Letters to the Editor
had_enough
Published Letters: 817 Editor's Choice: 48
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@arumpeltes...hm.
[Read the article: Get your facts right, boys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's see, you're 21, a history *minor* and your relatives would say you "know as much about Vietnam as anyone." As much as Neil Sheehan? As much as James Webb? As much as some know-nothing ditto-head from Anaheim...? -- Ah. There we go.
I'm thinkin' the joke around here is not Salon.
(and, actually, for the record, the wars are not all that different, at least, in terms of our involvement, and the political situation we face. The only difference would be, probably, that Vietnam was FAR simpler, politically. We were incredibly stupid to get involved in both wars, and now we face a completely unsalvagable situation in Iraq, just as we did in Vietnam...and the only solution to both wars was to make deals we refused--and refuse--to make. We could have ended this mess years ago by making deals with Syria and Iran. Even with the grotesque mistakes we made, like disbanding the Iraqi army and de-Baathifying the government. We could have ended Vietnam by making a deal with Ho...the same deal we ultimately made years later, after thousands more deaths. Read your history, history minor)
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what the fuck?
[Read the article: "There is no report because I haven't written it"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What a fucking mess.
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what was supposed happen..
[Read the article: "There is no report because I haven't written it"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]this has me thinking, yet again, about what was supposed to happen back in 2003.
Just as one of the teeming millions who read all the same stuff you did.
We were going to waltz in there, take Saddam and his sons down, and install Chalabi as head of a new Iraqi Unity government.
We had Chalabi all primed for that role. Or the Pentagon did, anyway.
Then, well...something happened. We couldn't put Chalabi in power the way we had planned (I'm guessing very powerful people in Iraq just flat-out refused to go along with that)
I have this dreary feeling that once Plan A involving Chalabi went south, there was no good plan B, and the chickenhawks in Cheney's office started improvising. Badly.
and now, we have the current situation.
I think the whole thing went so terribly wrong, that Cheney and his people had no idea what to do. Neither did Rumsfeld, who, more and more, strikes me as a profoundly stupid and heedless man.
so, they improvised, and as all the wheels began to come off, they improvised some more, and came up with things like disbanding the Iraqi Army, and de-Baathifying the government.
I wonder, after all that, if there was anyone in the Administration, other than the Chimp himself, who thought we could "win" anything. I'm guessing all the ass-covering started in 2004, internally, and after the election, the ass-covering intensified.
What we see now is the result of Plan A going south, no good Plan B, extremely bad improvisation, and then...nothing but ass-covering. In the field of battle. In the Pentagon. In the West Wing. In Cheney's office. Everyone desperately trying to avoid blame.
It's worth noting that from the view in Cheney's office, based purely on public evidence available to anyone, we were *never* supposed to end up in a mess like this.
The problem arose from having no good Plan B. And *that* was likely a result of domestic political imperatives outgunning reality.
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well..that was the idea, originally...
[Read the article: Why Republicans back Ayad Allawi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]to install another Saddam, just one who would do what we told him to do.
Once Chalabi was out, Allawi was the next choice. The Pentagon sure knows how to back a winning horse, doesn't it?
This whole thing is such a mess. You'd think, after Cuba, and Vietnam, and Lebanon, and the Balkans (and the Balkan thing was actually fairly straightforward compared to iraq, which is saying something when you think about it), and Somalia, and any number of more obscure involvements, we'd have figured this out, and would never have made the same mistake twice.
But, here we are, in Iraq, essentially recapitulating Vietnam in all its main components (other than the American casualty count is much lower. Not that this is any comfort to families who have lost a son, or daughter, or to the severely injured, who now number in the 10s of thousands..'course, if we count the Iraqi dead, it starts to look a lot like Vietnam).
Amazing what a bunch of lying proto-fascists have to do to get traction with the American Voter. Even more amazing: that the American voter is so wilfully ignorant that they fall for it.
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yer right..but
[Read the article: The Democrats' responsibility in the wake of Gonzales' resignation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...they're gonna roll over. Count on it. The dems are so desperate to win in 2008, and they're convinced that the idiot swing voters that tend conservative (exurban soccer-moms are the most likely archetype here) are their ticket to a larger majority, that they'll confirm anyone who promises a quiet, uneventful year next year.
I'm more disgusted with the Dems every day.
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same ol', same ol'
[Read the article: Iraq's reality -- and the president's]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Does it bother anyone else, the contempt in which Bush clearly holds his base? And let's not even start on the contempt in which he holds people like us. It's bottomless.
I suspect, at this point, Bush himself is probably a bit foggy on the truth, and truthiness, of any subject you can name.