Letters to the Editor
MereMortal
Published Letters: 151 Editor's Choice: 19
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what is there left to add?
[Read the article: A bombshell with a long fuse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The whole propaganda in the lead-up to the 'liberation' of Iraq was relentlessly disciplined and on-message. It's aim was simple. Increase US control in the region. A quick and successful decapitation, a pliant country, bases, plug Iraq into the US financial network, oil etc...and you have a good springboard to terrorise Iran and Syria and the other so-called axis of evil powers.
It was this massive and ambitious desire for control by some fairly incompetent self-deceiving amateurs that has ironically resulted in a nightmare loss of control. Yes the ISG is an intervention, but some things really are best not started. It's impossible to unscramble the omelette.
The ISG is a fig-leaf for a president who is no way a competent or clear-sighted thinker, regardless of any rumour that he is smarter in private than he seems to be in public.
James Baker more so than Lee Hamilton always looks very pissed off to me when he tries to claim that Bush is listening to him. He's a proud man Baker, he is not happy about how jnr's petulance is making him look.
We now have to commit more blood and treasure to save jnr's face. Oh the folly of the human condition, twas ever thus, the vainglorious and the proud will commit any further crime to deflect from the gathering public gaze at their unmasked failure. It's by the same logic that when asked "knowing what you know now, would you still invade Iraq" that both Bush and Blair say "of course", when 'of course' is of course in this context the answer of an insane person.
It says something about the hollowness of public life, that we haven't run these two charlatans out of town instead of debating the finer points of troop levels being raised or moved around like so much shuffling of the remaining deckchairs on the proverbial....
Kamiya is right in my view, when Bush has been and gone, the lessons of this fiasco have been , are, and will be so painful, that if I was Olmert right now, I'd be very worried indeed. That's why he recently delivered an astonishing pean of overblown proportions to Bush and stated with a straight face that the Iraq war had brought stability to the Middle East. I ask you! I mean Really! Lying on this level is tantamount to mental illness.
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Ignore Cary's advice
[Read the article: West Bank or U.S.? Boyfriend or job? Seeking two-state solution]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I like Cary a lot, and I find he sometimes opens my eyes to some very subtle things that I sort of knew but had never articulated so well.
I think he is flat wrong here.
You say that the thought of letting go of your boyfriend leaves you feeling sick to the stomach.
Well there's an indication if ever there was one, that you should not leave him. You have to think about your career, but you also have to think about your relationship. We need oxygen but we need food too, they are not mutually exclusive.
Why can't you try to sort out your career and make it very clear to your boyfriend that you envisage a future together and to reassure him and get reassurances from him that neither of you will do anything stupid to jeopordize what you have. What's one or two years in the scheme of things if you intend to share a lifetime. Right now this is very tough for both of you but you can survive it if you both deal with this in a wise way. It's one of the great deceptions of being in bad times that it convinces us that things will always be like this, that we will somehow not get through this.
My final thoughts are contingent on you being very sure that you love your boyfriend and that he is irreplacable:
Think very hard about this, is he all you want in life as a person (never mind the practicalities) is he your soulmate? if you both have an excellent relationship that is only marred by geographical circumstance you can do something to be together. If you have doubts about long term happiness regardless of geographical circumstance, maybe this cleavage away from him is focussing your mind on the fact that it is not absolutely vital for you to keep him in your life.
Think very hard about this, as, if you or he go off with someone else just due to loneliness and separation you may forfeit (I emphasize may) your one chance at true happiness in this life. A great partner that really feels right is worth a million times their weight in platinum or diamonds.
err...That's all I have to say.
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The tectonic plates are shifting decisively
[Read the article: Mugged by reality]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The neocons must not only fail, but they must be seen to fail in an unequivocal and total way. It is incumbent on the US commentariat everywhere who care about truth and decent clearsighted values, to grab every chance to umask them and their destructive ideology. Dredge up any document, example and argument to send them scurrying back into their holes and never again let them speak without the fear of being contradicted, as has been the case for the last 5 years.
Upon hearing that the Iraq war is now more unpopular than the Vietnam war ever was, I sensed that an ENORMOUS shift is occuring right now in the US political landscape. Despite any protestations to the contrary by the key protagonists, now is an immensely uncomfortable time to be a neocon or a supporter of neocons. This is the only fitting outcome for these people.
This fine article is another brick in the putative edifice, that will serve in the longer run, to wholly discredit them.