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Re: Saving Pvt. Lynch, take two by Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times, May 25.
Shame on you! After the national uproar about the New York Times and its false reporting by Jayson Blair, your reprinting this article without even a modicum of facts in a side column is disgraceful. Scheer's column is a farce, taking the BBC's word as gospel and without even some token comments from the other side. The national media have attacked Scheer's article as biased, unsubstantiated and ludicrous, yet the St. Petersburg Times prints it without comment as fact in the Perspective section.
The idea that in a war zone, behind enemy lines, anyone would go there to shoot a PR operation using only blanks is so ridiculous as to be scandalous. The video itself proves the story to be in error - there were no explosions shown. If this story had any real legs and real "facts" to it, the real blockbuster story would have been the trial and court martial of the commanding officer that ordered such a dangerous PR stunt and put our soldiers in grave danger.
You owe your readers an apology at the very least for not investigating this before printing it and thereby promoting slander against our military.
Re: Saving Pvt. Lynch, take two.
I can't understand why this story was not on the front page and why President Bush or at least some hot-shot from the Pentagon has not been publicly asked to explain. It is too bad the family of this unfortunate pawn of our government has not spoken up and refuted the entire mess. However, I am sure that money must be involved, thus the silence by all. America, for the people, by the people. Uh huh!
Re: Saving Pvt. Lynch, take two.
How can you reprint Robert Scheer's anti-American diatribe: "the Bush administration's shamelessly trumped-up claims about Iraq's alleged ties to al-Qaida and 9/11 and its weapons of mass destruction take the cake for deceitful propaganda - grand strategic lies that allow the United States' seizure of Iraq's oil . . ."
How can the St. Petersburg Times reprint this hatred of our country as well as the BBC's version of Pvt. Lynch's rescue?
Scheer offers no facts to support the BBC version - and of course the Times asks no questions of this hate-journalism.
Thank you for printing Robert Scheer's article about Pvt. Jessica Lynch. This story seems so incredible to me that I read it twice for additional clarity.
If this is true, and I do not doubt that it is, I believe there should be a congressional investigation of these lies that were perpetrated on the American people.
What can we do to stop this kind of coverup for a war that never should have happened? I have written Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, and I hope your readers will do the same.
Re: Offensive coverage, letter, May 25.
In response to the May 18 article Daughter's memory caught in conflict, the letter writer misrepresents Rachel Corrie as "an obviously troubled American." Rachel was troubled, but not in the way the letter writer implies. Rachel was troubled about the plight of poor, oppressed people everywhere and wanted to do what she could to help the oppressed people of Palestine. Rachel, an avid writer who used detailed description, is best represented by her own words:
"The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez [Israeli] crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried up. And then the [Israeli] bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't." (From an e-mail to her mother on Feb. 7 from Rafah)
The letter writer says that Rachel "demonstrated hatred for her own country." Nothing could be further from the truth. Rachel was well aware of how privileged she was to be a U.S. citizen. She loved the United States and loved her city, Olympia, but felt free to disagree with the policies of her country's government, which through its actions has supported Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
In the Feb. 7 e-mail to her mother, Rachel compares life in Rafah with life in Olympia, Wash.: "Nobody in my family [in Olympia] has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home [in Olympia]. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint, with the power to decide whether I can go about my business and whether I can get home again when I'm done." Then Rachel ends with, "My love to Olympia."
Finally, Rachel's e-mails resonate with the hope she had for all humanity: "I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think the word is dignity."
Re: Offensive coverage.
The president of a group styling itself as a group "promoting responsibility in Middle East reporting" should return to his dictionary and examine the definition of the word responsibility. To write that Rachel Corrie is "an obviously troubled American killed in the Middle East as a result off her own actions" is the epitome of irresponsibility. Does the writer suggest that Rachel Corrie drove the bulldozer that ran over her, and then backed up and ran over her again? It was an Israeli soldier who was responsible for that action. Does the letter writer suggest otherwise?
I would also send the letter writer back to his dictionary to re-examine the definition of terrorism. There is no question that suicide bombings by Palestinians meet the definitions of terrorism. But so, too, do the actions of the Israeli military meet those very same definitions. Nowhere do the actions of the Israeli military meet the definitions of terrorism more than in the case of Rachel Corrie.
I readily agree that there are too many acts of terrorism occurring on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But to suggest that acts of terrorism are only occurring on the part of the Palestinians is offensive.
Re: Your tax dollars, their agenda, editorial, May 25.
If the Bush administration manages to establish control over the Office of National Drug Control Policy's $195-million advertisement budget in order to influence elections, democracy - or should I say what is left of democracy - will surely die.
In the futile attempt to make us all feel safer, we allowed this administration to virtually destroy the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act. This act should never be considered a patriotic act.
Now the same people who brought us the Patriot Act and the missiles of mass destruction are trying to take control of a taxpayer-funded $195-million antidrug advertising budget in order to influence elections. Unbelievable.
The roots of these problems lie not with the elected officials however, because they will only do what we will allow them to get away with. That is why it is time for America to wake up. Call your senators and your representatives before they outlaw free thinking. Where are all of those armchair patriots now that America really needs them?
Re: Educated - but not employable by Shaila Mentore, and A journalism career inspired by one teacher by Philip Gailey, May 25.
I found the juxtaposition of these two articles quite revealing. What it revealed to me was that the notion of entitlement appears alive and well among many (not all) of our university undergraduates. One of the goals of liberal arts programs is to develop and hone critical thinking. This is an admirable and useful goal and a skill that many employers are looking for.
One of the more telling sentences in Ms. Mentore's article referring to Stony Brook University's lack of communication about starting internships or searching for graduate schools was, "Ultimately it is the student's responsibility to take care of his or her business, but most of us need reminders when it comes to our long-term future."
It's clear that Ms. Mentore has not grown up enough during her undergraduate years to learn that finding a job takes initiative of the sort that Philip Gailey demonstrated when he took the bus to Atlanta to interview Harold Martin!