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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Michael Harold
Published Letters: 498 Editor's Choice: 3
Democrat absurdity
Republican talking points paragraph:
Look, how dense can you be? It has been explained over and over again, that steady, although uneven, progress was being made through the latter part of 2004 and and through 2005 and into the early part of 2006. In large measure this was due to the success of General Petraeus' training program for the Iraqi armed forces and police. There was good reason for optimism that the insurgency was in its last throes. Then al Qaeda hit the jackpot by blowing up the Samarra mosque. Generals Abizaid and Casey, with their hidebound by the book thinking, failed to appreciate the fallout from this and to respond adequately to this provocation. General Petraeus, who is universally respected for his strategic vision and out of the box thinking, is now turning things around once again.
Democrat talking point paragraph:
General Petraeus was unanimously confirmed by the Senate early this year. Now Democrats make themselves look utterly absurd with their backstabbing attack on General Petraeus six months later.
Sometimes you write like a goof. That's OK. That's America.
Sometimes you write like a political operative. When you do that it throws me off a little.
I'm fed up to hear the right-wing wackos claim that if we'd stayed in 'Nam we shoulda, coulda, mighta.
I would agree with you except for one thing. Vietnam is one of the few places we have ever occupied that we left.
For example, we are still in Korea.
We are still in every other place we ever invaded and/or occupied, even those countries that we liberated after WWII, countries that are now our allies.
Here is a list of countries and territories in which US military bases are located:
1. Afghanistan
2. American Samoa
3. Antigua
4. Aruba
5. Australia
6. Austria
7. Bahama Islands
8. Bahrain
9. Belgium
10. Bosnia
11. Bulgaria
12. Canada
13. Colombia
14. Cuba
15. Curaçao
16. Denmark
17. Ecuador
18. El Salvador
19. France
20. Germany
21. Greece
22. Greenland
23. Guam
24. Honduras
25. Hong Kong
26. Iceland
27. Indian Ocean (Diego Garcia)
28. Indonesia
29. Italy
30. Japan
31. Johnston Atoll
32. Korea
http://www.monthlyreview.org/docs/0302map1.pdf
We will never leave Iraq until we are forced out.
Yeah, whatever happened to "Slam Dunk", "Shock and Awe", "Hearts and Minds", "Mission Accomplished" and "Bring it On".
You asked for a refutation of facts. Where General Petraeus is concerned, I see very few facts and very many claims. There are few or no facts to refute. The claims are claims. As such, they are refuted by counter-examples such as US and Iraqi death and injury counts, suicide bombings, IED attacks, assassinations, kidnappings and all the other events you can read about on Juan Cole's website.
I cringe when I see the words Fallujah, Kirkuk, Basra, Hillah, Mosul and Nasiriyah. (And to think I didn't even used to know what country those cities were in.) Cluster bombs, napalm and white phosphor came to mind. Yeah, we sure showed them.
Their wrongdoing is extreme, and only equally extreme corrective measures will suffice. -- GG
Continuous war, both within a nation and with other nations, is the means whereby any form of governance can be turned to totalitarianism. Our wars are now wars, not of self defense, but of aggression under the guise of self defense. They are criminal wars. As a result, our society is now evidencing many of the symptoms of a totalitarian state. It may have a happy face on it where the majority of citizens are concerned, but that does not change the fact that we have become increasingly totalitarian. Under the guise of anti-terrorism, we have put in place both legal and illegal mechanisms that make our society increasingly bear resemblance to Stalinist Russia. We are being made to live in constant fear of our lives, our security, our future and even our individual freedom. We are becoming a police state.
As a constitutional lawyer, you think in terms of legal remedies under the Constitution. I am not a lawyer, but I do know that the small steps we are taking to preserve our society from the hostile takeover of our nation by a gang of criminals are insufficient and were always insufficient.
We have been in worse spots. We had a civil war, two world wars and a cold war that threatened global annihilation and we survived as a nation. I believe that we can survive this as well, but only if we force the issues. Small steps will not suffice. Either we are a democracy or we are not. If we are not, the sooner we know it, the better.
The first thing we must do is stop the war in Iraq by cutting off the money immediately. The second thing we must do is to treat the those who have committed high crimes against the Constitution and against humanity as criminals under the law. A good start would be to take a hard line and to arrest those who are currently in contempt of Congress.
George Bush is and has always been a symptom of US weakness. Everything this administration has done was done from a position of weakness.
We do not have to be weak. We can be strong again if we choose.
I'm trying to think of all the times that a military coup has resulted in the restoration of a democracy.
Hmmm . . . (I'm open to suggestions).
Since the President is going to veto any and all legislation that would be worth anything, and since it seems to take a supermajority in Congress to pass a bill (When did that happen? And what good is a Congressional majority if you now have to have the other two branches of government in your pocket before you can do anything?) why don't we just spend the time impeaching Bush and Cheney instead?
And let's try not to worry quite so much about how it would reflect on Pelosi.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
