==============
Dear radio opensource,

From the moment I started listening to radio opensource podcasts I enjoyed them immensely. So this is hard to say and not meant to you personally in any way. But is has to be said.

It just finished listening to your 6-part series ‘they got it right’ on a group of people that foresaw some of the disastrous effects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As is most often the case the interviewees were smart, thoughtful and reasonably well-informed. But something as bugging me all the time and now that I have discovered what is is I feel I have to share.

Shame.

Shame on the interviewer and the interviewees.

Not a word. Not one word in 6 talks about the 1.2 million Iraqi citizens (30+% of them children) that are dead. Not apology, no regret. Not even a word of sympathy. How can this be? Has even the top 1% of US intellectuals gone utterly insane? They did nothing to you. They were innocent. And you complain about the fact you’ve been lied to by your government? You think you have a problem? Every day you allow your government to stay in power you a condoning genocide.

Why should the rest of the world care what happens to the US if its citizens are unable to take basic responsibility for what has been done (and is being done) in their name? Ask ‘Why do they hate us?’ This is one of your answers.

Why are you sitting behind your computer? Why are you not in the streets by the millions taking back what is left of your country?

The dollar is falling apart, your military is unable to even occupy a single city in a third world country. You’re so far in debt the rest of the planet will soon have no choice but to pull the plug on your $800 billion trade deficit and your $3 trillion housing bubble. Your problem is not about the messed-up 2 party system or your messed-up media system it’s how you will import enough fuel to survive next winter after the dollar goes down the tube. You will need friends and navel gazing and intellectualizing about your internal politics quite frankly does not cut it anymore if your government is overseeing the largest genocide since Pol Pot.

Are you still here? Get up! Get out! Do something! Show the rest of the world that you are willing to take personal risks to end genocide financed by your taxes!

Saddened and flabbergasted but still a subscriber.

Arjen
Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Hindsight is always 20/20 and it has not yet been established that the war in Iraq is “lost”, or “won” for that matter. The reason for this is because this new 21st century “war” is not an open and shut case like the wars of the past. The advancement of Communications and military Technology; the availability of 15 year old [composite] military technology has enabled rouge criminal elements and terrorists to force America and its NATO allies to play a more active role in defending the life nerve of Western Civilization, oil.

This new kind of rogue access to technology has created a necessary and continual preponderance of American military forces in the Middle East in what Henry Kissinger has referred to as “A lawless world”. Actually, it’s not even that. It’s more like Iraq is the new Ok Corral, and Central Asia is the new playground for 21st century spies and covert sabotage. Many retired military brass and veteran journalists have come forward with the realization that the current conflict in the Middle East is a protracted one, and that it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Again … there is no “right” or “wrong” here. We simply need to redefine the way we look at things, and possibly invent some new terminology. Hilary Clinton seems to be catching on. She’s no dope.

Given that the general position by this administration, and an obvious lack of trust for Iraq regime and the Iran regime since they make up two thirds of the axis-of-banality, I conclude that boots on the ground is the way to verify and quash weapons proliferation from this administration’s POV. This is not mere air sorties as a solution, regarding Iran. Of course, no one should expect consistency for such weighty matters, Libya and North Korea (third spoke in the axis-of-banality) are perhaps exceptions that prove the rule.

Anyway, regardless, whatever the Iraq debacle is about, it is clear that one component was weapons proliferation. Going forward, it would be great to hear some of these guest’s views on non-proliferation going forward. Would any of your previous guests do follow ups on this issue? Something other than boots on the ground, but constructive and feasible would be great to hear about. Historical evidence in this area may be of little value, so I’d like to hear some novel approaches. I’m not a big boots on the ground kinda person, so I’d like to hear some tangible words about this area. From my POV, non-proliferation is a serious issue and one of the strategic errors about Iraq is that the military campaign trumped a means of finding non-military, non-covert solutions to this problem.

In the short run, and perhaps in the long run too, military-based solutions, especially ones that fail, tend to remove options and become counter-productive. With the corollary that newly created options must be quashed or neutralized as they have negative tactical value in the strategic vision (e.g. the options created called insurgency, sectarian strife, mass refugees, bolstering a neighboring country’s status, incursion from neighboring countries, loss of general goodwill among allies, torture usage as SOP, weapons proliferation due to rising chronic paranoia, reducing military elasticity, and other unintended consequences).

http://www.radioopensource.org/they-got-it-right-4-steve-van-evera/#comment-88683

expressed reservations about the threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and suggested instituting a policy of mutual deterrence. He pointed out that no one was suggesting an attack on Pakistan, a problematic Islamic state that already has nuclear weapons.

“In another 15 years everyone will have nuclear arms, and the balance of terror will remove the threat of nuclear attack,” ( Haaretz)

Fareed Zakaria was on the Newshour last night debating Norman Podhoretz. The transcript and download are here. Podhoretz advocates a course of action that Paul Krugman decries in his recent column Fearing Fear Itself. It’s been too long waiting for what Krugman is saying here and for it to move to the forefront of our collective attention.

Zakaria in the Newshour interview goes out on a limb with this unpopular view:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Fareed Zakaria, the choice, either strike Iran or allow them to go nuclear, are those the only two choices?

FAREED ZAKARIA: Let us even assume that Iran gets the bomb, and it’s not clear that it will. Why are they more crazy than Kim Jong Il, a man who let two million of his own people starve in the last decade?

As Podhoretz quotes the worst of Ayatollah Khomeini and compares Ahmadinejad to Mao
and Hitler, Zakaria responds:

You know, I had a feeling Norman would bring up that one quotation that he’s used before, so I have one from now. “If the worst came to worst and half of mankind died, the other half would remain, while imperialism would be razed from the ground.” This is what Mao said.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Now they elect Ahmadinejad, and they say he’s got his finger on the button.