Unfettered Letters

Holocaust-denying bishop

I must respond to Bishop Richard Williamson’s claim that not one Jew died in gas chambers (1/28, A-8, “The defense doesn’t rest; Vatican stresses pontiff’s record of denouncing the Holocaust”). He also claims there were no gas chambers. Oh, how I wish he was right.

I am the sole survivor of my immediate family. If his statement were correct, my mother, age 42, my sister, age 17, and my brother, age 10, would have died of natural causes in old age. Instead, their lives were smothered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Belzec. After suffering the horror of Stutthof concentration camp, my father was also murdered.

Denying the Holocaust was ruled to be a sin by Pope John Paul II. Bishop Williamson was excommunicated from the church by Pope John Paul II, yet now the Vatican is bringing him back into the fold. This is an outrage!

I’m 82 years old. I have difficulty accepting the fact that educated people would try to rewrite history in my lifetime. Can’t these revisionists at least wait until we survivors are dead to rewrite history?

Jack Mandelbaum
Overland Park

Closing of Gitmo

According to one letter writer (1/27), it is immoral and inhumane to keep terrorists penned up at Gitmo. That argument is easily cast aside. I, for one, remember the glee and joy of some Muslims as they danced in the streets after 9/11.

Here is what you need to know about Gitmo, the closing of which has nothing to do with the inmates there.

First, President Obama needed to pander to his base.

Second, he needed to inform the CIA and military as to who is boss.

Third, do you think that, in his infinite wisdom, Obama cares what happens to the inmates?

Fourth, Obama can’t stand the thought that Bush actually found the best place in the world to keep them.

Fifth, he has a year to change his mind.

If left to me, I would convert an old freighter into a prison ship and have it crewed and captained by Bosnian Serbs.

Peter Winkler
Kansas City

Closing of Gitmo

The implication in the headline “Could Fort Leavenworth become the new Gitmo?” (1/23, A-1) is both tragic and false. Guatanamo is not closing because it contains terrorists, but because it symbolizes the immoral and inhumane treatment they received there. The idea that the facility at Leavenworth would or could become a Gitmo is an oxymoron considering that such treatment is no longer to be.

Granted, an initial local defensive position is understandable, and there are huge inherent problems any location or facility must overcome. Yet as a Kansan, I am shamed if our response to this moral issue truly is as the article implied. America has been brought to its current critical point by the “me first” thinking of individuals and of communities and states. Our survival requires that such thinking cease.

If Leavenworth is our nation’s best option, let Kansas show the world that we are a capable leader in forgoing self-interest and in solving problems in order to make possible the moral treatment of prisoners.

Jan Owens
Roeland Park

Kansas finally has a big opportunity to be of material aid to the so-called “war on terror,” and what do our Republican senators do? They cowardly whine and complain about having dangerous terrorists in our backyards. The Republicans are the same people who supported President Bush’s misguided policies on Guatanamo Bay, including torture and kangaroo courts that have made its closure a necessity.

It’s time for the people of Kansas to do their part to clean up the messes made by Bush. After all, they have overwhelmingly supported those policies for the past eight years.

I have zero sympathy for the argument that Leavenworth is not the right place for these detainees. In fact, perhaps if they had been placed there originally, we could have avoided the stain on our history created by the torture and abuse of Guatanamo Bay.

Wendy Lund
Overland Park

U.S. must help manage crisis in Zimbabwe

With so many problems at home, it is easy to lose sight of world issues. Yet events such as those occurring in Zimbabwe are impossible to ignore (12/4, A-11, “Zimbabwe police break up protest; A human rights activist is abducted from her home amid the new crackdown on dissent”).

Health care in Zimbabwe is abysmal. There is no public access, and there are no medicines available to the general population. All medical schools and major hospitals have been closed for weeks.

A cholera epidemic — the result of a collapse of the entire country’s infrastructure — has claimed more than 500 lives. Attempts by the medical community to request assistance are being met with violent, government-sanctioned responses. Estimates by non-governmental organizations suggest that half of the country’s population will require food assistance as soon as next year.

As an American medical student, I am moved by the conditions that my peers face. We must stand up to support health professionals throughout the world.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. State Department must do something to help manage this situation before it becomes so unstable that it compromises the entire region.

Kyle Berens
Kansas City, Kan.

Forced abortion in China

While the world watches, the Chinese government is forcing a woman to abort her baby. This is common. This is barbaric. This is unbelievable.

Let’s all go shopping and buy more products “made in China” to give our children for Christmas.

Where is the outrage?

