Mad About Memos: Your Letters

Mad About Memos

Re: Proof Of Deception, Not Intention [1] by David Corn

Your point about the memo contents being known before the war is key.  If you were to ask everyone who voted to give authorization for war this question today,  I'm sure they would vote against it now if they knew this info. For Bush supporters to dismiss this info so easily speaks to how bitterly divided his presidency has made this country.  Tens of thousands of lives have been lost or are ruined because of this decision,  and these people could care less.  Bush, in their eyes, can do no wrong. 

Dan Iannotti

Frankly, I believe it was absolutely appropriate to go into Iraq even if there were no WMD, so the Downing Street memo is of passing interest.

We had to unseat Saddam and bring democracy, rule of law and free markets into a Middle East that just had to be at long last brought, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century—having been mired in the 7th long enough.

I really wonder what goes through the minds of leftists and liberals when they just don't seen to get the picture—they don't seem to realize that having done nothing to stem terrorism (nothing of substance), that very inaction brought on 9/11. Do you people think we should have continued to allow the Middle East cauldron to cook on  and on with a little radioactive seasoning thrown in at any time?

What goes on in your minds? Do you think at all? Is it just misbegotten idealism that drives you on to stupidities like Senator Durbin's or lack of historical and geopolitical awareness now that being dumbed-down is increasingly common. We are at war, fellow Americans—it is a war of civilizations—a war where losing is not an option. Understand this please, if the current insurgent tactics succeed in driving America out of Iraq, the very same tactics will immediately be set into motion against us throughout the entire Middle East. Are you prepared to pull out of the entire Middle East?  It's never too late to start thinking rationally and pragmatically, leaving partisan politics behind. Thanks for reading this far.

Andy Logar

I agree that there are no new facts or truths in the DSMs. Like a young boy being told that babies come from storks by his stammering parents, the deceit and hubris of the Bush administration was apparent to most all thinking people in the world. Those like M. Kinsley, who knew it all along but refused to lift the skirt of the Bush-Cheney war dance, should be ashamed to be called reporters. That a document exists that confirms not what we know now to be true but what they (the administration) knew then to be true is, in fact, a stain on the dress of Bush, Blair and company. Subpoena the original, reconstruct the meetings and discussions with names and dates that led to the writing of the memo and see if the DNA matches.

Because we know that this is the administration's style, that is not a reason to dismiss the nails for the coffin. Surely there is a like document floating around on our side of the pond and one day it will come to light—that day can be days or decades away. Turning up the heat will squeeze the pus out that much sooner. Your point of putting Condoleezza Rice's name on the document is less speculative thinking and more prophecy.

I heard a blogger from Texas suggest that because no one has proved the DSMs are real then the are probably forgeries, and the NPR host didn't dismiss him as a conspiracy-theory nut job. Blood is in the water, just a little,e but it's there. If the gusto invested in reporting every detail of Whitewater, Monica, etc. were set in motion on the lies, finessed half-truths, and outright blunders of the foppish little prig who is the president, we could get on with trying to rebuild our place as a credible player in world.

Tony Turse

Feeling The Empathy

Re: Bush's Empathy Squeeze [2] by Arlie Hochschild

Yes, of course, and the Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Just now, with the flag issue, the blue collar people will tend to respond to protection of the flag that the Republicans say they are doing, and the Democrats once again have a more nuanced, much more complicated stance and patriotic Americans will not be with the Democratic responders.

Grace Freundlich

This article is among the best I've read over the past five years.  It is right up there with God's Politics, Leaving Kansas and Perfectly Legal.  I could be way off base here...but I think this is the type of person Gov. Dean, head of the DNC, is talking to these days.  It's too bad we don't hear more truth-telling of this kind from mainstream Democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.  And for God's sakes, where is the mainstream media? Never in my lifetime have I experienced such a lay down/roll over press! Again, it highlights our inability to speak in real-life terms to people who are most affected by the conservatives' insistence that everyone should be on his own and "survival of the fittest" is the greatest economic model ever built.  We can do better. Let's get going.

