Today's Letters: Fraud finders punished

Alberto Gonzales

Good riddance

President Bush's response to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation was that Gonzales' "good name was dragged through the mud" and that the congressional inquiry that drove him out of office was politically motivated. Perhaps I'm missing something, but wasn't Gonazles already wallowing in the mud?

After all, it was Gonzales who authored the opinion that the Geneva Convention was "obsolete," giving the Bush administration the free pass to ignore the time-honored principle that the United States does not torture prisoners of war. Such wisdom led to the abuses that we saw in Abu Ghraib and arguably became the rallying point in the recruitment of terrorists in the Middle East and throughout the world.

Further, it was Gonzales who did the administration's heavy lifting when it came to ignoring the U.S. Constitution by allowing illegal wiretaps of U.S. citizens in the absence of a court-approved warrant.

It was Gonzales' hand behind the firing of U.S. attorneys throughout the country without justification other than it was politically expedient. Gonzales' denial at Senate hearings rang hollow and was in opposition to the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

President Bush was wrong when he said that Gonzales had a "good name." He lost his credibility long ago. Also, the only "dragging through the mud" of Gonzales by Congress was an attempt to extricate him from office (and hence the mud he was wallowing in) for his incompetence and indifference to his oath of office.

Bob Joyce, Tampa

Mike Luckovich cartoon Aug. 26

A needless barb

I was disappointed when I opened the Sunday Perspective section to see a caricature of George Bush talking about Iraq and promising that the government there is on the verge of recovery and then to see the cartoon refer to Terri Schiavo.

How must her family have felt to see this when they looked at their paper Sunday? Luckovich is in Atlanta, but this is a local family in the bay area that deserves a little more respect than you have shown to them. Shame on you!

Dennis Calhoun, Seminole

The job in Iraq

It is understandable that President Bush is somewhat confused over the similarity of the Iraq fighting to the Vietnam War inasmuch as he was busy hiding out in the National Guard during the Vietnam conflict.

Bush constantly refers to "getting the job done" in Iraq. I believe the American people were told that troops were invading Iraq to capture the weapons of mass destruction there. We all know now that none were found, and supposedly that was "the job to be done." This was the rationale for the invasion of Iraq. According to this, American troops should all be home by now and back to life as usual.

So, please, Mr. Bush, tell us just what "the job to be done" is at this point. This administration has always applied the scare tactics of "the enemy would follow us home" when no proof exists.

To paraphrase the Vietnam era, why not just "declare the job done" and bring the troops home?

R. Bohnhoff, Zephyrhills

Must-have for tweens: cell phones Aug. 26, story

Unneeded essentials

Golly. Because of unnecessary parental paranoia and 11-somethings wanting to play adult way too soon, the public is buying tweeners cell phones in droves.

Just another fake economy created by corporations deluding us into the absolute necessity of things we don't need. What's new? We have $5,000 TVs, gas- guzzling tanks for family transportation, drugs for fake diseases and on and on.

What about unlimited minutes if you strap a phone on infants at birth? Sounds absolutely essential to me.

Dale Friedley, St. Petersburg

Despite the public's apparent numbness to the inconceivable corruption of our nation and so many aspects of the Iraq war these days, my jaw dropped a bit further upon reading about the apparent torture of whistle-blowers reporting the sale of our own arms to the insurgency and fraud reaching a staggering $8.8-billion (and I'm sure much higher).

The very fact that good veterans and servants of the public interest have literally been imprisoned and essentially tortured points to a systemic governmental policy that is seemingly not only blind to this corruption, but also in full support of it.

How on earth did the United States of America - the nation that fought for decency and humanity in the face of fascism and communism - become a nation that is torturing free citizens who are trying to report fraud?

Wake up America! These are the actions of a fascist state, not a liberal democracy! Where is the law? Where is the outrage? Why aren't we seeing impeachment hearings? Why is this story on Page 8 while John Couey once again dominates the front page?

The Times is as guilty as our citizenry for treating this and any similar topics as less important than true crime fare and gossip. No story is more important than the revelation of imprisonment and torture of whistle-blowers. What is going on in America? How many people could have been insured for $8.8-billion? How many bridges and levees could have been fixed?

Mark DiGiacomo, Tampa

Navy veteran Donald Vance and an associate reportedly were imprisoned and subjected to pressure "reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants" for giving evidence of corruption to the FBI. This corruption involved sales of U.S. land mines and rocket launchers for cash, no receipts, to all comers in Iraq.

This is how far down the slippery slope we've come from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib: Americans who embarrass the Bush administration - which claims that insurgents are getting their weapons from Iran, not our own subcontractors - can be detained and abused.

As for the legality of all this, author Andre Norton once wrote that "Either the law exists, or it does not." Evidently, the administration has decided that it does not. We have been warned ...

Gregory McColm, Temple Terrace

Navy veteran Donald Vance and an associate reportedly were imprisoned and subjected to pressure "reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants" for giving evidence of corruption to the FBI. This corruption involved sales of U.S. land mines and rocket launchers for cash, no receipts, to all comers in Iraq.

This is how far down the slippery slope we've come from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib: Americans who embarrass the Bush administration - which claims that insurgents are getting their weapons from Iran, not our own subcontractors - can be detained and abused.

As for the legality of all this, author Andre Norton once wrote that "Either the law exists, or it does not." Evidently, the administration has decided that it does not. We have been warned ...

Gregory McColm, Temple Terrace

[Last modified August 28, 2007, 22:12:47]