Letters to the Editor, May 25, 2004

American Lawlessness

What would I tell Iraq's Governing Council if I had the chance? Perhaps something like this:

Let the lawlessness being demonstrated by American forces throughout Iraq serve as fair warning of what to expect from the federal government of the United States of America.

Be advised: Those despicable ... do not represent us! American citizens are very good people who respect the rights of others--the rights to life, liberty, and property.

But our federal government is out of our control. It is no longer bound by law. It does not seek truth, protect rights, or afford justice. Today, American citizens are also under siege by this oppressive dictatorship. Do not allow yourselves to fall into the same trap. Do not listen to the lies. Do not surrender your sovereignty. Rid yourselves of the invaders.

Mark Yannone

2004 Libertarian candidate US House of Representatives for Arizona's District 3 Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Historical parallels

The BBC reports that the Israeli justice minister, Josef Lafid, has infuriated cabinet colleagues by saying the army offensive in Gaza reminded him of his family's woes in World War II.

This parallel between the Nazi occupation of Europe (under which the Jewish population suffered appallingly) and the Israeli seizure and occupation of Palestine (under which the Palestinians suffer appallingly) has been blatantly obvious to the rest of the world for years.

How ironic that a viciously persecuted people should now viciously persecute and oppress others rather than being determined to protect human dignity and rights at all costs. The only people who apparently do not appreciate this parallel are the Palestinians who continue, very bravely but with supreme ineffectiveness, to throw stones at main battle tanks and massive bulldozers as they ruthlessly shoot civilians and destroy homes.

If only they would greet their oppressors with the war time German salute, they would electify world opinion, shame the Sharon government and give the minority peace movement in Israel some small hope.

Phil Hong

What a pity Israel was not established in Europe where the initial persecution occurred or in America where support is always so strong. Why the Arabs should suffer for past events in distant Europe I cannot fathom.

A response to letter of Jack Dalton

In response to Jack Daltons interest in understanding a Persion translation of his article, I hoped to be of some help. There is a language translation service online that is free. It is called

BabelFish

A person can put words or an entire url on the page for translation. I was not able to help Mr Dalton though because BabelFish only translates European languages at this time.

I would suggest this presents an excellent opportunity for a motivated Arabic person. If they had the knowledge and time to provide an online translator from Arabic or Persian etc into English, that would allow the many English only speakers in the world to hear Arabic ideas right from the source.

This is a url for a company that has already produced an Arabic language alphabet translator.

http://www.aramedia.com/ocr.htm

Using this software or software from another company, it would only be necessary to code the web interface for the translation page. There are many people who could do this easily.

With the slant towards Isreal that most English only papers have, this service of translating Arabic writings into a form that English only people can read could provide a boon towards real understanding of Arabic peoples and thought.

David Little

The Burning Itch to 'Civilize' Others

It becomes more and more evident that it is important for certain people to neatly package everything into a black and white box - good vs evil - Something that most civilized people have abandoned long ago due to all the shades of gray that most truly exist. To say all Muslims are evil is wrong, to say all Jews are evil is wrong, to say all Whites or Blacks are evil or even an entire region is evil is wrong. Basically, there have always been key people in history that have had overwhelming power and put it to evil uses like Hitler - many said he had a worthy cause, are we to say Germans are evil? People with funny mustaches are evil? Are we to say that a government is responsible to care for its people even at the expense of outsiders or infidels? I think the powerful always draws criticism, which I think is important since power can have detrimental effects.

However, this story falls short because they fall into the classic stereotype trap. It is so easy to package up all African Americans as victims, all Europeans as devils and all Muslims as saints. Yawn. Try being a little more objective in the future, it will lend your writing more credibility. Each individual is responsible for their fate, bad people exist across the board, and good people exist across the board. It is intellectually lazy to continue this approach, it serves no end except to excite directionless and more meaningless violence based on racism. The same racism you demote. A bit ironic isn't it? Every society has their transgressions against minorities and women and environment, etc. And to continually go back hundred, even thousands of years and say that the present day government or people are guilty because of it is ridiculous. There are still big problems in the world, but I have faith that we are getting a little better day by day and the critics and bashers and doom-sayers are too emotional and too narrow-minded to ever contribute anything positive to real change.

Steve Omnigate

Editor: You were fine until the end of the last sentence. You sound like a person who doesn't want to hear any criticism. Well, criticism is the first step towards identifying problems in order to solve them. If a government does not allow criticism, people call it a dictatorship, to say the least.

Zinni

Dear Sir:

Regarding your article on Zinni, your emphasis (bold characters) on the pre-911 drawing up of invasion plans is flawed and shows that you have not seen the entire 60 minutes show. This is sensationalism, a la Fox news (a network I despise). That Bush wanted to invade Iraq before 911, is understood. But not Zinni, or the Clinton administration. Zinni clearly says in the interview that there was no need to invade Iraq in the first place, that Saddam was contained. He also opposed the war before the invasion, saying that the true targets were not in Iraq and this was not a winning strategy. The fact that war plans were drawn up back in 2000 is irrelevant. Any country that the US has been at war with, has in its aftermath an invasion plan ready, this does not mean it will be executed (we had numerous plans to invade the Soviet Union for instance). What Zinni meant was that if you were going to go to war, do it correctly with enough troops to restore civil order after the invasion and for that alone, Rumsfeld (implied) should resign. In no way does he say we should have ever invaded Iraq in the first place, in fact he attacks the neo-cons directly in the interview. Please check your facts and not distort the news to inflate Arab sentiment even more than it is now. Many of us Americans are against the war and want new leadership at home. So please correct this and restore some faith in proper journalism.

