Letters posted here are associated with the following article:

322
Letters
Monday, November 17, 2008 12:00 AM

Bill Ayers talks back

Sarah Palin called him a terrorist, Barack Obama called him an acquaintance. A Salon editor who knew Ayers back when talks to the ex-Weather Underground member turned Republican talking point.

The letters thread is now closed.

View:
Monday, November 17, 2008 12:56 PM

Probably they were sipping tea during the ‘interview’.

Scorpio69er said:

“Thanks for acknowledging that Reagan was an accomplice of Hussein.”

I am not acknowledging that Reagan was an accomplice of Hussein. It was a rhetorical affirmation for you to understand that even if it had been so Bush did not have to do the same thing.

Now for being an accomplice Reagan had to have the same intentions that Hussein and he did not.

Now, everybody, including the United Nations and most democrats in Congress believed that Hussein had WMDs.

Now, this article of Shapiro’s is a disgrace. Probably they were sipping tea during the ‘interview’.

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:09 PM

America isn't so bad as the Ayers groupies would discover if they had to live elsewhere.

Now, on the matter of Guantanamo Bay, a dainty little moral dilemma has arisen. Barack Obama proposes to shut the detention camp but where can the detainees go, considering that no country on earth is putting out the welcome mat for them?

"Oybek Jamoldinvich Jabbarov, a 30-year-old Uzbek national who was living as a refugee in Afghanistan when he was captured in 2001, has been cleared for release but remains at the US detention centre because he cannot return to his native Uzbekistan for fear of torture or other ill-treatment" (The Irish Times, Monday, November 17, 2008). It seems odd that anyone would seek refuge in Afghanistan but Mr. Jabbarov might have found the harsh regime in that country more congenial than his own. A Ms. Jabbarov certainly would not. Anyway, the crux of the matter is that an Obama presidency wants to off-load at least some of these detainees to EU countries (but not Russia, for instance) and the response has been distinctly frigid. Last week Switzerland, noted for its peaceful policies, rejected asylum applications from three detainees who had been cleared for release; liberal Denmark has reacted frostily to requests for resettlement from two Uzbeks and one Lebanese. How they happened to end up off the coast of Cuba was not clarified but now they seem to yearn for the colder climes of northern Europe. It's going to be interesting to see how all this works out.

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:15 PM

@Amigo

What kind of tea do you think they were sipping?

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:17 PM

@ Juan Enrique

re: I am not acknowledging that Reagan was an accomplice of Hussein.

It matters not whether you acknowledge it. It's a fact. Read the articles I previously posted. Watch the video of Rummy shaking Saddam's hand. It's all irrefutable evidence.

re: Reagan had to have the same intentions that Hussein and he did not

Of course he did, which is why he supported him. You don't support someone unless you have the same intentions, now do you? Reagan characterized Saddam as a "stabilizing force" in the Middle East. He helped him kill thousands of Iranians. The fact that a few Kurds got gassed along the way didn't cause any shift in Reagan's support of Saddam, as the articles cited clearly show.

re: everybody, including the United Nations and most democrats in Congress believed that Hussein had WMDs

An oft-repeated lie.

In fact, democrats in Congress relied on the Bush administration for the intelligence -- intelligence which, as we now know, was supplied by Cheney's "Office of Special Plans".

SEE:

The Stovepipe

How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.

by Seymour M. Hersh
...the intelligence reports about Iraq provided by the United Nations inspection teams and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitored Iraq’s nuclear-weapons programs, were far more accurate than the C.I.A. estimates. “Some of the old-timers in the community are appalled by how bad the analysis was,” the official said. “If you look at them side by side, C.I.A. versus United Nations, the U.N. agencies come out ahead across the board.”...Part of the answer lies in decisions made early in the Bush Administration, before the events of September 11, 2001. In interviews with present and former intelligence officials, I was told that some senior Administration people, soon after coming to power, had bypassed the government’s customary procedures for vetting intelligence...Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book “The Threatening Storm” generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was “dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership...“They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information,” Pollack continued. “They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn’t have the time or the energy to go after the bad information.”
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/27/031027fa_fact

Have a nice day.

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:26 PM

@ maureenodonnell

re: Barack Obama proposes to shut the detention camp but where can the detainees go

Obviously, if detainees who were captured but never charged with anything and in fact can't be charged with anything due to a lack of evidence under due process, and they cannot now go back to where they came from for whatever reason, the U.S. has an obligation to assimilate them.

You can thank Bush.

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:34 PM

Your hate leaves you without arguments!

Scorpio69er said:

“You can thank Bush.”

Then what would you have done:

1. Kill them on the spot

2. Or would you have allowed them to keep on killing Americans in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

You are so full of hate for this president that nothing that he does is good for you.

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:37 PM

@ Juan Enrique

Again, you, other Bush voters, and Bush, your boy, drove the economy into a brick wall of debt. Why are you posting? You should be working to pay off the national debt. Morally, it belongs to you.

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:40 PM

The tea was Obama brand

The tea was Obama brand

Lotus feet, the tea must have been Obama brand!

Monday, November 17, 2008 01:42 PM

@ Juan Enrique

Dude, you've already been stuffed and baked.

Would you like to be served up for Thanksgiving, to boot?

The vast majority of detainees have never been charged with anything. They in fact can't be charged, because there is no evidence they've done anything.

Supreme Court backs Guantanamo detainees

In rebuke to administration, suspects may appeal in U.S. civilian courts

At its heart, the 70-page ruling says that the detainees have the same rights as anyone else in custody in the United States to contest their detention before a judge.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25117953/

Why do you hate America so much?

Most Active Letters Threads

450

The Washington establishment suffers a serious defeat

Approval of the Paul/Grayson bill to audit the Fed is both rare and important in several ways
415

The administration guts its own argument for 9/11 trials

If some detainees get military commissions or indefinite detention, how can 9/11 trials be justified?
304

Rule-of-law extremism engulfs primitive Eastern Europe

Why would the new President of Lithuania demand investigations of CIA black sites in her country?
226

A letter to readers

On my current condition: Definitely treatable, definitely uncertain
179

More GOP lies about healthcare reform

Republicans who know better falsely claim that the panel recommending fewer mammograms is a Dem plan for rationing

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon