Letters to the Editor
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Man, this article is so weak!
From analysis to reporting to final conclusion is worthless when attached to an agenda of making sure what's most important is skirted. How can you, still, after all but eight years of Bush's abusive gov't not include America's compliance in its failure?
Salon has so failed in its political coverage that I'm beginning to read these stories for laughs.
In fact, the cluelessness of a self appointed intelligentsia would always be amusing if not for the obvious destruction of a vital part of the world getting masked over. Tommorow, I bet you!, Joan Walsh will be shilling for GE telling us to "meet" her on Hardball to debate with some whacko from the "Right" as if doing so is indicative of any issue to any degree. She'll in fact do so after repeatedly being called out for such sad attempts at talent being misused! Do you guys lack the ability to make a buck that badly that all of your efforts end up adding to communication that can at best be seen as tabloid?
Here, in this instance, we have detail after detail presented without proper context. The fact of the matter is, no, the simple!, fact of the matter is that we've morphed as a society into Orwell's nightmare. There aren't a multiple set of conflicts. There is the one spiraling out of control part of the world motivated SOLELY by America's inability to control itself, to be responsible with its power. Any thought of this country not adding to terror is shredded by poppies, bombs thrown at PMs, Syrian opportunism, and, most of all, Kurdish promise. (What a joke!)
Yet, this entire country sits by looking for another sub-prime solution at best. A Blackwater type of operation perhaps will catch Osama at the eleventh hour and the show will end...good once again triumphs over evil...and, guess what? Global Warming's going down the same way. There is no war in the Middle East, Juan. There's simply these strokes to your ego your reporting provides man. Stop bothering the people with dangers that can't possibly exist if you're going to do everything but mention them.
Plus, people already know how this War's going to end...the man has told them so, you see.
Get a real job, Juan. Read Naomi Wolf's latest book, Juan. Being seen as a terrorist is what's bound to happen to one of you smart mouths and you don't want it to be you. I bet, though, when that happens you'll state the important facts then!
Please stop this weak reporting!!!
Step up and be a man damnit!!!
Step up damnit!!!
Step up!!!
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HappyJack
Though Abu Ghraib would be a fitting place for [Bush etc.], a more appropriate incarceration would be someplace isolated, preferably in northern Sweden or Norway. Some place where they would be forgotten. No media, no interviews, no memoirs, no reinvention of history. Just good riddance.
Scandinavia isn't isolated enough. Cheney would probably get involved in another tragic "accident" while hunting reindeer with the indigenous Sami (Lapland) people. Also, Norway has oil. Bush needs to be kept as far away from that stuff as possible. He's off the wagon, you know.
I suggest somewhere remote in the Southern Hemisphere instead, like Tristan Da Cunha or Tierra Del Fuego.
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To Elric O M
Your assessment of the Bush W Brain trust is astute, but there is one major flaw in your conclusion. You wrote:
"from their point of view, a strategic plan to force the U.S. to keep a major military presence in the Middle East indefinitely. Sound extreme-- paranoid? For example, assuming she wins, how much are you willing to bet that Hillary will reduce U.S. troops in Iraq by as little as 50% by the end of her 1st term, or even her 2nd?"
Like much of what the neocons write, on paper your argument appears to hold water. But, like the neocons, you failed to look at reality.
Since World War 2 American has kept a substantial military presence in Italy, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, and as a serviceman I typically get offered orders to send me to American bases in those countries every single time that I am up for transfer. I did accept orders to Japan, and that was where I met my very talented wife, whom I hope someday will attempt to earn US citizenship. There are many servicemen (and women) like me that have married women (and men) in the nations that they were forward deployed to serve in for 3 years tours.
However, there is one other nation where America attempted to establish a substantial military presence; South Viet Nam. Like Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea a lot of American servicemen married Vietnamese women during the lengthy conflict there, but the substantial military presence in South Viet Nam still had to eventually vacate the country.
Why? Because Americans were tired of seeing their sons, brothers, and husbands die or get seriously maimed.
In Iraq we are losing troops at a rate of 2 a day, and suffering at least 5 times as many injuries a day, and I have only heard of one serviceman in Iraq who married an Iraqi woman (a Christian Kurdish woman, and they got her out of that country quicker than you can say revenge killing). No way in hell is any serviceman ever going to say "I want orders to Iraq," and no way in hell is the department of defense going to allow a serviceman (or woman) to bring his family to Iraq.
Reducing the troop presence in Iraq isn't a option, its a necessity, unless we want to re-instate a draft, and no way in hell will congress or the American voters support a draft that will send our boys to Iraq.
A long term American presence in Iraq is not going to happen, even if the next US president wants it to happen, and the US congress approves spending 4 trillion dollars a year to try to make it happen. It simply is not possible, and anyone who understands military operations or the geopolitics of the Middle East knows that is the case. The war in Iraq isn't being lost, it is lost, and the quicker we realize this, the better.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained in Iraq, and the longer we stay there, the more treasure and lives we lose.