Letters to the Editor
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The Armenian Genocide Resolution
"I believe I have read that every living US Secretary of State supports the bill, except the one currently filling the office. How strange." casual_observer
Would that this were true. However, the Washington Post editorial cites various former Secretaries of State who oppose the Armenian genocide resolution.
Needless to say, this is less an issue of U.S. national security than a neocon attempt to maintain their cynical alliance with the current repressive Turkish regime.
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Grow up people, from Shooter
Didn't you vote for Bush?
Ahh haaa haa haaa. Grow up! Good one!!!
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RE: CarolynC
> Rich Lowry and the other war cheerleaders speak to our national insecurity and their prescription to combat it is to spend more, fight more, kill more, all in the name of national security. This, they tell us, will alleviate our fear and anxiety; we will then be safe from our oh-so-powerful enemies. And as the years go by, and we never achieve this elusive, undefinable "victory," their voices only become louder and more insistent. <
Spot on, and while I don't know the technical psychoanalytic term for this syndrome, I call it the Paradox of the Shadow. Fear drives us to attack that which makes us fearful, but in doing so we may be consumed by, and ultimately become, that which we fear. The syndrome is perfectly represented in the classic film Forbidden Planet, where the earthlings keep firing more and more powerful weapons at the monster, which only succeeds in making it ever more powerful. This is why a politics of fear is so disgracefully base and pernicious. If played to perfection, under the right conditions, it produces grossly perverted, even genuinely insane societies.
Walt Kelly summed it up: We have met the enemy, and he is us.
(But this of course is far too nuanced and sophisticated a model for your standard issue conservative -- who fears, above all else, self-knowledge.)
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@shooter242
There is really only one question for you. Would your fever dreams of cataclysm have ever been such a threat had we done the smart thing, and stayed OUT of Iraq? Perhaps rather than make a disastrous show of our weakness to exactly those we seek to dominate, basically because guys like you and Lowry like to cheer wars, not fight them, and certainly not pay for them?
You people dreamed up an idiotic war, and then lost it. Decisively. Permenently.
You've already lost the war, why do you feel you can win the argument?
All the consequences we now face are thanks to people like you.
Legitimate anger at unconscionably inhumanity and bloodlust is not a temper tantrum.
It is what any normal people in this situation feel.
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@shooter242
so all you "run away romantics" care to address what happens if we leave precipitously? Sectarian genocide? Regional war? The crippling of economies by reason of sabotaged oilfields? How do you feel about the resurrection of all out war, rather than the Sunni alliance with the US and Shia sects truces?
Do you really not understand that they are blowing up Americans for one reason and one reason only: Iraqis want Americans to leave? Do you really not understand that they are the Redcoats and we are the British? They want us out of their country and they will keep blowing us up until we leave. This is the polled opinion of a majority of Iraqis. It's something they all agree on. We invaded them with no just cause, destroyed their infrastructure, killed thousands of their innocent civilians, and replaced their government. Hence, they blow us up, ad infinutum, until we leave. Stalemate.
The whole "We are teaching them to form a democracy, but they are bad students who learn slowly, so we cannot leave yet" concept is fiction. The whole "These are the terrorists who attacked us" concept is also fiction. The whole "Iraqis will come and attack us 'over here' if we 'surrender'" concept is fiction, too. The whole "Iraq is unsustainable and will devolve into a sectarian civil war once we depart" is a little more realistic, but tends to be refuted by Iraqis who point out that they've known many decades of peace, and that nevertheless the "sectarian violence" nightmare scenario is far preferable (to Iraqis) than the continuing occupation.
These are fantasy constructions fed by the likes of Rich Lowry to the likes of you, and you are succeptible because you evince a pavlovian reaction to words like "terrorist" and "surrender" and therefore can be counted upon not to think rationally. But in real life, we have illegally invaded a sovreign nation and occupied them, and they are therefore blowing us up in an effort to get them to leave. They will not stop killing us until we leave. They are killing us to make us leave. The whole condescending "We are helping them form a democracy, which is what they want, but they are slow learners" line is a cynical construction; a political fiction. Think in terms of Occam's Razor: the most direct explanation of what we see is that the Iraqis are fighting to overthow an occupying nation. I won't even get into our obvious actual reasons for being there, which involve coveting their natural resources. You think they're so stupid that they don't know why we're there?
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cocktailhag
Can I have permission to republish your comment every time shooter shows up here? Very nicely said.
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We're winning my ass
Lowry's comments about Bush not bearing all of his resources are ironic when we've already spent half a trillion dollars (more if you count the hidden costs like caring for our wounded soldiers and veterans and replenishing the arms and equipment).
And it was the resources that the administration lowballed when it was trying to build support for the war. Did Lowry ever point out at that time what the Iraq war would really entail? I don't think so. He was probably too busy cheerleading for the war then.
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@ Jim Montague
Of course you can. Smoetimes I'm too busy to do it myself.
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@Chris Sinnard
ets go down the list and see what is happening right now in Iraq:
Genocide. Check.
Ethnic Cleansing. Check
Safe haven for Terrorists. Check
Displacement and Death of millions of civilians. Check
Depleted Uranium. Check.
Balkinizing Iraq to further the ethnic cleansing and genocide. I guess that one is a "Work in Progess".
If only we had a tin pot dictator to blame it all on,...
We do. One letter name. "W".
Cheers,