Letters I have written

I was clearing out some old emails, and ran across these letters I wrote to media folks in May 2005. As you can see, I was angry. I still am.

Here’s one to the Ombudsman at WaPo in May 2005:

“It is a reminder of how powerfully the circumstances leading up to this war still reverberate within a sizable chunk of the population and why the press should not let go of any loose ends that may shed light on how this happened.”

Loose ends? Loose ends? Are you really stupid or is this just pretending? It is very clear how this war started. It started the same as all wars - LIES. And a willing whorish press who repeated those lies, so that they could keep their big fat paychecks intact and their corporate bosses happy. At least the experience of the last three years has shown me how Hitler did it. I didn't know the corporate press would pay such a large part. If I were you, I would have to throw up every time I looked in the mirror. How can you live with yourself?

Another letter to WaPo in May 2005:

How much do you want to bet the government official who told Newsweek about the abuse of the Koran in US run prisons will be identified before we find out who leaked Valerie Plame to the press and undercut our national security?

And where is the responsibility of the US officials who reviewed the article from Newsweek before it was published?

Letter to Christian Science Monitor in May 2005:

"The three elements fueling the Iraqi insurgency are the hard-core Sunni Baathists, the foreign extremists, and the Sunni fence-sitters - the last being the largest of the three and probably the ones providing the largest number of recruits right now," says Michael O'Hanlon, an expert in US military affairs at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

I find it incredulous to read a report on what constitutes the Iraqi resistance - and find no reference to the anger and rage that was surely fueled by US bombings, US checkpoint killings, US abuse and torture of detainees, and US abuse of ordinary Iraqis.

I would bet that if I came and kicked in your front door at 3 AM and scared the crap out of you and your loved ones, and trashed your house besides, you'd be ready to pick up arms against me. Why is it so hard for the US press and US public to understand that rage and anger?

And, as the theory that the Sunnis are part of the resistance because they made lots of money from the oil - how come Fallujah looked so damn poor?

Yet another letter to WaPo in May 2005:

"Or: Is the administration trying to neutralize the press so it can put out a sanitized version of the news without the annoyance of an independent reality check? How can a White House steeped in deception lecture the Fourth Estate on ethics?"

Well, they could certainly solve that problem by being transparent and honest! Ha, ha, ha.... How come your entire column on this story is what WHITE GUYS think? Can't you make friends with some people who are from different backgrounds? It is really not that hard to do. A good number of them can speak English nowadays, just to make it easier for you WHITE GUYS who can only speak one language. This story about the Koran being disrespected has "legs" because hundreds of eyeballs saw it happen, and then they went back to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Oh, by the way, ABC is doing a story on those guys who were prisoners (remember that hunger strike?) and who are now making this claim. That would be Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not our own ABC that acts like a White House stenographer (or whore?). Thank God for the foreign press.

Letter to the NYT in May 2005:

In your article, "In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths" after a vividly sickening description of a young man's beating and death, you make the statement "the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse."

This is false. It is no long abuse when someone is killed: it is torture. And, I am certain that you would clearly see this death as death by torture if the victim was an American.

Letter to USA Today in May 2005:

Saddam created WMD ambiguity? I clearly recall seeing Saddam on Channel 4 TV (Britain) where he clearly stated he had no WMDs. There was no ambiguity in his statements. Furthermore, there was ample evidence, if one was paying attention, of another source of information: the countries surrounding Iraq. They did not see Iraq as a threat, and with the exception of Israel and Kuwait, they did not support an invasion or war.

Letter to Michigan News in May 2005:

Rachel Neuwirth's article "Nagging Questions about the war in Iraq" is full of errors. There is no evidence that any WMDs were moved to Syria. (Of course, it flies in the face of common sense for a country to move it's weapons to another country just before they are about to be involved in a war.) Saddam did not foil UN weapons inspectors, and he did not kick them out of Iraq in 1998. In 2003, Blitz said the cooperation from the Iraq authorities was very good. So, there is no reason for "opponents of the war ....(to) explain what Saddam was hiding". It is totally clear today that Saddam was hiding NOTHING. Perhaps Ms. Neuwirth could explain why the supporters of the war were so easily duped. Perhaps she could do a google search on what Powell and Rice said about Saddam and Iraq in 2001, and then explain how they could have made the claims they did in 2002 and 2003. In case she is too lazy to do some research, it is clear that what they said in 2001 was correct.

She is incorrect in saying that "opponents of the war have failed to offer their own long-term responses". We have offered them again and again, and she failed to listen again and again. She fails to note that the food-for-oil theft was also done by Americans - about 52% of it, actually. And the US administration knew it was going on all along.

