Letters to the Editor
Jkalos
Published Letters: 474 Editor's Choice: 3
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Jayman
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for your post. Its worth seeing again:
A little perspective about Senator McCain's foreign experience: McCain still maintains, as he always has, that the USA should have and could have won the war in Vietnam. This is the bedrock of his “experience”. This is what we know about that. His experience in Vietnam was 22 bombing runs over Vietnam and one unsuccessful run where he was shot down, imprisoned and tortured for 5.5 years in Hanoi. His experience in Vietnam is analogous to an Afghani fighter captured in Afghanistan and put in Guantonimo for 5.5 years. That Afghani would understand as much about the USA and its people as McCain learned in his experience about the Vietnamese. (The biggest difference in those two experiences is that McCain actually killed thousands—which may make his torture by the Vietnamese more understandable.)
If McCain had studied the history of Vietnam he would know we should never have waged that war and would never have succeeded. If he had studied the history of that nationalistic war for independence he would have realized the immoral nature of his bombing runs. The Vietnamese have been successfully beating back foreign invaders for the last 1000 years in the same way they defeated us.
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maniondl
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your experience with your relative nails it:
"Across the board, even moderate/swing Republicans were outraged that the gaffe was presented for their dissection. Their response: "He's suffered for his country and has earned the right" to screw up, to be hard line, to do whatever you name. His extreme, soul-destroying torture over five years is an important issue to voters looking for a sense of ethos and traditionalism in a time of intense conflict within and outside our country."
Emotionally driven non-sequiters that cannot be countered with rational persuasion unless your interlocuter has a profound commitment to reason as the final arbiter. I feel it myself, a sort of awe at what he went through and survived. With such things you enter a sort of mythic space that short circuits rational argument in a very depressing way.
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Bill Owen
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]thanks for the info on EFPs. Another bit of empirical evidence is always nice to have.
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Well, Gary Owen
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]you are a veritable fount of useful info. I now have a new hero in my pantheon, Mai Van On. What a beautiful human being he was. What a real hero. Now I know who the real hero is.
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this is great stuff, anonymust
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for posting it.
But, say the converted liberal hawks, now what?
Here's what. First, we recognize that the Bush administration committed a crime in the name of the American people. Then we do what it takes, both psychologically and financially, to repair the crime. The very first thing that this means is that every American who has in some way profited from this crime must relinquish the fruits of the crime. That means the oil companies. That means the contractors. That means the US government. We cannot keep anything that the Iraqis owned before we took it away from them. We cannot have their land. We cannot have their oil or its profits. We cannot have any sort of power over them. Here is what is preventing the US from leaving Iraq -- the US still wants something from Iraq and the Iraqis that we have no right to. It is the desire to salvage some part of what the Bush administration thought would be easy to claim that is keeping us there, and it is the unspoken complicity of the Democrats and the "prowar liberals" in this that makes it so hard for them to accept the failure of the enterprise.
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A Mosaic
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/15983/original.jpg
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Mosaic (continued)
[Read the article: Journalists, McCain and the false Iran/al-Qaida link]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]of the 4000 dead.
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@WT
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nice essay (Symbology). Thanks for writing it (glad to read it).
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Sylvain, thanks
[Read the article: Seduced by the Dalai Lama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]you said: "If Bayard had any background at all on the matter he would know that the Dalai Lama does indeed offer counsel to Buddhists who have suffered horrible torture. In fact, he often tells the story of a monk who was imprisoned by the Chinese for eighteen years; after his release and escape from Tibet, the monk was asked whether he ever felt he was in danger. Yes, he said, he was sometimes in danger of losing his compassion for the Chinese."
I once hosted that monk, I think: his name was Palden Gyatso. Palden-la was one of the best human beings I have ever met.
I pity Salon for running this mindless article at such a critical time. How sad for the editors responsible, to be so ignorant.
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And cahcap, thank you too
[Read the article: Seduced by the Dalai Lama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You speak for me.
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Saddam decided to sell Iraqi oil for euros rather than dollars
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is that true? does anyone know? fascinating fact if true.
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thanks, bah
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for the old saying 'they know more and more about less and less and eventually they will know everything about nothing.': which I had somehow never heard of but understood instantly when I read it (it's like one of Zeno's paradoxes, somehow, strange but with a truth in it).
And based on my experience, never get married but keep on reading blogs.
I don't know about the egg sandwiches and greens, though.
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bucky1
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have been, alas, teaching logic and studying Greek and such, and am only lately repairing my sad lack of current political knowledge. I know more about Plato's Theatetus then I do about what currencies oil is traded in.(i touch my clown nose and make a sad face, reluctantly joining the spectacle).
thanks for the link.
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Yes, it's true. I thought everyone knew that.
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]*touches clown nose sadly again*
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RMP
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]applause, sir, for what you just said.
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yes, thanks to all
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for the links and documentation. They are what is most useful.