Web Letters: Partial Peace, Looming War

I listened to Ricks hawking his book on NPR and C-SPAN. He really is a very seductive used-car salesman. One of the best revisionists I've heard to date. He gives this really down-homey kind of account of all the people that have died there and how great the turn around has been in Iraq. He doesn't mention how much hate we have generated. He spends most of his time name-dropping and credit-carding on other people. Sounds like another book, Passages, that I once read., The first chapter was fantastic, the rest was pure trash. I not only read the book, I took a psychology class that used the book as text.

James L. Pinette

Caribou, ME

"Obama will also find ways to increase support for Palestinian aspirations, as the most effective approach to lessening Arab and Islamic support for jihad." How about telling his secretary of state to stop claiming that the freely elected Hamas government is illegitimate? Funny, she never said that of President Bush. The same old same old. Using the word "jihad" is so provocative and inaccurate, putting the cart before the horse. It is the occupation that provokes jihad, not the other way around.

Continuing to demonize Muslims is not going to engender trust for dialogue. We should also stop using inflammatory and innacurate words and phrases like the term "war on terror," which is deferential to Bush's imposition of a de facto dictatorship, still in place. Would a "war on drugs" in Afghanistan justify the rationale for contination of the suspension of habeas corpus? Ridiculous!

How can you support reasons for Palestinian aspirations when the US continues to ignore the principal motivation for the 9/11 hijackers viz. the US's one-sidedness with Israel?

Obama made a huge mistake by appointing Hillary; she has barely started, and all we see is the flagrant continuation of the Bush policies.

stanley hersh

New York, NY

It is a good feeling when one of the first people you came to respect for honesty and integrity is still out there earning it.

Andy Brady

Angelica, NY

Just a couple things. The peace movement is not led by Trotskyists, Stalinists and neo-anarchists. It is led by the people that attend the protests and organize at the local level. This includes some of the above, but also includes religious laypeople and clergy, labor organizations, student groups and individual students, community organizations and just plain old people. The Obama campaign took advantage of these people's desire to see all the US troops leave Iraq by the end of 2009 and encouraged these people to vote for their man. While it does look like Mr. Obama will remove most troops from Iraq by 2010, there is no guarantee of that or the later departure of the troops that might remain in 2011. As you rightly point out, there is a lot that could go against Washington's hopes for Iraq in the next couple years. However, this does not mean that things would necessarily be going badly for the Iraqis.

Likewise, your noting of the potential intensification of the debacle in Afghanistan and Pakistan is right on. However, once again you twist the intention of Washington. The small number of troops does not indicate a different goal for Washington's desire to dominate. It merely represents Washington's desire that the locals bear the brunt of the casualties inflicted on them by that desire.

Ron Jacobs

Asheville, NC

The cool thing about this war is that there is no Saigon-like exit. This is the way it's supposed to be done, Tom.

Robert Reynolds

Baltimore, MD