Letters

Happy New Year

Hi there,
I just wanted to take a moment to wish you a happy holiday season and a wonderful start to the New Year! Look forward to working with you in 2004!
All the best,

Barbara Kwateng
Press Officer
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Via e-mail

Going to the dogs!

Just a quick note of thanks for Brandi Kishner’s piece on her and Adam (PWW, 12/13-19). I just finished my daily walk with my Akita. Actually he thinks he’s walking me which is probably closer to the truth. Had small talk with two neighbors. I agree with the health aspect of your piece. However, there is actually a hidden political benefit. When I speak at local town meetings and/or write a letter-to-the-editor, I’m viewed as a whole person, a neighbor, who also has a thought or two on the way life should be, rather than in narrower political confines.
OK, time for my nap . . . with my dog, of course.
Thanks again,

Nick BartNaugatuck CT

GOP aided Hussein

The Reagan/Bush/Cheney team viewed Saddam Hussein as the linchpin of stability in that region and provided him the means to carry out his atrocities, continuing right up to his invasion of Kuwait. It was after Reagan re-established diplomatic relations with Iraq in 1982 that the dictator first got going with his WMD programs. Don Rumsfeld, acting as Reagan’s personal envoy, traveled to Baghdad in 1983 to meet with Saddam in order to initiate hundreds of supply contracts that would allow U.S. agencies and firms to ship anthrax and botulism to Iraq. The CIA began helping the Iraqi military to target areas that Saddam wanted to gas by providing him with classified satellite imagery. Iraqi scientists were given tours of Los Alamos and other top secret U.S. nuclear weapons facilities.
Things got so bad, that in 1985 the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding that the State Dept. reimpose sanctions that had been placed on Iraq by the Democrats under President Carter. But, Reagan pressured congressional leaders to withdraw the resolution by citing how vital Saddam was to U.S. national interests.
I find it terribly odd that no Democrat officials have yet reminded the voters that it was their party that officially opposed Saddam years before the Republicans did.

Cord MacGuireBoulder CO

Fan mail

We want to commend the PWW for having articles by John Pietaro. The last one on Ochs was most interesting and informative as were the other articles about progressive artists. We look forward to seeing more of them in the future.

C. L. KirshVia e-mail

Darn tootin’

I usually enjoy the sports columns carried by PWW, especially when they are about events outside of the northeastern section of the country. But the most recent (12-18, Horn on the Horn) went too far. When I saw that Joe Horn had pulled a cell phone out of the goal post padding and made a call. I laughed for about 2 hours. For a short while, it made up for a lot of the garbage the Bush administration was trying to pull about capturing Saddam Hussein and the direction of its war on Iraq. Did the Horn story actually get more press?
Who cares if Horn toots his own horn? Who cares if Terrell Owens signs a football or shakes some pom-poms? It is only a game, after all. The article seemed to be mirroring a lot of the sports reporters who also chastised Horn for what he did. They try to represent professional football as some sort of holy game that cannot be denigrated by silly antics. There is no reason to be sanctimonious about what football players do. Just enjoy the game – and the antics.
Save the harsh words for the dangerous antics of the Bush administration.

Joel WendlandYpsilanti MI