Letters to the Editor
CarolynC
Published Letters: 200 Editor's Choice: 6
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Bring up 9/11 and watch the fun begin
[Read the article: Dick Cheney's top aide: "We're one bomb away" from our goal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've read more 9/11 comment threads than I care to recall. They generate more heat than light.
What we know: the 9/11 commission did not investigate crucially important matters. There was no examination, for example, of how the attacks were financed. In addition, the Bush administration, for whatever reason, stonewalled and tried to keep from releasing pertinent documents (no surprise here).
There were some strange coincidences and mind-boggling omissions leading up to and including that day, by all actors in the drama. The U.S. government, for whatever reason, began spinning and quite probably fabricating from at least the first hours after the event, raising suspicion that they knew more than they were letting on.
The truth is probably a lot more complicated and boring than "inside job" conspiracy theorists believe. Anyone trying to get a handle on the personalities and events leading up to the attacks would do well to read Lawrence Wright's superb book, "The Looming Tower." It is exhaustively researched and illuminates the events, as far as we can know them at this point, that unfolded in the years, months and days before 9/11.
Wright himself doesn't have the complete story either, since much remains unknown, but his book is far and away the best thing out on the lead up to the attacks. I would go as far as to say that it would be difficult for someone to understand how we got into the mess we are in today, without being acquainted with the information that is in this book.
In a rational world -- not ours -- the 9/11 investigation would be reopened to address the myriad unanswered questions. It would seem logical given that we purport to want to prevent further attacks. But no way will this happen. That leaves us with our collective insecurity and paranoia -- fertile soil for those who wish to plant the seeds of aggression and hostility.
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Crossing the Rubicon -- war with Iran
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt, Michael Ledeen and the "bomb Iran crazies"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Chris Hedges (War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning)said on "Democracy Now" several months ago, that he intended to stop paying income taxes if the U.S. invades Iran. Now this is, to me, how a patriot acts.
There are only a few people with this kind of courage, and of course, we all have perfectly good reasons not to join the tax resisters: we have parents, kids, dogs, cats, etc. We're too young or we're too old, too rich, too poor. We do important work that might be interrupted. But ultimately, we need to face the fact that if we continue to pay our taxes, we are enabling the U.S. war machine. Pure and simple. What we do about that is between each of us and our own conscience.
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Truly dangerous ideas become mainstream and commonplace
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt, Michael Ledeen and the "bomb Iran crazies"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt's "Serious" foreign policy analyst, Michael Ledeen, in 2002:
"One can only hope that we turn the region (the Middle East) into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists.
That's our mission in the war against terror."
The United States of America circa 2007: Warmongers and sociopathic personalities are treated with deference and respect by our media elites. Those who have been proven right are marginalized.
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The Beltway Establishment is not monolithic
[Read the article: The D.C. establishment versus American public opinion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's important to realize that the old-guard foreign policy establishment (exemplified by Brent Scowcroft), and the Cheney regime change group differ on the overall strategic goal for the U.S. in the Middle East.
Brent Scowcroft (who opposed the Iraq War) was on Face the Nation this AM saying we cannot pull out of Iraq now, because it will lead to a regional conflagration. "If we walk away, we might have a region that looks like Iraq now...It would not take much to creat a Middle East conflict." His solution? Stay, indefinitely, in order to "continue supporting and training the Iraqi army."
Hello? Chaos in the Middle East precisely the goal of that other wing of the Beltway establishment -- Cheney's office, the neoconservatives and their supporters in the media. Serious spokesman for this point of view (in the opinion of Fred Hiatt) is Michael Ledeen, who remarked back in 2002. (From the National Review Online):
"Nobody is perfect, and Scowcroft has managed to get one thing half right, even though he misdescribes it. He fears that if we attack Iraq 'I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a caldron and destroy the War on Terror.' One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today... That's our mission in the war against terror. The most dangerous course of action is Scowcroft's: Finesse Iraq, and squander our energies fecklessly trying to broker peace between Israel and the terrorists."
Amazing. Fast forward to September 2007. We have Serious Beltway Establishment type Brent Scowcroft, arguing that we must stay in Iraq in order to avoid a wider war, versus Michael Ledeen, representing the Cheney wing, who argues that we must stay in Iraq, as part of the drive to create exactly that situation, a regional war throughout the entire Middle East. Our current foreign policy establishment is not monolithic; there are two diametrically opposed camps, both struggling for ascendency while the American people look on helplessly.
No wonder the polls say that Americans don't trust what they hear from their elites in the media and the U.S. government. There is no agreement on goals in the Middle East, just the strategy: more blood and treasure for this war. Anyone who believes differently is just not Serious and deserves to be ignored.