Stars and Stripes: Two LTTE's

I like reading the opinion page here though rarely agree. Today, these caught my eye~

http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=49878


Taking comfort in the lies

You have to give the man credit for being honest.

In the Oct. 25 Stars and Stripes, the writer of the letter “Blowing off some steam” stated he wants “a cheerleader,” and to heck with this balanced reporting. You know, he may be right.

There can be a great deal of comfort in knowing you are being lied to. Why do you think some people listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Fox News as their only sources of reporting on current events?

Hey, I’ve got an even better idea. Why doesn’t Stars and Stripes get out of the news business and start distributing controlled substances to troops and Department of Defense civilians instead? Enough cocaine and we’ll all start thinking the Iraqi police are honest. Enough marijuana and we’ll all start believing the Iraqi army is competent. Enough crack and we’ll all start believing the Iraqi Parliament is capable of reaching compromise on basic issues it has been batting around for three years.

And enough mass quantities of alcohol and we’ll start believing this effort has been entirely paid for … nothing added to a national debt approaching $10 trillion.

Thanks, letter writer. I feel better already.

Sgt. Al Fecteau
Camp Arifjan, Kuwait


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Don’t insult servicemembers

Let me applaud Stars and Stripes and American Forces Network for the balanced political viewpoints they make available to the overseas military community.

Opinions from Arianna Huffington and Ann Coulter in Stars and Stripes, and Rush Limbaugh and Ed Schultz on AFN, provide us with different points of view on the important issues. I do, however, believe we can have this balance without insulting our servicemembers, and that’s why I have a problem with Limbaugh.

Limbaugh has insulted our servicemembers on more than a few occasions. I will not comment on the “phony soldiers” controversy because I don’t want to insult those who can’t tell the difference between plural and singular phrases. A clear-cut example of Limbaugh’s insults to hundreds of thousands of our servicemembers , is Limbaugh’s 2005 radio broadcasts on AFN that included a jingle that went, “Democrats, they’re running on ‘stupid.’”

This was not only an insult to Democratic servicemembers, but to all of our heroes who are fighting and dying for the rights of the Afghan and Iraqi people to choose which legal political party they want to support. Do I need to remind the readers that the right to choose their political party is one of the most important freedoms that we have?

AFN is also a military command information network. Therefore, some young military members may believe that Limbaugh’s suggestion (that servicemembers who support the Democratic Party are stupid), may be shared by the military chain of command. This could possibly influence the servicemembers’ political decisions.

If Limbaugh wants to exercise his First Amendment right to call our servicemembers stupid, let him do it on Al Jazeera, not AFN.

James Carrethers
Kaiserslautern, Germany

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.

:hi:

:hi:

Each and every time someone takes the trouble to reproduce some of these letters from Stars and Stripes, I am impressed all over again with the clear view some of our uniformed folks have of the situation. I am further impressed that S&S runs these letters.

What I am decidedly NOT impressed with is the apparent common understanding amongst the popular media outlets that these men and women in uniform don't exist, and that they're all gung-ho true believers who completely buy into the administration line. Why aren't the likes of Mr. Fecteau and Mr. Carrethers represented in those "state of the soldier" reports we get every now and then on the evening news? Why can't Katie or Brian or Charlie seem to get in touch with these folks? Stars and Stripes can.

daily. I prefer not to post the letters praising Coulter and Limbaugh, but occasionally, like today, it's nice to see the other side of the coin.

There ain't that much weed in the world.


Otherwise, awesome!

:kick: