how high the price of oil goes, federal tax revenue on its sale remains the same. The difference goes to the oil companies.
FB's call for more regime change in the Middle East in order to benefit US interests (read oil) is simply an extension of the invasion of Iraq by other means. One of the (PNAC's) stated reasons for the invasion of Iraq was that it would make the other regimes in the area more amenable to US policy goals (lest they receive the same treatment). This is precisely the definition of state terrorism.
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Syllogism
[Read the article: House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Facts are stupid things.
— Ronald ReganReality has a conservative bias.
— shooter 242Facts = Reality
Therefore: Stupid things have a conservative bias.
Remember, You heard it from shooter first.
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Link please
[Read the article: House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In other news, evil-broadcaster John Gibson got dumped from Fox. Hopefully, we are witnessing a trend of stoogy right-wing 2nd string demagoguery in decline...
Not that I disbelieve you, but I'd love to read about it. I have considered John Gibson to be human dross since his "Five in the Noggin" enthusiastic approval of the Metropolitan Police blowing away a hapless Brazilian electrician whose only crime was coming out of the wrong building and getting on the underground. London doesn't need terrorists as long as it has the Metropolitan Police and the world doesn't need pond scum as long as it has John Gibson.
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A serious question
[Read the article: House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Elephantman: I'm not talking about sitting around with him having a beer with Obama and two or three of the Nobel laureates at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap...
Christ, is Jimmy's still there? They were trying to close it down when I was last in Chicago twenty-five years ago.
Omooex: Thanks for the link — now for some schadenfreude.
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Sure, Arne
[Read the article: House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Arne: As for Sh**ter's last sentence, did that make any sense to anyone but a psychotic?!?
Sure: Reality sucks. That's why we need commedians to lighten the world up a bit. If reality, like conservatives, didn't make the world such a miserable place we wouldn't need commedians.
Simple.
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I have to agree with Gerry Ferarro here ...
[Read the article: Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Only a black man could have made this speech.
Not only did it moisten my eyes at times, it also provided what is possibly the best campaign slogan since "I like Ike":
NOT THIS TIME!
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Gee, zorrobozo ...
[Read the article: Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... I sure hope that was satire and not a demonstration of your reading comprehension skills.
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Yes, omooex,
[Read the article: Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I picked that out as a bit of pandering myself (and I'm not half Palestinian). It struck me as the only false note in the speech, but as you know, it is obligatory to refer to Israel as a "stalwart ally". Obama can stave off race-baiters, but not AIPAC.