Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor Conniff Wrong About Greens What the hell is this mantra Ruth Conniff keeps repeating about us Greens running against the Democrats ("Greens at a Crossroads," August issue)?...
...While this complaint is not the final answer to impunity, it is recognition that high-ranking officials may well be the worst kind of law-violators and therefore must be called to account not simply by the usual insistence on their resignations but by subjecting them to criminal prosecution...
...Whether the number is 30,000 or 60,000, it is mind-boggling to think that most of these human beings, many forced into military service, may have been pulverized in their sleep by American air power...
...We are running against both of them, to further the cause of our party and the progressive ideals that both major parties have abandoned...
...My father was in the South Pacific during WWII...
...I told him about the memorial being built in Washington, and we talked about going to see it when it was finished...
...But I spent thirty-three months as a combat Marine...
...more likely, they're not publishing body counts) not only keeps American citizens from knowing of the horror, it also robs thousands of soldiers of their humanity, even in death...
...electoral system...
...Submitted to the Attorney General, it notes that the probable involvement of high-ranking Justice Department officials in "formulating or encouraging the unlawful use of torture" calls for the appointment of a special attorney to carry out the investigations and any prosecutions that may follow...
...He had really been too old to go to war, so he shaved three years off his age when he enlisted in the Navy, just after Pearl Harbor...
...Instead, the Greens rely on state conventions, where many attendees have to pay an entrance fee to participate...
...Last time I noticed there will be two major party candidates in the general election, not just the Democrat...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness, and may appear either in the magazine or on its web page...
...Very curious, indeed...
...Bush and Kerry are both odious, but Bush reeks a little bit more...
...Thank you again for reminding us that the best tribute to everyone who ever fought a war would be to have no more...
...There are still sane men alive in this country who find this senseless killing to be repugnant and inhumane and an abomination...
...For this reason, TASSC has joined with the World Organization for Human Rights/USA in a "Criminal Complaint Seeking the Investigation and Prosecution of U.S...
...Consequently, it was only a matter of Cobb going to small states with virtually no Green registered base and convincing a handful of members of the central committee to vote for him...
...We followed the build-up to the war in Iraq...
...Furthermore, the Greens' system was virtually a carbon copy of the U.S...
...Sister Dianna Ortiz Executive Director Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International Washington, D.C...
...Mary Apelt Munich, Germany The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...Since the Attorney General is unlikely to act, we who are torture survivors hope a substantial segment of the public will demand such accountability...
...Included among those cited for investigation are familiar names: Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, George Tenet, Alberto Gonzales, Generals Ricardo Sanchez and Geoffrey Miller, John Ashcroft himself, and others...
...David Havelka Silver Spring, Maryland Zinn on Peace I have just read Howard Zinn's article ("Dissent at the War Memorial," August issue...
...I really didn't give a damn if it killed every civilian in Japan...
...Some of us wore uniforms during Vietnam, and we share a common belief with those who served in other wars...
...is going somewhere to start a war," he said...
...I thank you for this service...
...Gene Mc Crimmon via e-mail Howard Zinn told a story that had to be told...
...Letters may be e-mailed to: editorial@progressive.org Please include your city and state...
...I have no compassion for any of the enemy I killed...
...And I will not vote for Bush...
...Instead of being a political force, the Green Party has become a political farce with the nomination of Cobb...
...Counting the Dead In your review of Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack ("Letting Bush Off Easy," by Matthew Rothschild, June issue), you quoted the number of Iraqi soldiers killed in the war...
...First, let's acknowledge that the Greens are hardly "new...
...This decision to delay the convention was another backroom decision by a handful of self-appointed Green activists, in large part to hamper Nader's effectiveness...
...Since The Progressive doesn't see this, or refuses to mention it, perhaps you should throw off the mantle of the historical legacy of the Progressive Era and just admit your magazine is another voice of limousine liberalism...
...Thus, Cobb would get four delegate votes in Alabama or North Carolina, which literally have a handful of registered Greens, while California, which has over a million registered Greens (the majority of them voting for Peter Camejo), gets only nine votes...
...We were to make the beachhead on Japan when the A-bomb was dropped, and that was the greatest thing I could think of at the time, and still do...
...The sad story of the Green Party is that David Cobb's nomination was made possible by the fact that the Greens, who claim the mantle of "grassroots democracy," have few or no democratic mechanisms in place for the election of officers and nomination of candidates...
...Perhaps the Greens should change their name to the party of grassroots hypocrisy instead...
...The latest example of this was her condescending view that the travesty of the Green convention was a "growing pain...
...He wouldn't talk of his time at war, but I remember waking up many times at night as a child because he was yelling in his sleep during disturbing dreams...
...George Vye via e-mail It's amazing how Ruth Conniff manages time and time again to miss the main point of any important topic, and take the elitist view of things...
...Another point Conniff missed entirely was the delay of the Green Party convention until June, making it too late for Nader to mount the fundraising and activist effort to get the Green Party back on the ballot in 2004...
...He cut right through the spin one day when his twenty-five-year-old grandson asked him his opinion...
...I can't believe the U.S...
...D. Cimino Long Lake, Minnesota Thank you so much for your article reminding us that a desire for peace made WWII the "good" war...
...The current Pentagon policy of not doing body counts (the claim itself is hardly credible...
...Officials Implicated in the Torture of Detainees...
...I have been looking in vain for these figures in the media ever since the bombing...
...I do not approve of the war in Iraq...
...War is not to be glorified, or to be used as a propaganda "Mission Accomplished" prop...
...He died this past January at ninety-two...
...The struggle against torture requires a confrontation with the impunity those who order, permit, and facilitate it grant to themselves...
...Dian Helms Brown Lexington, Tennessee Prosecute Torturers On behalf of the members of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC), each member of which is a survivor of torture, thank you for the articles on U.S...
...involvement in torture in the United States and abroad ("Abu Ghraib, U.S.A," by Anne-Marie Cusac, and "America's Amnesia," by Matthew Rothschild, July issue...
...With no democratic mechanisms in place, unable to distinguish themselves as more than a splinter of the Democratic Party, and only one elected Green to statewide office, the Green Party has little or nothing to show for more than twelve years of existence...
...The complaint is a challenge to the current, comfortable in-house investigations that are under the direction of those who themselves should be investigated...
...I'm afraid they've waited too late for me," he said...
Vol. 68 • September 2004 • No. 9
