for 27 January 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Dear Bartel:

That was pretty funny, but I
bet Alan Kornheiser could
have said the same thing both
more briefly and with greater
stinging wit.

Not the Doctor

Dear Alan,

That's funny, but this is
funnier:

Re: Feedback Loop - "but the sad
truth is we've never made up
reader mail...." Right, and
we're supposed to believe
that Alan S. Kornheiser
really exists?

Douglas Heath
<Heath.Douglas@ic.gc.ca>

Heath,

As perhaps the only Suckster
who has met Kornheiser in the
flesh, I can attest not only
that he exists, but that he's
the cat that won't cop out
when there's danger all
about.

Bartel

Bar,

Cute piece on 12 January
1999. But how could you say
that much about manufactured
letters without acknowledging
the great, inspired "Letters
from the Editors" section of
the Original National
Lampoon?

My fave was one from around
'78, which said simply:

"Sirs;
Whoops! I went to
hell.
Jean Paul Sartre"

Enjoy the millennium!

Rob Seulowitz
<rss2@idt.net>

Dr. Robert,

Originally, I tried writing
the whole piece in the form
of a "Penthouse Forum" letter:
"I've never written to you
before, but this was so hot I
just had to tell somebody,"
etc. Now there was a
writerly conceit that went
nowhere in a hurry!

I also intended to mention
the NatLamp letters, my
personal favorite of which
was:

Dear Sirs,

Isn't it true that you often
make up for a lame letter by
signing a funny name?

Sincerely,

E. Normous Penis
Fallen Trousers, Illinois

And there were many others.
I'm surprised nobody has
resurrected that letters
column in some more permanent
form.

Bartel

Contrary to the claim in
"Feedback Loop" - "If anybody
really wants to find out,
and we must never
underestimate the zeal of our
enemies, he will" - it is
possible to be effectively
anonymous, except under
extreme threat models - by
using a nym server via a
chain of anonymous remailers.

Even if the CIA, NSA, and XXX or
their non-US equivalents are
after you, using a nym server
in another country and
anonymous remailers in two or
three other countries imposes
a requirement for complex
multinational efforts. And in
any case, many nym servers
and anonymous remailers don't
keep log files - and so
network analysis (requiring
ENIGMA-like resources) would
be necessary.

A good (if out-of-date)
summary of these issues is at
Anonymity and Privacy on the
Internet
(http://www.stack.nl/~
galactus/remailers/).

Later,

Jim Cook
<jimcook@panix.com>

Dear Jim,

And I'm supposed to go to all
this trouble just so I can
send Highlights for Children,
a pseudonymous letter, saying:

"Bartel d'Arcy's story, 'What
to Do When Your Sister Is
Being a Pain' made me laugh,
cry, and learn. Please
publish his work in every
issue!"?

I'll stick with the brick
through the window.

Bartel

Hello,

Of course faking support is
not limited to individuals;
big corps love to do it too.
One example I'm particularly
fond of is the DVD vs. Divx.
Until fairly recently Divx
had no support whatsoever on
the Net until a strangely
professional site
http://prodivx.com/ popped
up. After looking a little
deeper it was found that the
domain is registered to an
address not four blocks from a
Circuit City in Richmond.
Gotta love that stock
imagery.

Regards,

Stuart Horner
<stuart@brain.core-comm.com>

Stuart,

Suck's co-founder wrote a
detailed defense of Divx in
another publication long
before it was cool to like
Divx. I'd be lying if I said
I understood his argument,
but it sounded really
intelligent and all. So it's
incorrect to say there was
never any support for Divx.
And don't forget Microsoft's
very similar "astroturf"
campaign, to which I proudly
contributed.

Bartel

I agree with you that
the United States has
yet to define a workable
method for dealing
successfully with Saddam in
the postwar environment.
However, in sharp contrast to
Vietnam, I think the Gulf War
was as "successful" as a war
gets ... our primary
objectives in that conflict
were to oust the Iraqis from
Kuwait, prevent an Iraqi
foray into Saudi Arabia, and
effectively pull the teeth
from Iraq's military. We
accomplished all of these
goals with a minimum of
American casualties
(actually, a record minimum
... more US soldiers were
lost to accidents than enemy
fire). And we did so with the
full support of our allies
and of the American people.
The Gulf War was not an
undeclared war of ideology
... it was a sanctioned war
against unlawful aggression
(somewhat stimulated by the
fact that the war zone
occupied some prime
oil-producing real estate). I
think the only real mistake
made by US planners was
waging the war without a
clear view of the desired
postwar environment ... which
is a timeless and
oft-repeated mistake in
history. I think the planners
may have succumbed to some
wishful thinking in this
department, hoping that the
Iraqi people would blame
Saddam for the debacle that
befell them and produce a
coup. As you have already
pointed out, the bombings and
embargoes probably produced
just the opposite result,
especially in a country where
the government controls the
media completely. The
situation is much muddier
now, and the current
administration is handling it
badly, but I can think of few
constructive alternatives.
Can you? My point is not to
criticize your article, which
was very well written and
thought out and very true in
most respects. I simply
wanted to point out that,
from a military standpoint,
the operations have been very
well handled, which was not
at all true of the Vietnam
War, and that the analogy to
the bombings of Vietnam
(great title, BTW) is not
entirely accurate. The
bombing campaign (during the
war) in Iraq had clear-cut
military goals (to knock out
Iraqi air defenses and
communications, demoralize
their troops, and reduce
Iraqi war-making capacity),
and it largely fulfilled
them. Our failure was one of
political foresight and a
lack of understanding of a
vastly different culture. And
in that, you are correct, can
be heard the echo of guns of
wars past.

