Letters to the Editor
WeikuBoy
Published Letters: 487 Editor's Choice: 62
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This Just In from Camp Cakewalk
[Read the article: Bush's non-exit exit strategy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"But at this late date, as the political structures in Iraq fall, the war's advocates cannot pretend that their strategy is working." Joe Conason
Oh yeah? Just watch 'em pretend their "strategy" is working. Right through Nov. 2008 -- and beyond -- with the full complicity of the corporate media. They'll claim there's light at the end of the tunnel, and victory's just around the corner, if only "we" stay the course, during, say, the next four years -- especially if a Democrat wins the White House in '08.
Back in the reality-based world, the idea that a Judeo-Christian occupying army from the West could contain a Shia-Sunni rift aggravated by Saddam's reign of terror long enough to establish permanent U.S. bases atop the oil was ludicrous then and is ludicrous now.
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"You Can't Fight Gravity" -- Capt. Beefheart
[Read the article: Conversations: Steven Okazaki]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sounds like a very interesting, important film. I'll certainly see it when I get the chance.
Off topic, but should these comments find their way back to Steven Okazaki, I'd like him to know that Living On Tokyo Time is one of my very favorite films. It meant a lot to me back then; and I've thought of it and its many memorable lines (more than one of which to this day remain in use as catch-phrases in our household) fondly ever since. Thanks!
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Now with 50% more Surgeliciousness
[Read the article: The man who sold the war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well in retrospect it all seems SO obvious: throw whatever reserves America has available into Baghdad, and extend the tours -- once again -- of all those weekend warrior national gaurdsmen now in-country. Call it by a cutesy one-syllable name that even the red-state dummies who dial up El Rushbo's radio show can remember -- like "surge". Crank up the Noise Machine to 11 proclaiming the resulting carnage a huge success; and fly in a gaggle of "liberal media war critic" touristas like Bill Krystol and Pollack-O'Hanlon on standardized 8-day tours (bedding down each night in the Green Zone's best hotel) to spread the Good News from Iraq among their corporate peers. Then dare the terrorist-appeasing traitors in the "Democrat" [sic] party to do anything about it. (Don't worry; John Stewart won't dare ask who paid for or organized their intrepid fact-finding missions "on the ground.")
Better still: point to "successes" in arming the Sunnis against al-Qayeeda and against the Shia. After all, it's what Reagan and Rumsfeld did; but now Saddam is out of the picture!
Meanwhile in Waziristan tonight Osama (who-bin-Forgotten) is enjoying the comforts of his latest teenage wife, forever grateful in the knowledge that cynical men like Karl Rove are giving their all for a permanent Gop majority to fight the Global War on Terra' (TM).
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The Pressure from the OVP Evidently Worked
[Read the article: Matthews: V.P.'s office tried to silence me on Cheney's Iraq role]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What has not yet been mentioned is the fact that the pressure on GE worked. For example, Cheney on Meet the Press on the eve of the invasion (03/16/03) made the fantastical assertion that Iraq possessed "reconstituted" nuclear weapons. Not only did Tim Russert fail to challenge any of Cheney's wild claims that day (this was the same interview in which Cheney made his idiotic "greeted as liberators" statement), he also failed to raise the issue the next time Cheney was on the program.
As far as I know, no one at GE's NBC or MSNBC has ever remembered, much less challenged, Cheney's claim that Iraq "in fact" possessed nuclear weapons. Yet it was this claim, along with "Dr." Rice's mushroom cloud of lies, that battered many Americans (but not me) into submitting to the insane war lust of the neocons.
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Bin-Forgotten
[Read the article: Beware the Google]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh, yeah, that bin-Laden guy. Say, whatever happened to him?
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Redact This
[Read the article: "Redacted"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"And what is the point? That we're all the same, Zarqawi, Lynndie England, the rapists in Mahmudiyah, CNN, Ashley Gilbertson, the readers of the Times, yours truly -- we're all accomplices in the great act of violation that is the Iraq war." -- George Packer
Um, yeah. Pretty much. Except maybe for Ashley Gilbertson, whose name I confess I don't recognize. And except for those readers of the Times (NY?) who did not vote for Bush-Cheney or help cheerlead for their idiotic war of choice. And perhaps except for George Packer, whose book I haven't read; though I am dismayed his list excludes Osama bin-Forgotten, who still remains at large, despite the violent deaths of 3000+ in New York and DC and a half-million or more in Iraq, including the little girl whose rape and murder form the basis of the story of this picture.
If there is a hell, Deadeye Dick Cheney and Bush Jr. will surely burn in it -- along with bin-Laden, Zarqawi, Saddam Hussein, et al. -- but don't blame Brian de Palma.
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Another Neo Bites the Dust
[Read the article: Good riddance to John Howard ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kudos to Glennzilla for being right on top of the key issue of the day (as per usual). However, this election might have had more to do with Iraq than Glenn believes. For starters, withdrawal from Iraq was pledged by the victors in Saturday's election, and will now go forward. Then consider the larger worldwide context:
In 2003, a handful of major western leaders went along with Bush-Cheney's idiotic war, against the wishes of their own people. Since then, each has successively been forced out of office: Aznazar in Spain, Berlusconi in Italy, Blair in the UK, and now the odious John Howard in Australia. Only Bush-Cheney themselves somehow remain in office, as a mocking indictment of the failure of America's so-called "democracy."
Meanwhile, shorter CNN: "Gosh, Australia's economy is doing so well for the top 10% there. It's a complete mystery to us how John Howard could possibly have lost."