Letters to the Editor
Susan Wood
Published Letters: 379 Editor's Choice: 27
-
Memo to Houston Baker
[Read the article: What should Obama do about Rev. Jeremiah Wright?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Stream of consciousness is just SOOOO sixties, dahling. I'm afraid you need to find a better way to be clevah.
-
But the story does have one major drawback, Glen.
[Read the article: Why the Jeremiah Wright story deserves more attention]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It does not (yet, at any rate) involve any photogenic, twenty-something, scantily clad female celeb with drug problems and a complicated love life. The next story about Amy Winehouse will knock this one off the front pages. If Paris Hilton goes to jail again -- election? What election?
-
Michmog, that's one possibility.
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The other is that he'll wait till his successor is elected, then start another war for someone else to finish, and for which the successor will have to take the blame. That's what his father did in Somalia, and even at the beginning of that misadventure, people were publicly speculating that it was a cynical effort by Bysh to kneecap Clinton on his way out. Sonny boy may have Oedipal issues with Dad, but when it comes to petty meanness he's a chip off the rotten old block.
-
The optimist and the pessimist in me are arguing.
[Read the article: Iraqi sues U.S. military contractors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The optimist says, hallelujah, some legal accountability at last, some light on what our government has been doing, or in this case, subcontracting out in our name.
The pessimist says, watch the Bush justice department find ways to stonewall this one with the usual claim of "state secrets," and watch the Bush Supreme Court throw it out faster than you can say "favors owed."
-
Like father, like son.
[Read the article: Neocons and the truth: Bitter enemies to the end]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bush 41 invaded Somalia just before leaving office, knowing full well that how we got out would be his successor's problem. Bush 43 may have Oedipal issues, but he has also inherited all his father's worst character flaws, notably the viciously vindictive streak, as well as the obsession with proving his own very questionable manhood by posing as a military leader. The one thing that may prevent this from happening is that we're already fighting a losing war on two fronts, and the military knows we can't afford to open a third. But we all know what happens to the career of any military officer who questions the delusions of Bush-Cheney.
-
And all this for weapons of mass destruction that never existed.
[Read the article: Killing by the numbers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Chaumont, you're quite right of course that in wartime men who would be perfectly decent and law-abiding people in civilian life do unspeakable things, partly out of fear, partly for "payback," partly from a sense of entitlement (the rapes of French women that you describe, for example; I imagine the thinking went, "we liberated them, they should be grateful, they owe us.") But in World War II, at least there was a legitimate casus belli. If we weigh the cost-benefit ratio of American involvement in the war, with all of the deaths, war crimes and moral degradation that it involved for our men, it was still worth it to help defeat Hitler. In Iraq, there is no legitimate casus belli, it's a war of unprovoked aggression, and the men who set the horror in motion should answer for it at the Hague.
-
Questions for McCain
[Read the article: RNC debuts attack against Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Senator McCain, as President, would you follow the precedent set by Ronald Reagan of covertly selling arms to countries like Iran?
Since you have declared your intention to keep troops in Iraq until the country is pacified, would you consider imposing a draft? And if not, where do you plan to find enough troops?
Tens of thousands of American veterans will need lifelong health care for wounds incurred in Iraq. How will you reform the American health care system to let them receive this care?
If you invade Iran, how will you guarantee that the country's archaeological and cultural treasures will not be plundered or destroyed as they have been in Iraq?
-
This sounds about as useful as trying to levitate the Pentagon.
[Read the article: Double, double toil and trouble in Berkeley]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now dammit, where are the responsible protestors? Where are the mainstream voices of opposition to this obscene war?
-
Here's another parallel to consider.
[Read the article: John McCain's Vietnam-based view of war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Forget Viet Nam for a minute. Think about the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union had no free press. They did not permit the publication of any news that could cause the public to question either the justification for or the success of their invasion of Afghanistan. And what happened? The people figured it out anyway. Even in a police state like the U.S.S.R., even without any sentimental inhibitions about causing civilian casualties, the government could not win a long, bloody war of attrition fought by insurgents on their home turf against invaders. And they fought dirtier than McCain has even imagined (I hope). You don't hear many Americans suggesting that we should plant children's toys with explosive booby traps, not yet, anyway.
But you can't win if the population of your own country doesn't support a war. And the population won't support it if they realize that it's a hopeless, endless quagmire. And they will figure that out no matter how you control the press and feed your propaganda into the public discourse. Sun Tsu knew that thousands of years ago. But Bush probably thinks Sun Tsu was the guy who invented that Chinese chicken recipe.
-
CP must be praying hard that Clinton WILL "fight to the bitter end"
[Read the article: She won't go easy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]because otherwise she will have nothing to talk about except her exciting encounters with old time soap opera stars.
-
There's no mistaking the hostility in a lot of street harassment.
[Read the article: The ladies love street harassment!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A whistle or a "hey baby" from a construction worker might not be too offensive, but when a group of adolescent boys that I had never seen before started screaming obscenities at me, their faces were contorted with such hatred that there was no mistaking the incident for what it was -- verbal rape. The difference between a crude compliment and an insult may be hard to define, but like the famous definition of pornography, I know it when I see it.
-
Memo to Bush -- you WANT to be succeeded by a Democrat, don't you?
[Read the article: Bush seems to attack Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Otherwise, the full blame for your incompetently bungled war will fall directly and solely onto the shoulders of the Republican party. And your only strategy for years has been to hand this off to your successor.
Or do you think that by reverse psychology, your insulting remarks about Obama will improve his chances? That may be true, but I doubt you have the subtlety to think of it.