She claims that Saddam sponsored WMDs in Libya, and there is no information to support that claim. She claims Iran has nukes, but that claim is unfounded. In light of her other glaring errors, no one can take these accusations seriously. Decisions should be based on the facts, which she does not have a firm grasp of. Ironic that she accuses other people of basing their decisions on politics. Pot calling the kettle black, I suspect. She is wrong on where the majority of insurgents in Iraq come from. Most are Iraqis. There are some from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, coming through Syria. There is no evidence that any insurgents are coming from Iran, which means their numbers are probably very, very low. And why would Egypt want to go to war with Iraqi insurgents? Well, they have answered that, if Ms. Neuwirth would (again) do a google search. Ms. Neuwirth cannot arrive at any intelligent decisions with her appalling lack of factual data. Even her unanswered questions are mostly nonsensical.

Letter to CNN in May 2005:

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." Vice President Dick Cheney; assessing the strength of the insurgency on CNN's Larry King 5-30-05

That is complete nonsense.

Letter to WaPo in May 2005:

In the article "What Do the Insurgents Want?" there was a mention of those Iraqis who are involved in the violent resistance because they lost their military or government jobs, but there is no mention of those Iraqis who may have decided to join the violent resistance due to their experiences with US forces in their country. That would include those men who had their homes raided in the middle of the night. It would include those men who were sent to US prisons for abuse and torture, including sexual torture at Abu Ghraib, even though they had committed no crime. And it would include those men suffered physical harm in their contacts with US troops.

In Tal Afar this past January, a car was approaching US troops, and they felt threatened, so they fired (much like the shooting of the Italians). Both parents were killed, and the five children in the back seat were immediately orphaned. The oldest child, a girl of 14, stated months later that she would like to kill Americans with her bare hands and drink their blood. It is easy to imagine that American teenagers would feel the same way, if such had happened to them.

This is why it is important to document, and attempt to compensate, all Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives, limbs, health, home, jobs, business or sanity in this conflict. It is the only way to deflate the anger and rage. Instead of doing this, the current administration seems intent on ignoring this reality. This is a grave mistake, and does not reflect well on our morals and values.

Letter to NYT in May 2005:

In the article "100 Rebels Killed in U.S. Offensive in Western Iraq" it states that two 500 pound bombs and "510 20-millimeter cannon rounds" were dropped by the US Air Force. The Marines "fired 319 20-millimeter cannon rounds".

I would like to know how the US military came up with the "100 insurgents killed" figure. It seems to me that all that firepower, including two 500-pound bombs, will kill any thing and everything that moved within quite a radius. Therefore, the people killed could have been insurgents, or they could have been civilians. It is also reported in this article that some of the insurgents there were felt to be foreign fighters. How on earth would they know?

To The Guardian in May 2005:

I just read your article in the Guardian about the suicide bombers. Lots of people who have been abused, particularly sexually abused, become suicidal - often years or decades down the road. This would correspond to your "vale of tears" explanation, I suppose, but I think it has an added element in a society where there is a premium on modesty and controlling sexual behavior (so that it is only within heterosexual marriage). I am of the opinion that those abused and tortured in Abu Ghraib, and other American run prisons in Iraq have engendered their own suicide prone survivors. And these people would also see the Americans as infidels, and anyone who assists them as infidels. So, killing yourself (and thereby restoring your honor and gaining heaven) while taking out fellow citizens who may fall into the trap of committing evil and ruining their own souls, would have (I think) some great appeal. Just my own little hypothesis. What a horror we have created in Iraq. May God forgive us.

To Aaron Brown at CNN in May 2005:

The days will teach you what you don't know....

To Aaron Brown at CNN in May 2005:

This was a great day…masses of worshipers gathered in the mosques…Sunni and Shiaat. Dr. Ahmed Al-Kubaisi, the head of the sermon spoke, in a nice speech, asking the people to unite themselves and join ranks. He said: do not give the occupation the chance to disband you… Sunni, Shiaat, an Arab, a Kurd, or Baa’thi. After the prayer there was a protestation demonstration, in which the people said: Get out of our country before we kick you out. - written by Faiza Jarrar in April 2003.

Bush said over two years agothat "major combat operations are over". Actually, they have not started yet. Soon, they will. I guarantee you won't recognize the world in a couple of years. And think, you and CNN helped bring about all the changes you are going to see!

(The title of this email was “they’re still not making lemonade out of those bombs!” This was in response to a comment by Brown in 2003 that the Iraqi people would make lemonade out of the “lemons” we sent them. He still believed at that time that the Iraqi people were much better off without Saddam. I don’t know what he is thinking today. I don’t know if he thinks at all. He was let go from CNN in the fall of 2005.)