Happy New Year

Barry Munden
<barrym@one.net>

Hard to disagree with most of
this. The Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait was clearly
unacceptable and Desert Storm
was clearly successful at
liberating Kuwait with
minimum US (and allied)
casualties. Won't get into
the US role in helping Saddam
Hussein's armed forces gather
strength while Iraq and the
United States were allies, because of
course it doesn't make the
invasion OK.

But, as you put it, "waging
the war without a clear view
of the desired postwar
environment" I think gives a
great deal of that victory
back. As for constructive
alternatives, ending the
embargo removes the
United States as a
bogeyman that Saddam Hussein
can use on his own people and
the rest of the world - it's
backfiring badly on us and
needs to be abandoned. The
Cuban embargo didn't exactly
force Castro out in a big
hurry. And then? The Soviet
Union was far, far more
dangerous - far better armed
- than the Iraqis,
and the US
contained that threat for
decades with clear,
delineated counterthreats: If
you do X, we do Y. In
Afghanistan, the
United States armed the
hell out of the forces
fighting Soviet aggression,
just as China armed the hell
out of the Viet Cong; I'm not
saying we should do that, but
I am saying that the notion
that political and military
objectives can be obtained at
a low cost - witness the way
we backed into Vietnam, then
accelerated, then tried to
fight at just the right pitch
to keep China from becoming
involved - leads to
escalation and defeat. It's
necessary to choose a path.
Finally - not finally as in
"that's all there is to say
on this subject," but
"finally for this message,
which I'm trying to avoid
turning into a book" - it
would help if the folks
leading the effort
in the United States
would stop contradicting
themselves, and lying in such
spectacularly obvious ways,
to their own constituency.
The Tet Offensive exacted
such a huge cost not because
it was a victory in military
terms for the VC, but because
it exposed William
Westmoreland and Lyndon
Johnson as frauds.

And so on. But in any case,
thanks for a thoughtful
message.

Ambrose Beers

All Canadian kidding aside,
today's story on American
arrogance in world affairs
simply proves that generals
are poor learners,
politicians great
illusionists, and
that the United States
has a lot to come to terms
with - beyond Monica.

Would Canada be equally
asinine if it could be? I am
sure we would be just as
ruthless - luckily we can
escape that burden because we
are impotent to do more than
clean up other people's
messes in "peacekeeping."

As one who opposed Vietnam, I
am encouraged to see you
standing up vigorously for
what is right by exposing
lies and deceptions.

Stephen van Beek
<beek@idirect.com>

Never put Canadian kidding
aside - it can be a powerful
weapon. Just look what it did
to, uh ... well, you get the
point. I tend to suspect that
Canada would be equally
asinine, if it could be, and
so would every other country
on earth - just as the United States
would be just as nuts as
Iraq, or any other country,
in a similar position. Folks
is folks, and your view
depends on where you're
standing. What this does for
the notion of the
"international community" as
final arbiter of justice, I
have no idea....

Ambrose Beers

Once again you've proven
yourself a genuine journalist
and a clear thinker. The US
media has been parroting the
administration line that
chemical weapons exist in
Iraq and have been found by
the UN weapons inspectors,
even though their actual
reports, er, don't actually
confirm any of this.

So, let's review. The Clinton
administration (1) adamantly
denies using the UN weapons
inspectors as spies, until
proven otherwise; (2)
vehemently insists the UN
inspectors have discovered
chemical and/or biological
weapons, despite the
inspectors' own actual
reports; (3) blows up
pharmaceutical plants in
north Africa based on "firm"
evidence that ends up being a
fistful of dirt showing trace
elements of chemicals that
are either undeniably linked
with weapons manufacturing or
undeniably aren't, depending
on which press conference you
were watching that week; (4)
kills maybe a million Iraqi
civilians with an embargo
while castigating Saddam
Hussein for manufacturing
"weapons of mass destruction,"
which haven't been found for
eight and a half years; (5)
sends three Jewish officials
to Ohio State to try to
convince Arabs around the
world that this is not a
racist or a strictly
pro-Israel war (oops); and
most tellingly, (6) promises
Hussein an end to the embargo
if no weapons are found, and
when none are found, insists
that they must be there
somewhere and, regardless,
the embargo stays until
Hussein is overthrown.

It's not that Hussein is a
decent person or a legitimate
leader, which of course he
isn't. It's just a little sad
to see our leaders sink to
his levels of dishonesty and
inconsistency, but with less
brains and longevity, all the
while antagonizing a couple
billion Muslims around the
globe.

Which I guess is pretty much
what you just said. Anyway,
good job.

Tom Castle
<Tom@asizip.com>

You know, you've hit on the
thing that really gets me,
here: The unrelenting
antagonism directed at those
couple billion - I'll go
along with the number, what
the hell? - Muslims. It's
like: What are you gonna do,
dumb-ass, shoot me? Go ahead,
pull the trigger, asshole - I
dare ya! You gonna just
point that frickin' gun, or
do you have the balls to
really pull the trigger? Hey,
I'm talking to you. Hey,
asshole! What are you waiting
for? Afraid to ...

Bang!

Ambrose Beers