Julie Stroeve

This story is a lot of socialist baloney. Across-the-board tax cuts don't take anything from the poor except, perhaps, welfare handouts paid for by those who earned the money to pay for them. They have no reason to expect money taken by threat of force from those who earned it.

Richard Partridge

Who's An Insurgent?

Re: Stay The Crooked Course [3] by Ray McGovern

Does anyone actually know who we are fighting in Iraq? "Insurgents" is a pretty simplistic term. So that Americans can understand the enormity of our ignorance, let's be very clear. We are fighting the Iraqi equivalent of Minutemen, the Sons of Liberty, etc. We are, like it or not, invaders, and the Iraqi "patriots" will fight just as hard, and just as long, as we did against the British during our own revolution. God save us from heroes like George Bush.

Lee Greenberg

I am a currency trader and have read the foreign press for years.  The United States is too centric to get an accurate picture. Are our intelligence agencies aware of the tsunami of insurgents that are against U.S. policy?  They are not all jihadists, but students in universities in Australia, activists in Turkey, states meeting in Brazil, dumping of dollars by central banks, workers around the world...and the list goes on and on.

The Bush foreign policy of pre-emptive war to attack before attacked was used on Iraq based on lies and deception. The policy is making the world very, very angry at us.  Not to discount the majority of Americans who do not agree with this democracy concept of his.

The policy of Bush is hurting us, and that must change course...soon. Firing Rumsfeld would be a start and getting competent people who are anti-empire would help us a lot... a different secretary of state as well.  It is his policy that is the biggest problem.  Democrats have to quit saying, I would have done it different. Find a way to discredit the policy...we never have needed pre-emptive in the manner that George Bush is using  it. The world needs to hear this the sooner the better. Thank you for letting me air my concerns.

Mary Hough

Vietnam Deja Vu?

Re: The Vietnam Solution [4] by Robert Dreyfuss

Hey Mr. Dreyfuss, you are right on line. In addition to the "honorable" withdrawal, maybe we can find some tape recordings, have some denials and then have some administration bigwigs disappear. History can repeat itself!

Robert  Bauerle

There are so many inaccuracies in your article, it's hard to know where to start. Tet was not a military defeat. It did decimate the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. Uncle Walter helped convince the public the war was lost. Even General Giap admitted that the north was losing until the anti-war crowd changed American opinion.

Iraq is no Vietnam. The populace is vastly more supportive than the Vietnamese were. The terrorists are all from outside the country, not a large number of the local population. The Iraqi police and military are now conducting many of their own operations. The "insurgents" that are talking to the coalition are former Baathists who see that an overthrow of the current government doesn't have any popular support. The coalition is not talking to the foreign-born terrorists.

You may want a set exit strategy, but I think you'll find this president will only accept the destruction of the terrorists as the acceptable exit plan. Better to have them attracted like flies to the sandpaper of Iraq, than getting visas to come here and stage attacks on our streets.

David Henry

Bob Dreyfuss' pieces on the Vietnam solution in Iraq were insightful.  One problem, however, is the basic assumption that the United States actually wants to or can afford to get out of Iraq.  I strongly believe that the U.S. presence in Iraq must be viewed in the context of that country's immense supply of natural resources most notably oil.  Experts warn that the planet's hydrocarbon supplies are dwindling rapidly.  The entire economy of the U.S. depends on increasing, cheap supplies of hydrocarbons.  We cannot find this supply at home.  We are already in competition with China for what remains of the Middle East oil and, since China finances in large part our very existence, cannot compete with them to buy what we need.  (Ignore, momentarily, that we are so detested in the Middle East that they don't need to sell us oil as long as they have another buyer.)  There is only one solution—we must take what we need and that is what this war is about—the life and death of the U.S. economy and, therefore, the country itself.  We are not interested in leaving and will undoubtedly choose to solidify public support for continued conflict in other more sinister ways—another "terrorist attack" perhaps?

Martha Roberts