Letters to the Editor
Jeffrey P. Harrison
Published Letters: 336 Editor's Choice: 39
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The new crusades will end up much like the old
[Read the article: The emperor's new peace plan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The history of the Middle East on a thumbnail.
The Middle East historically was the home to a respectable number of Arab (Semite) tribes. These tribes spent a fair amount of time running around trying to kick the ass of the other tribes and create petty (meaning relatively small) kingdoms. One bunch of these Arab tribes, calling themselves Jews, were doing the same thing. Like their neighbors the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Sumerians, etc etc, they created a tin-pot kingdom that alternatively flourished and was conquered.
Then the big, bad Romans came in and kicked everybody's ass for good and sucked most of the area up in their empire. From its zenith, this empire spent around 1200 years breaking up and slowly collapsing. In the middle of all this, a new religion arose, called Islam, that started creating its own empire based on religion (as opposed to tribal affiliation). The Holy Roman Empire (originally called the Eastern Roman Empire) slowly contracted over several hundred years under the onslaught of Islam.
Around the last millennium, the Christian kingdoms of Europe got it in their heads that they should be running the Levant (as it was then called) since it was the birthplace of their religion (as opposed to today where Jewish replaces Christian in the birthplace thingy). They mounted the Crusades which put the coup de grace to the Holy Roman Empire and established a couple of European/Christian kingdoms that lasted a century or so before being overwhelmed by the local populace.
Fast forward 1000 years and we find a bunch of European Jews this time getting it in their heads that they should be running the Levant since that was their ancestral homeland. The fact that they haven't lived there for two millennia is a mere fillip. So, like their Christian progenitors of a millennium before, they have carved out a small kingdom that is a foreign graft on the indigenous population. Since it is a foreign graft imposed on the indigenous population, it will probably last as long as the Christian kingdoms did.
The only question is: Which empire will be getting the coup de grace? The answer to that question is left as an exercise for the student.
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Aw, come on...
[Read the article: Bush on Iran: I didn't know about halt to weapons program (but it doesn't matter)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the land of faith based decision making, you didn't seriously think that reality based decisions would suddenly be getting made anytime soon, did you?
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Bullshit
[Read the article: The case against homeownership]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's leave aside the existential and the philosophical. Let's talk dollars and cents. Most places have rents which are commensurate with mortgages if not higher. Last place I lived, my mortgage on a three bedroom house was $591. I could have rented my house for over $1000. And I'm not even approaching the issue of the freedom from having somebody trying to tell you what you can and can't do in your own home. So if you want to enrich the rentier class and impoverish the proletariat, go ahead and rent.
And, as long as we are talking about turns of phraseology...
I am offended at your phrase libertarian nihilism. Libertarianism is a political philosophy. Nihilism is a philosophy of life. Libertarians are not ipso facto nihilists and, in fact, I suspect very few of them are. Conflating the two is a disservice.
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A Question
[Read the article: An Iran bombshell for Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why do we run around labeling any country that isn't doing what we want them to do "a problem"?
I answer this question by saying that the defacto principles of American foreign policy have been a complete lack of respect for the right of other sovereign nations to act in their own interests and that, by definition, anything that they do that isn't what we want them to do, represents an effort to harm American interests, real, imagined, or contrived. I don't expect this to change regardless of whoever The Next Occupant is.
Once a country has been determined to be a problem, the US will use our financial muscle, our military might, and compliant client states to coerce whoever has pissed us off into compliance. This is all done under the rubric of thwarting "a threat to American security". Unfortunately, what constitutes "a threat to American security" is never defined. You'd think that the ability to strike the US would be a threat to our national security but Russia can strike the US and they are not a threat but Iraq, who didn't have a hope in hell of attacking the US, was a threat. You'd think that being able to disrupt our financial systems would constitute a threat. But China, which has the power, should they be willing to pay the price, to bring our financial systems to their knees tomorrow afternoon yet they are not labeled "a threat".
It would also be good if the media types would insert a badly needed touch of skepticism. It would be good to remind the American people when the current regime starts in with their hyperventilated jingoism about Nazi Germany and appeasement, that Germany was an industrial and engineering powerhouse long before WWII. I can't imagine anybody attempting the same claim for either Iran or Iraq (well, the ideologes in this regime excepted).
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Right
[Read the article: Romney: "Freedom requires religion" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And more to the point, the sooner that we stop using the rules of specific versions of Christianity to drive our political decision making and start sticking to principles (which are pretty common across religions), the better off we'll be.