Letters to the Editor
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@Porthos
Thanks for nymming up, it's just so much less confusing!
Gee, would the five foreign countries I've lived in (and 29 others I've spent time in) count? Several of them are even predominantly Muslim: Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.
Then you know how little the "Apocalyptic Mahdiism" and other right-wing boogeymen influence mainstream Islam. There is absolutely NOTHING to distinguish our own militant nutjobs in America from those overseas. They represent the exact same kind of threat.
So I'll stay in my aluminium boat in the middle of the lake in a lightning storm. What are the odds, after all?
Now, you know that analogy doesn't make any damn sense. Are you trying to say that living in America constitutes the same sort of fatal risk as trying to get oneself hit by lightning?
The odds can actually be calculated. Risk must be managed rationally, if you blow all your resources on one over-estimated risk, you are left open to other risks.
If you were more widely traveled and well-read, you'd know an old Arab proverb: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Yes, yes, man of the road, etc....
It's a well-worn canard of the loony left that Saddam and bin Laden would never have cooperated to defeat a common enemy.
Well sure they might've. But they didn't. And there was never any evidence that they did. And Republicans lied to us about it for years straight.
Remember, even though there's little evidence that they teamed up for 9/11 itself, they were in contact with each other and had made preliminary feelers towards cooperation.
You ever heard of the "Kevin Bacon game"? Guess how many degrees Bush is from Hussein. Compare to bin Laden.
Gee, would that be the same Carriles that the US Justice Department urged be kept in jail because he was a terrorist? Remember, one Texas judge who ruled that the evidence against him was insufficient is not the same as US policy.
*ahem* the point is that while we have extradited people without legal recourse to be tortured in Saudi Arabia, this guy gets a break because the people he's attacking are enemies of the administration.
"The enemy of my enemy" indeed. Could you explain, perhaps, what you think the US policy on non-rendition actually IS?
Try again, please.
Why, because I nailed it so perfectly the first time that you just can't get enough?
Seriously, the double standard wrt "enemies and friends" has become completely incoherent. No one can pretend it constitutes any sort of strategy or plan.
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Porthos
... And Saddam had attacked us, or perhaps you forget all those missle launches at American and British aircraft, or the assination plot against George H.W. Bush.
That is codswallop.
The US was flying planes over two thirds of Iraq; the no-fly zone, remember? You call them shooting back with their pathetic weaponry they had, an attack on the USA? What a lode of crap.
The "assassination plot" was a propaganda story for the simpletons. Surely you do not believe that one. But even the myth does not show an 'attack on the USA'.
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Porthos
“If you were more widely traveled and well-read, you'd know an old Arab proverb: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Instead of relying on your past travels and wishful thinking, you would realize that the situation in Iraq today is, the enemy of my enemy is my enemy. The generals in Iraq arming the Sunnis to fight against AQI, will soon learn that support is very temporary and illusionary.
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@casual_observer
Thanks. I was complaining about S.2011, the Senate version, not the House version. Are they identical? The House version is Conyers, the Senate is Levin-Rockefeller.
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Where is Your Money? - Executive Orders on Iraq and Lebanon
Joshua Landis is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He mostly works on Syria and Lebanon and writes the blog Syria Comment. Naturally he often travels to Syria too. His opinion on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East diverges a bit from the currently prevalent one in Washington DC.
There are consequences for committing such a grave crime. In discussing the recent executive order with regard to Lebanon, Landis writes:
In the comment section of the last post, several readers remarked that the wording of this executive order was broad enough and ill-defined enough that it could easily be used to harass journalists and perhaps even bloggers. Some readers suggested this was nonsense, placing their faith in US authorities to respect freedom of speech.
I will recount a personal anecdote that reflects on this. On my return from my last two trips out of the United States, I have been stopped by Homeland Security at the exit ramp of the airplane and retained for four hours or so of interviews and security checks, while notification was sought from authorities in Washington to see if I could be released, causing me to miss my onward flights. My calling cards, contents of my wallet, and personal papers were scanned to add to my computer files. My luggage was also screened for indications of who I had met and what I had done.
Why has my name on the security-threat list? The only conclusion I could come to is that one of my many admirers in Washington had placed me there in order to amuse themselves. When I inquired how I might get my name removed from the list, I was told to have "my lawyer" make inquiries at a Washington address. My hunch is that this would be an exercise in futility even if I were to retain a lawyer. Homeland Security is under no legal obligation to release the reason for which I was replaced on the list. I will have to play the Syrian game of figuring out who I know in the security apparatuses of Washington who might have access to my files and can help to clear up the matter. Security services seem to be surprisingly similar on both sides of the Atlantic.
To get harrassed by homeland-security goons is certainly annoying. But the new executive orders go much further and in effect repeal the 5th amendment:
much more at ...
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/08/
where-is-your-m.html#more