Hamas 4-23-2006

23, April 2006                   Hamas 

The world community was right to condemn the senseless act of a suicide bomber that resulted in the death of nine Israelis. Killing of innocent civilians is morally repugnant.  The Hamas leadership displayed appalling insensitivity by condoning the killings. But withholding funds and aid from the suffering Palestinians is inexcusable. Last week Oxfam International warned that the humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza will only worsen in response to international aid cuts. Oxfam is providing the only source of clean water to about 140,000 Palestinians families in the Occupied Territories, 60% of them live on about $2 a day. 

It is irresponsible and excessively cruel of the international community to punish three-and-a-half million people for the political decisions of its leaders. Israel is obligated by international law to provide money that was rightly due to the Palestinians. The taxes from Palestinian workers, according to the agreements, must be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. It is unconscionable that Israel has illegally deducted large portions of these funds. This illegal withholding has been continuing for 39 years. This blatant theft of funds has been ignored by the international community. 

Fortunately, the undue influence of the Israeli lobby, which attempts to blunt any criticism of Israeli, has been largely exposed by Stephen Walt of Harvard and John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, in their recent essay. I urge concerned citizens to write to their representatives and demand a restoration of aid and support to the Palestinians.

IRAN 4-12-2006

12, April 2006                        IRAN

President Bush continues to read from his ‘get tough’ script and is threatening to bomb Iran to convince the few doubting Americans that he is the ‘war President.’ Loose talk about bombing Iran will have only have the potential to unite the Iranians behind a radical theocracy and weaken the position of the moderates. This will further inflame passions and precipitate an even larger crisis in neighboring Iraq who are already bleeding from civil strife and an uninvited occupation force. It appears that Mr. Bush is raising the level of hysteria to deflect the mounting criticism of his administration and salvage his failed presidency.

Bush must GO 4-8-2006

8, April 2006              Bush must GO

We now have conclusive evidence that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney committed high crimes by ordering Lewis Libby to feed bogus prewar intelligence to Judith Miller of the New York Times to shore up the administration’s weak case to launch a wholly unjustified war on Iraq. This latest revelation confirms earlier evidence outlined in the ‘Downing Street’ memo and the public statement of international law, Professor Philippe Sands, who provided documents that confirmed that British Prime Minister Blair and President Bush planned the attack on Iraq regardless of the presence of WMD’s. By doing so, President Bush sent thousands of U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis to a certain death.  This egregious behavior followed the deliberate revelation of the CIA operative, Valerie Plame’s identity to Judith Miller by Lewis Libby. According to Ms. Miller’s testimony to the grand jury, President Bush and Vice-President authorized Libby to reveal this sensitive information.

The New York Times must be held accountable for allowing its former reporter, Judith Miller, to serve as an instrument of propaganda for the White House. This latest scandal makes a complete mockery of President Bush’s earlier statement that “he would fire anyone who was found guilty of leaking classified information.” It is high time Congress stops pussyfooting around the criminal behavior of George Bush and initiate impeachment proceedings. This man has disgraced his high office and brought great shame and dishonor to our great country.

Courageous local reporter fired 4-3-2006

3, April 2006              Courageous local reporter fired

I share the sadness and yes anger expressed by a number of your letter writers over the sudden departure of Diane Diamond. Her editorials were extremely well researched, topical, and well written. She deserves much credit for exposing the overspending of our bloated city bureaucracy and was courageous to demand fiscal accountability. Sadly, she seems to have paid the ultimate price for her courageous reporting. Her departure will be sadly missed.      

Ill -fated Nuclear Pact 4-1-2006

1, April 2006                    Ill-fated Nuclear Pact

It is a pity that many Indian Americans support the recent U.S.-India nuclear deal.

While Indian entrepreneurs and business moguls deserve much credit for biting off a sizeable piece of the world economic pie, over 700 million of our less fortunate breth­ren still live in abject poverty. It is therefore unconscionable that our scarce resources are being squandered to build more nuclear weapons that can never be used without causing self-immolation of Indian society and a rapid demise of our precious planet.

We become so enamored when the lone superpower glances coyly in our direction that we embrace an ill-fated deal that is driven purely by U.S. economic self-interest.

Indians and many Indian Americans seem to be intoxicated with the thought that we may soon be become senior members of the exclusive nuclear club.

Bush's overtures to India expose the bla­tant hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy. It does not hesitate to castigate and bully Iran for its nuclear ambitions while rewarding India's re­fusal to sign the non-proliferation treaty.

India missed a wonderful opportunity to become a peacemaker and responsible custo­dian of our planet. It should have used this his­toric meeting with the United States and taken a lead role by insisting that the United States and its erstwhile allies—Britain, Israel and Pakistan—freeze production of nuclear weap­ons by signing the non-proliferation treaty and calling a halt to this nuclear madness, which is bringing us all to the brink of annihilation.

Let us hope the U.S. Congress stiffens its spine and kills the deal.