Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor Iraq Debate I read The Progressive because it is willing to present two sides of an issue, and although I am heavily biased toward immediate withdrawal of American troops and...
...But his reasoning is flawed in that he fails to see the big, lethal picture...
...As it is with the American political system generally, two sides just aren't sufficient...
...A longtime reader of Bellow, I had always been edgy about his blatant misogyny, well-documented by Cusac...
...There is no way American troops and contractors under its command can ever establish the on-the-ground credibility necessary to end the violence...
...Last January, Iraqi voters were able to elect members to a national assembly who also advocated an end to the U.S...
...Alvin Levine Bradenton, Florida While it may seem very leftist and even "revolutionary" to demand, "U.S...
...Just how easy did Bush and the rest of the country think invading a country was going to be...
...Bush and his confederates aim for nothing less than domination of the Middle East and the world's oil resources...
...Douglas Campbell Ferndale, Michigan Gustafson's article was the best articulation yet of his position that I have seen or heard...
...Sid Resnick Hamden, Connecticut Reconsidering Bellow Thank you for Anne-Marie Cusac's article on the inimitable Saul Bellow ("Saul Bellow Reconsidered," June issue...
...I am now a middle-aged, leftwing, urban, working mother of two, and I still read Bellow...
...out of Iraq now...
...Her piece on Saul Bellow was precisely on target...
...should we not also consider what may happen to the opponents of the former Saddam regime and the other democratic, left, and secular forces in Iraq who are right now the victims of terrorist attacks carried out by insurgent Saddamist and reactionary Islamic thugs...
...Our brothers and sisters in the peace movement should understand this and support us now...
...I don't think he "lacks morality in his treatment of women," as Cusac writes...
...Would these people not be exposed to greater danger if U.S...
...I was within the psyche of urban, middle-aged Jewish men when I was reading Bellow's novels and stories...
...Can anyone imagine FDR or Woodrow Wilson declaring war and then wandering off to the countryside to chat with the locals about their retirement plans...
...American troops and contractors should be withdrawn immediately...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness, and may appear either in the magazine or on its web page...
...For the U.S...
...Misogyny never occurred to me as a teenage girl growing up in small town Montana in the 1970s when I discovered Bellow...
...The rest makes up for it...
...Jim Haber San Francisco, California Thank you for that excellent assessment of the situation in Iraq by Gustafson...
...Letters to the Editor Iraq Debate I read The Progressive because it is willing to present two sides of an issue, and although I am heavily biased toward immediate withdrawal of American troops and contractors, I read Erik K. Gustafson's piece thoroughly ("Abandonment of Iraq Is Wrong," June issue...
...I was escaping from my rural small town American (nonimmigrant) existence...
...are concerned for the anti-Saddamist Iraqis whose lives would be endangered by the insurgent terrorists if the American troops were pulled out now...
...Should this not be an objective that American progressives can also support while, at the same time, we seek to oppose U.S...
...credibility is (justifiably) almost nonexistent most places but here, and the U.S...
...Many of us in the U.S...
...In an interview with Matt Harwood (posted on Alternet.org), Muhsin stated: "Our priority is to keep Iraq together and make sure that extremism does not take hold in Iraq...
...Bush and Mr...
...I only marveled at the richness and the sparkle of the writing, the settings, content, and unforgettable characters...
...And because the war was illegal, therefore now we have to turn Iraq into anarchy and chaos in order to prove Bush and Blair wrong at the cost of the Iraqi people and destroy Iraq as a country...
...military, and armies in general, don't exist for making peace...
...troops left abruptly...
...Blair were wrong about the war...
...military to remain in Iraq and to eventually bleed that nation into submission would be but one step in their nefarious strategy...
...personnel...
...The Republicans are so dazzled by their military prowess that they have lost track of the fact that they haven't won a shooting war since Lincoln's day...
...Marie Collins New York, New York The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...imperialist interests from gaining the upper hand in Iraq...
...On June 1, the Iraqi Prime Minister Ibraham al Jaafari announced that he had requested the United Nations to extend the stay of the occupation forces "until we have defeated terrorism and restored security across the country...
...As wrongheaded and evil as the Bush Administration's Iraq invasion is, it is but one tactic in a much larger scheme...
...I forgive him his women characters if, in fact, they are inadequate to some...
...It would not be amiss for us in America to pay more attention to the views of progressive Iraqi spokesmen such as Abdullah Muhsin, who is a longtime fighter against Saddam and is now a representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in London...
...The Bush League started this war to take control of Iraqi oil for Texas oilmen...
...occupation, but were careful not to demand that it be done immediately...
...Far from representing the political fringe, articles like this one are the voice of reality...
...Keep them coming...
...Kay Reimers Yellow Springs, Ohio Gustafson shows a deep commitment to peace and justice...
...If that might result in a destabilized Iraq and civil war-and I remain unconvinced that civil war would actually be worse than the current American military occupation-then it should be somebody else doing the policing...
...I don't read Bellow for agreement with my morality or agenda...
...Still, I am uncomfortable that he believes that some good can be done by U.S...
...Nothing less than a bloody nose and an ignominious defeat ? la Vietnam will stop the Bush Administration's drive toward world domination...
...Letters may be e-mailed to: editorial@progressive.org Please include your city and state...
...This destroyed for me any grand acceptance of his "glorious place" in the world of letters...
...There's no point in saying that Mr...
...A Bush victory in Iraq would lead to other conflicts-in the Middle East and elsewhere...
...Now, Cusac has...
...At least when liberals start wars, we do our best to finish them...
...Meg Koonce Hillsboro, Oregon Bravo to Anne-Marie Cusac...
...Perhaps Gustafson is right that Iraq needs a continuing police presence until the nation stabilizes, but it need not be American...
...Saul Bellow has his weaknesses like any writer, but he captured my imagination as a teenager because of his artistry and the cerebral nature of his novels...
...No one spoke of it...
...The U.N., perhaps, or a coalition of Arab states, but not the United States...
Vol. 69 • August 2005 • No. 8
