If we believe that all people are equal (without any necessity of mentioning any special groups or categories), it becomes impossible to do the appalling things that happen all over the world.
You may think I'm dreaming of the impossible. Try starting to live this way where you are now, amongst those people you have contact with.
Edith North Nottinghamshire
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tamara P. Duvall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "chat Arachne" <lace-chat@arachne.com>
Sent: 06 January 2005 01:39
Subject: [lace-chat] Re: Fw: troops
On Jan 4, 2005, at 23:47, Lynn Weasenforth wrote:
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 9:51 AM
THIS IS WHAT GOES ON WHILE OUR TROOPS ARE BEING MURDERED.
A person wrote a letter to the White House complaining about the treatment of captives taken during the recent Iraqi war. Attached is a copy of a letter they received back:
OK. I want it to be on record that it wasn't me who dragged politics onto chat :)
*Please, please* tell me you: a) don't believe the quoted "White House response" is for real... This particular "joke" has been around for almost a year. b) don't believe it's OK for US to ignore Geneva Conventions about the treatment of prisoners. Every time *we* ignore the rules, we're increasing, tenfold (given the long-standing dislike of US in most of the world and the viciousness of the religious fanatics) the danger *our* people will face (in and out of uniform, depending on some crackpot's whim) if captured. As if things weren't bad enough...
Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
If they are Taliban and Al Quaeda terrorists ("detainees"? what a quaint term)... Then why are so many of them being quietly released, now that not only the international human rights organizations are objecting - loudly, since quiet objections to the White House brought zero response - but our own FBI and army observers as well? Possibly because a 16yr old, captured 3 yrs ago, and kept incommunicado all this time, might *not* have been a terrorist?
I have a 16yr old step-grandson. Suppose that, 3 yrs ago, he had been captured in some wrong place/wrong time, and nobody heard from him since. And that, when we finally found out where he was, it was from an official letter (in Chinese? In Russian? In whatever language they're using in Kazachstan or Uzbekistan?), telling us he's dead. And that, because of lack of knowledge of the language, we wouldn't even be able to discover, until months later, that *the doctors themselves* put down the causes of death as "suspicious"...
Is that what you're wishing for *your* grandchildren?
Cordially...Your Buddy,
Don Rumsfeld
I will remind you that this is the guy who so callously said - not to a terrorist, but to one of our own, sadly misplaced (in Iraq) soldiers - "you fight with the army you have, not the army you might want to have". After having decided to fight the war on the cheap, because it was going to be a slam-dunk... The guy should be tried for treason, never mind relieved of his current position of responsibility. With "buddies" like that, who needs enemies?
As a lover of language (as a concept) and its vagaries, I can't help but muse on how it is used to convey some ideas while hiding others. And on how powerful it is, despite the "stick and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me"...
When Hitler invaded Poland and France, "heroic Resistance fighters" "executed" the occupants and their collaborators. In present-day Iraq, "insurgents" "murder" our troops. Did Germany of '39-45 also hear of the bestial "insurgents" in Poland and France, to keep the population's spirit whipped up to the frenzy of "revenge"? Do Iraqui's hear of their their "heroes" getting rid of the "infidel-invader scum of the earth"?
It's only words, but cleverly manipulated they can be dangerous.
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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