Letters to the Editor
bystander
Published Letters: 1348
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William Timberman
[Read the article: National Review reporter caught fabricating; where is the "liberal media"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not sure what to think. Since the analysis, apparently, has been available for 6 months, my first question goes something like, Why now? Is there anything about the timing of the report's release that is significant? This from McClatchy:
...The Democratic-controlled Congress ordered the production of the NIE amid concerns that the Bush administration was hyping the threat as it had in Iraq.
The report was to have been completed last spring, but senior intelligence officials had said they wouldn't declassify the key judgments. Administration officials held internal discussions about whether or not to release unclassified portions of the intelligence estimate, said a State Department official familiar with the issue.
In the end, said the official, it was decided that if the unclassified summary wasn't made public, that would increase the chances that classified parts of the document might leak. If that were to happen, the administration would be accused of suppressing intelligence that found that Iran's nuclear program wasn't as immediate a threat as the White House had suggested.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Then there are questions about the effect of the report's release on the UN's efforts to bring China and Russia on board to impose more punitive sanctions. To my thinking, this report clearly scrambles the marbles. It also undercuts the neocon drumbeat for war. The effect the report might have seems real uncertain to me. We've seen Bush/Cheney play in crazy gear before. That this report is being widely covered in all the major news outlets I can find suggests that if Bush deals from the bottom of the deck again, we're all going to be highly aware of it. Will that be enough to stop him? People seem absolutely unwilling to imagine that the US *could* live with a nuclear Iran. There are lots of force/power vectors in play. I just don't know.
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WT, I'd also flag this
[Read the article: National Review reporter caught fabricating; where is the "liberal media"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Chris Floyd (one of Glenn's substitute teachers awhile back) doesn't strike me as the most optimistic person in the world, yet has a fairly encouraging take on the NIE release. I haven't read his post in full yet, but I think its worth a look, if you haven't seen it.
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Oink!
[Read the article: National Review reporter caught fabricating; where is the "liberal media"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At the risk of being a thread-hog, I'd note one other thing. For those interested, MoveOn recently released an appeal to sign a petition asking Congress to forestall an attack on Iran.
http://pol.moveon.org/pac/noiranwar/
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Tedium is I
[Read the article: National Review reporter caught fabricating; where is the "liberal media"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Last link, honest. I'm shutting down and logging off after this.
Question: Will Bush's intenational isolation (and ours) work for, or aginst a strike on Iran?
Degree of isolation described here:
The New Yorker
Follow the Leaders
by Hendrik Hertzberg December 10, 2007
Regime change was one of the stated goals of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Unlike cleansing the place of weapons of mass destruction and breaking up the alleged Baghdad-Al Qaeda nexus, it was a reality-based goal; and, unlike the other two (which were as unattainable and unnecessary as ridding the moon of green cheese), it was actually accomplished. Saddam Hussein’s regime has indeed been changed—though what it has been changed into, of course, is not quite what was intended.
And regime change, it turns out, is infectious—a militarily transmittable disease, almost invariably fatal, so far, to any political party or head of government so careless of hygiene as to have had intimate relations with the Bush Administration’s Mesopotamian misadventure....
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the influence and direction of citizen effect
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It may be a fiction, but if it be fiction, it gives me a certain amount of hope/strength for the efforts required going forward. So, Kitt, thanks for reminding me in the murky world of human affairs, it is hard to know the direction of cause and effect. I am certain there are feedback loops in this system, and it's hard for me to guess where the points of leverage are, or where an amplification of other voices might occur. For those who might want to feed their sense of self-efficacy (albeit, potentially, fictitious) MoveOn.org is sponsoring a petition for Congress to exercise its authority over a declaration of war on Iran. Who knows on what slender threads our human ecology hangs... a butterfly's wings, and all that.
http://pol.moveon.org/pac/noiranwar/
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Iran Nuclear Watch
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For those who may not have seen it, I'll hoist up from the previous thread a link sysprog offered:
http://irannuclearwatch.blogspot.com/
Thanks, sysprog. It's a really good link and offers an interesting discussion of the NIE release. Clearly, its sense of the timeline was better than McClatchy's. Thanks for the correction. Yeah, it is curious how McClatchy credited the Democratic congress, isn't it? I have no clue...
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Andy S
[Read the article: Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously how does a world leader get away with an answer like that when he has been caught inciting war against a nation who turns out not to pose anything like the threat that he and his government and generals have repeatedly, publicly stated?
I continue to wonder if Bush is, indeed, President. Maybe like Jeremy Bentham, Cheney had him stuffed, and the NIH with the DoD figured out how to make a 'droid' out of him; an innovation over Bentham's auto-icon. Cheney trots the droid out for special occasions such as this. I've given up trying to explain the inexplicable. Your question is a good one, and a fair one to ask, but what answer would make it make sense?
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Drew Rodgers
[Read the article: Time magazine refused to publish responses to Klein's false smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](Also good for an ad hoc flyswatter - Roll and Whapp!!!)
LOL. Thanks. Humor under the circumstances helps. I wouldn't use that technique to discipline a dog, but a 2X4 across Time's nose is sounding really good to me.
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OT reminder
[Read the article: Time magazine refused to publish responses to Klein's false smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]FISA will go up for Senate review very soon. The ACLU is sending out action alerts to remind folks to contact their elected representatives.