Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 1988 Editor's Choice: 19
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@Desert Son
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks, I finally got to read your response on the other thread.
I think you made a really good point about police, although I don't think we should be the world's police. I'd phrase it as, we should be a part of the world's police (with the rest of the world as the other parts). Sorry this is taking so long to make my points.
This is really closer to what I meant, you're more eloquent than I in expressing it. I had somehow had this idea that our military strength might be transformed to police strengh, in the FBI sense of hunting down "bad guys", instead of fighting them as military foes, and of using all the other "counterinsurgency" things like diplomacy and living among communities and so forth.
Right now, although most Americans are unaware of it, our ambassadorial presence in most other countries has been curtailed in favor of CINC's which are military versions of our embassies. That's hardly "living among". And Americans have a nasty reputation for never bothering to learn the local languages and customs (we are not alone, Russia and China have similar reputations).
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@L.W.M. re: Team B
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh My God, look at those namelists! And the guy who approved it!
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Apropos the polling figures on Al Qaeda...
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...and their responsibility for September 11, many in these countries feel that it might have been the U.S. government doing it as a pretense to attack them. Before anyone has any illusions as to how ridiculous that belief might or might not be, the following is instructive:
Any serious effort at transformation must occur within the larger framework of U.S. national security strategy, military missions and defense budgets. The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.
Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 2000
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Oh, no, not again Golden Boy
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kan Ze On
Na mo Butsu
Yo Butsu u in
Yo Butsu u en
Buppo so en
Ju raku ga jo
Cho nen Kan Ze On
Bo nen Kan Ze On
Nen nen ju shin ku
Nen nen fu ri shin.
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@IngSoc @kovie
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This stuff also feeds off of the Vanunu Syndrome: When Vanunu spilled the beans on Israel, people calculated that the nuclear program people had created weapons that made no sense, i.e. that they were too big to use on any of Israel's enemies without raining fallout on Israel itself.
The syndrome is that when a tightly knit group of technologists works for a very long time on a highly secret weapons program, because of the absence of restraints and the absence of feedback to provide benchmarks and say when they have finished, they self-perpetuate, creating always bigger and more powerful weapons, regardless of whether there is a use for them, due to the drive to excel.
All that has to go wrong is that another bunch, like the ones you two are describing, comes along and wants to use them.
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@Karen M @Desert Son...about the notion...
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Karen, I like your suggestion a lot. Congress bypassing the administration and shaming them into a real foreign policy. I wrote my Congressman today advocating that they create a foreign policy that directly appeals to the counterinsurgency generals, by emphasising diplomacy, working with people, communing with the community, and using law enforcement rather than military might.
I really like the idea of setting up "educational" fora and discussing, too.
Take a look at the list of priorities and suggestions that Desert Son put up early this morning (Friday) on the Joe Klein thread, he is really good at framing some of the issues.
I told my Congressman that if the Dems could come up with a plan to convert "Peace through Strength" as the Bush people call it, into the more appropriate "Strength through Peace", and if they could convince the military they knew what they were talking about, the military buy-in would cover them against being portrayed as unable to be strong.
If they did what Desert Son advocates, and what you're advocating, they could have the lifers at Justice and State on their side too. It's weird to plan a coup by having a legislature take power, but the framers gave them most of the power in the first place, they'd just be restoring Congress to its rightful role, kind of a Meiji restoration for the Constitution.
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Thanks, bebop-o
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I was a kid, on Memorial Day, the Minutemen marched from the town center to the graveyard behind the houses across the street from where we lived. Since it was always so close, we always followed the parade.
As a little kid, I didn't understand why we always had to be so quiet, while they put wreaths on the graves with the flags on them.
A prayer for a prayer. Thank you.
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@Karen M
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's the page Desert Son posted on:
http://tinyurl.com/2jwcp8