Here is the link to the video, please watch it in its entirety, than report the news, not just a segment the AP released:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

Thank you,

Marc Eckelberry.

Editor: The news article was from Reuters. Only the emphasis was from Al-Jazeerah.info. The emphasis is important because it supports the literature about the military-industrial complex and its influence on US foreign policy. It's not normal that the US military has designs to invade other nations. The American people should reject the notion of invading other sovereign nations and they will do that next November. There's no disagreement about what you wrote about Zinni himself or about the Clinton administration. Finally, Al-Jazeerah.info does not inflate Arab sentiments. It's a US English publication that is unknown in the Middle East.

Iraq Cruelty from the beginning: GI Jim Massey

An Article from Yahoo.de in german:

in a nutshell: American GI Jim Massey confesses of cruelty and horrible acts on civilians from the beginning...... He could no longer continue and gave an interview with "The Independent on Sunday" (Britain)

Angie

US-Soldat berichtet von Grausamkeiten im Irak

London (dpa) - Die amerikanischen Truppen im Irak haben nach Angaben eines ehemaligen Unteroffiziers zahlreiche Grausamkeiten begangen. Jimmy Massey, der während des US-Einmarsches und in den ersten Monaten danach im Irak stationiert war, sagte in einem Interview mit der britischen Zeitung «The Independent on Sunday»: «In eineinhalb Monaten haben meine Einheit und ich über 30 Zivilisten getötet. (...) Wir haben eine Menge unschuldiger Menschen umgebracht.»Immer wieder hätten sie irakische Zivilisten niedergemetzelt, Verletzte ohne ärztliche Hilfe einfach an den Straßenrand gerollt, Leichen ausgeplündert und geschändet. Massey hat den Streitkräften inzwischen den Rücken gekehrt und wird wegen Depressionen und posttraumatischem Stress behandelt.Einmal hätten sie auf eine Gruppe von zehn Demonstranten gefeuert, weil sie in der Ferne einen Schuss gehört hätten, berichtete er. Neun seien umgekommen, dem zehnten sei ein halber Fuß abgerissen worden. «Er humpelte weg und zog seinen Fuß hinter sich her. Wir haben alle gelacht und gejubelt.» Irgendwann sei es ihm zu viel geworden, und er habe sich an seinen Vorgesetzten gewandt: «Ich habe ihm gesagt, ich hätte das Gefühl, dass wir im Irak Völkermord begehen. Der Offizier habe ihn dann als «Schwächling» beschimpft.Nach einem Bericht der «Sunday Times» hat das britische Außenministerium das unnachgiebige Vorgehen der US-Truppen im Irak in einem internen Papier kritisiert: Diese Strategie habe die Koalitionstruppen «viel öffentliche Unterstützung gekostet», heiße es in dem Dokument. Der Londoner Bürgermeister Ken Livingstone, ein Parteifreund von Premierminister Tony Blair, forderte am Samstag bei einer Kundgebung in der britischen Hauptstadt, US-Präsident George W. Bush müsse als Kriegsverbrecher vor Gericht gestellt werden.

Angela Badelt

Meeting to organize flyering, street theater & other creative actions for June 4

Chicago chapter of the International Solidarity Movement

This is a call for a meeting to organize flyering, steet theater and other
creative actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the scheduled
rally and march to demand justice in Palestine on June 4th.

The Israeli Consulate has typically been the primary target of
demonstrations because it serves as the official representative of the
government of Israel to the Midwest. But it might surprise some people to
learn that there is an extensive network of Chicago-based organizations
dedicated to providing economic, social, political and/or military support
to the state of Israel and strengthening the "special relationship" that
exists between Israel and the United States.

The attrocities taking place in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere in Palestine
demand action on our part. No longer can we allow this support to be
decontextualized and go unchallenged. We must become more proactive,
vigilent and creative in our efforts to educate the public-at-large, stop
all U.S. aid to Israel, and bring about an end to the illegal and brutal
military occupation of Palestine.

The basic idea is to organize leafletting, street theater, and other
creative actions in front of as many of these support organizations as
possible on June 4th (and beyond) in order to provide the public-at-large
with the kind of exposure that these attrocities demand and that the
corporate media outlets consistently fail to provide. Following the
meeting, which is being called by a number of solidarity groups, a more
specific call to action will go out with detailed action plans so that
people who were unable to attend the meeting can still participate in the day of action.

For additional information please contact the Chicago chapter of the International Solidarity Movement at: ISMinChicago@aol.com or call 312-491-1789.

MEETING INFORMATION:
Thursday, May 27
7:00-9:00PM
New World Resource Center
773-227-4011
1300 N. Western Ave. (Western and Potomac)
One block north of Division

Some of the more notable support/advocacy organizations:

- America-Israel Business Exchange Institute (AIBEX Institute)
Develops and produces bilateral business exchanges, featuring leading-edge
technologies. AIBEX facilitates U.S.-Israel trade and investment
opportunities.

- American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
Pro-Israel lobbying on Capitol Hill on issues regarding the U.S./Israel
relationship.

- Americans for a Safe Israel
Education on security issues in Israel; lobbying for Israel defense issues.

- Friends of the Israel Defense Forces
Fundraising for humanitarian, educational, and social programs for Israeli
soldiers and their families.

- Herut-Likud
Supports the policies of Sharon's Likud Party.

Our activities will end in time for people to participate in the Rally and March for Justice in Palestine. The rally will begin at 3:30 PM at Tribune Plaza (435 N. Michigan Avenue) and the march to the Israeli Consulate begins at 4:15. A concluding rally will run from 4:30-5 PM at the Israeli Consulate.