Letters to the Editor
Jeffrey P. Harrison
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 39
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Well, for what it's worth
[Read the article: Don't sell my company to Rupert Murdoch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I took the WSJ back in the '80s when I was an MBA student. I let my subscription lapse when I didn't have the money to afford it. It was a sad day for me because, while I refer to the WSJ as the Reactionary Rag because of it's op-ed page, I felt that the WSJ had the best, most balanced, and unbiased news reporting (mostly financial, of course) of any paper I'd seen.
Yesterday I received an offer from the WSJ for a trial subscription at a very good price. I now have the time and money to afford the WSJ. Nonetheless, the offer accelerated its way into the trash. Why? I figure the sale of the WSJ to Mr. Murdock is a forgone conclusion. I also figure that he'll be able to trash the paper in less time than my trial subscription would last. USA Today may be read by lots of people but that doesn't prevent it from being crap and Fox is the lineal descendent of the yellow journalism of Hearst and Pulitzer.
When I want news, I want, as Joe Friday used to say, just the facts, ma'am. Mr. Murdock is about the last person on the planet to give his readers that.
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And Reality, when when it's forced to wait for eventually,
[Read the article: Whose war is it, anyway?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]really bites.
I was one who, having lived in the Middle East, predicted pretty much exactly what happened. I further predict that if we get out now - get out - none of this training and securing borders crap - there will be bloodshed and they will sort it out and do so moderately quickly. The longer we stay, the worse the inevitable bloodshed will be.
I've often failed to understand how we can "lose" this war since we're not fighting a foreign invader of some sort. We're fighting the Iraqi people themselves which is pretty stupid since this is Iraq we're talking about and that's a guaranteed loser. We created this disaster although arguably it would have happened anyway upon Hussein's eventual death. Had that happened, however, there probably would have been far fewer dead Iraqis and no dead Americans.
In my opinion the Iraqi's should be able to hold the Shrubbites accountable in exactly the same way we want to hold Osama bin Laden accountable for a handful of fanatics flying airplanes into buildings.
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Fools
[Read the article: Should we stay or should we go?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. You might be able to prevent Iraq from being a massive al-Qaeda haven but you're not going to stop recruitment and you're not going to stop all visions of training that they may do. All the while, the troops that you have occupying the country (and remember only 22% of the Iraqi's want us there) will act as an accelerant for al-Qaeda. As an aside, you can bet that the government that was installed under our auspices will be viewed in much the same way that the Vichey government was seen in France after WWII.
2. We can't stop genocide now with 150,000+ troops. Indeed, our troops are part of the genocide. The recent estimates of between 300,000 and 700,000 dead Iraqi's made by people not associated with the current regime pretty much qualifies as genocide if you ask me. What, realistically, are you going to do with some "residual" force? Will there be bloodletting if we pull out entirely? Sure. Look at our own civil war. Will the bloodletting get worse? Maybe, maybe not. But whichever happens, it will last a lot less time than if we are there.
3. Prevent the war we started from metastasizing? Gimme a break! So what are we going to do if, let's say Turkey, decides to attack the Kurds in Iraq? Attack Turkey? Oh, that's a good way to prevent the war we started from spreading. I realize that this particular NO is directed at Syria and Iran. But all they have to do is sit back and pump weapons and know how to their factions in Iraq and sit back and watch us run around like our hair was on fire and our asses was catchin'. They're probably doing it now. They will do it more easily then if all we leave is some residual force.
The gentleman who came up with bright idea is a wishful thinking fool who clearly hasn't considered what would be necessary to make those three NOs happen. It's a sad thing to say that we made this mess and then we had to leave before we could clean it up. Maybe they would accept the Shrub-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis of evil and would be satisfied after they'd strung them up from the nearest light stanchion. I dunno. I do know that staying in Iraq is the wrong answer and will merely result in more Americans dying for no good reason.
We need to get the hell out of Iraq NOW.
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I guess it's all in how you use the letters.
[Read the article: Who are you, Anonymous?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Personally, I don't use posts on articles to talk to others who have read a particular article. I use the posts to talk to the author of the article. As such, I simply put my thoughts out and walk away, presuming that the author will peruse the various postings and get a sense of what people are thinking. But if you want to talk to me, you've got to send me an e-mail.
Which brings me to my point. What, really, is the difference between anon-e-mouse and the Jeffrey P. Harrison that appears at the bottom of the page? While that really is my name and I am a real person with both a physical and an e-mail address, where do I live? what is my e-mail address? Salon (like the Shadow) knows but nobody else does. I am neither famous, nor well known, nor even vaguely known. So from my perspective, there is no difference between anonymous and my name because there is no actual connection between me and the name that appears at the bottom of the post. So if you want to eliminate the anonymity, Salon will have to make some sort of a connection between the name/handle and the real person.
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It might also help
[Read the article: Spin cycle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If somebody had a clue as to what "winning" actually meant.