Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 984 Editor's Choice: 3
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@ Alan
[Read the article: Tucker Carlson, stalwart defender of sexual privacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know---Jon Stewart is still alive and kicking.
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Meanwhile in Iraq, the setup continues
[Read the article: Tucker Carlson, stalwart defender of sexual privacy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From today's WaPo:
The U.S. troops captured the lieutenant in a pre-dawn raid in Baghdad, but the soldiers came under "heavy and accurate fire" from a nearby Iraqi police checkpoint, as well as intense firing from rooftops and a church, the military said in a statement.
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The captured lieutenant was a "high-ranking" leader of a cell suspected of helping coordinate Iranian support for Shiite extremists in Iraq as well as carrying out roadside bombings against mortar attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, the military said. The lieutenant is believed to be linked to the Quds Force, a branch of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, it said.
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The U.S. military accuses the Quds Force of organizing Shiite militants into so-called "special groups" and arming them with weapons and explosives _ including a particularly deadly form of roadside bombs called explosively formed penetrators. Tehran denies the claims.
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It's just like old times back at Unclaimed Territory
[Read the article: The National Review mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The usual gang is here, even the nutters. Hey Scooter, don't you think wishing a boatload of Nazis dead and drowned is equivalent to the Holocaust? I sure do. Raise the hue and cry. Don't listen to these weaklings and their effete mockery.
A modest proposal: Since "ruthlessness" will "win" in Iraq, and "ruthlessness" means breaking the law to hurt people, I suggest that CENTCOM form a secret volunteer child-rape battalion and deploy it to the Middle East.
After Iraq is under control, it can move on to the fugee camps in Syria, where the pickings are easy. But there are a billion Muslims out there and a lot of them are children---we've got work to do, people!
Only the bravest among us will sign up, so of course I must count myself out. I'll understand if even ol' Jonah isn't quite up to it. We can't all be Patriots!
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Al Qaida Inc
[Read the article: Kit Bond and the credibility of war supporters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Heh. I find the image of a few soon-to-be-exterminated al Qaida Sunnis in a postwar Iraq trying to run the national oil industry to be particularly comical.
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Yoo fluff
[Read the article: John Yoo -- then and now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember reading the WaPo's little puff piece on Yoo, back around 2001, before his name had become known. The article only glanced at some little paper he wrote for Bush. Rather, it focused on why, as the son of immigrant parents, he became a lawyer, why he became a Republican.
Seems he used to be a liberal, but then he "realized" that the Republicans had all the logic on their side. And that was that. Breathtaking.
Yes, when you rule out 90% of the available facts as evidence, you'll get a nice clean logical worldview. If Right, then Good; if Good, then Right; if Right, then Might. Questions?
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The daily "heh"
[Read the article: The really smart, serious, credible Iraq experts O'Hanlon and Pollack]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is the line I choked on:
the counterinsurgency mission seems to be going well in that we are taking out a lot more people than we're losing ...
It's nice to see that O'Hanlon has a grasp of the basics (we need to kill more of them than they do of us for the "war" to be "successful"), but I am amazed to see the bar set so cavalierly low for an American military adventure. Is that all we need to do, is kill a few more of them than they do of us?
At this rate, we are indeed bound to win if we only have the discipline---because even though there are fewer US soldiers in Iraq than there are Iraqis, there are even more Americans available to replace the soldiers the insurgents are killing.
Just give it a few decades.
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Newspaper Reports Dog Biting Man, Upsetting Conventional Wisdom
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's the kind of story The Politico seems to be good at.
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We can't all be "scholars," Glenn
[Read the article: The foreign policy community]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When you've published your white paper on how to invade Turkmenistan, maybe then they'll listen to you.
HINT: Don't crib too much from Doug Feith. They'll spot it sooner or later.
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Look, it's simple
[Read the article: The foreign policy community]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Serious" people are the ones who raise the "serious" issues. What are the "serious" issues? Throughout centuries of dramaturgy, they have been birth, marriage, and death; love and war; and so on.
For the "serious" foreign policy expert, the only real topics therefore are:
---The Muslim birth rate
---War
(Gay marriage and free love being strictly domestic issues.)
So if you want to be "serious," raise the possibility of war at the water cooler or at parties:
"Hey, Bill, good to see you. You know, it's time we got serious about freedom. We should invade Greenland and liberate it from the Danes. Sure, people would die, and we'd regret their sacrifice, but isn't that the point? I mean, this is serious stuff here---people dying for freedom. It's not for pussies. Right, Bill?"
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Americans' view of Congress
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's striking about those survey results is that even Congress, after falling 20% in the polls, is still above the GOP in terms of favorable attitudes. While some of the disgust being expressed for it probably has something to do with various recent scandals, I see no evidence that the level of scandal has deviated much from the usual background level of Congressional scandal.
No, most of that 20% drop must come from the widely held perception that Congress caves to dictators. So even when Congress is reviled and the Democrats with it, it's likely disgust for Republicans that drives it. And still no one stands up to them.
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"Scholar"
[Read the article: The truth behind the Pollack-O'Hanlon trip to Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is definitely the key word here. "Scholars" aren't reporters---they don't need to hold themselves to the same standards. When they report, they are by definition amateurs---even though they are PAID amateurs. They are paid to never question the fundamentals of the bottom line laid out by their employers, but to question just enough of the details to appear independent. So for example, US hegemony is never seriously questioned---only how to maintain it.
And of course a "scholar" is going to claim ideological independence to the last breath. From their perspectives, these guys WERE "critics" of the administration---but they never said they were critics of the war. They are paid to split hairs.
They are as worthless to the search for truth as any other type of paid expert.