Letters to the Editor
MereMortal
Published Letters: 151 Editor's Choice: 19
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Isn't there are larger point?
[Read the article: The fighting side of McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I always enjoy the letters page of Salon. The letters often compliment the article adding really offbeat angles and higlighting the non-obvious dimensions of the issue. That's the strength of a diverse and intelligent user community, people bring vastly different perspectives.
I think the larger issue is not that McCain is a better/worse version of Bush because McCain fought in Vietnam etc...
Isn't the problem more simply that America is now completely sick of the right? These moralizing self-aggrandizing extremists, with their unhinged party machine. Didn't the citizenry despite all the dirty tricks that happen in banana republic voting-land that is now the US, call time on Rove in the midterms? isn't that the main story?
so whether you bring McCain or any other right winger, isn't the larger context that the right's crazed self-serving reaction to 9/11 has been a bitter pill for the whole world including now the clear majority of US citizens?
I'm a huge fan of SB and this is a fine article, but it's time for incisive epitaphs to bygone eras (and good riddance) and not splitting hairs about the backwash of the last remaining crazies like McCain.
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well he is entitled to his view but eventually he shows his true colours
[Read the article: How the left caused 9/11, by Dinesh D'Souza]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought he seemed quite reasonable as far as it goes. It's true that the Muslim world is very fearful of the very liberalness, not just of America but of the West. Sayed Kutb was horrified when he came to the US in the 50s to discover that men and women actually had full body contact in the church hall dances he witnessed and also that the typical American suburbanite spent so much time manicuring his lawn. He was later tortured and executed by the Egyptians at the behest of the CIA. There is a famous article in the New Yorker that attributes Zawahiri's hatred of the US to his torture (using methods learned at the feet of the CIA) when he was held in captivity for the assassination of Saddat.
It's not absurd to say that religious and conservative muslim countries are fearful of liberal values (that will inevitably corrupt their own values). But there is a schism in Islam because plenty of people don't wish to be ruled with such an iron rod. The extremism is a rearguard action by those that wish to reinforce that rule, hence it's as much about convincing the muslim world as it to 'pay back' the west.
Gwynne Dyer the historian explains this seeming madness and I'm paraphrasing:
why would the taliban care if someone listens to a cassette tape, or a woman wasn't fully covered etc..Because they have come to reason that the major change since Islam was in the ascendant (the middle ages) was a drop in the standards of obeisance to god's strictures around these things; ergo-> god is punishing Islam for not taking him literally at his word. Therefore, to regain god's favour no detail is too small in order to be seen as a good 'observer'. Hence it is vitally important if Islam is to rise again for them to enforce ruthlessly all of god's dictats about dress and conduct down to the smallest detail. Since they are such fatalists, they have chosen to abase themselves at the feet of Allah, and when he sees that they have done so he will grant mercy and Islam will be ascendent again. These sartorial/behavioural details far from being absurd are highly relevant to showing full compliance with the will of Allah.
When D'souza strays into this territory:
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So in a sense what I'm trying to do is say that conservatives should hold the left accountable and should point out that the left, in order to pursue its own political objectives, is endangering American security and stability in the Middle East, because I think that there are a lot of people on the left who are essentially acting in reckless disregard of what would happen in Iraq if America pulled out. They don't care! They basically want to see Bush humiliated. They basically want to take national security, which has been a winning issue for the Republicans, and put it as a millstone around Bush's neck, and it's quite clear they could care less what happens in Iraq afterward.
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I think he's skating on really thin ice. In fact I think that that paragraph is an intellectual disgrace. Yes liberals want to see Bush discredited, but that's because they know that Iraq is a meatgrinder and they want accountability. Also, it's not just Liberal America that wants out of Iraq, it's the clear majority of US citizens. They know that Nothing the US does will fix Iraq and that is not worth to them the life of one single extra soldier. In order for him to make that case without acknowledging the monstrous venality, mendacity and corruption of Bush et al, is in itself an excercise in colossal self-deceit and it's enough to render him non-credible.
Iraq is SO gone man, admit it and deal with it.
The reason? incredibly simple:
It's not the porn or the Hollywood movies, it's just that nobody likes to be occupied by foreigners. If the US was full of Iraqi troops, I'm pretty sure that there'd be insurgencies everywhere, no matter what case the Iraqis gave for why it's better for us to have them here.
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oh dear...
[Read the article: My wife is lying to me about her affair]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW is as deluded (sorry) as his wife is devious and mixed up.