Letters to the Editor
Dirigo
Published Letters: 671 Editor's Choice: 1
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@WT
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lordy, don't hold your breath about Henry-the-K seeing the light of day; he's still trying to tell us how successful he was at the Paris Peace Talks during the 1970s. Oy!
I take some comfort that some people up there in the higher reaches of worldly wisdom are thinking about our plight in Iraq, even if they're Brits of influence who waited until they attained a comfy sinecure before holding forth in those pear-shaped tones you like so much.
On a more popular level of media consumption though, I recently watched a bit of the BBC's "MI-5," a series on the derring-do of Brit intelligence services. I like to watch Brit drama because the acting and production values tend to be higher than American network stuff (sorry, this is true).
Anyway, the depiction of American CIA types in these shows is very unflattering - very "ugly American."
Does it matter what the Brits think?
I really couldn't say.
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@WT
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As far as I know, the Army Field Manual has never had a chapter on how to deal with irony on the battlefield.
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@WT
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is FM 22- 5?
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@WT
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh I see. Well, as an Air Force vet, I did some close order drill here and there in the early days; but we didn't use the Army Field Manual naturally, because, uhmm ... we were flyboys!
Lots more glamour, doncha know.
And, there was a fair amount of droll in the Air Force, generally more than what was allowed in the Army.
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@WT
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Which brings us back to Gen. Ripper and his concern about the threat to our "precious bodily fluids."
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@Pow Wow/9:40 a.m.
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy."
---Michael Schwartz
---tomdispatch.com
---posted by Pow Wow
This is a telling frame of the madness the Bush administration has created and will not take responsibility for.
George W. Bush plans to leave office with our troops in this position on the Middle East battlefield. Dick Cheney says, "So?" John McCain says 100 years more of this is okay with him.
Think of the morality of Bush's position as his presidency begins to wind down.
Who created the anarchy?
Think.
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Narrowing The Narrative Within the Normal, Agreeable Paradigm For One And All, And All For One
[Read the article: What can and cannot be spoken on television]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the previous thread on Charlie Rose, I posted some parts of an article written by Alastair Crooke.
The Crooke piece was posted yesterday in the Guardian comment section.
Mr. Crooke is a former security official with the European Union and he suggests there have been some formal, high-level, discussions in some capitals, including Washington, to try and frame the issues surrounding terrorism in such a way the that only the "experts," the anointed, can be understood and taken seriously.
Crooke seems to suggest a conscious effort is afoot to deplete the effectiveness of democratic debate, here, and in other Western countries.
For example, Crooke quotes former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who says anyone who doesn't take the issues of fighting terrorists the same way he does, or with the gusto he displays, can be dismissed as "naive."
This is the exact word Sen. McCain is using to describe people he disagrees with on Iraq war policy, and other questions about national security.
McCain is using that word against both candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
No doubt we can expect the Arizona senator to bludgeon any MSM personage from here to kingdom come, using the same word, if he or she dares to question his forthcoming war policy.
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Addington The Adder
[Read the article: John Yoo's war crimes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]David Addington said while back, in so many words, that he, his boss Dick "So?" Cheney, and the rest, intended to go as far as possible with the particular envelope they all were pushing before someone said, "Stop."
And here we are.
Has someone said "Stop" with enough gusto for stop to actually happen?
But, Glenn, can you make clear the terrain where DOJ, the office of the president, the office of the vice president, and the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) met during the Year of Yoo?
Yoo was a mid-level DOJ lawyer whose grand opinions were run through OLC.
How did that work?
What rinse cycles were used?
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"They Sent Al Capone Away ... etc." - With Apologies To Consiglieres Everywhere
[Read the article: John Yoo's war crimes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In an original Star Trek episode, Kirk and the boys beam down to a planet and finds the "culture" to be a representation of Capone's gangland Chicago.
Seems "the boys" in charge there replicated the warp and woof of it all, based on a book about the gangs, left behind during an earlier Federation mission.
Kirk has to deal with the gang leader, Oxmix, and tries to fix the problem.
After a while, Kirk, who beamed down in a mob costume, along with Spock (who becomes "Spocko" in this episode) and Mc Coy, confronts OxMix with some unpleasant realities, punctuating his colloquy with OxMix by remarking, "I just think you suffer from arrested development."
To which OxMix replies, "I've never been arrested in my life!"