Letters to the Editor
susan sunflower
Published Letters: 1373 Editor's Choice: 29
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fwiw, (not much) I loath Alexander Cockburn even on the rare occasions I agree with him or find his writing valuable --
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]personally, I think he's a hatemongerer, a "fire in a crowded room" yeller....
So I was dismayed to find out that Patrick Cockburn was his son ... and was giving Patrick the hairy eyeball ...
Juan Cole has cited Patrick's work on several times with admiration, if I recall correctly. I do recall that after some such Cole mention, I stopped giving Patrick the hairy eyeball ... I had not detected the sort of "fast and loose", snarky or exaggerated tendencies of his father who make Chris Hitchens sound like a voice of reason (which he occasionally is).
Please note: I don't like Alexander Cockburn -- that does not mean that I need to trash him or that I refuse to read him or that I somehow refuse to find value in his writing ....
I don't care for this "I only want to read people who are coming from someplace I agree with and can identify" attitude either, here or anywhere else.
I can happily read and agree and/or disagree with Dowd, Friedman and all sort of people with getting "confused" or contracting "cooties"
Christ Almighty
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look, Iraq is like the story of the elephant and the 9 blind men (or however many there were) ...
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]there is no single "reality" (particularly in a place where freedom of movement and freedom to speak without fear is just about nonexistant). What is some sort of objective "reality" changes often.
I recall early on -- I think it was the Seige of Najaf -- when the statements from the military command near Najaf, those of the military command in Baghdad were not on the same page -- AT ALL -- and then there were the not-close-to-reality assurances by Rumsfeld ...
Even the military is not one voice ... yes, we need to hear the "military's" assessment(s). Increasingly it is MANY VOICES even higher up in rank ... this is a good thing...
Even though they may contradict each other and other voices, they may all still be speaking "the truth" as it appears to them -- prejudging and dismissing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- particularly at this time, when there really are any number of military people speaking (relatively) frankly.
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I realize no one here reads the NYT, much less Tom Friedman, but the latter appears to be calling for a setting a date for a complete withdrawal ...
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We must not kid ourselves: our real choices in Iraq are either all in or all out — with the exception of Kurdistan. If those are our only real choices, then we need to look clearly at each.
snip
For all these reasons, I prefer setting a withdrawal date, but accompanying it with a last-ditch U.N.-led — not U.S. — diplomatic effort to get the Iraqi parties to resolve their political differences. If they can, then any withdrawal can be postponed. If they can’t agree — even with a gun to their heads about to go off — then staying is truly pointless and leaving by a set date is the only option.
I'm surprised .... saying no to hilary-clinton force staying behind; saying no to joe-biden tripartite Iraq
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For someone who claims to want to spread democracy, Bush sure is making a mockery of ours.
[Read the article: Is the White House trying to force Congress' hand?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That man so needs a slap-down, hard, decisive ... and unfortunately our supreme court is unlikely to deliver it.
dark times indeed.
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while not quite a "walter chronkite moment", Tom Friedman yesterday, in a column titled "In or Out"
[Read the article: Despite unmet benchmarks, Bush presses forward with Iraq policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]made a strong case for setting a date for a complete rapid withdrawal, sooner rather than later ...
Since Friedman has been a "glass half full" kinda guy about this whole enterprise which he has supported some kind of "grand experiment" in social engineering (shudder) ... y'know one of the boomer wannabe another "greatest generation" bullshit exercises in legacy creatioin ... his apparent defection may be significant.
I can't gauge Friedman's actual "clout" but the man sure sells a fuck of a lot of books and seems to get asked to the white house confabs at least periodically.
Don't forget that even while you and I may take our eventual withdrawal as inevitable and favored by the vast majority of Americans -- god willing sooner rather than later -- such as withdrawal is not acknowledged to be even on the horizon by Team Bush and too many others who speak of occupation lasting decades into the future.
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just because it took me a while to find this info...
[Read the article: Prosecution rests in Padilla case]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]the allegation is that he materially supported Al-Qaeda in a vague effort to encourage recruits ... and that "he attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in July 2000 ..."
I'm not sure when Al-Qaeda was declared a terrorist off-limits
organization. The Lakawana 6 attended a training camp in the summer of 2001 on a trip to Pakistan as part of a religious renewal and sorta part of a preparation for a more generalized sense of "jihad". My impression was that they NEVER intended to commit terrorism against the United States .... or likely anywhere else, they were sort of "religious tourists" who took a side-trip, as far as I recall.
from wikipedia:
All six pleaded guilty in court to terrorism related charges. They were Mukhtar Al-Bakri, Sahim Alwan, Faysal Galab, Shafal Mosed, Yaseinn Taher, and Yahya Goba.
Yahya Goba and Mukhtar al-Bakri received ten-year prison sentences. Yaseinn Taher and Shafal Mosed received eight-year prison sentences. Sahim Alwan received a nine and a half year sentence. All sentences were for single counts of "providing support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization". In discussing the plea bargain agreements, US prosecutors commented the defendants had cooperated with federal terrorism investigators, providing detailed information on Al-Qaeda membership, training, and methods.
url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Six
url of "application" pdf: http://abcnews.go.com/images/TheLaw/padilladoc.pdf
note, the photocopy of the (scruffy, arabic) original is at the end of the document
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I keep finding myself trying to figure out how all of the bullshit obstructionist "constitutional" issues lead to the "presto-change-o" moment where we discover the coup is complete ...
[Read the article: RNC has already handed over some documents, may withhold others]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's sort of like "with all this horseshit, there's gotta be a pony in here somewhere" ...
Some kind of sleight-of-hand very-very-very slow "close" magic where -- poof -- you discover you are handcuff to your chair and gagged and hog-tied for good measure ...
if you know what I mean and I think you do ...
I cannot understand why upstanding republicans -- congress critters, governors, citizens -- are not outraged ...
yes, tedious though the comparison is, imagine Bill Clinton and Al Gore ...
Something is very very rotten in this Denmark .... and there's 18 months to go ...