Letters to the Editors

Be vigilant about rising violence in South America

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 20, 2001

Thirty years ago, the New York Times and Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers, showing how classified reports by the Pentagon and the CIA told a story of the Vietnam War that was very different from what was known to the general public.

We are now facing another crisis of confidence regarding what our military and covert agencies are doing abroad. In April, a Peruvian counternarcotics operation, under the direction of a CIA-hired private military contractor, shot down a suspected drug-trafficking plane carrying a family of U.S. missionaries. One of the missionaries and her baby daughter were killed. Seeking to learn how this could have happened, U.S. congressmen found it very difficult to overcome the lack of information and level of secrecy surrounding the contractor's activities. At a May 1 congressional hearing on the incident, representatives from major U.S. agencies involved in counternarcotics activities in the Andes were unable to tell Congress details of the operation leading to the shoot-down, including information as basic as the name of the contractor who was directing the operation, who had hired the contractor, or how many contractors were operating in Peru.

At the hearing, Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill, said, "There is little or no accountability in this process of outsourcing. . . . This is a way of funding secret wars with taxpayers' money that could get us into a Vietnam-like conflict."

Rep. Schakowsky has introduced the Andean Region Contractor Accountability Act, which would prohibit the U.S. government from financing non-governmental organizations to carry out military operations in the Andes.

Are we going down the same road that led to the governmental deception on Vietnam and which the Pentagon Papers brought to light? We must have accountability for what is done with our tax money.

A free society requires an informed electorate. This in turn requires a free press with access to reliable and detailed information.

I call upon the St. Petersburg Times to increase its coverage of the U.S. governmental activity in the Andean region. We need reporters on the scene who can talk to local people and write about what they hear and see. How is the effort to eradicate coca production going? Are the farmers being helped to shift production to legal crops as they have been promised? What is happening to the small landholders whose food crops were destroyed along with the coca plants? (Between December 2000 and February 2001 more than 60,000 acres in the Putumayo region of southern Columbia experienced aerial spraying with "Round-Up Ultra" -- the herbicide glyphosate with additives.) Are these farmers moving somewhere else to grow their crops? Are they starving?

Please keep us informed. We ignore the escalation of violence in the Andean region at our peril.
-- Ruth Hyde Paine, St. Petersburg

"Money for research" is a smokescreen

Re: President Bush ready for action on global warming, June 8, and Officials plan more money for research on warming, June 9.

When the National Academy of Sciences report was released earlier this month concluding that global warming is real and linked to carbon dioxide emissions, the White House response of "money for research" was as predictable as sunrise.

When I was a graduate student in oceanography in the 1970s, one of our professors advised us that politicians will always announce new funds for "research" when they are specifically committed to not solving a problem. And indeed, through my 30-year research career, I have observed that "funding for research" is the cheapest way for politicians to provide the ruse of action when the commitment is to the status quo.

As a scientific researcher, I certainly hope that some of those "global warming" research dollars come to USF to help us train future scientific researchers. But as a human being who treasures the many beautiful ecosystems that are doomed by global warming (e.g., coral reefs and polar ecosystems), I find it tragic that the American people will once again be tricked by the facade of action when the actual commitment is to the continued profits of the oil industry.
-- Pamela Hallock Muller, professor, College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

A campaign against Republicans

Re: Energy plan has moral opposition, June 9.

The Times now uses its religion section to criticize President Bush. Waveney Ann Moore, your religion writer, reported that faith-based organizations and personages were upset over the president's energy policy.

Faith-based organizations do many things to serve humanity. Why single out the energy problem? It's because the Times has a never-ending crusade to demean Republican officeholders. If these faith-based folks had been advocating a pro-life policy or support of the Boy Scouts' policy against gay leaders or support of prayer in schools, they would not have received charitable treatment by Moore. She would have been calling for separation of church and state.

The liberal bias of the Times sticks out like a sore thumb.
-- Jack Vanderbleek, St. Petersburg

Is this a church ploy?

Re: Religious group can hold meetings in school, court rules, June 12.

