THURSDAY'S LETTERS: Haditha and My Lai, Car Dealer and Luckovich, President Bush and the 'New York Times'

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers again opine about the New York Times' bank records scoop controversy, others take note of Sarah Weber's feature article comparing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to the recent incident in the Iraqi town of Haditha, and a reader expresses frustration over a car dealer's apology for their ad in a newspaper that featured a controversial cartoon by syndicated cartoonist Mike Luckovich.


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More Back-and-Forth About Bush and the 'NY Times'

At this point, who in their right mind would choose to believe the Bush administration over the New York Times or Washington Post? The proof is in the record over and over again.

Roldo Bartimole
Cleveland, Ohio



The article on Frankel and Jones so-called defense of their former employer is indefensible. Frankel's claim that the banking program was well known is specious. While one can make the claim that money has been traced, the methods used were unknown. Thanks to the Times, the program is not only known, but the cooperation that existed before the Times' revelations has now been curtailed.

The truth is that we didn't need to know and now that we do, so do our enemies. A valuable tool is rendered less potent.

Then we have the journalistic clap-trap about propaganda from public officials. I guess it doesn't matter that those public officials were from both parties and not just from the administration.

The Times and former editors such as Frankel, who seek to justify the publication of any information that is secret, are the real propaganda Meisters!

As for Mr. Jones! If we need to know more, it certainly isn't in the form of stories revealing legal, secret programs. What we already know is that the Times is willing to engage in a criminal conspiracy and then wrap itself in the 1st amendment as it screams fire in the crowded theater.

H. Michael Sarkisian
Sacramento, Calif.


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Contrasting Views on Sarah Weber's My Lai/Haditha Comparison

Thank you for that excellent My Lai/Haditha comparison. However, there is an even bigger issue that disturbs me more than either of these events. I do not understand why these particular events cause the public to take notice, as opposed to the everyday occurences of these two wars. The public becomes concerned and outraged when they are exposed to clear examples of innocent civilians indiscriminately killed at close range by soldiers. But what do they think is going on when we launch our missles and bombs on suspected "insurgent/terrorist" targets? Even the President has acknowledged that tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq.

What does it say about our culture when we have to wait for some pictures or video of innocent human beings getting slaughtered to get upset. Meanwhile young men and women in our military are trained to aim giant toys, looks for blips on a screen, pull a trigger, and wipe out entire villages and families of these same innocent civilians, with the hope of taking out a few "terrorists" in the process. The public and media don't seem to care at all that this has been going on for years, but now with Haditha we suddenly care about innocent victims. America's fall from grace is now complete.

Ian Schachner
Ithaca, N.Y.



The drawing of parallels to My Lai and Haditha [is] about the same as saying that both occurred during the daylight hours. Different war, different types of soldiers, different levels of training of both soldiers and leadership, quantum leap forward in technology for leadership to maintain communication and control over units.

Nope, Sarah Weber skips over ALL of that, dismisses the fact that the "evidence" was collected by Sunni sympathizer, not reported for MONTHS by this same sympathizer, one of 2 members of a sham Human Rights group. The other member was interviewed by the BBC back in December, and for some strange reason never got around to mentioning this massacre. Kind of odd, don't you think?

Ed Ebert
Indianapolis, Ind.


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Car Dealer 'Panders to Hyper-Sensitive Pseudo-Patriots

How is it that the car dealer who apologized for Luckovich's cartoon on the AJC can be offended by a political satire, yet not offended by the idea that we really are torturing people in the name of the "War against Terrorism"? Maybe you can also apologize in place of George W. Bush who refuses to outlaw the use of torture.

This is the prime reason why we don't let advertisers influence editorial content. If I wanted to see ads pandering to the hyper-sensitive pseudo-patriots, I'll wait for election season.

Jim Tamietti
San Francisco, Calif.