WEDNESDAY'S LETTERS: Coulter's Widows, 'Wash Post' Cable Scoop

By: E&P Staff In today's letters a reader theorizes on why Ann Coulter's syndicates are sticking with her, two others express dismay at the recent Washington Post "cable" scoop, and a charge of sedition hurled at Robert Lifton's comparison of Haditha to Mai Lai.


***

Haditha, War Reporters, Sedition, and 'Slime Balls'


Shame on you! You do not know with any degree of certainty that any of this happened. What you have done amounts to nothing more than sedition. Abraham Lincoln shut down the newspapers that did this during the Civil War. Too bad we don't have a president with the balls to do that today. The press is nothing more than slime balls anymore.

Bridget Murphy



If the Democrats want to play word games, think up a new game. The cut-and-run game has been played out. How many times are we going to have to go down that road of homegrown anti-Americans aiding and abetting the enem?. Who's going to benefit from this redeployment the Democrats wants to push on the American people? Surely not the Iraqis or the American people. What purpose would it serve? Whose purpose would it serve? Redeployment would only serve one purpose, and that's the terrorists recruitment after our troops left. John Kerry is a major part of that weak Americans image this country got after Vietnam. Murtha is too. Neither Kerry's or Murtha's love for the military qualifies them to introduce any type of redeployment bill. Right now at this very moment in history our troops are keeping the terrorists in check in Iraq. Transfer our troops any where other then Iraq now and it will be open season to terrorists around the world to see that the weak Americans once again cut-and-ran once the going got tough.

Phil Gonzoles


***

Coulter Not Referring to All 9/11 Widows

Maybe the reason "Ann Coulter hasn't lost any of her 100-plus newspaper clients, or the support of her syndicate, Universal Press Syndicate, despite her nasty remarks in her new book about 9/11 widows" is that they have read her book. According to the rebuttal I saw, the remark was aimed specifically at the four "Jersey Girls" and not all widows of 9/11.

...

Brian Alpert


***

'Washington Post' Cable Scoop Hits a Nerve

Your June 18 article by Greg Mitchell, entitled "Wash Post obtains shocking memo ... " mentioned that the Ambassador's name was at the end of the article but didn't know whether the ambassador authorized or drafted the cable.

FYI, all cables from an American embassy have the ambassador's name at the bottom as a formality. Ambassadors approve very, very few cables themselves and draft even fewer. If the ambassador had drafted it himself, the from line or subject line would have stated this. Outgoing cables from the State Dept. in Washington will have the secretary of state's name at the bottom for the same reason. Unless the system has changed, and I doubt that it has, military cables also go out under the name of the base commander.

Somewhere within that and any other embassy will be a list and rules concerning who can authorize outgoing cables. If you could find out how many cables are sent out every day by that embassy you would know the ambassador couldn't possibly authorize all of them, or even so much as read all of them.

This was an interesting and important story. Thanks for writing it. ...

Ralph Singleton
Retired Foreign Service Officer



I have never trusted George W. Bush and his rotten followers, they are what is causing all this in Iraq.

We invaded that country, [Bush] is not better then Saddam. In fact, he should be charged with murder. If Saddam is being charged for 148 deaths, just look at the list of Iraq, and our people who have been killed since [Bush] entered the White House. 250,000 or more Iraq killed, 18,000 injured of our own. We do not even list the injured Iraq civilians. ...

Thank you for this great article. It tells of many failures that we are not being told.

Robin Morris
Redmond, Wash.