Letters to the Editor, May 11, 2004

Condolence

My sincerest condolences to the victims of war, and survivors. The world will not forget you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Andres Tricallotis, Sweden

Ashamed American

We Americans are terribly disappointed, saddened, and disgusted with the way these prisoners were treated. We (Americans) claim to be the planet's big brother. We put out the attitude that we are better than the rest of the world. This is a load of rubbish. Our treatment of these Iraqis is no better than how Saddam treated prisoners. Many of us ore growing tired of this so called liberation effort put forth by the Bush administration.

Rest assured President Bush will not get my vote this election. I am not a Muslim, and I do not come from your corner of the world. I happen to have a deep love for my country. I believe that this is the best place in the world to live and raise a family, but I still think we need to get out of Iraq.

Patrick Dray, Pennsylvania, USA

The images of the Iraqi prisoners have a strong pornographic element

The images of the Iraqi prisoner are not just brutal they have a strong pornographic element. Indeed, pornography is a massive US industry. There are therefore several questions investigators might ask to establish the extent of overlap/collusion between these key branches of the US economy:

Were military personnel/the military paid in advance by pornographic websites to produce such abusive material? Have military personnel received payment for the subsequent sale of pornographic images of prisoner abuse? Do these and other images (e.g. from Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq) currently feature on such US websites? How great is the match between the images of US military abuse (worse to follow) and images found on US pornography sites in general?

Phil Hong

Statues of Saddam and George Bush

Can anyone produce a small clip - with the Sadam statue tumbling down - and a George Bush Statue going up...??? Or as a cartoon.....

Angela Badelt

The Chechnya Bomb

Just found this on a different website after I penned the previous letter. It corroborates slightly what I had written.

I mentioned Russian foundering as a world power was one motivation for the bombing

The attack on the stadium – a high-security event celebrating a major occasion in Russian history – dealt an enormous blow to Putin's efforts to restore firm Russian rule in the north Caucasus region

The oddity of being able to beat the intense security I mentioned. I find it difficult to believe Chechnyan rebels could plan months in advance a bomb that must have been radio controlled. The bomb was placed inside a concrete part of the stadium," said Khamid Kadayev, Chechnya's deputy interior minister, speaking on television from the scene of the blast.

He said that was why the bomb had not been detected the previous night and on Sunday morning when the stadium was swept by security officials before Victory Day celebrations.

Bomb planted in VIP section

Television reports suggested the bomb might have been planted in the stadium during reconstruction work over the past three months.

I wrote this event would cause Russia to become more anti Muslim There can be no doubt that retribution is unavoidable for those whom we are fighting today. It will be unavoidable for terrorists."

Joe

A Letter to President Bush

Mr. President,

What can you, the President of the United States, or for that matter anyone else say now? Surely you don't expect anybody to believe that these brutal atrocities could have taken place in secret, without anyone else apart from the perpetrators and victims knowing about them. Is there still any doubt in your mind, as to who is going to be the loser in the end in this war of attrition?

Perhaps you should recall what Talleyrand said in a somewhat similar situation, to Napoleon about 200 years ago: "Sire! It was more than a crime, it was a mistake."

"Unus eademque libertas",

Atilla Levay Zsambek, Hungary

Iraqi prisoners

Do US soldiers really need the Geneva Convention to tell them not to strip someone naked and then physically and psychologically abuse them? It's a lame excuse made by some of the soldiers who are aware (as is everyone) that such treatment is torture but they chose to disregard their awareness that it is. GWB and his administration I think knew about it all time. I don't think they are really sorry either just sorry everyone is aware of the situation.

Janice Keenan