Letters to the Editor
Jim White
Published Letters: 1325 Editor's Choice: 16
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Thank you, Salon
[Read the article: "The war as we saw it"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for providing us with an update on Jeremy Murphy's recovery condition. This is the first piece of information that I have seen on his condition. I also would encourage the filing of requests to interview the remaining four on a regular basis so that their safety and freedom from reprisals can be monitored on a routine basis.
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"Rally his base"
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hmmm, the base. Why does that sound familiar? Let's see:
http://tinyurl.com/23mabe
Yet another example of becoming one's own enemy.
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Mother wants the truth
[Read the article: "The war as we saw it"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“I want to know all the details of how he died. I want to know the truth,” said Olga Capetillo, whose 28-year-old son, Sgt. Omar Mora, died Monday. “I don’t understand how so many people could die in that accident. How could it be so bad?”
Capetillo, who emigrated from Ecuador when Mora was 2, agonized about her son in Iraq. But after Mora co-wrote the sharply critical op-ed, new worries overlapped the old.
Capetillo feared that the article, which ran Aug. 19 in the New York Times, could damage her son’s military career or cause him other problems. She said that in the weeks since writing the piece with six other active duty U.S. soldiers, Mora had seemed increasingly depressed and withdrawn.
Link:http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_moradeath_070912/
My condolences to Mrs. Capelito and her family and to the family of Sergeant Gray.
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Rock, paper, scissors and why we are losing
[Read the article: Jamie Kirchick's fantasies of the grave Muslim threat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In his 2002 book When Religion Becomes Evil, theologian Charles Kimball identifies "five major warning signs of human corruption of religion". These are: 1. Absolute truth claims. 2. Blind obedience. 3. Establishing the "ideal" time (e.g. "end times"). 4. The ends justifies any means. 5. Declaring holy war.
Kimball then goes on methodically to illustrate how both Christians and Muslims are demonstrating each of these qualities in post 9-11 days.
In his introductory paragraphs of Chapter Two of The Assault on Reason, Al Gore illustrates how these hijacked religious values are manipulated today:
The relationship between faith, reason and fear sometimes resembles the children's game of rock, paper, scissors. Fear displaces reason, reason challenges faith, faith overcomes fear.
In stoking fear regarding the capabilities of the opposite side, whether Christian or Muslim, the faith that comes out has tremendously reinforced claims of absolute truth, blind obedience and ends justifying means. Both sides are now in extreme phases of this behavior.
bin Laden is acutely aware of these tendencies and is playing Bush artfully. Al Qaeda lacks the direct weapons to unleash any real damage to the United States, but by playing to our fears, he leads us into a continued occupation of Iraq that serves both to drain our resources to dangerously low levels while simultaneously providing his best possible recruiting tool.
Gore finds a resolution to this conundrum in the words of Thomas Jefferson:
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion," wrote Thomas Jefferson. "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, He must approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
The unblinking reason provided here daily in countering the blathering fear-based authoritarians is our last, best hope out of the disaster Bush and his cronies have put us into. When reason is strengthened, it no longer is displaced by fear.
Saturday, I'll be one of many in Washington in a "Coexist" T-shirt. (http://www.peaceproject.com/wearables/shirts.htm)
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News flash--text of Bush speech revealed in blues lyrics
[Read the article: Fox and the White House]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Running errands earlier today, I had blues on my radio and the text of Bush's speech tonight suddenly came through:
Darling, a high class speech like this at any price is cheap! So if I can't sell it, I'm gonna sit back down on it. Why should I give it away? Now look at this nice bottom, ain't it easy on the eye, guaranteed to support any weight or size! Whoa... If I can't sell it, I'm just gonna keep sittin on it.
The premise of the song is a second-hand furniture dealer talking about a chair, but it could just as easily be Bush talking about the war. He knows he can't sell the war to any more customers than his current johns, so he's just gonna sit on it until his term is up.
Link:http://http://tinyurl.com/22t8ps
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Parsing, parsing...
[Read the article: The endless, meaningless blather from the Washington establishment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sen. Olympia Snowe - May 10, 2007, in Iraq:
Our legislation provides for within 120 days that General Petraeus would come before the Congress and report in terms of whether or not the Iraqi government has met these benchmarks. And if they have not achieved them, then General Petraeus would be required within 14 days, to submit a plan on phased redeployment of the troops associated with the Baghdad security plan, as well as a change in mission for all the other troops, consistent with the stated objectives that were set forth in the Iraq Study Group plan.
Report, check.
Benchmarks not met, check.
Now parse.
Note that the redeployment is "associated with the Baghdad security plan" i.e. the surge itself. No further redeployment needed or called for. Also, Petraeus has shown how it will be "phased" through next summer.
As for the "change in mission for all the other troops", see the final slide of the glorius Petraeus presentation. There, in living color, is just such a "change in mission", and as Bush said last night, it is indeed for "all the other troops".
What we got last night from Bush is just exactly what was called for in the legislation, despite the blathering Glenn points out that surrounded it. I've contacted my Congresscritters this morning to urge action beyond this ridiculous "plan", but I'm not holding my breath.