Op-Ed
To: Dr. Bob Fitrakis, the editor of the freepress.
I want to complain to you about your article which has been posted by New York Time on Thursday 20th 2011 about Vang Pao was one of the world's most notorious drug dealers. First of all I want to ask you a few questions as follow:
1. How do you know that Vang Pao was a drug dealer?
2. Have ever been with Vang Pao for the last fifty years?
3. Have you ever been in Long Tieng before?
4. Who to believe?
a.) All the American personnels who woked in Long Tieng including the raven.
b.) All Vang Pao military personnels including muself and my friends T-28 pilots.
c.) Albert McCoy and Mr. Poe (Tony).
To me, all the accusations in your article are a big liar, not even one percent true. If you want to know the fact, I suggest you to contact General Craig.W.Duehring, the former Assistant Secretary of Air force who was a raven during that period of time.
I want to complain to you about your article which has been posted by New York Time on Thursday 20th 2011 about Vang Pao was one of the world's most notorious drug dealers. First of all I want to ask you a few questions as follow:
1. How do you know that Vang Pao was a drug dealer?
2. Have ever been with Vang Pao for the last fifty years?
3. Have you ever been in Long Tieng before?
4. Who to believe?
a.) All the American personnels who woked in Long Tieng including the raven.
b.) All Vang Pao military personnels including muself and my friends T-28 pilots.
c.) Albert McCoy and Mr. Poe (Tony).
To me, all the accusations in your article are a big liar, not even one percent true. If you want to know the fact, I suggest you to contact General Craig.W.Duehring, the former Assistant Secretary of Air force who was a raven during that period of time.
Dear Dr. Fitrakis,
My name is Teng Vang. I live in the beautiful state of North Carolina. I happened to read your column dated January 18, 2011 about our leader General Vang Pao.
I am dismay in reading your article. Your article does not reflect your professional degrees at all because apparently you haven’t done any homework and simply wrote what you have heard from others, especially Mr. Tony Poe. Is this the way you as a JD and columnist, editor, etc.. doing???
Please allow me to share some of my “facts”:
1. Your information from Mr. Tony Poe about General Vang Pa was nothing but a lie:
My name is Teng Vang. I live in the beautiful state of North Carolina. I happened to read your column dated January 18, 2011 about our leader General Vang Pao.
I am dismay in reading your article. Your article does not reflect your professional degrees at all because apparently you haven’t done any homework and simply wrote what you have heard from others, especially Mr. Tony Poe. Is this the way you as a JD and columnist, editor, etc.. doing???
Please allow me to share some of my “facts”:
1. Your information from Mr. Tony Poe about General Vang Pa was nothing but a lie:
Good evening Dr. Fatrikis,
In reading your article about General Vang Pao, I have found your article to be baseless, frictional and absolutely irresponsible as a professional. I am a Hmong and many of my extended family members served during the war, and some were very closed to Maj.General Vang Pao. None have ever observed such disgraceful accusation.
As an American, I sense your intention to be nothing more than an act of character assassination to an honorable figure due to questionable reasons. The facts that thousands of Americans today are in jail around the country does not make president Obama a criminal for their crime. Another fact, according to law enforcement report, tons of illegal drugs are floating around the country daily, does not make president Obama and governmental leaders drug traffickers.
It is this kind of unfair and bias writing such as yours which created hatred and human rights violations around the world because people like you abuse your role and responsibility.
In reading your article about General Vang Pao, I have found your article to be baseless, frictional and absolutely irresponsible as a professional. I am a Hmong and many of my extended family members served during the war, and some were very closed to Maj.General Vang Pao. None have ever observed such disgraceful accusation.
As an American, I sense your intention to be nothing more than an act of character assassination to an honorable figure due to questionable reasons. The facts that thousands of Americans today are in jail around the country does not make president Obama a criminal for their crime. Another fact, according to law enforcement report, tons of illegal drugs are floating around the country daily, does not make president Obama and governmental leaders drug traffickers.
It is this kind of unfair and bias writing such as yours which created hatred and human rights violations around the world because people like you abuse your role and responsibility.
The easy violence of empire washes over everything. It washes into our psyches.
I’m thinking about this in connection with the juxtaposition of anniversaries this week: Martin Luther King Day; President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation in 1961, in which he sounded the warning about the military-industrial complex; and George H.W. Bush’s bombing campaign that launched the Gulf War in 1991, pounding not only Saddam (our kill ratio was 1,000-to-1) but also the so-called “Vietnam Syndrome” and America’s post-modernist aversion to war, thus re-energizing . . . the military-industrial complex.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” King said in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech a year before his death, sounding a warning that converged with Eisenhower’s. Poke any dark corner of American life and a warning will emerge.
I’m thinking about this in connection with the juxtaposition of anniversaries this week: Martin Luther King Day; President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation in 1961, in which he sounded the warning about the military-industrial complex; and George H.W. Bush’s bombing campaign that launched the Gulf War in 1991, pounding not only Saddam (our kill ratio was 1,000-to-1) but also the so-called “Vietnam Syndrome” and America’s post-modernist aversion to war, thus re-energizing . . . the military-industrial complex.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” King said in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech a year before his death, sounding a warning that converged with Eisenhower’s. Poke any dark corner of American life and a warning will emerge.
While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility -- a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever.
But this is not a time for despair. It’s a time for new activism -- built upon one of the great achievements of the last decade: the rise of independent media.
