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[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 04:47:08PM -0500, John Karns wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Sep 2005, Benjamin A. Okopnik wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 07:07:18PM -0500, John Karns wrote:
> >>But if I had to choose from one of the two alternatives you mention, I'd
> >>definitely go with the latter one.
> >
> >Yeah; strong ditto. I volunteered and went into the Army during the Iran
> >hostage crisis because I felt that America needed defending; I'm not
> 
> Interesting.  This is not meant to denigrate in any way your service,
> which I think was a very honorable action.  But several years ago I read
> two independently written books on the subject, both under the same title
> "October Surprise".  One was authored by Barbara Honegger, a former White
> House aide during the Reagan Admin, the other by Gary Sick, a career Navy
> officer who served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents
> Ford, Carter, and Reagan and has a doctorate in political science.  Both
> books made the same assertion, that the Carter admin's effort to free the
> hostages was sabotaged by a group of insiders within the Reagan camp.
> Honneger's book was perhaps more detailed; the scope of the investigation
> she did was very impressive.

Believe it or not, I heard (very quiet) speculation about this while I
was in boot camp. If the average dogfoot was wondering about it, I can
only imagine what was said in the smoke-filled back rooms of Washington
and elsewhere... and given Reagan's actions in general, it's quite a
believable premise.

> Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I have absolutely no
> confidence in the moral rectitude of the abysmal U.S. foreign policy; and
> Iraq is no exception. The rhetoric was very weak and for a lot us, a thin
> but transparent veil to justify a preplanned agenda of completely
> unjustified foreign aggression.

Effective rhetoric has not been the province of US politicians since
Daniel Webster... perhaps with a short break during JFK's tenure. Hell,
they don't really care much about convincing people any more, except
enough to create an atmosphere in which their actions have sufficient
plausible deniability; as long as there's a slim possibility that the
voting could have gone the way they claimed it did, that's enough.

  "At one time kings were annointed by Deity, so the problem was to see
  to it that Deity annointed the right candidate. In this age, the myth
  is 'the will of the people'... but the problem changes only
  superficially."

   -- Robert Anson Heinlein, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

> >alone [1] now in saying that this war is nothing more than mass murder -
> >of our people and of Iraqi civilans - that will cost us, big, in the
> >short and the long term.
> 
> Here's hoping that between the two fiascos, sufficient public ire will be
> raised to hold the current ( illicitly "elected" ) administration
> accountable for some of the egregious transgressions it has committed
> against U.S. citizenry and the rest of the worlds population.

As the Norwegians say [1], "from your mouth into God's ears". Between
the outright criminal behavior of Bush's bunch ("we want that oil,
therefore we have the right to it") and their gross incompetence that
killed the (estimated) thousands of people in the wake of Katrina, I can
only fervently hope. I have been repeatedly shocked - outraged - aghast
- left without words - at what the people in this country have
tolerated, at the lies that they have swallowed; that they have accepted
the deaths of their own children as necessary for no reason more
meaningful than "I've got a right to drive my damn SUV!"; that they have
bought the "reasoning" of those who have got a grip on the handle of the
political and the media machine. I hate to think of these disasters,
these deaths, as leverage... but I can only hope that the totality of
these things will serve as a wake-up call to those who have been asleep
for so long.


[1] I may be wrong, but I'm *sure* I recall Rick saying something
similar....

* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://linuxgazette.net *