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Progress in Iraq

Dear Editors,

RE: July 10th Thumbs Up – “Iraq taking a step the U.S. refuses to and demands timetable for troop withdrawal.” It’s so sad to see that the Durango Telegraph has joined locked-step with most other media and your research consists of only reading the first paragraph of important news events so that your headline meets your ideology.

If you would have read further, you would have known that in Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call for a timetable, the timetable was tied to Iraq’s ability to fully provide for its own security in all of its provinces. The U.S. would then only withdraw from the cities and remain in country as backup for up to five years.

This is exactly what our government (and yes, Bush) have been saying all along.

Iraq is now in control of about one-half of its provinces, something the Democrats said would never happen. Actually, most in Iraq and many in the U.S. see this as progress, something our news media refuses to acknowledge. In fact, the Iraq government has also passed more legislation (15 of the 18 benchmarks our Congress has called for) and placed them into action in the last six months; that’s five times what our Congress has accomplished in the last two years!

Your use of the word “refuses” is interesting. Your paragraph should have read:  U.S. media “refuses” to admit and report on the progress in Iraq.

– Ken Baker, Vallecito



Try Bush for war crimes

To the Editors,

The Iraqi people and their elected president, Nuri al-Maliki, have asked for a withdrawal of U.S. troops. The American people would like to see the troops come home. Some Democratic law makers want the troops home. The Bush regime and the Republican Party are ignoring this, saying that we will have to stay a very long time (probably until the oil resources of Iraq run dry). Ten years? One-hundred years? Vote for McCain and the 100 years is guaranteed.

In April of 2004, Bush promised that we would leave Iraq when the Iraqis asked us to leave. Remember? Here he goes lying once again. The Iraqis have now asked for a withdrawal, but the Republican spin masters are saying that the translator misunderstood. Come on!4 Do they really think we are so stupid? Hitler once said, “Lucky for governments that people are so stupid.” Are the American people going to prove Hitler right?

How many more American lives must be tragically lost in this illegal war that nobody in the world wants except the Republican Party? How many more billions of borrowed Chinese money must be spent to keep on destroying the country of Iraq? The bigger question is, why won’t Americans demand the impeachment of Bush? Nixon was impeached for lesser crimes. Clinton almost got impeached for lying about a sex scandal.

Our very own war criminal continues to run amok and nothing is done. Just recently, a minor Serbian war criminal was finally caught and is being tried for his war crimes. Why are we not trying Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice and the rest of that band of criminals for far greater crimes against humanity, against the American people, against the Constitution? Why are they not being tried for treason?

When are the American people going to stand up and stop the war crimes being committed in their name? When are the American people going to take their country back from the Republicans and the mega corporations they serve? It is past time for doing something. Whether votes are your tools or bullets are your tools, now is the time to act.

– Doug Quinones, not scared of the Patriot Act, via e-mail

 

Liquid gold, life and other things

To the Editors,

Folks, let’s get out of denial over two things that are all encompassing. First, oil and gas development harms our water and air supplies. The facts are in. We all know the aquifer has been contaminated, harmful chemicals are released into the air, and the noise is disruptive to humans and animals. If we continue with our search for the liquid gold, we will contaminate our environment to the extent that it will be uninhabitable for humans and other ecosystems. What good will all this “energy” do for us, if there is no ecosystem to support us? Argument over! We are not “misguided environmentalists” or “extreme left Democrats,” as some would suggest. I am a person who loves life and fights for the preservation of the planet that so graciously has given us everything we need to live on. Most energy developers have only their profit margin as their main concern. Mother Earth is seen as a resource! Is it some revelation that we are in Iraq to keep our hands in the world’s largest oil reserves? Who cares about the dead people? So let’s be done with that one!

The folks who are against abortion should create a fund that will support that mother, (since most will bear the burden alone), and her child till he/she is 18. Then they can send that child off to an inane war to be killed. How can you claim to be fighting for life, and then support a system that sends their youngest off to be slaughtered in war? Let’s end this war on a woman’s right to decide how she would like to see her child raised or not! Woman will get abortions no matter what, so give up your picket lines and abusive behavior toward woman trying to figure out how to make it in an insane world!

There is something beyond insane with a culture that destroys its young men, rapes its women, and exploits the earth’s gifts that were meant for their very survival!

– Heather Snow, Durango


In the fast lane

Dear Editors,

Looks like the Republicans want to stick it to us again. John Warner (R-VA) wants to introduce a bill to reduce the speed limit to 55 mph. Wasn’t this something we got from another Republican? Nixon! The next thing will be a fine for under-inflated tires, which consume more gasoline, too, or a ban on driving on Sundays – that is a great fuel saver.  Congress didn’t have the guts to tax gas-guzzling SUVs even though an eight-cylinder sedan getting better gas mileage has a surcharge when you purchase it. The German government wanted to impose a speed limit on the Autobahns, but the people told them to stuff it. The French go to the barricades when the Government wants to impose unpopular laws. When are we going to tell our Government, “We are not going to take it anymore!”

– C. Kummel, via e-mail


In search of user-friendly

To the Editors,

I’m not real sure what is wrong with this little town, maybe it’s the heat or the full moon or maybe too many delusional people have moved here after being run out of their home states. Everybody wants to pretend they are an agent of Homeland Security or even an agent of God himself, by interfering in other people’s business rather that minding their own mundane lives.

At a local liquor store, a friend of mine who is well past 21 was refused sales because her driver’s license had a hole punched in it by some other petty bureaucrat. So, I went in to make her sale, but was told I couldn’t buy the item she had carried to the counter, I had to waste more time and go back to the cooler to get another. I have no time to play someone’s simple little game, so I left to go to a more user friendly store.

When my friend questioned why I was empty handed, I told her, expressing my opinion of second-rate businesses in a second-rate town. Now, this it where it gets real weird. The guy next to us in the parking lot got his mouth into the act; into something that was none of his business, and had to be verbally shut down. He needs to be happy this is not Denver or Albuquerque where his chances of getting shot for interfering are better than here. However, as this town grows and fills up with morons such as himself, his chances grow smaller.

We have enough government interference in our lives without ordinary citizens with too much time on their hands meddling about. My words to him are this: “Bang!”

– Delgado Bolt,  Durango


 

 

In this week's issue...

January 25, 2024
Bagging it

State plastic bag ban is in full effect, but enforcement varies

January 26, 2024
Paper chase

The Sneer is back – and no we’re not talking about Billy Idol’s comeback tour.

January 11, 2024
High and dry

New state climate report projects continued warming, declining streamflows