So the Supreme Court has ruled that a Bible study club may meet in a taxpayer-funded school building in Milford, N.Y. Last year the group was denied permission to do this. And why? The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals called its activities "quintessentially religious." And now Justice David Souter, who voted against last week's ruling, writes that the club focuses on religious conversion, actually inviting children to be "saved."

A question comes up. Accompanying the story is a picture showing the defiant-appearing clergyman of the Milford Community Bible Church. The Rev. Stephen Fournier is pictured sitting in his church's very nicely appointed sanctuary, a place of many pews with hymnals, drapes at the window and flower arrangements. One naturally asks why it is necessary to hold a Christian proselytizing class in a building financed by the public? Does the Rev. Fournier mean to tell us he has no room in his evidently prosperous church in which the club could meet?

Or is this whole issue a kind of "test case," easing the public into accepting further erosion of the wall of separation between church and state?

One smiles at the comment from Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, about this "powerful message that religious organizations must receive equal treatment." He blithely ignores the "more than equal" treatment that religious property enjoys -- namely, exemption from property taxes. Would he like it to be "equal" to others in that matter?
-- Abigail Ann Martin, Brandon

Transcend party politics

Consider the impact if 20 or so U.S. senators (Democrats or Republicans) and 80 or 90 representatives declared themselves as independents, renouncing previous party affiliation.

What an improvement that could be for American voters. Imagine it -- taking electoral power away from entrenched party politicians and putting it in the hands of the voting public, where it has always belonged.

Too idealistic? I think not. The disgust and disenchantment of the American voter cannot be shunted aside and ignored forever. Party line politicians (both parties) know this and are very apprehensive that a growing number of registered independents will erode their power. They fear that. They should.

While we are at this, why not replace the Electoral College with nationwide electronic voting for presidential elections? The former is a vestigial power-retention tool for politicians, while the latter would place the power where it belongs -- with the voting public.
-- George Baker Thomson, Gulfport

Did McVeigh take the easy way out?

First, let me say if anyone deserved to die for his crimes, that person was Timothy McVeigh. But did America allow Timothy McVeigh to choose the easy way out? Is execution an easier fate than a life spent in prison? If you had been convicted of a capital crime, would you choose to live out a possibly very long life behind bars or have a quick painless death? Why do so many people who have committed murders choose to take their own lives?

My own opinion is that America should abolish execution as a punishment for many reasons, but there is one overwhelming reason why I take that position, and that is that society has executed far too many innocent people, and if a person convicted of a capital crime is later found to be innocent, if that person has been executed, then all of us have innocent blood on our hands. If you are a proponent of the death penalty, are you willing to admit that you are guilty of murder every time an innocent person is executed?
-- David B. Higginbottom, Frostproof

Volunteers are unhappy

Re: Senior aid group told to trim costs, June 10.

We have been volunteers for Neighborly Senior Services for about 13 years. After reading about the salary and expense account of Fred Buchholtz, the organization's president and CEO, we will no longer be happy volunteers. What does Buchholtz do to earn $120,000 along with a $42,000 expense account and a car?

This is disgusting. There must be at least a few people who could do the job at $82,000 a year with no expense account or car. To help trim the budget, eliminate the vice president and at least six people in the finance department. Three good finance people could do the job. Eliminate volunteer gifts and luncheons, also employee gifts and lunches. Volunteers' rewards are the happy smiles as we go in the door of clients. We don't need treats.

The people who do home care and the nurses should be better paid. They do a great job, and they should have an increase in salary. They do far more good than they get paid for.

I wish Buchholtz would take a route of Meals on Wheels once a week and cover each route in Pinellas County with his own car and gas money. He would realize how important home health care and Meals on Wheels are.
-- Jerry and Marge Oksiuta, Belleair Beach

No longer interested

Re: Senior aid group told to trim costs.

I was very interested in your article about the problems with the Neighborly Senior Services. It reminded me of my attempts to volunteer to deliver Meals on Wheels last winter. The operator transferred me to the coordinator who took messages on her voice mail. After three attempts and not getting even a courtesy call, I gave up.

Perhaps another organization would help the Meals on Wheels program, but don't call me. I have lost interest.
-- Murry C. Seidenberg, Redington Shores

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