Mr. Lind:
I read your article as noted above, and would like to express to you how thankful I am for writers such as yourself. My son is presently in Ramadi, and the city is lost. It’s like out of a Mad Max movie, or Dawn of the Dead – the violence is horrific.
My other son is in Kuwait and deploys for Iraq again, the al-Anbar region, tomorrow. Both my boys are infantry, Marine Corps. Please keep getting the word out that the war is lost. The Bush administration is well aware of that; however, we seem stuck in this quagmire at Bush’s whim. The American people MUST take action against this war. If you have any ideas of what I can do as an ordinary citizen to help end this nightmare, please e-mail me. Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy your insightful articles, and praise God that you are there, helping to inform the American people.
~ Sue B., mom of two of “the few”
Great article, but you need to make distinctions about Democrats and not smear them with the same abandon that conservative libertarians did in the 1970s. We’re past that now. You need to acknowledge that the most liberal Democrats are your antiwar allies. I don’t know why you don’t just admit it. Are you afraid you would lose your less subtle-minded, old-style libertarian readership if you did?
How Not to Handle Iran’s Nuke Aspirations
In his article entitled, “How Not to Handle Iran’s Nuke Aspirations,” Ahrari incorrectly states that Ahmadinejad said, “Iran’s government, unlike North Korea’s, has called for Israel’s regime to be ‘wiped off the map.'”
This incorrect translation serves the Zionist agenda, and has therefore been widely distributed. What he said was that Zionism will disappear from the pages of history.
Also, nowhere in his statement did he actually threaten Israel, or “call” on anyone to destroy it. All of the hype surrounding his statements were exaggerated, out of context, and based on a heavily manipulated translation.
Matt Barganier replies:
The link in Ehsan Ahrari’s piece makes the context clear.
Bush Has Achieved America’s Demise
Paul Craig Roberts asks a valid question: “When does ‘collateral damage’ so dwarf combatant deaths that war becomes genocide?” However, his answer is incomplete and shockingly underestimates the utter depravity of our government and the evil apathy of American citizens who couldn’t care less. We’ve been waging war on the Iraqi people since the first George Bush launched the Persian Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions killed 1,500,000 Iraqi people. Bush is right when he says that 655,000 is not credible, because the real figure lies closer to 2,155,000 Iraqis killed by American policies. Sounds like genocide to me.
When people of the United States loosely refer to dictators like Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-Il as “madmen,” they obviously haven’t stopped to consider the insane degrees to which we’ll hold innocent people responsible for the less than desirable actions of their leaders.
Paul Craig Roberts replies:
I don’t underestimate anything. I just report the findings of a survey conducted according to scientific methods and ask a question.
Matt Barganier replies:
Genocide has a specific meaning that doesn’t seem to apply to the U.S. government’s actions in Iraq: "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." Let’s just call it mass murder.
This article reminds me of the classical biblical story of Solomon’s decision to cut a baby in two and divide it between two mothers. The true mother of course said no and told Solomon to let the false mother have the baby. This gave Solomon the answer as to who was the real mother and he gave the baby to her. One can look at Yugoslavia in the same way. The Serbs wanted to preserve Yugoslav unity while the pretenders of brotherhood and unity wanted to divide it. The very fact that Croats and Muslims were willing to divide the country, while the Serbs fought to save it, proves that the Croats and Muslims were not the true “mothers” of brotherhood and unity.
Nebojsa Malic replies:
True enough. But since the Empire is not King Solomon – not by a stretch! – the decision to kill Yugoslavia and blame the Serbs for it carried the day.
I think the idea that the partitioning of Iraq will somehow bring peace to Iraq is naive. Many members of the various Iraqi factions live mixed among each other, especially in the cities. Where would those lines be drawn?
Even outside of the cities, who draws the lines and gets control of the oil fields, bridges, power plants, and other valuable assets well positioned to benefit one or extort the other? I suspect the factions in Iraq have much to fight for even if all sides could agree on splitting the country up. The next round of battles would be over where the lines are. Such battles are already seen around Kirkuk. Last but not least, Iraq’s neighbors, especially Turkey, may feel they have something to say because of adverse effects on their national security from alleged terrorist Kurdish groups. Turkey has no more interest in the Kurds controlling northern Iraq than do the Israelis have in Hezbollah controlling southern Lebanon.
Short of finding a new powerful dictator like Saddam, I fear the various factions of Iraqi people will have no peace. Saddam’s peace was difficult enough but probably better than the anarchy and war of all against all that presently exists. The U.S. peace will come when U.S. politicians decide to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and let the Iraqis fight among themselves.
~ Kevin J. Shannon
