President Bush,
It has become extremely difficult to give you the benefit of the doubt on Lebanon, for you have left no doubt in our minds. We are now certain — like many of us have always been — that your foreign policy is completely biased towards Israel, and you have made no effort to hide this fact. Just out of curiosity: are they also drafted in Tel Aviv?
It is your choice, Mr Bush, to support Israel, just like it is our — the entire Arab and Muslim world’s — choice to support Lebanon. You insist that Israel has the right to defend itself. Defending oneself, I believe, is a universal right, not exclusive to Israel.
"The first Qana massacre did not quench the Israeli thirst for blood," it is said, graphically describing yet another Israeli crime against the innocents of Lebanon...
Politics
Dear Prime Minister,
I have read your correspondence with Sir John Chilcot about the failure to agree the publication of documents requested by the members of the Iraq Inquiry. I am more than a little puzzled by the references to 'Maxwellisation'. Surely there can be no comparison with the Inquiry involving the late Robert Maxwell, apart from technical questions, of how people mentioned in the draft Report have the right to make representations to the Inquiry?
The Iraq Inquiry involves a decision to declare war and from the moment it was established it was clear it would involve examination of international discussions between British Prime Ministers and US Presidents. If there is a precedent it is the inquiry held during the First World War to examine the Dardanelles.
Sir Jeremy...
3,737
Dear Senator McCain,
I am the woman who spoke out in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the status of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay on February 5th. I’m sure you heard my words, “Give them the rights of prisoners of war!” before I was arrested.
I attended the hearing in an orange jump suit to silently protest the very existence of Guantanamo prison, and I expected to hear a reasonably rational discussion of the pris-on and its future. I planned to listen respectfully, holding my sign reading “I died waiting for justice: Adnan Latif, Died September 8, 2012,” to remind the Senators and admin-istration officials that Adnan Latif either committed suicide or was killed at Guantanamo after ten years of torture and unjust detention, and six years after being cleared for re-...
2,787
Dear President Bush and Vice President Cheney:
We express our grave concerns about the fact that you have approved a visit by Nguyen minh Triet to the White House, probably on June 22, 2007.
As a leader of the USA and also of the free world, you have several reasons to do so. Some people say that security for the region and for the world is one. Hanoi?s cooperation with the US in fighting the terror is another. And still, others explain that interest of business circles is a motive for you to make such decision.
This is a move you make to get close to the communist country. Briefly, for any or all reasons cited, you are the one who wants to raise the relationship between the USA and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) up to a higher level . It is clear that you expect that...
2,926
Dear Mr. President-Elect:
Ever since your victory was secured, you have insisted that you will be the president of all of us, whether or not we share your views on a host of issues. In your hands, particularly in your future appointments of Supreme Court Justices, rests the future of the freedoms that have become synonymous with the last half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.
Throughout the just-concluded campaign you expressed deep religious convictions. You have every right to derive personal sustenance from these beliefs. However, as our new leader, you have assumed an awesome responsibility that requires you to take as much care in protecting those of us who may hold philosophical views divergent from your own, as you will exercise in looking after...
2,560
Dear President Bush
First, we would like to introduce ourselves to you. We are 75 and 65 years old and both of us are psychotherapists, writers, and consciousness teachers. We have over 90 years of combined experience working with people in many different settings and in many nations around the world. We have written five books together and one each separately. These have been translated into seven languages. We have five children, three grandchildren, and a number of cats. We tell you all this simply to establish the fact that we are thoughtful, professional, competent people who have lived full lives and have experienced a great deal in this world -- both separately and as partners.
We are not usually alarmists, but as professionals who have worked with people all our lives, we...
2,491
Dear Mr. President:
I am glad to see that you fired some U.S. attorneys. But you missed one: U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who prosecuted border guards Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean instead of a professional drug smuggler, and who prosecuted Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez instead of a professional people-smuggler.
Yes, you have the presidential prerogative to hire and fire U.S. attorneys for any reason or for no reason. Any prosecutor has large discretion in whether to bring a case to trial or not, and the public has the right to know why he made that decision.
So much has come out since the Ramos and Compean trial that proves the decision to criminally prosecute them was a gross miscarriage of justice. Their alleged violation, if true, deserved, at most, an...
2,472
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing for two reasons.
The first is to extend my prayers to you, your family, and your White House staff for providing this country with strong leadership in these difficult times. I can only imagine that, since September 11th, precious little of the decisions you must make on a daily basis are pleasant ones. I pray that God continue to bless you with the wisdom and strength you need to persevere as a national and world leader at a time when so much of the world and its politics are undergoing such great stress and flux.
The second reason I'm writing is to protest, in the strongest terms possible, the recent raids on the homes and offices of Muslim citizens and community leaders in Virginia and the D.C. area. I realize that ensuring national security in...
2,563
Dear President Clinton:
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spin doctor Parris Chang recently posted a letter in the Liberty Times, a ruling regime mouthpiece: "We... hope Clinton can sincerely examine Taiwan's achievements in democracy, freedom, and human rights... and share his observations with his Democrat colleagues in the US."
Ironically, that is what we, the Committee of 319, earnestly hope you can do.
We hope you can examine Chen Shui-bian's grotesque abuse of the power of his office to ensure himself a second term, and share your observations on how Chen's fraudulent "reelection" in March 2004 makes George W. Bush's 2000 "victory" over Al Gore in Florida, seem like the epitome of fairness.
We hope you can examine the Democratic Progressive Party's appalling violations...
2,561
Dear Dr. Kazdin:
On September 5, 2008 I wrote to you regarding publication of falsified results for GID prevalence by the APA Task Force on Gender Identity and Gender Variance. A copy is attached [2].
As discussed in that letter, the Task Force failed to respond to alerts about errors in their results. They apparently failed to read the key paper in question (Bakker, et al [3], attached), thus failing to check for the errors themselves. Unaware that they were not reporting what their primary reference study had actually measured, they published long-held assumptions about what that old paper said, while failing to mention peer-reviewed papers that conflicted with those assumptions.
On September 25, 2008, Clinton Anderson, Ph.D., the Director of the APA�s LGBT Concern�s Office...
2,581