Every day, millions of people in the U.S. get their journalism from independent news outlets that expose not just the extremist antics of Republicans, but also the corporate corruption among Democrats. These informed Americans -- fearful of Speaker Boehner and alarmed by a White House now administered by a JPMorgan Chase executive -- represent a huge base ready to mobilize in new ways.
But this is not a time for despair. It’s a time for new activism -- built upon one of the great achievements of the last decade: the rise of independent media.
Every day, millions of people in the U.S. get their journalism from independent news outlets that expose not just the extremist antics of Republicans, but also the corporate corruption among Democrats. These informed Americans -- fearful of Speaker Boehner and alarmed by a White House now administered by a JPMorgan Chase executive -- represent a huge base ready to mobilize in new ways.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lived till he was just 39. He has been dead now longer than he lived.
Sadly, too many who never worked with, or even supported, Dr. King while he was alive and in the middle of the struggle, now engage in rhetorical gymnastics, manipulating Dr. King’s words to conform to their own world view and justify their own ideological and political--even military--agendas.
We would all do well to ignore recent perverse misappropriations of Dr. King’s words with regard to our current wars. If he were alive today, Dr. King would, in my opinion, decry the diversion of resources to unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Not just in words, but in deeds, Dr. King never wavered in his commitment to peace and non-violence.
Sadly, too many who never worked with, or even supported, Dr. King while he was alive and in the middle of the struggle, now engage in rhetorical gymnastics, manipulating Dr. King’s words to conform to their own world view and justify their own ideological and political--even military--agendas.
We would all do well to ignore recent perverse misappropriations of Dr. King’s words with regard to our current wars. If he were alive today, Dr. King would, in my opinion, decry the diversion of resources to unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Not just in words, but in deeds, Dr. King never wavered in his commitment to peace and non-violence.
Will there be copycats?
Will parents let their children attend political rallies anymore? Will Congress ever come to our corner again?
We witness another impromptu festival of American violence, this one in front of a Tucson Safeway. One more place that used to be safe and ordinary, suitable for children, is suddenly, for one random moment, a free-fire zone. A 9-year-old girl who wanted to learn how government works is among the half dozen dead. Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot in the head, fights for her life.
What do we do now, other than shrug, shudder, grieve?
A few days later, one priority — one — remains standing in the wreckage. How in God’s name do we disarm?
How do we disarm our impulses, our fears, our fantasies, our miscalculations? How do we disarm our language, which has us going to war with virtually every problem we face?
Will parents let their children attend political rallies anymore? Will Congress ever come to our corner again?
We witness another impromptu festival of American violence, this one in front of a Tucson Safeway. One more place that used to be safe and ordinary, suitable for children, is suddenly, for one random moment, a free-fire zone. A 9-year-old girl who wanted to learn how government works is among the half dozen dead. Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot in the head, fights for her life.
What do we do now, other than shrug, shudder, grieve?
A few days later, one priority — one — remains standing in the wreckage. How in God’s name do we disarm?
How do we disarm our impulses, our fears, our fantasies, our miscalculations? How do we disarm our language, which has us going to war with virtually every problem we face?
Fifty years ago this Monday, President Dwight Eisenhower gave a farewell address in which he famously warned of the dangers of influence on our government by the "military industrial complex." Our current Secretary of War, Robert Gates, has proposed to retire this year and has recommended that his successors stop increasing the military budget. But Eisenhower didn't just bring this up on his way out the door. It was seven years earlier that he had remarked:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed 8,000 people."
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed 8,000 people."
The Second Amendment supports those of us who would CONTROL guns---and thus prevent the insane slaughter that compromises our security.
James Madison and the Founders of this nation would be enraged to see the Second Amendment being used to put guns in the hands of the Tucson shooter and so many others like him.
The debate over the violent hatespeak of Sarah "Lock & Load" Palin and her Foxist ilk is long overdue.
But so is a careful national reawakening to what the Second Amendment actually says:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Of the first Ten Amendments, this is the only one that contains a rationale for what it requires.
The Bill of Rights is the law of the land, clearly stated. Guarantees of religion, speech, assembly, the press, freedom from torture and so much more are natural rights, inherent to the human condition.
But the right to bear arms is granted only in the context of a well-regulated militia and thus the security of a free state.
James Madison and the Founders of this nation would be enraged to see the Second Amendment being used to put guns in the hands of the Tucson shooter and so many others like him.
The debate over the violent hatespeak of Sarah "Lock & Load" Palin and her Foxist ilk is long overdue.
But so is a careful national reawakening to what the Second Amendment actually says:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Of the first Ten Amendments, this is the only one that contains a rationale for what it requires.
The Bill of Rights is the law of the land, clearly stated. Guarantees of religion, speech, assembly, the press, freedom from torture and so much more are natural rights, inherent to the human condition.
But the right to bear arms is granted only in the context of a well-regulated militia and thus the security of a free state.
This year the list of atrocities committed under the guise of representative democracy is extensive, as anyone concerned in analyzing the actions of governments in the West can ascertain. If it was our wish, we could bombard the airwaves with images of suffering people from around the world, and swiftly link their pain to the corrupt institutions of government we have accepted as legitimate. With similar ease, we could trace the wealth accumulated by a small minority of ruthless economic elites, to their governmental bonds. But I see little need in contributing to this exercise considering the amount of relevant information already available. Instead, I find it more useful to speculate about what happens next. I am fairly confident that is what those bearing the brunt of our inhumanity must wonder. Will we end the bombs? Will we stop the banks? Will we transform our democracies?