Letters to the Editor

• Is this Salon or Daily Kos?

  [Read the article: Impeach Bush]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Country Wisdom here or a cow pile? I think more of the latter frankly.

  Mr Keillor is right and well to complain about that things are not well and to his liking, but impeachment? So Dick Cheney can take over? Dennis Hastert? Or how far shall we go down? Shall it be Coups R US time? I would frankly suggest that voting during the next election cycle would be the more appropriate course of action to register your displeasure.

  But wait? I never really got the charges for this impeachment other than severe Bush Derangement Syndrome? Guantanamo and "illegal detentions"? (Please tell me a better way of how to deal with the problem of extra-national combatants first - and then get a bulldozer out and knock down that statue of FDR on the mall for complicity in the rather larger scale of Japanese-American detentions during WWII) Torture & Humiliation ? I thought we had trials about Abu Gharib and the killings in Afghanistan and we put people in jail? Iraq? Anyone that wants to make "judgments" about success/failure before 5 to 10 years about that is frankly fooling themselves.

  But I digress - and want to hit my real point - since I seem to be the only one with a contrarian opinion here - what, may I ask is the alternative? I hear many complaints, but no suggestions for change. Do we lock up the USA and close all the ports and prohibit foreign ownership of business in the USA? Do we start treating all prisoners of war as individual wards of the court? Do we make nice with everyone and pretend to get along? (With the cartoon intifada still raging, I would think that pretending that "dialog" to change behavior would be deep in the rubbish heap. What, pray tell, are alternatives other than "we can do better"?

  You want a change? - Then put together a program that address these issues and convince the American people to back you. You can bitch and you can moan all you want, but in the end - unless you can show how you can do better - then stop dreaming that impeaching Bush will make the rest of the world suddenly behave.

  Permalink Wednesday, March 1, 2006 05:43 AM

• Snake and the Rat

  [Read the article: Who is the real Hamas?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  While Ms Cobban extols the virtues of Hamas as a political force, she misses the main point of the Palestinian democratic experiment - the choice between the snake and the rat. Hamas is the snake - deadly and ruthless in its determination to achieve a "victory" for it's people but clean in its dealing with the world. Fatah has become the rat, the consumer of the Palestinian tax and aid funds through corruption, featherbedding and just plain thievery while at the same time maintaining an ability to hold on to its power through political flexibility. With only a choice between the old and corrupt and the new and the clean, the Palestinians have rolled the dice and hoped that the new can at least clean up the current civil mess in their society while at the same time not bringing down Armageddon on their heads.

  The situation now comes down to "wait and see" - to see if Hamas can collect the garbage and spread the taxes around to the benefit of the local population without at the same time turning the territories into Tabibanstan Light. They need money and funds and at this time with the EU (and maybe Iran) being the only one with deep pockets willing to toss money their way, the question is will they bide their time and not provoke an all out war with the Israelis through a renewal of military or suicide attacks. I certainly hope that everyone will just suck up their breath and see how this plays out for at least a few months. Sometimes responsibility can sober even the headiest of ideologies.

  I would suggest watching the behavior of Hamas toward the supporters of Fatah and the other political Islamic parties in Palestine as well as toward the Christian Palestinian population remaining in the territories. If they move on these groups and try to establish an Islamic orthodoxy, then you might as well write them off as a serious alternative. If they behave well, then perhaps they can also deal with the Israelis too.

  The paradigm of democracy that pulls views toward the center works when the voting parties are not constrained by militias that "enforce" their views - win or lose. I just wish that more people would realize that while democracy is the best hope for this area - because the people there truly want to run their own lives - until a nation state there can be strong enough to suppress the militias and just have a central army, these difficult choices - Snake or Rat - will continue to be the only show in town.

  Permalink Thursday, March 2, 2006 05:01 AM