Letters to the Editor
GlennGreenwald
Published Letters: 2221 Editor's Choice: 18
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Multiple responses:
[Read the article: The complete myth driving our Iraq "debate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just catching up on comments now, so to respond to several points:
Cross1242:
I don't thing that Glenn's analysis is on the mark. Has the general public bought the Republican's argument that de-funding the war is betrayal of our troops? I haven't seen any polls on the point, but I'd bet that most Americans can see that voting "no" on Iraq funds is not going to leave our troops there without bullets or food.
You're just wrong. There is no need to guess or "bet" what the polls say. You should look at them. Virtually every one makes clear that Americans overwhelmingly oppose defunding even while favoring every other mechnaism for ending the war.
Why come here and start saying I'm wrong based on what you "bet" the polls say? They're easy to find and I even linked to them in the post.
USED TO BE KRISTIN:
I have long suspected that many of the Dems (such as Dianne Feinstein who has close family ties to the defense industry) want the war to continue.
The problem is talking about what motivates "Democrats" generally. There are several hundred of them in Congress alone, and they aren't monolithic. Some are truly against the war but are politically afraid to stop it. Others are truly against the war but listen to their consultants.
Still others pretend to be against the war but are really for it. And -- as I wrote before (in the February post I linked to in this post) -- some are truly against the war but want it to continue because it will benefit them politically.
GATOR90:
I don't think the Democrats should have capitulated to the threat of that scenario, but isn't that what they did? In other words, the notion that de-funding would harm the troops is sad and twisted, but given the character of the man who occupies the White House, not necessarily irrational.
Everyone including even people like John Yoo admit that the Constitution gives the Congress the power to stop the war by defunding it. If Democrats are afraid of a scenario that absurd - where they de-fund in ordre to stop an unpopular war but Bush says he will keep the troops there anyway without funds - then what aren't they afraid of?
FMD:
Perhaps Glenn has come to a clearer realization of the importance of "framing" to a debate?
My problem with "framing" is when it is expressed as a need to pick the right slogans and words for thing ("hey, just call it occupation instead of war and you'll win the debate!"). All I'm doing in this post is pointing out that something that has been accepted as true is, in fact, false. If that's an exercise in "framing," then that term is so broad as to have no meaning.
Vudicarus:
I hear and read over and over again that the Democrats are weak. They are afraid. You said these things yourself. You talked about "the principal flaw of Democrats". I hear things like "the Democrats are doing it again". I wonder why we talk about ourselves like that.
Because it's true, and pretending otherwise means it will never change.
JayAckroyd:
I'm aware Harman voted no. She said she was originally going to vote yes because she was thinking about the troops, but then decided to vote no in allegiance to her constiuents who are antiwar.
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Kovie:
[Read the article: The complete myth driving our Iraq "debate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As one of the people urging that this to be called an occupation and not war, I hope that I've made it clear that I'm doing this because I actually believe that it's much more of an occupation than a war--or a war that is directly due to an occupation--and not because I view it as merely or primarily rhetorically advantageous (which, though, I believe that it also is, but that's not my primary motivation for calling it an occupation and not war).
I agree it is more of an occupation than a war, though I think both terms are loose enough to encompass what is going on there. I just don't think that the key to swining the debate lies in which word is used. I frequently call it an occupation for accuracy rather than strategic reasons, though I call it a war sometimes, too.
I'm not referring to people who have a preference for certain words. I try myself to be careful about the words I choose. I'm referring to this newly emerged school of thought that seems to think that the solution lies in chosen words and slogans. I realize there are a lot of people who speak enthusiastically about "framing" who mean something more substantive, but there are plenty who don't.
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Libertarian at Large
[Read the article: The complete myth driving our Iraq "debate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But I'm starting to belabor the obvious here, so I'll conclude by offering up the explanation that perhaps Glenn wrote of "broken and dysfunctional media and political institutions" because he was contrasting in his mind how those two essentially corrupt and corporatized institutions *should* be functioning (in a genuine constitutional republic) with how they have in fact functioned for a very long time.
Yes, that's precisely what I mean.
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Springy:
[Read the article: The risks of staying]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What risks are these?
The risk that I explicitly referenced several times:
* The most glaring of these risks is the prospect of military conflict with Iran.
* And they are, with increasing explicitness, pining for war with Iran, and our occupation of Iraq -- military, strategically, and politically -- is what enables that conflict. How does that risk -- to say nothing of the multiple other risks from staying -- weigh against the risks of withdrawal?
* Whatever the "benefits" supposedly are from staying, are they worth incurring the substantial risk that we are enabling our country's warmongers to achieve their real goal of spreading our war beyond Iraq to their long list of Middle East Enemies, beginning with Iran?
As is true for any argument, there are many ways coherently to criticize the argument I made. But claiming that I failed to identify what the risks are from staying can only be the by-product of a failure to comprehend basic sentences.