The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Current Appeal

9.20.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 4)

Let me see if I have this correct. There are approximately 30 million uninsured people in the USA. This means there are 270 million insured people in the USA. So Mrs. Clinton wants those 270 million people to give up their insurance and join a government health care plan in order to insure the 30 million who do not have insurance.

Something is wrong with that picture.

Are illegal immigrants included in that 30 million? And if not, is Hillary's plan going to include them?

And speaking of illegal immigration, why don't the Democrats invite 30 million poor Chinese and 30 million poor Africans to this country to make the illegal immigration more diverse.
-- Fred Edwards
Tucson, Arizona

OIL SLICKS
Re: Michael Roush's letter (under "Media Sanity") in Reader Mail's Hillary Knows Best:

In his letter responding to James Bowman's column, Mike Roush asked what the Iraq war was about if not about oil since we didn't find WMD and Iraq has no connection to the 9/11 attackers. I recommend Mr. Roush read the column by James Lewis at the American Thinker website titled "Iraq as Qaeda Bait." It can be found here.

It is an interesting big picture answer to why we're in Iraq. Especially since the Israeli bombing of a suspected nuclear "something" sent to Syria by North Korea -- it's a reminder of Bush's early linking of the axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. We're surrounding Iran according to Mr. Lewis' column. That's one reason why we're in Iraq.

As far as the oil question, according to Mr. Greenspan, he's the one who brought up the oil question to Mr. Bush. He thought Iraq was a threat to the world economy because of its threat to the engine of the world: oil. The president rejected that as the "reason" for going into Iraq, but wars have been fought for lesser reasons.

All of these questions about why, who, what etc. are questions for the historians of the future. Right now the question should be -- we are there now, what happens if we leave? I suggest all look to Vietnam and Cambodia in the aftermath of the United States not just leaving that area of the world, but the Democrat Congress cutting off funds for the South Vietnamese. That legacy alone should give the cut and runners pause. Then add to it the boost it would give Al Qaeda to send the great Satan home with his tail tucked between his legs, and you have a recipe for a major disaster.
-- Deborah Durkee
Marietta, Georgia

I have one simple question for Mr. Roush: if the Iraq war is all about oil, then why is oil now at $82/barrel? We certainly didn't need to take over the whole country to secure the oil; it would have been much simpler to just take over the oil fields and control the pipelines to the ports. The rest of the country could have just rotted if it was all about oil. If we had these new supplies in our coffers (so to speak) oil would be down so low the corn farmers in Iowa would be demanding we give it back.

But no, we're trying to provide security for the whole bleeding country! We're building their infrastructure to better than the Saddam era. How again does this get us the oil? And how/why are the Iraqis making deals with the Chinese to develop OUR oil fields?

If it's about oil, we're abject failures. Of course, the same could be said about a number of other bromides. We failed at imperialism or neo-imperialism. Where is the American empire? We failed at colonialism or neo-colonialism. In the past, the only land we even ASKED for was that sufficient to bury our dead. And we don't even do that any more since we bring our dead home.

If the mandates were oil, empire, and colonies, we've exceeded even abject failure. Even to describe our failures metaphors fail; similes are found lacking.

Oh, woe is US.
-- Karl F. Auerbach
Eden, Utah

LIVING STILL
Re: Alfred S. Regnery's Single Malt in the Blue Ridge:

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Health Care, Bill Clinton, Social Security, Founding Fathers, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Israel, NATO, Africa, North Korea, Immigration, Oil