Letters to WaPo - from 2004

Subj: The Washington Post on WMDs

In this article, you noted "The Post's reputation for helping topple the Nixon administration". At the end of this article, you noted that antiwar voices "have the mistaken impression that somehow if the media's coverage had been different, there wouldn't have been a war."

So, media coverage can help topple a president in the 1970's, yet the same media could not have swayed public opinion and support for a president's policy to go to war in the year 2002-2003, and thereby help stop the war.

Seems to me you can't have it both ways.

Please note that the mainstream media in this country is not currently presenting reasonable voices on why we should leave Iraq and end this occupation immediately.

Subj: Mr. Cohen's column on 7/29/04

In Mr. Cohen's column "The Wrong Way to Be Right" he made two errors. One is saying that Mr. Bush's approach to allies who happened to disagree with his policies in Iraq is similar to Mrs. Kerry's comments to reporters she recently made. Actually, Mr. Bush's approach, and the rest of the Bush administration's approach, would be closer to Mr. Cheney's comments to a US Senator recently on the US Senate floor.

Also, Mr. Cohen states that "countless surveys tell us that America is scorned in the Middle East. But that hardly means American policy in that region is not the right one."

I would propose that our policies in the Middle East, including our policies around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, are not the right ones in either the moral or the practical sense of the word. If the goal is a reduction in conflict and bloodshed, these policies clearly are not working. They also are not popular in the world at large - and becoming less popular here in America every day.

(Update from 2007: I think we can conclude that the “goal” is not a reduction in conflict and bloodshed, but rather the opposite.)


Subj: The Intelligence Mess

Date: 07/11/04

There have been three massive intelligence failures here in the United States in as many years: 9/11, WMDs and the threat from Iraq, and post war planning in Iraq.

It is true that the CIA did not have agents on the ground in Iraq after 1998 (maybe Clinton should not have pulled UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq?), but that did not mean that there were no former UN weapons inspectors who had something to say about Iraq and it's WMDs program. Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, had plenty to say, and what he said about WMDs turned out to be correct. He was ignored by the US Senate. He was ridiculed or ignored by the US mainstream press. This is more than regrettable, since his voice carried significant information that would have provided accurate intelligence. His voice is still being ignored today, and he still has significant information that would be useful to address the post war situation.

Subj: “Precision Attacks”

Date: 09/02/04

In the article "Iraqi Interim Council Meets" there is the statement "The U.S. military said it carried out a "precision attack" on members of Zarqawi's group, who earlier in the day had executed and buried a man after pulling him from the trunk of a car south of the city..."

So, the US military did collective punishment against some men that reportedly did an unlawful execution against some unknown person, and who are also reportedly a part of the Zarqawi group. Have they totally abandoned the rule of law over there in Iraq? How come US troops were not dispatched to arrest the men that reportedly carried out the execution? The US military, based on what multiple sources told them, just blasted over a dozen people (including women and children, who had nothing to do with the original alleged crime) into obliteration. And in the past, these "sources of intelligence" have shown the tendency to provoke the US military into settling old scores for them.... and once again, doing so unlawfully.

I fail to see how this type of action will bring stability to Iraq.