Letters to the Editor
L.W.M.
Published Letters: 6163 Editor's Choice: 5
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Pathetic
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]. . . depite the reporting I've heard from CNN, BBC and NPR, which keeps up the ominous drone of doom about the terrorists breaching the Parliament buliding in "the heart of the heavily fortified Green Zone," the FACT is the Parliament buliding is NOT IN the Green Zone . . .
I know Black Five is a "milblog" but it's supposed to be a Special Forces/elite "milblog". If this kind of confusion about "intel" and map reading typifies the elite, our military is broken. Their biggest confusion seems to arise from the fact that The Green Zone and The International Zone are two different partitions, (and not fixed but mutable over time), not to mention a whole host of other discrepancies and misinformation.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/baghdad-green-zone.htm
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Karen...
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read your post (Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:36 AM) and I think we agree. But as I said, we can't all be Churchills or Parkers. When the construction worker you pass by in the street obnoxiously catcalls, "Ooh, mama!" at you, your initial reaction may be to take offense. I understand that. It's not "a rose by any other name" but he's not William Shakespeare, either. He's just using the tools he has to express the same emotion. His tools are not sophisticated or sharp, and though they are the soul of brevity, lack wit as well as charm.
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WT, I'm shocked!
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a matter of fact, I've described men as well as women as whores myself, employing the term as a metaphor meaning that their opinions are for sale.
You tramp!
Ahem... the C word. In Britain it's quite common. Roy Edroso at Alicublog has a particular fondness for it and his argument is quite compelling but I don't have the link to that particular post. I should say that he is a most literate and erudite blogger. Word police is the worst job in the world. So many words, so little time.
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_archive.html#114735830251741914#114735830251741914
Derek and Clive agree.
http://www.phespirit.info/derekandclive/live_02.htm
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Especially in D.C.
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When you call a man, say Mike McCurry on net neutrality, a whore, you're also feminizing him as someone who is being subservient to a man.
And some people pay good money for that kind of thing, especially in D.C.
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Parker did say, "Brevity is the soul of lingerie."
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But I think she was riffing on Shakespeare:
"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief..."
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
My favorite...
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
The novel was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. (I hope you aren't a Randian.)
About that word, no need to revisit but Shakes (Shakespeare's Sister), a woman, had an interesting take on this all recently:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2006/11/on-cunts.html
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Prophet of the "left"?
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Shooter... Zinni said we have to stay...
He is one of the left's prophets is he not?
If Zinni is what Shooter calls a leftist...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Zinni
We can assume that this is a moderate of the right by those standards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochet
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reinforcements
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The surge is a tactic, not a strategy, that is being pursued by this administration in the complete absence of a broader middle east strategy and which is therefore destined to fail whether we have 170,000 troops in Iraq or 0.
-- Lisa S
Actually, "the surge" is only a "tactic" in the sense of being a "new brand name" in the PR operation "Catapult the Propaganda" over on the American public. They used to call it "reinforcements" and it usually means you are in trouble.
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"no standing armies"
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That would be difficult and quite possibly riskier today than it was in the 18th centuury but you can't argue with the rest of it. However, we can pay closer attention to Eisenhower's admonition of the MIC and drastically reduce our military spending and footprint.
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DCLaw1's theory
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think Rove, Cheney, and a handful of other very intelligent and very clever White House power-players have privately accepted the inevitability of disaster in Iraq, and now are demanding the same hope and commitment to that experiment simply to stave off total collapse until someone else (preferably a Democrat) is President.
If Bush cannot be a foreign policy revolutionary causing the unprecedented transformation of the Middle East into a Jeffersonian Eden, then he must be cast instead as a foreign policy revolutionary with a glorious vision that was betrayed by the weak-willed and destroyed by his successor. He will become a political martyr, a subject of crass historical revision even within his lifetime, a tragic hero suffering from the curse of possessing resolve and brilliance far superior to most others. When Iraq falls completely to pieces, his followers will only get louder in their indignation and hatred of Bush's "enemies."
As with all things to these fanatics, protection of the Leader's legacy and the rhetorical purity of his Cause is paramount and easily more important than actual accomplishment of the things he set out to do. That's why I say the one's truly calling the shots realize where Iraq is heading, and have shifted all their energies and efforts into delaying the inevitable in a fashion that best protects the legacy of their Leader and belief system.
There is just one minor disagreement I have. These are dual objectives. Military dominance globally and political dominance locally. It's never been an "either, or" propostion. Neutralization and elimination of the Democratic party (and the Nixonian wing of the Republican party) as a political force has always been their first objective going back to Goldwater's defeat in 1964 and the foundation of "movement conservatism" of the the early 1970s before Iraq was even on the radar. Whatever happens, regardless of causation and responsibility, they will politicize it and use it to beat down and weaken their political opponents at home.