Letters to the Editor
Ijon Tichy
Published Letters: 452 Editor's Choice: 69
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That's not the half of it
[Read the article: The words they said]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Newt went on to say how web sites which might lead to recruiting terrorists must be shut down. Thus ensuring an easy way discover and catch potential terrorists (along the same lines it is easy to get mispelled spam about penis growth devices, through tracking someone's internet use) will be closed forcing potential terrorists to recruit in a way much harder to detect. He also said this type of censor ship must be broadly interpreted lest any criticism of the government lead to potential recruiting sites for terrorists. Newt's America: All Mein Fuhrer all the time.
He also closed with a call to get rid of the McCain-Feingold finance reform bill, freeing large doners to once again control elections. Seems relying on popular support is too undemocratic. Fact is, how else would Newt have a chance but for the billions of dollars in financing from evil oligarchs and the likes of Spectre and Kaos.
People. Lets quit "Nixonizing" ourselves into thinking that because he was humiliated and cashiered out of office he is now cute and huggable, or even, gasp, an elder statesman.
He is evil. He was always evil. He is responsible for introducing the type of self centered eat the poor, loot the treasury, knight the rich evilness that Tom Delay wet himself aspiring to. He's evil.
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You're kidding, right?
[Read the article: Salvaging Bush's Mideast disaster]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Has this author even been to Israel and the West Bank? I have, several times. You don't even have to go there, just pick up a map in the airport. The arab territories are marked in grey on a map that encompasses an Israel from the Mediteranean to the banks of the Jordan river. The 'territories' are isolated regions around central towns that are barely discernable from the 'tribal' lands carved out by the Afrikaans in South Africa. Here is your little piece of hell, don't even ask about water rights, enjoy your state and fuck you very much. That is the Israeli peace plan.
We are talking here about a government that pledged fealty to the Oslo accords and then engaged in the greatest orgy of settlement building since 19th century colonialism. While pretending to respect the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government financed and supported by military force, settlement creation and expansion while talking up acts of terrorism by Palestinians. Today, a fence carves across thousands of miles of Arab lands. Their own court has acknowledged that at least a quarter of those lands and others occupied by settlements rightfully belong to the Palestinians.
Get a ticket, get on a plane and go visit an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. I have. They are wonderful people. Their 'settlements' aren't some double wide on patch of desert, but beautifully landscaped bedroom communities where three bedroom homes command half a million in sales. Oh and get your gas at the second gas station, not the first. The first is within site of the Arab village whose fields were appropriated and they tend to snipe at anyone they can get a bead on.
This article assumes that this administration actually has the people, let alone the sense, to turn the Israeli government around. First off. Sharon, before he went catatonic, agreed that if Iraq was taken out of the equation would force a withdrawal from Gaza and most of the West Bank, but not all of it. Olmud tried to carry this out in the shaky Katima party (which is shakier by the month). Only thing is things didn't go as planned. Katima is on its last legs and settlements have increased at a phenomenal rate. No one is talking about withdrawal anymore. Bush has no capital to argue that Israel is not threatened by Iraq, especially when the Iraq fiasco has suddenly introduced Iran into the equation in a way no thought possible.
Extremism breeds extremism and for the first time in 39 years, those who advocate apartheid for the Arabs are the moderates; debating those who advocate just driving them all into Jordan and Syria. This is what the promise of 9/11 has come to and this administration neither understands nor has the influence to alter what is going on.
We live in interesting times and, sadly, they will only get more interesting.
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Who is really calling the shots
[Read the article: Dazed and confused]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cheney's been doing a slow burn since Rummy was fired, now he fires back.
If this "sudden" leak to the paper that brought us Judith Miller seems to have nothing to do with Bush's meeting than I have a bridge in Arizona to sell you. Cheney is scuttling the Iraq Study Group by first scuttling Bush. The coup has already begun. Let us just hope that Baker and Bush I have a plan be. One can only hope it involves a sudden failure of a pacemaker.
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I'd try not to gag at this dinner if....
[Read the article: Let them eat cake (or a Yule log or cookies shaped like Barney)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The menu boasted all the meat and produce came from within 100 miles of the Whitehouse.
Still, you have to ask: What? No couscous, hummus or falafel? Have you learned nothing from Iraq?
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Oh and another thing...
[Read the article: Let them eat cake (or a Yule log or cookies shaped like Barney)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Considering the almost neoconservative like awfulness of this menu, can you imagine how much food will be thrown out? While I don't wish culinary garbage on anyone, I imagine there are more than a few "soldiers in the free market" standing around burning trash cans hoping for anything to eat and who would suffer through "chicken fried tenderloin" just for the protein. If this were Carter I could hope fuel efficient cars would be running around DC dropping off leftovers to homeless shelters, food kitchens and the odd homeless man on the street. Though, if this were President Carter, the menu wouldn't suck and there would be far fewer people needing leftovers delivered to their affordable Habitat for Humanity home.
Sadly, this is Bush and Psycho-med Laura has likely demanded than any food not eaten (as in most if not all of it) be force fed through meat shredders and sent to Halliburton for a billion dollar contract to convert to alternative energy sources. It'll be called "Bio-Grease-Palmed.