Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 992 Editor's Choice: 3
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One other thing
[Read the article: The truth behind the Pollack-O'Hanlon trip to Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems clear from his candor and his comments that O'Hanlon himself was not in on the conspiracy, even though he is a player in the imperial game. But he won't ever realize he has been played, any more than Wolf Blitzer will.
Compare with Cheney, who appears to have been well clued in on the joke, along with the media who performed so seamlessly in concert. Hmmm ...
Talk about useful idiots.
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@nabalzbbfr
[Read the article: Enforcing the community's foreign policy orthodoxy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is Glenn's position that is extremist and anti-American. The US has claimed the right to unilaterally intervene since at least the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine and actively exercised this right. It is a no-brainer that there is moral justification for assisting in the overthrow of heinous regimes in Iran and North Korea. The only serious question is what are the likely prospects for a successful outcome. No sane person would now argue against the successful American interventions in Granada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia or Kosovo.
It is a matter of the historical record that Islam has been on America's shit list for several centuries, even before the Monroe Doctrine was expressed.
It is a well-documented fact, but one much overlooked in our Marxist academies, that the city of Granada fell to the Castilians in 1492 as a result of one of the CIA's earliest foreign interventions, thus liberating it from dark and despotic Muslim rule.
So there you have it. The Founding Father hated Islam. Islamic governments can therefore be overthrown with impunity. It's literally anti-American to think otherwise.
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@gen. apathy
[Read the article: Enforcing the community's foreign policy orthodoxy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]General, I see you trying to explain how reasonable people might support a pre-emptive war against an enemy that was actually about to destroy us. You can't bridge the gap between warmongers and pacifists, but you're right that we can't blame the millions of Americans who were scared enough of the WMDs under the bed to support a president who looked like a Decider.
But we're not talking about the consumers of news. We're talking about the creators of news. It's a higher bar.
So no, you can't claim that a legitimate argument for war EVER existed just because there was a rumor of war, or danger, or potentially maybe a future danger. This ground has been covered thoroughly already. If you're so worried about proliferation, what about Israel? What about Korea? And so on, ad infinitum.
The closest anyone can come up with to a "legitimate" reason for invading Iraq is this: that the US picked a fight with an asshole who was full of shit, and he bucked. That, at least, is inarguable.
And if Bush had gone with that simple casus belli in the beginning, he would still have had the support of half the country, easy.
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@ gen apathy
[Read the article: Enforcing the community's foreign policy orthodoxy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The point I and others have been trying to make is that there is no one appropriate response to a "madman" having WMDs. Full-scale ground invasion is the most extreme response, if you leave out the nuclear one.
There are a hundred other things you can do before you pull that lever. There was no legitimate reason given, even accepting the WMDs as likely fact, as to why these options could not be tried first---just rhetoric.
So it was never ust a matter of whether you believed in the WMDs or not. It was a matter of whether you believed in liberal ideals---you know, the ones this country was founded on. I understand and can even forgive a little meddling in the affairs of small volatile countries close to your borders, but this war does not even reach that low level of legitimacy. And never did.
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@BrianThomas
[Read the article: Enforcing the community's foreign policy orthodoxy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hate stating the obvious, but here goes: Glenn never said anything about violence only being legitimate in self-defense.
Your own argument demonstrates that the kind of military actions you mention happen rarely. We have not yet gone in at night to take out North Korea's reactor. We didn't go into Rwanda. We haven't sabotaged Iran's nuclear program and kidnapped her nuclear scientists, much less Pakistan's. It is the Iraqi---and now, more clearly than ever, the Iranian---invasion that is under discussion.
So why is that level of interference even a topic for discussion, except as something that never happens?
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Oh, come on
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If being caught red-handed with a bomb designed to kill, maim, and sicken innocent civilians isn't enough to justify locking up an American citizen and throwing away the key (or, more likely for this administration, "losing" it) then what is?
What? Nothing? I thought so. LIBERAL.
I'd actually like to hear more about the 300,000 FBI wiretaps performed on Padilla et al. between 1993 and 2001 (according to the Washington Post), in which he and his friends discussed "tourism" and "football," zucchini" and "eggplant" (which is a sign of something wrong right there---they were probably talking about the wrong kind of football).
Seriously, the FBI snooped on him for 8 fucking years, without ever arresting him? And yet, apparently, they stopped this behavior 2 years before he was arrested? What on earth could have interested them so much, and yet led to their losing interest? Unless, of course, the last 2 years were classified .... in which case, why didn't they get him before 2003?
But the sheer lameness of the government's case belies any possibility that they had anything on him but the same circumstantial crap you'd compile on any human being you spied on for 8-10 years.
Somebody upstream said Padilla was convicted the moment they arrested him. No: he was convicted the moment the FBI got a warrant to tap his phone.
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@Davis
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From spinning fabrications out of whole cloth? I wouldn't dream of it!
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@ConservativeSlayer
[Read the article: The Padilla verdict]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sigh.
Sounds like some people need a little practice in dealing with irony.
Where's the Major been? We need him!
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A peculiar use of the word "imperial"
[Read the article: Reply to Dan Drezner]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Using the word "imperial" to describe what great powers have been doing for decades pretty much strips the term of any concrete meaning.
The mind boggles just a bit. Er, great powers are, by definition, um, "imperial" powers.
I guess if gangs have been executing rivals for decades, then, calling that behavior "thuggish" strips that term of any concrete meaning. Am I getting close?