LETTERS: Sept. 22

A beseech to impeach

I was against impeachment because once impeachment is put on the table, the possibility for addressing economic needs and war will be overtaken. Then I spoke with several friends who travel the world. They said people there believe that because we elected Bush we support him. My world-traveling friends believe impeachment is a vital message that would change individual and group motivation from attack to cooperation with the U.S. I now agree with Dennis Kucinich and his beseech to impeach Cheney.

June Krebs
Philadelphia PA

A progressive bilingual paper. Un periódico progresista bilingüe

I would like to thank Fátima Rojas/Joelle Fishman and the PWW staff for the feature article “New ID card unifies the Elm City/Nuevo carta unifica New Haven.” It’s great to see more bilingual writing in the paper. Especially on an issue as important as the developments in New Haven, Conn., which hopefully will serve as a model for other cities.

We live in a bi- and multi-lingual nation, notwithstanding the slanderous attacks by the right wing on immigrant communities, and we need a bilingual paper to address the challenges facing this nation. I think the PWW/Nuestro Mundo is that paper. I look forward to seeing more of these articles.

Quiero darle las gracias a Joelle Fishman y al PWW por el artículo en las páginas del medio “New ID card Unifies the Elm City” “Nuevo Carnet unifica New Haven”. Es maravilloso ver un artículo bilingüe en el periódico. Especialmente sobre un asunto tan importante como estos nuevos acontecimientos en New Haven que servirá con optimismo como un modelo para otras ciudades. Vivimos en una nación bilingüe, no obstante las calumnias de la ultraderecha contra las comunidades de inmigrantes, y nosotros necesitamos un periódico bilingüe para dirigirnos a los retos que enfrenta a esta nación bilingüe. Pienso que el PWW/Nuestro Mundo es ese periódico. Espero ver más de estos artículos.

Sam Delgado
Jersey City NJ

When a terrorist is ‘our terrorist’

“When a terrorist is ‘our terrorist’” (PWW 9/15-21) demonstrates how covert operations may be employed to destabilize a government the U.S. doesn’t like. What caught my eye is that a Marine colonel was to receive the cartridges. Presumably he is the CO of the Marine guard at the U.S. Embassy. It must be a very important embassy because usually only a senior sergeant or low-level officer is in charge of such commands. A colonel in that position makes me wonder if he is really doing something other than security work.

In any case, last I checked, Marine colonels use an M9 pistol as a sidearm and that takes a 9-mm Lugar cartridge, not a 45-caliber bullet. Perhaps, indeed, the cartridges were intended for someone else, and certainly not for gun range “target shooting.”

Al Sargis
Oakland CA

What destroyed New Orleans

I rode out Katrina in the same home in which I rode out Hurricane Betsy 40 years earlier. Then the water started to rise. As a “survivor,” I am not so concerned with getting money as I am at getting someone to expose the criminal political responsibility.

I wish I could find someone who would expose the truth behind the flooding of New Orleans, which was caused by graft, not Katrina. As a civic activist I tried to expose the corrupt monster over 10 years before the disaster.

While the Corps of Engineers is certainly culpable, this disaster would never have happened without the gutting of the engineering department of the Sewerage & Water Board. The board lost veteran engineers who knew the soil conditions, and knew that those flimsy, stage-prop floodwalls that the Corps was planning were disasters waiting to happen.

A year before Katrina, people living along the drainage canals complained of salt water seeping into their yards from the canals, killing plants. (When there is little rainfall, the lake becomes more brackish and salt water from the lake backs up into the canals.) To a competent, honest engineer this would be a clear sign that something was dangerously wrong with the levee foundations. But the whole thing was swept under the rug.

This does not mean that the Corps of Engineers is not guilty. Had those sheet pilings been driven to a proper depth, and properly reinforced at the top, even incompetent dredging would not have weakened them enough to collapse.

Edwin Weber Jr.
New Orleans LA

When will lies stop?

As I watched the speech by the president last week, I could not help but feel angry at his habitual lying. Supposedly he is bringing some troops back from Iraq because he has taken the “advice” of his general in charge. Since when has he ever listened to any of his generals? Retired Gen. Abizaid has been saying that the strategy of this administration in Iraq will not work, and other retired generals had said the same!

Who does he think he is talking to when he keeps reminding us of the danger of Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Are we a group of children to be constantly reminded? Of course Iraq has become the center of Al-Qaeda because of his strategy. When will these lies stop? Does he have any feelings?

Jad Ghanem
Tucson AZ