Letters to the Editor
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Nothing to say but...
...how very, very refreshing it is to see talk like this in public forums:
"That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism."
Much more like this, please, from any American who can't stand to hear "up" called "down" another minute!
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More on Mr. Clinton's war
From the fellows at counter punch, a great post by P.C. Roberts:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02252008.html
The whole thing is worth a read, but here is a teaser.
...Washington has been interfering in Serbian internal affairs since the Clinton administration. Told that Americans had to prevent genocide, few paid enough attention to Washington's facilitation of the breakup of the Yugoslav state during the 1990s and to the Clinton administration's bombing and murder of Serbian civilians in order to support Muslim separatists in Kosovo in 1999. Clinton used NATO as cover, but the bombing campaign was not backed by the UN Security Council. Bombs fell on Serbia for 78 days, taking out public infrastructure, bridges, factories, power stations, petrochemical plants, telecommunications facilities, markets, refugees, the Chinese Embassy and a passenger train.
Cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used. Clearly, the US government and its NATO puppets were guilty of war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.
Americans were told by an obedient media that the bombings were necessary in order to prevent Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from committing war crimes against the separatists who were stealing part of his country. After Clinton's bombings intimidated the Serbian political establishment, Milosevic was turned out of office and handed over to the Americans for a payment of several hundred million dollars and delivered to the Hague for trial as a war criminal.
Milosevic represented himself at his trial and was more than a match for the trumped up charges. Unfortunately, he died in prison. Many believe he was helped on his way by an embarrassed American Empire unable to convict him.
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There are a few who will excuse any Democrat action as 'humanitarian' but I never will; it is another reason Obama will clean Mrs. Clinton's clock. She is tainted by the wars of the 90s as "co-president" as well as her support of Bush early on as Senator.
Obama will be president.
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Oh yes, Kitt I remember you...
Now I feel dumb for even engaging in this conversation with you. If my memory serves, you like to insult people as being ignorant about the situation, and then you claim to not have time to offer the information that seems to make you an expert. Forgive me, Salon, for wasting the electronic space in these replies.
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omooex
Now I feel dumb for even engaging in this conversation with you. If my memory serves, you like to insult people as being ignorant about the situation, and then you claim to not have time to offer the information that seems to make you an expert. Forgive me, Salon, for wasting the electronic space in these replies.
-- omooex
I filled you in post after post. It's not my fault that you know absolutely nothing about the subject that you and I are debating. I can't make a full time job of informing someone who is not only completely ignorant of the subject content, but refuses to learn anything given to him as time passes.
On the polls subject, you had some good points. Points that I have taken into consideration since then. On this subject, well, you are completely off. You seem to know nothing at all about racism and baseball in the early 20th century. And, consequently, you can't learn anything from it in regards to what we are experiencing in the political situation with Obama today.
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Looking Forward to Hearing You on the Maddow Show, GG
On the off chance the discussion there turns to FISA immunity, forgive the impertinence of "reminding" you, but...
I bring to your attention a November 2007 op-ed by former CIA director (and current Booz Allen guy) Woolsey, who wrote to the LA Times to defend the Bush Administration's call for telecom immunity for prior complicity in felonious eavesdropping with this reassuring rationale. Arguing that it will facilitate future actions by government contractors that are illegal but have been "requested" by someone in the government, Woolsey sublimely states:
"we and our children will be better off if the official can answer the question 'Can you guarantee that my company won't be sued if we help the country?' with 'If it happens, we'll get protective legislation approved as in 2007'."
I can't imagine a more chilling justification for retroactive immunity under FISA: this guy actually argues that we should feel more secure knowing that we would be creating a precedent for future unlawful conspiracies between government bureaucrats and corporate institutions. Sure made me sleep better at night having read this.
There was no big uproar over Woolsey's comments that I saw at the time -- probably, there was too much resignation to the "immutable fact" that the Dems would cave and Bush would get his immunity so why bother. But now that there has been a stirring of democracy and people actually are engaging in some kind of reasoned analysis of whether retroactive immunity is a good idea, Woolsey's comments strike me as just another instance of some Administration hack inadvertently telling the truth, like Negroponte admitting to actual torture or McConnell acknowledging that Bush's real goal in refusing to allow an extension of the FISA amendments is immunity, not avoiding disruption in intelligence gathering, and thus exposing the administration to a need to actually respond.
Isn't an argument that "we want to establish a precedent that can reassure Corporate America that we'll re-write the law to legitimize your participation in undeniably felonious conduct any time we tell you to ignore the law but we get caught at it" something that everyone can understand is a bad idea?
As we continue to try to expose the shameful fraud that Bush's "immunity" push entails, I think this pre-existing recommendation should be included among the litany of reasons why retroactive immunity is such an odious concept and is utterly irreconcilable with our Constitution and the rule of law.