Letters to the Editor
Tony D.
Published Letters: 2
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@downpuppy
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Downpuppy, your points are entirely valid, but I don't think they should keep you from being afraid of the inevitable shooting war with Iran. Remember, the grownups are no longer in charge here. Under GWB there is no such thing as a "gentleman's agreement", nor is there respect for (or, hell, even basic understanding of) the unwritten rules of cold wars and backroom diplomacy.
It is precisely for that reason that I fear the worst.
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The usual teevee spin
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When the government indicted Padilla, it did so on extremely vague conspiracy charges having nothing to do with the original flamboyant accusations made against him by Ashcroft.
And yet, this is exactly how it's being spun in the evening news even as Glenn posts this. The NBC network blurb played just now during my local news featured graphics of dirty bomb diagrams and animations of blast radii as the reporter (Steve Handelsman?) talks in excited tones about the Convicted Terrorist. One dismissive sentence was given about "some civil rights activists are still furious.."*, but to Joe Average who gets his information from the evening broadcast, it appears that the king's Glorious War on Terror is succeeding. "See," says Joe Average, "we caught one! What are you dirty hippies complaining about?" Pfeh.
(*Is it just me, or has the very word "activist" now been transformed into a derisive term; the media's new polite euphemism for "extremist"? Topic for another post, I guess).