Letters to the Editor
Bill Owen
Published Letters: 509 Editor's Choice: 6
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@ Asher S Was it "worth it"?
[Read the article: Robbing the cradle of civilization, five years later]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It was more than just a "museum" sir. Where I come from the museums are filled with 300 year pots from France. In Iraq, they held the first chapter in man's history. Held.
Civilization began in ancient Sumer, the "Land of the Lords of Brightness", and now those pages have been torn from the book of man - forever. In a thousand years no one will remember Donald "democracy is messy" Rumsfeld, but they will remember this atrocity.
You said it was "worth it" to get rid of Saddam; how provincial. The mission was not to "get rid of Saddam", it was to find the weapons. The weapons that were not there, the weapons, that some of us at least, knew were not there. And even if they were, that they were not a threat.
Some people, a few billion or so, think that George Bush is an evil dictator. Certainly he has killed more Iraqi's than Saddam, and is working hard, as he likes to say, to kill many more.
If we could "take him out" and in the process, kill millions of Americans and destroy your cultural heritage (the cowboy museum in Dallas for instance) would that be "worth it"?
In Baghdad, the electricity is, to this day, on for 1 hour a day - maybe.
I often wonder where some people buy their calculators.
Moral relativism is a disease.
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The Only Reason People are Unhappy about Iraq
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The only reason Americans, Liberal or otherwise, are "unhappy" (as opposed to the Iraqi's who are "dead") is that America lost that war.
I remember a time, not so long ago, when everyone in America was for the war.
What did they think? That Saddam would be scared off that damn hill? That no children would die?
I know this is too broad a brush. That there were many in America who were "against" the war. But you take my point.
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Homer Simpson - American
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How many times have we seen Homer reach into boiling water for a hot dog, scream, pull his hand, then immediately reach back in again.
How can America remember anything, when everything, everything, not rose coloured and wrapped in the flag of glory, goes down the memory hole?
Most Americans think they "won" in Korea.
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@ cryptic Whose media?
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whose media?
Don't Americans know about used car salesmen?
What about ordinary, decent, human restraint?
Where was that?
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@ Jason, The Iraqi Dead
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Defendant: Your honor, I only killed 30,000 people, not 300,000! This is a bum rap!
His honor: Case dismissed.
In the case of a unnecessary war - a war for oil, empire and Israel.
1 is too many.
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Brendan O'Neil on the hypocrisy of Liberal War supporters
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When former cheerleaders of war, former warmongers and former war-supporting journalists suddenly become anti-war, it makes me suspicious. It often seems that, for such people, being anti-war is little more than a cynical posture, a way of scoring points by joining the critique of an unpopular war. They appear to be serving themselves, rather than serving the potential victims of war.
-- Brendan O’Neill
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@rebmarks The Slippery Slope of the Global Policeman
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What about Bosnia you ask? Good question.
What about Somalia?
What about Colombia?
What about the 'commie dictatorship' in Valenzuela?
What about Zimbabwe?
Darfur?
What is the argument for or against "intervening" in those places?
It's not your business.
The rest of the world is not your problem. If you want to send wheat. Go ahead. We can do without the bombs.
The world might not mind "America as cop" so much, if there interventions were not, shall we say, so self-interested.
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@ fly man
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...and March 2003 happens to mark the only time that we ever decided to intervene, after a protracted and open public debate, on the right side and for the right reasons. This must, and still does, count for something."
You're kidding right? Open and fair debate - that's hilarious, I must have missed it, was it on FOX?
There is good reason to believe that Bush had decided to attack Iraq, prior to 911.
And what do you mean the "only time we ever decided to intervene"?
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
America has killed millions and millions of people, and this is just since WWII.
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@ Kryptic
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The only reason 'everyone' in America was for the war was because the Media said so. There were no voices against the war because they were effectively silence by lack of exposure, and the drum beat of 'inevitability'.
No, everyone was "for" the war. They were for it because America was pissed and wanted to "kick some ass" (read: mass murder brown people), you needed the oil, and your entire economy is based on war. Down deep, all Americans know this. It is most certainly what the rest of the world knows.
It takes two for a lie to work. One to tell it and one to believe.
Next time there is war planned, like the upcoming one in Iran, don't try to get "exposure" in the media. Take it to the streets. It's the only thing they listen to.
Don't blame the media. That is a terrible, sad excuse.
You are right about the "inevitability". If you make a rifle, inevitably you kill a man. America has a lot of rifles.
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@ blank of Arabia
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Okay, so that's your theory (wrong by the way) on why the Arabs hate America.
What I want to know is... why do you hate Arabs?
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@Kryptic
[Read the article: Lessons not learned]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am not absolving the media of responsibility. They are as guilty as the bastards in the Rwandan media, who for weeks exhorted the hutus to slaughter the tutsi "cockroaches".
And they did under report the numbers. Absolutely, and may they burn in hell for their crimes, you are correct about that, I saw it personally.
"They" knew the real numbers though, and those numbers were simply not high enough. The "threat" to the oligarchy was simply not credible.
People do feel helpless. Maybe they are.