Letters to the Editor
Holly McLachlan
Published Letters: 472 Editor's Choice: 3
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These questions are worth an answer
[Read the article: The NYT on the administration's "debate" over whether to attack Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Shooter242 displays an intriguing tendency towards valid commentary immediately around the sort of holidays that might put him in close contact with young family members -- Father's Day in this case. Halloween had a similar effect on him last year; he mentioned being on door duty that evening in an astonishingly human comment to UT. There was a similar spike of humanity in a few of his comments in September of '06 as well.
...The central problem here is exactly the same one we had before with Iraq.... how does one make decisions with imperfect information. There are two fundamental requirements for determining what to do, if anything about Iran.
(1) Knowledge of the opposition. Why is our information so lacking?How it is lacking is the more critical issue. If why? helps with that, then ask why.
Why is the intelligence community floundering around in apparent incompetence? Are political concerns in the intelligence community helping or hurting? Are political points like the Torricelli principle (only boy scouts can be spies) hindering our vision? What is needed to produce some real knowledge?
Are they floundering? How much good information is unknown to a/o ignored by the doyens of our political media?
(2) What is the threshold for military action?-- shooter242
Significant, real, immediate threat to our national interests. That is the only threshold for action of any type, and the pot-bangers of the pro-war faction haven't demonstrated that Iran is enough of threat to America to justify open warfare.
Look, your litany of questions above regarding intelligence suggests that you think we could do something "surgical" without triggering massive retaliation on our military in Iraq, if only hands weren't tied.......etc, etc, ad infinitum. It's a pipedream, Shooter242. Osirak and Entebbe are not the sort of actions that can serve as templates for the complex, cumbersome effort of making war against an entire nation of ~65 million.
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The Mideast is not the navel of the world
[Read the article: The NYT on the administration's "debate" over whether to attack Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The base question here isn't intent, it's capability. Can [Ahmadinejhad] do it? Well, we don't know, and right at this moment it is the single most important question in the world. -- shooter242
By your lights, troubles in the Mideast are always the most important issue in the world. It is that incessant over-focus on the Mideast that is so damaging to our nation. The U.S. newsmedia and government have been navel-gazing at the Holy Land for decades now; the contemporary pot-banging is just more of the same.
We have numerous other pressing issues of national interest that are neglected due to our entanglements in the Mideast. China holds too much of our national debt and they sell mass quantities of cheap arms to rogue states. We have no leverage to stop them. Russia is increasingly anti-American and is attempting to bring Europe to heel with oil and gas. We have no leverage to stop them.
And that is just the big players. As another commenter noted just upthread, Somalia is a simmering cauldron of trouble that is slopping over into Ethiopia. Musharaff is unsteady on the throne in Pakistan. At least Zimbabwe is someone else's basket of misery (I think). We have no leverage left in any of these situations. Because of purblind devotion to the issues of the Mideast. -
2 pennyweights for Arne's thoughts
[Read the article: Preordering week for "A Tragic Legacy"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1) How long this week is the book in pre-order? I'm waiting on an Amazon rebate certificate to arrive before making an order.
2) Arne
Come on now, Arne. Picking off numb-nuts like Shooter and Tim is like shootin' fish in a barrel. -- KittArne! Be nice! We *like* our trolls. [...] I mean, honestly-- if I just TOLD you about shooter or elephantman, would you believe me?-- mjfgates
Shooter242 likes to call Arne a dick. Given that, I'd like to coin a unit of measurement in his honor -- the langsetmo, a metric measure of dickosity. Dickosity is a property of posts that is broadly analogous to viscosity in liquids. It refers to the adherent quality of the writer's words, his general stick-to-it-tiveness in posting, and the rate of flow of his letters. I don't know much more about it.... but I vaguely recall that there is an archaic, little used British measure of the same phenomenon. I think it was called the hitchens.....
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Illuminating
[Read the article: Richard Cohen's brilliant (and unintentional) exposé of our media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People, you're not listening to me.
Glenn GREEN wald.... Why are we even dis CUSS ing his so-called i DEAS !?? He's GAY !!!!!!! That COMPLETELY INVALIDATES what he has to say... don't you people GET it ??!Not really. We're having a little trouble understanding what it is you're trying to say. Your "voice" is unclear -- it's almost as though there were some obstruction in your mouth, impeding the movement of your tongue......
Perhaps you should turn the lights on, dear. -
Makes sense
[Read the article: Richard Cohen's brilliant (and unintentional) exposé of our media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Re: "Ace of Spades" posts... This "Ace of Spades" is like "Shooter243"; a parody (but not as clever as "shooter243") of the real McCoy...The real Ace of Spades has a RW blog...-- Arne Langsetmo
Ah. Foiled again by the inability to parody these fellows. The imposter's name links to the real website.
These things are always unwise to respond to, although... the lack of clarity in his "voice" is doubtlessly sourced as I'd inferred, in some impediment to the free movement of his tongue. His stuff is the essence of uncute.Arne, I still think you'd make a fair unit of measurement for some aspects of the blogosphere, just not dickosity. It's probably a unitless ratio in any event.
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Understood
[Read the article: Richard Cohen's brilliant (and unintentional) exposé of our media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ace = satire
I'm a fan of satirical comments here, but these seemed to have the potential to cause some coronary events, which I thought it best to avert.-- GlennGreenwald
Understood, respected. Don't worry about my heart; I'm pre-menopausal. But, I'll never understand men. Not if I live to 100. Somewhere inside all of you is this loogie-horking love of gross.
Also,
Arne/shooter242 = undefined.
shooter242/Arne = 0