Letters to the Editor
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9/11 Truth
Given the idiocy of the Bush administration it's no wonder 9/11 conspiracy theories abound. Since 9/11, Bush has been bin Laden's unwitting cat's paw, turning the WTC attacks into basically an unqualified success.
What's next for these guys? Further destabilization of Pakistan? An attack on Iran? We're already arming the Sunnis in Iraq. I wonder what sort of blowback that will cause us in the future.
2009 can't come soon enough.
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Mis- or Malfeasance?
The Bush regime's hamfisted foreign policy seems almost designed to destabilize and Islamize nuclear-armed Pakistan.
At this point we should wonder if it's mis- or malfeasance.
This regime has proved itself capable of gross departure from ethics, decency -- and even sanity -- to further its domestic political goals.
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bad guys finish first
Bush will go off to his fat retirement in Texas and Connecticut, and Cheney will go off to *his* fat retirement in his mansion on the sea in Maryland, and *neither* of these guys will face the least punishment for putting us in terrible danger, putting us into terrible debt, selling off large chunks of the country to their corporate buddies, and, in general, laying waste to the population they pledged to serve.
Can you say declining fossil-fuels, with no Plan B?
Can you say a completely dysfunctional passenger rail system? A system we will need really desperately in the years to come.
Can you say no pressure on the auto industry to improve their products?
Can you say a broken health-care system, sold to the highest bidders who make obscene profits on the backs of the healthy and dismiss the sick to their doom?
Can you say incompetent HMOs who have bought political protection from their incompetence?
Can you say climate-change?
Can you say a grotesquely unfair tax-system?
Can you say a ruined military?
Can you say a GOP that would rather lie and cheat than actually behave like a responsible political party? A party deliberately turned frankly fascist by a bunch of opportunists without scruple?
Can you say a Federal Government corrupted, demoralized, and ruined by one political-hack appointment after another, in key managerial positions?
Can you say a Supreme Court that will now be interested only in supporting corporate interests instead of the people's interests?
An environment polluted and ruined by corporate interests?
And the worst, the VERY worst: the money we spent in Iraq, slaughtering civilians and putting our soldiers in mortal danger for no good reason, could have been spent to secure ALL nuclear fuel and weapons in Russia and elsewhere, and to secure our borders against the inevitable nuke someone will be trying to smuggle into a major american city, and light up. When that happens, you can blame two people: Bush, and Cheney. They've known of the danger for a long time, and have done almost nothing meaningful to deal with it. And now, it may well be too late to do much of anything.
Bush and Cheney have eithe initiated, or intensified, each of these disasters...and that's just a list off the top of my head..I didn't even mention the Middle East...not to mention the ruination of our diplomacy and credibility around the world.
Bush and Cheney have been like vengeful 4-year-olds in a shop full of ming china. They've destroyed the place, and now get to go home for ice-cream.
And things may get much, MUCH worse because of their savage opportunism and greed, their utter lack of any scruple.
In fact, they'll get REWARDED with fat pensions, consulting fees, speaking fees, and the adulation of the idiot-30-percenters who would buy a bridge in Brooklyn if one was offered to them.
Our system doesn't work right, if these men can get off scott free and waltz into a rich, easy retirement. A system in which that can happen, is a system that isn't working.
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Bush & Cheney's Accomplishments
Well, they may have accomplished one thing. Despite Karl Rove's dream of a "permanent Republican majority," the incompetence and maliciousness of these fools may have instead insured a permanent Democratic majority. At least if we can keep the more radical elements of the Democratic party in line.
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Benevolence or a neutron bomb?
6 years later, and we're looking at a stronger enemy?!?! A war that's lasted longer than WW2?
The Bush administration has done a terrible job in reducing this threat to the United States. He's proven that a conventional approach to a guerilla-style enemy is clearly a loser in today's world. And unless we think outside the box, this looks like a fight to the end where there HAS to be a winner and loser, and it will be the United States unless we change our approach...
...so we either must truly become shower the Muslim world with benevolence to steal bin Laden's appeal to them...
...or if Bin Laden is hiding in NW Pakistan, the neutron bomb is the perfect silent and deadly solution in a mountainous, treacherous region...
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Lest we forget the Taliban
Remember how often the Administration and its followers triumphantly declared the Taliban defeated and destroyed in 2002, looks like they are back in force as well. I'm not at all surprised that Al Queada is a threat again.
"I like to be in USA, pretending that the wars are done." - The Clash.
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This Just In from Camp Cakewalk
Nice piece, Professor Cole; but I'd like to ask about two points. First, the latest bin-Laden tape caused little stir precisely because it was reported by America's corporate media as containing only recycled footage. You, however, say bin-Laden appears grayer and older, thus implying that the tape proves Osama is still alive (and once again catching America's ace "journalists" merely repeating Bush-Cheney spin). Is that what you meant to say?
Second, I challenge the assertion that We the People don't appreciate the al-Qaida threat. True, the Gop base consists of morons who think Iraq was behind 9/11; but please don't mistake those Lost Crusaders and Loyal Bushies for We the People (the anti-democratic electoral college notwithstanding). We understand perfectly well that Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11 or the real al-Qaida. Why do you think Junior's "approval" is only at 28% and Old Blood & Guts Cheney (other people's blood, other people's guts) is even lower?