LETTERS: The Torture Debate, A New Weapon, A 'Liberal Hawk'

By: E&P Staff A selection of pieces in today's mailbag follows.

Torture Report

I am a full time activist in San Diego. This is the best piece (current "Pressing Issues" column by Greg Mitchell) I've read thus far on why and how "torture" has been allowed and defended by the MSM. If I had my way, IMPEACHMENT hearings would begin immediately and these criminals would be prosecuted BEFORE the slither out of office.

Thank you for this article.

Barbara Cummings

Kudos to Editor Greg Mitchell for his excellent summing up
of the latest torture revelation.

He's right. Little, if anything, will come of it. Congress will look
for a way to make it all somehow legal retroactively. The news
media will search for the story's other side. Most of the public
will conclude that those undergoing "enhanced
interrogation" are unsympathetic characters, thus unworthy
of decent people's concern.

Jerry Elsea
Cedar Rapids IA


Cold War Weapon

In regards to "U.S. Pursued 'Radiological Warfare," would someone please tell AP writer Robert Burns, that this isn't a cold war secret but a day to day fact in Iraq right now. Vehicles, shell casings, and all manor of equipment used by our troops is being manufactured out of spent Uranium. Vets are coming home with radiation poisoning. Their wives are miscarrying babies. I didn't know people didn't know about this, I don't think it is secret, and most likely is widely documented by now. Iraq IS being poisoned right now, with the same objectives as the cold war strategy. We are not only the nation that tortures people, we also poison other nations with radioactive waste. This needs to come out. Americans need to step up and do the right thing and put an end to the immoral domination of the government by the military industrial complex.

T. Monroe
Author, Patriot


Liberal Hawk Keller

Greg Mitchell's " 'NYT' Op-Ed Recalls Errors of 'Liberal Hawks' on Iraq --
Newspaper's Editor Was One of Them " suddenly pushes NYT executive editor Bill Keller back into the Iraq War spotlight he would like to forget, by dredging up Keller's February 2003 column: "The I-Can't-Believe-I'm-a-Hawk Club."

Now is a good time as any to also recall Keller's disgraceful behavior
during the WMD-Judy Miller-Scooter Libby saga. Repeatedly, Keller has continued to be ever so careful to praise her, excuse her, explain her -- but not seriously criticize her -- even though he acknowledges that mistakes were made and he should have executed the mea culpa two-step on the "flawed" WMD coverage after he came on board in the summer of 2003--instead of late May 2004.

Keller in April 2006, responding ("Talk to the Newsroom") to continuing critical queries about Miller's sensational but incurious reporting on the quest for WMD in Iraq and the checkered coverage of the Plame-Libby legal case, "sighed" and plaintively asked what more could an executive editor have done? Quote: "I can't imagine that there is anything to say about the Judy Miller episode that I have not already said...over and over." Over and over, indeed, with little variation and scant imagination.

William E. Jackson, Jr.
Davidson, N.C.


Gets Funky

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Mr. Batiuk and King Features for continuing to run Lisa?s story on the comics pages. As a long-time reader and now a fervent reader of ?Funky Winkerbean,? I cannot tell you how terrific I think the strip has been in handling Lisa?s cancer and subsequent death.

And I speak as both a high school English teacher and as the wife of someone with cancer.

As an English teacher, I am using the strips (and will certainly buy the book) as a starting point for discussions (and an essay) on how we present the most difficult topics in our society. Death. No one wants to talk about it, ever, yet ? in an oddly ?right? sort of way ? what better place than on the comic pages? It has been a terrific focus for our classes.

And as a spouse of a cancer patient, I have found it good to be able to talk about the disease and about my husband?I think it is time that we face things such as this head on.

So thank you?.and please tell Mr. Batiuk that a former Clevelander and now teacher in Hilton Head Island, SC, I think he is GREAT!!!!

Peg Hamilton