Letters to the Editor
susan sunflower
Published Letters: 1376 Editor's Choice: 29
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imho, the problem with focusing on Petraeus's credibility (or lack thereof) is that takes the glare off the information presented and ...
[Read the article: One-sided rules of political debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]can be used to suggest that there was significant negative pre-judging, i.e. that ANYTHING Petraeus said and ANY results the surge might have produced (rather than the paltry, questionable "progress" Petraeus touted) would have been sneered at ... (I'm waiting for someone to present some new apocryphal "disrespect shown to our boys in military by the fringe leftists" anecdotes to complete the framing).
It also raises the spector of seeing Democrats in congress trying to wiggle out of distancing themselves from MoveOn and/or being tarred with the same brush ... (great move) and further disgusting their base as an alternative to possibly alienating that mythical voting independent/undecided middle.
The democrats are in an unenviable position ... as we all know ... they likely will cave and approve funding... eventually. IMHO, they need to appear to have listened, not only to petraeus, but also all the other reports and to basing their decisions/suggestions on THE FACTS ...
The surge apparently did produce some results in some areas ... many of which (results) are debatable as to genuine origin and likely duration... and possible sequelae and blowback.
Personally, I suspect Petraeus believed every word he said ... and his "lies" are more likely in what was left unsaid ... there are other sources... and they undermine or debunk much of Petraeus' very wan optimism. Petraus is a "company-man," a "lifer" ... there are plenty more where he came from ... but our Iraqi misadventure would likely have benefited had he been put in charge earlier.... much earlier. IMHO, Petraeus is not the target ... the results of the surge are very disappointing. the events of the next month could easily ERASE them.
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yes, divert divert divert works very well for the right wing ... and the administration ... that's what's wrong with the ad ...
[Read the article: One-sided rules of political debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]yes, they would have found something else ... Hillary's hair ... Biden's long-windedness ... some other irrelevance ...
MoveOn just helped them out ...
Let's talk about the right to burn the flag or gay marriage or anything besides the crappy results of "the surge" (tm).
[I am awed by the scope of our failure in Iraq ... how we could created an apparently ever-deteriorating state of affairs is something to study and marvel at... and worry about]
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I listened to part of Snow's briefing (his last) and thought that TeamBush is really going to miss him ...
[Read the article: "All those white guys"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I missed whatever kerfuffle this was ...but damn, he was good at ak-sen-tu-8-ting the positive ...
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This morning news includes the apparent death of the leading cooperating Sunni in Anbar Province and the collapse of the oil compromise ...
[Read the article: A surrender before the fight begins?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]my understanding wrt to this WarRoom entry is that the Dem are going to focus away from budget and away from hard withdrawal numbers (where they believe that cannot get the votes for any kind of victory right now), and try to work on redefining "the mission" -- away from combat and toward oversight/training -- in hopes of bringing on-board some moderate/war weary republicans ... which is, of course, why the whining today is that "congress is trying to micromanage the war."
As someone on Olberman said last night, irrc, in many ways the import of whole Petraeus/Crocker show came down to about 8 or 9 moderate repulicans who might -- just might -- move away from the WarDaddy Party Line ...
This is another way that the MoveOn ad may have an unintended negative consequence ... making it just-that-much harder for Republicans to move away from the party line without being branded, y'know a traitor.
what-ever.
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Slate had a (very interesting to me) article last week on people converting to Islam to join "jihad" ....
[Read the article: Jamie Kirchick's fantasies of the grave Muslim threat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Convert's Zeal - Radical Islamism has become a magnet for some of the world's angriest people.
URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2173561/
One might have thought that terrorist organizations would be leery of converts and worry that they were unreliable or even suspect them to be moles. The opposite has been true. According to French sociologist Olivier Roy, 10 percent of al-Qaida's soldiers in the global jihad are converts, and in France the number might reach 25 percent. Roy takes this as an indicator of the group's globalized nature, "because a convert is not motivated by his or her culture at all. He is not motivated by the political life of his or her country. He's motivated by joining something global. Al-Qaida is made of born again [Muslims] and converts who join the global jihad. One day they go to Bosnia and another to Chechnya, or to Kashmir, or to Afghanistan, or to Fallujah."
The included link to an interview with Olivier Roy is worth a click by itself (though it links to page 5 of a 7 page interview conducted by UCTV).
I've looked for any reaction to this article -- which, imho, is not alarmist or anti-muslim, rather "observational" -- and found none. But, it suggests both that the "face" of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is multi-ethnic and "global" and that civilization's discontents may both aid it and possibly use it in ways as yet not apparent.... fasten your seat belts and stay tuned. Bin Laden may be a paper tiger ... but this loose network of wannabes has always seemed to me to pose a much more real and difficult to contain possible threat ... though, I've been waiting since 09/12 for ad hoc strikes and they have not materialized.
The article and interview with Roy are both worth-while imho.
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thank god it wasn't a "friendly fire"incident ... we're not using IED/roadside bombs yet are we?
[Read the article: A setback in Anbar]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... first thing I checked.
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by some reckonings, rough shod "free market" globalization and cultural imperialism was the engine that fed
[Read the article: Jamie Kirchick's fantasies of the grave Muslim threat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]islamic fundamentalism which became more political and then more violent as the leaders of Islamic countries (like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) capitulated to the demands of the west and multinational corporations (and their/our robberbaron business practices)...
chicken-egg/chicken-egg .... christ, you know it ain't easy ... what santayana said...