Letters to the Editor
Dr. B
Published Letters: 6 Editor's Choice: 1
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The crazy uncles in Obama's attic
[Read the article: The crazy uncles in Obama's attic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Khalidi has gone so far as to say that 'we owe reparations to the Iraqi people.'"
You're joking, right? This is crazy? Not the view that seems to prevail in Washington--that the U.S. has given that ungrateful country a "gift" by causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands and creating the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War?
Perhaps you think us so very noble for giving a few hundred Iraqis asylum in this good, generous land.
I expect this kind of crap from my TV--not from *Salon.*
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Don't forget...
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...about all of the security analysts and regional experts who were against this thing from the beginning, including many who have never been on the left. Although it is true that crazy ultranationalist right-wing views are ably represented and nobody to the left of centrist liberals like Bill Moyers or Phil Donahue is allowed a microphone (and theirs are sometimes taken away), it is also true that a huge swath of foreign policy realists and other conservatives are also frozen out. A voice like Andrew Bacevich's--a veteran and international relations prof who opposed this venture from day one and who lost his son in Iraq last year--would in any sane republic be far more prominent than the op-ed and think-tank know-nothings who continue to infantilize the discussion; see last fall's analysis of Petraeus's testimony, http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_09_24/article2.html
Little has been written about what it means for the separation of powers that while Congressional Democrats and Republicans get together to condemn MoveOn ads, or engage in disgusting banter about the need for Iraqis to "take responsibility for themselves," or enable the administration with resolutions on Iran, it was up to people in the most secretive parts of the government to stage a coup with the latest Iran NIE.
I think you're right that our media bear a huge responsibility for this state of affairs, and that the oversight you're doing is invaluable for that reason alone. But the problem, as I think you know, goes well beyond freezing out the left--it goes to disallowing any thoughtful discussion whatsoever that doesn't embrace ridiculous premises (that's why the NYU prof on the Rose show you clipped has to spend so much time questioning Charlie's questions).
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update
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nice clarification on the update, and use of Walt. One of the weirdest premises of the neocon fantasy has always been that more Middle East democracy=more pro-Americanism and less anti-Zionism, when anyone who knows anything about the history would assume the opposite (note that this is not an argument against Middle East democracy).
I recently heard the granddaddy of neo-realism, Kenneth Waltz, call the U.S. a "rogue state"--Bush has brought "Right" and "Left" together, making us all remember our liberal democratic fundamentals, which hopefully aren't relics of a bygone, pre-Coulter/Limbaugh age....
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January 2002 Gonzales memo references war crimes
[Read the article: John Yoo's war crimes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for this post.
As the son of an Austrian Jewish refugee, these past years have really made me reflect anew about things I always heard and believed about "good Germans." I do feel, like Mr. Greenwald does, that just continuing to go to work in the midst of this has been a kind of complicity.
For anyone who doubts that these folks knew just what they were doing, and that we should have known for a long time too, see the long-ago leaked Alberto Gonzales memo to the President of January 25, 2002: http://kbonline.typepad.com/random/files/gonzales_memo_on_gen_conv_january_25_2002_pt_1.pdf
Here, one of two positives (besides "preserving flexibility") of deciding that the Geneva conventions don't apply to prisoners taken in the conflict with "al Qaeda and the Taliban" is that it "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act"--that is, it provides "a solid defense to any future prosecution" of U.S. officials ordering torture of captives.
Powell, in his response, brushes off any future domestic war crimes prosecution of U.S. officials as highly unlikely. I've never seen this part of their exchange emphasized in any commentary, and it should be, over and over and over again.
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quick follow up re Gonzales
[Read the article: John Yoo's war crimes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It should be said that this memo (as Counsel to the President) is reporting on consultation with OLC at DOJ. Undoubtedly Gonzales didn't come up with this idea by himself; what other written documents exist, I wonder, that demonstrate this awareness and pre-emptive attempt to evade justice?
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class
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What nonsense! Where did all those Obama votes in e.g. Virginia come from? This presumed pattern of his support might have been an important one early on in his run (when e.g. working class blacks were more likely to support other candidates, especially Clinton), but it has long since stopped being a big part of the story, except in pundit-land.
What's completely missing from Lind's "analysis" and from all the useless hot air about this latest manufactured flap is the extent to which the Democratic Party has abandoned working-class interests, giving those voters *no way* to vote their pocketbooks (but exit polls show that income still broadly correlates to voting behavior, as in the richer the more Republican). Whether Obama continues that depressing trend or not, at least he understands the problem--see his recent speech in Terre Haute, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc9PepjyDow
What we're suffering from is a political culture dominated by 24-hour *gotcha* noise, embroidered by droves of think-tank know-nothings like Lind, who are paid to spoon this garbage in lieu of doing real research at a university--where they can't get jobs, not because they're not sufficiently "elite" (on the contrary, they are in their comfortable positions by connections only), but because they haven't worked hard enough.
Cover something real why don't you, like torture or financial meltdown....