Letters to the Editor/<br>  Free Press Forum

I enjoyed - and agree with - your column on the reasons for bringing Bush to trial.  

Some comments:  

1. There are also many valid reasons to try him in an American court which might make a good piece for you in a future column.  

2. There may be significant economic benefits that would likely  follow his defeat, arrest, trial and conviction. That neonazi cloud that's been hanging over the world's largest economy these last three and a half years is at least partially responsible for the lack of consumer confidence! Seriously though, major events like the the removal of a madman from power (not their madman our madman!) can and do have positive economic impacts.  

3. The so-called third-world countries are  losing faith in democracy as a course to take, thanks to bush.  

Dick Cheney's recent appearance at the NRA conference in Pittsburgh confirms this administration's commitment to violence and the abrogation of a humane approach to world peace. The U.S. laissez faire approach to Israel's retaliation to Hamas has further inflamed the Islamic world as well as the military's inept actions in Iraq. As represented by our current selected (p)resident, our government pauses at the action of creating any dialog of peace and increasingly trounces on the notion of peace as solution.

Why has the world view of the U.S. remained consistently negative? Why the NRA is a priority, as violence sweeps the world, is a sure sign of what our illustrious leaders have in mind for the future. Israel continues its dominance of the Palestinian nation with no stop to their inflicted violence.

Even if the rule is followed "an eye for an eye", then the Palestinian, Afghani and the Iraqi's surely have lost much more.

As the election comes nearer,  we must look at look at who has done the most to benefit hard working, middle-class families as well as the working poor. We must see through the fog of overly negative spin and distortion that the Bush campaign has been working overtime to produce and look at the facts about who helps middle-class American’s and who doesn’t.

While the Bush campaign attempts to distort John Kerry’s record, the facts show that John Kerry has proposed nearly three times as much new tax relief for middle-class families as George Bush.  John Kerry has innovative proposals to help families pay for tuition so their children can get the education they deserve and to create a health care plan to provide coverage to the hard-working families that deserve and to lower the tax rate for companies, large and small, that create good, quality jobs in America.

Dear Mr. Shipway, Bath Iron Works:

We are gathering at Bath Iron Works on this day, April 23, in order to sound the alarm about the dangerous and destabilizing role of the Aegis destroyer in U.S. foreign and military policy.  

Last year the Bush administration walked away from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic (ABM) Treaty with Russia that outlawed testing and deployment of so-called "Theatre Missile Defense" systems, a part of the new Star Wars program.  The Aegis destroyer is now testing, and will soon deploy, these new interceptor systems just off the coast of China.  The U.S. intends to deploy Aegis interceptors in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan (just 90 miles off the coast of mainland China), and in Australia.  This will be a provocative move that will essentially negate China's 20 nuclear missiles thus forcing them to build more.  Today the U.S. has 7,500 nuclear weapons of our own.  

Dear Editor:

In the two and a half years since the September 11, 2001, the threat of terrorism has been in the foreground of the national consciousness. During this time concern for security has been a major focus, and, although justified, has inspired equally disturbing attacks on basic freedoms. The greatest example of this is the USA PATRIOT Act.

While well-intentioned, the Patriot Act carries with it a number of grave concerns. The first is the lack of restraint put on the powers of the government. In a six-month period from late 2002 to mid-2003, the Justice Department received 34 credible complaints of civil liberties abuses under the new law, some of which involved physical abuse of Arabs who were detained. Last year the FBI used the provisions of the Patriot Act to arrest a strip-club owner for bribery, a crime that has nothing to do with terrorism. If we are going to trust our government with such extraordinary powers as those granted under this Act, shouldn't they be using them for their intended purpose? While they use such provisions to chase after corrupt businessmen, how many real terror suspects are going undetected?

   I can hardly believe what I am reading. I am unquestionably 100% sure that we need a paper trail when voting. I have been following this atrocity for a couple of months and I have to say this thing has "Scandal" written all over it.  

      It floors me how few people are aware of this travesty about to take place in November if we don't act to stop it, or maybe they don't think it is important, well I do. . I want to start yelling from the roof tops wake up America! You would never accept this if your local retail store stopped giving receipts. Nor would you pay a bill with out proof for fear they would come back and say you never paid, the same is true for the IRS if they decide to audit you they want to see documentation not you computer only.  

The leaders of the neo-liberal left wing of the Democratic party have cynically denied any collusion between Saddam Hussein's Iraqi dictatorship and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorists to commit mass murder and acts of offensive war.  The truth is that the joint efforts of the two are factually documented and beyond rational dispute.

Further, these same neo-lib leftist utopians question whether Hussein possessed weapons of human extermination and the necessity of removing him from power.  They simultaneously insist that the civilized world can reason with and appease human monsters such as bin Laden and his hordes of Islamist barbarians.  They claim to believe these leaps of fantasy in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary.  The ghost of Neville Chamberlain haunts the Democrats and the well-being of all humanity.

My friend wrote a letter and my thinking is as same as her saying. Her letter is on the web site of Aljazeera. english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D2F8C568-2363-498B-B45D-2224282CEE90.htm I'd like you to air the news that they are not fighters but aid workers also.

The 3 Japanese Hostages are facing to death in hours. I know the one of them and must help them. A politician went to Amman to contact to the kidnapers and want some supporters to help him, so please tell me any contact address If you know somebody who is in Amman and possible to help our action.

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URGENT STATEMENT
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1. The three Japanese civilians who were forcibly abducted on the 8th of April in Iraq have no relationship whatsoever to the Japanese government or the Coalition Provisional Authority. Rather, they have consistently opposed the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq as well as the Japanese government's support of the invasion and dispatch of Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) troops.

Please get the word out:  REQUEST AN ABSENTEE BALLOT!!!  Nice, hardcopy ballot.  Re-countable.  Easy to obtain.  As a temporary solution.

We can figure out the complex, multi-jurisdictional electronic voting maching problems AFTER THIS CRUCIAL '04 election.  There is no time now.  PLEASE ALERT PEOPLE to this temporary solution.  I'm not saying stop current efforts to change the voting system--watchdogging, challenging, pressuring, seeking legislation, suing, etc.  But the Republican Congress is NOT going to fix this before Nov. '04--nor can anyone else.

And we have a built-in solution.

You owe it to your fellow Americans to go on the No-CARB Diet in 2004!

No  Cheney
No  Ashcroft
No  Rumsfeld
No  Bush