Letters to the Editor
ploeg
Published Letters: 4
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Second lesson
[Read the article: The president receives "lessons" from his neoconservative tutors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am particularly interested about the second lesson:
> Whereas World War II was almost over before
> Americans saw the first picture of a dead soldier,
> today the steady drumbeat of media pessimism and
> television coverage are sapping the West's will.
I cannot speak to actual photography. If you review the propoganda posters being used during WWII, there is no shortage of pictures of drowning sailors or paratroopers hanging lifelessly from trees, with the admonition "Someone Talked!" or "Finish The Job" underneath. The WWII generation might not have been fully aware of all the many ways in which our troops died, but to say that it would have sapped their will to complete the mission is laughable. You worry about that only when the cause in itself does not have sufficient support.
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No
[Read the article: Kit Bond and the credibility of war supporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Greenwald fails to realize that it is possible for one to back one strategy for as long as it seems to be working, and then drop that strategy and try another when it ceases to work. In this case, Bush's strategy worked like a charm until we encountered the disaster of November 7, 2006. After 11/7 hit, President Bush took immediate, decisive action, and cashiered Rumsfeld, reorganized the military leadership, and enabled The Generals to develop the new Surge Strategy. Bond might have thought that the old strategy was working, but he had a pre-11/7 mentality. Bond now realizes that, in our post-11/7 world, it is essential for us to come up with a sexy name for essentially the same strategy and use it as a rallying point so that we never have another 11/7.
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Erratum
[Read the article: American war culture in a nutshell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jim Webb's son returned from Iraq earlier this year, and they were interviewed together on NPR this past Fathers Day.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11091821
Regardless, the point still stands that it is rich for these people to insist that our soldiers continue to serve for as long as they continue to screw up.
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Sourcing
[Read the article: Democratic complicity in Bush's torture regimen]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Uh, the sources for this article seem to be Goss, Hayden, and "a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange." Unless we find out more, we have to presume that these are all people who need to drag whoever they can into the mess to cover their own asses.
But it was printed in the Sunday Washington Post, so it must be true.