Letters to the Editor
Aycharaych
Published Letters: 2219 Editor's Choice: 3
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@ RMP
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The guarantee of no ground forces, at least in my mind, is that there are simply very few to no ground forces available.. At least without a draft.
I suspect that even the current resident is canny enough to realize that a draft will most likely galvanize at least a fair sized portion of the public into active opposition to any such military action as a ground attack on Iran.
As another poster noted, the different services have somewhat different cultures with the Navy being somewhat more independent minded..
The Air Force on the other hand, from what I read, is a hotbed of fundie Christians, particularly in the officer corps. It wouldn't surprise me if the AF leadership is chomping at the bit to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iraq..
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The cold equations
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Number one: USA Today 2,281,831
2,281,000/300,000,000 =0.00760333333
So the largest circulation paper in the US, the only *real* national newspaper reaches 0.76% of the American public.
And what percentage of *those* immediately turn to the sports, entertainment or business pages?
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@RMP
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't mean to insult your service and I apologize if you took it that way.
As a Vietnam era vet I'm appalled by the apparent lack of institutional memory in the armed services. My son in law is also a vet and he thought I was an unpatriotic idiot when I predicted that Iraq would turn out to be a disaster. I must admit he had enough respect to avoid telling me that to my face but his attitude made it fairly clear.
Needless to say son in law listens a little more closely to my opinions than he did.
Even Colin Powell threw the "Powell Doctrine" right out the window when it came to Iraq. It was abundantly clear, even to a layman such as myself, that the history and myriad cultures of Iraq would ensure that any occupation would rapidly descend into chaos.
As to the culture of the AF, I suspect that it has changed considerably since your time of service. The Academy in particular seems to have been taken over by the fundie Christians and those of other religious persuasions are made to feel unwelcome. As an atheist living in the buckle of the Bible Belt I know all too well how fundies react to those who do not share their particular obsession.
I truly hope that you are correct and the leadership of the AF is as rational as you say, however I fear that you are wrong.
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32,000,000/300,000,000 = 10.6%
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity" -Frank Zappa
My daughter and son in law are closely attached to the American Legion, these guys *still* think "staying the course" in Iraq is the right thing to do.
At my granddaughter's recent Thanksgiving gala at grammar school the final number was "Proud to be an American" by Lee Greenwood. When I pointed out Lee Greenwood's despicable behavior at a recent benefit for veterans to an acquaintance he had not the slightest clue what I was talking about.
Perhaps it's simply the region of the country I live in but my view of the intelligence or at least the level of knowledge of the average American is pretty dismal.
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@ RMP
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They have their unwritten rules about how to conduct themselves at a presidential press conference and have been looking for an opening to “gentlemanly” attacking junior.
I wonder what happened to those rules during the Clinton administration?
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@ Kitt
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And what other issue would it be that I'm "grasping at straws" about?
I note that not one poster, including yourself, has answered my simple question as to what a rational explanation of the Secret Service's lack of reaction at Booker elementary on the morning of 9/11/2001 might be.
If you have a rational explanation then let's hear it..
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@ Kitt
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I went through the previous thread meticulously. At no point did you offer a rational explanation. If you did, then let me see quotes.
The "other posters" you are referring to is the brave Sir Anonymous. Sir Anonymous' arguments all were based entirely upon hindsight, as I pointed out and no one disagreed, again including yourself.
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@ Pedinska..
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]S/he said that it made perfectly good sense to keep the President in a place that had already been thoroughly secured, as all sites where the president appears would be.
Presidential motorcades are also throughly secured.. And are moving targets to boot which makes them far less vulnerable to attacks from the air.
One of the few things that were known was that airliners were being used as cruise missiles to attack ground targets. The fact of the matter is that Booker elementary was totally unsecured against attacks from the air.
The Secret Service Presidential Protection unit are professional paranoids. I find it impossible to believe that they did not immediately recognize the possibility of a threat against the current resident from the air and if they had done so then they would have hustled him from that location so quickly it would have generated Cherenkov radiation.