Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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@ nabbleblather
[Read the article: The D.C. establishment versus American public opinion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your pathetic trashing against the inevitable tide of history is reminiscent of King Canute's attempts to command the waves. Despite your best efforts, President Bush will be remembered as the unleasher of American greatness and world leadership. You will have a rude shock on November 4, 2008 as President-Elect Rudy Giuliani obliterates Hillary Clinton in the most one-sided Presidential election in American history and the Republican Party makes a clean sweep of Congress which will make 1994 and 2002 look like a bagatelle. Pelosi and her defeatocrats will be jettisoned even in the most supposedly safe liberal districts as the American electorate spurns them with the utter disgust they richly deserve.
Ummm, Nabble: This is Sept., 2007, not October, 2006.
Cheers,
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Glenn, quoting a poll:
[Read the article: A one-day guide to war supporters and their enablers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seven out of 10 Iraqis believe the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and Anbar province has made security worse in those areas, and nearly as many say their own lives are going badly, according to a new poll conducted by ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp., and the Japanese broadcaster NHK.
But ... but ... but ... dontcha know, we can't base our foreign policy on polls!!! Not to mention, I'm sure the polling techniques suffered from the same methodological flaws as the Lancet study, interviewing Amurkah haters, Terra-ists, Mooslims, and others with an axe to grind, not to mention oversampling major streets where all the bombs are going off and bodies are being dumped (I hear tell they found 12 more bodies on Sunday shot execution-style)....
Cheers,
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Some whiner wrote:
[Read the article: A one-day guide to war supporters and their enablers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most posts are the same whine...
Yes. So STFU, Sh**ter. Go get yourself your own miserable blog where everyone can (and will) ignore your vacuous whining. Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
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"Progress"
[Read the article: A one-day guide to war supporters and their enablers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Progress would be if we had a country where everyone was (relatively) safe. Aingonnahappen. So the surge might have resulted in a downward blip in some stats. Not good enough. Nowhere near a pacific country and a stable state. We'll continue to be shot at and bombed as long as we're there, surge or no. And the Iraqis will continue their sectarian war as long as they want (and right now they have every incentive to), and nothing the surge does will ameliorate this.
Not to mention, even if the surge did do what it's supposed to do, where are we? If it "works", the logical conclusion would be that we'd have to keep that level of troops there to maintain the surge "progress", so WTF is this talk about a "surge"?
Cheers,
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The PROPER answer
[Read the article: Brit Hume and the Bush administration take propaganda to a new level]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]HUME: Would you say that we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today in terms of sectarian violence in Iraq generally had not Al Qaeda been present and active there?
PETRAEUS: That's correct.
We wouldn't be in the situation we are in today if we had the good sense to know that invading and occupying a country that posed no threat to us was a blitheringly stoopid idea.
As noted (by Sylvester Reyes, IIRC) in the testimony yesterday, "al Qaeda in Iraq" is a purposeful conflation of two separate groups, and didn't even exist until after we invaded and gave them room to operate. If the real "al Qaeda" was the McDonald's of terrorist organisations (and if the locals in Iraq didn't serve their purposes), the al Qaeda lawyers would be all over the Iraqi upstarts like flies on sh*te for trademark infringement.
Not to mention the fact that most of the terrorism in Iraq (as acknowledged by even the maladministration) is perpertrated by locals, not the alleged "al Qaeda in Iraq". Petraeus tries to finesse this by pretending that the few "AQII" are providing the inspiration, instigation, and direction that causes all the other violence. Simply NOT TRUE. Purposeful confabulation, and all for rhetorical and political effect.
Cheers,
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Suppressing Iraqi violence
[Read the article: Brit Hume and the Bush administration take propaganda to a new level]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Petraeus had any brains, he'd have noted that the means by which Saddam Hussein had kept the country together and relatively peaceful was through horrible violations of human rights and freedom. Why anyone thinks that a "surge" of troops, absent any change in 'policy' which we couldn't condone, will work is a mystery to me.
If Petraeus has any common sense, he'd have read his military history and know that there is essentially no guerrilla movement that has ever been defeated militarily. Just can't be done. Once it was unleashed in Iraq, the act just couldn't (and can't) be reversed.
Cheers,
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Perhaps the way to frame the argument:
[Read the article: Brit Hume and the Bush administration take propaganda to a new level]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Glenn, from a comment]: I don't think there's any doubt that Congress will not enact any bill which forces the president to withdraw troops from Iraq or limit his troop deployment powers in any way.
Dubya's looking (as usual, with an eye to partisan advantage) to drag out the war to the next president's term, pretend it was going good up to that point, and then tar the next administration (and/or the Democrats) with "losing the war" when they eventually bail (as they must).
Time for the smart people to step up and say: "You've had six years! That was more than enough to defeat Hitler and Japan. It was your baby, your call. And it's your war. We've given you whatever you wanted. We will not fight your war after you are gone, period. No one is going to bail you out like in Harken. You have until Jan. 2009 to wrap it up, and make the best of it you can. It's not our problem. Now get cracking."
Cheers,
"P.S.: If you couldn't do it in six years, maybe you shouldn't have started...."
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Some eedjit wrote:
[Read the article: Brit Hume and the Bush administration take propaganda to a new level]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here we have yet another example of exactly why someone like Petraeus ignores the anti-war blogoshpere... immaturity.
Immaturity (n): Acting like a cheerleader [see, e.g. "Commander Codpiece" and "Yale] in situations that dictate sobriety. Example: "Feels good" (accompanied by a raised fist) on bombing other countries.
That's the only example I see around here. "Stoopidity" is another issue; Sh**ter exemplifies that attribute on a daily basis.
Cheers,