Jean M. Kaiser
Liberty

Kristallnacht anniversary

A blog I subscribe to reminded me that Nov. 9 and 10 mark the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.” This was the first large-scale round of violence committed by the Nazis against the Jews.

On such somber anniversaries, I sometimes recall a quote from Winston Churchill: “If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Jon D. Snyder
Lawrence

U.S. wastes golden opportunity

As disappointing as it was to see the U.S. collect 15 fewer gold medals than China, American athletes’ performances outside their respective playing surfaces won a far greater portion of my disappointment.

For a three-week window, during which these athletes had the greatest audience listening to their every word, all went silent. American athletes stated that the Olympics were neither the time nor place for politics, referencing the genocide in Darfur.

The Olympics should be the world’s greatest forum. The only thing having no place should be violence. So, whoever started the ruckus in Georgia is really the only one being impolite, but that’s an argument for another day.

The First Amendment allows any one citizen to speak out without having to reflect the opinions of the government, or of all citizens. This is why U.S. athletes missed the golden opportunity to show support for Darfur, having been given the ability to speak out without putting the U.S., as a whole, into any sort of conflict with other nations.

Despite earning 110 medals, the, U.S. failed to succeed in the challenge more important than sport, in which human lives, rather than medals, are at stake.

Michael King
Kansas City

Who’s Bush to bash China?

I’ve read that President Bush will be chastising the Chinese for their human rights abuses (8/7, A-13). This from the man who attacked another country under false pretenses, approved the detention of prisoners for the purposes of illegal torture, approved the use of illegal torture himself, held people in prison without charge or hope of release, conducted staged press conferences and employed media personalities to propagandize the public, prescreens audiences in order to avoid protest, restricts protesters to remote sites so they cannot be heard, and on and on.

I believe the president will look into the hearts of the anti-democratic thugs who rule China and see men of like character.

D.A. Christian
Kansas City

Boycotting Olympic games

I’m a former coach. Not a great coach mind you, but a coach. I understand the dedication, discipline and effort it takes for an Olympic-caliber athlete to reach the pinnacle of his or her sport. Even just getting to the Olympics is an extremely challenging task.

Politics shouldn’t be part of the games, but we live in a political world. I’m sure we’d like to think the ancient Greeks didn’t allow anything but sportsmanship at the Olympics, but the truth is that they were very political beings, and many Olympic decisions were probably strongly colored by politics as well.

China is a nation with great potential. The Chinese people I know and the people of China in general are good people, with good ethics, desires and many talents. But the government of China is despicable.

I am going to boycott the Olympics. If enough people boycott the Olympics, the ratings will drop and the Chinese will notice, because they are very concerned about perception.

I urge you to turn off the Olympics this year. Read a book, go outside and play with your kids, garden or walk the dog. Do anything but watch the Olympics.

Brian K. Kegerreis
Overland Park

Ancient pirates vs. modern terror

Ross Balano (7/26, Opinion, “U.S. wars with Barbary pirates offer lesson”) writes of the Barbary pirates and draws parallels to the current “War on Terror” and to Guantanamo Bay prisoners. There are important differences.

First, the Barbary Pirates were pirates, on pirate ships, attacking U.S. ships. At Guantanamo, we don’t know what many of these prisoners may or may have not done.

Second, the pirates were attacked in a military manner. They were not captured and tortured or interrogated for years.

Thirdly, Thomas Jefferson and Congress’ debates were held in a legal, constitutional manner. No violations of existing treaties, no signing statements, no deals with warlords.

I commend Mr. Balano for recognizing the similarities between the current situation and the pirate situation. But we have been dealing with similar problems for 200 years, and our lesson is to be very wary and concerned when told that this is a new world, with new problems, and that the old laws, principles and paradigms don’t apply. They do. They always have.

Ralph Feik
Raytown

Once again we are treated to the tortured logic of one Ross Balano in the Midwest Voices column. Somehow he makes a connection between the Barbary Coast pirates, al-Qaida, and the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

It’s not until the end of the article that we finally get to the real issue at hand. Once again, it’s the liberals on the Supreme Court who voted in favor of habeas corpus, not the pirates, who are the real cause of Balano’s wrath.

Well, let’s see about those liberal justices. We know four of them are as far to the right as you can get and still remain on planet Earth. So only one of the remaining justices would have to vote against habeas corpus to make Balano happy.

It seems that Justice Souter was appointed by George H.W. Bush. I know he’s not a liberal. Then there’s Justice Kennedy, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. Heavens, I really don’t think you could describe Reagan as a liberal.

What on Earth is wrong with this picture? Are you sure it was the liberals who caused your angst, Mr. Balano?

Jim Lullie
Holt, Mo.