Correction: The March 17 cover story on the Longmont airport stated that there are two city council seats plus the mayor job up for election this November in Longmont. Actually, three council seats and the mayor position are opening up.
Show restraint in Libya
Oh, lord! I see that Paul Danish, Boulder’s own barstool bombardier, is at it again. (“Bomb Gaddafi’s runways,” Danish Plan, March 10.)
This time he wants the U.S. to attack a sovereign nation (Libya) without providing a shred of evidence that this nation has attacked, or is even a threat to, the USA. Nor does Danish provide any justification whatsoever for the U.S. to involve itself in the internal affairs of another nation.
He is obviously unaware that only Congress can authorize a declaration of war against a sovereign state, as stipulated by the U.S. Constitution. Bombing another nation’s airfields and infrastructure is an act of war, regardless of the euphemisms and specious arguments used to obfuscate that fact. Additionally, he is blissfully ignorant of the fact that Article VI of the Constitution states unequivocally that “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” The U.S. is signatory to the United Nations Charter, and as such, must conform to and obey all laws and provisions of said Charter.
NATO is a military alliance and would be operating out-of-theatre, thus violating its own charter. Why NATO is conducting military operations in landlocked Afghanistan, thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean, is another matter that might intrigue the curious. Danish doesn’t even have the decency to invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was designed in part to curtail executive privilege in conducting military operations without Congressional approval.
His column also dredges up the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Before passing judgment on Libya in this matter, best read “Lockerbie Doubts,” by Lisa Pease, available on Commondreams.org, dated Aug. 23, 2009. In particular, pay attention to those parts regarding the four CIA agents found in the wreckage, along with approximately $500,000 in cash, an additional $547,000 in travelers checks, and … heroin.
Danish’s war mongering has no substantive basis in either U.S. or international law. According to his worldview, Americans need not adhere to nor concern themselves with international law, much less their own laws and Constitution.
Dave Morton/Longmont
Once again our president has ordered military operations without Congressional authorization against an Islamic oil-producing sovereign nation.
Apparently established patterns are not subject to change and undeclared wars and military aggression remain the political norm. If our military budget is factored in, the realistic “price” of gasoline has to be well over $10 a gallon to the average American and, all the while, transnational oil company tax subsidies and evasions continue and profits rise. “Socialize the costs and risks and privatize the profits” is clearly the oil business model.
Robert Porath/Boulder
Danish and gas
I read with interest Paul Danish’s “Open letter to the members of the 112th Congress” on Feb. 10 (Danish Plan).
I wonder if he knows that PetroChina is investing big in American natural gas through Encana Corp. China’s CNOOC already did the same, through Chesapeake Energy. Last November, Cheniere Energy of Houston struck a deal with a Chinese trading company to export American Liquefied Natural Gas (Cheniere owns the only American LNG import terminal).
It’s not only the Chinese. An Australian banking group is helping Freeport LNG Development LP to obtain an LNG export license. The USA is self-sufficient in natural gas, a “green” fuel, for at least 40 years, according to HSBC Bank. Prices at the wellhead are very low now. In overseas markets, contracts for natural gas are linked to crude oil, the price of which seems headed skyward. U.S. companies are falling all over themselves to drill for more shale oil, even in the face of low prices. Current “plays” in dense rock use hydraulic fracturing, a technology that, whatever its environmental costs, increases the rate of field depletion. And a rare-earth strategic reserve, resembling the petroleum reserve, has been proposed to help counter tightening Chinese export quotas.
Why not also natural gas? Or is it more “opportune” to sell one of our best energy assets to the PRC, and the consequences for energy independence be damned?
Greg Iwan/Longmont
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