July 28-August 3, 2005

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Great Lane
West Oak Lane is proving to be one of the most dynamic communities in Philadelphia of late, and seeing yet another way in which OARC's efforts may be furthered and the community strengthened is truly something of which to be proud as a city [Cityspace, "Imminent Domain," Lee Norsworthy, July 21, 2005]. OARC's efforts are paying off and people are starting to take notice of how handsome parts of West Oak Lane are, and how much promise the area holds.

Ryan Caviglia
South Philadelphia

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Saddam It
One would hope that, by now, "alternative" weeklies such as yours would have developed a healthy skepticism toward the motivations of the federal government in Iraq. No such skepticism was evident in your glowing profile of Mike Flowers and his "rewarding" prosecution of Saddam Hussein [News, "Shock and Law," Mike Newall, July 21, 2005].

The thinking person has to question the tactic of trying Hussein only for the "relatively minor incident" of his regime's 1982 retaliatory killings in Dujail. An obvious reason for the focus on this incident is that it did not directly involve chemical weapons nor inconvenient questions about where Iraq obtained them. Similarly, it does not involve allowing Hussein to speak in any relevant sense about Western backing in his war of attrition against Iran, nor his meetings with Donald Rumsfeld, nor the elder Bush's apparent green light to invade Kuwait. In short, it is one of the few incidents which brands Hussein as a thug while allowing our prosecution and a puppet judicial system to avoid the topic that he was our thug.

That the case involves the death penalty is also richly convenient; dead men tell no tales.

Hussein's prosecution serves as cover and justification for an ongoing war for, and occupation of, the world's second largest oil- producing nation. The United States has been instrumental in killing more than one million Iraqis over the past decade and a half, the vast majority civilians, and Iraqis continue to die at the rate of as many as 35 per day. Hussein himself would struggle to keep that pace in a "good" month. Meanwhile, Britain's Christian Aid estimates some $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth has gone missing during our occupation, including an estimated $4 billion worth of crude oil exported from the country without as much as metering it. This is looting on a scale that makes Saddam look like a street urchin pickpocket.

This leaves me scratching my head as to why you would report Flowers' activity uncritically. Flowers is still very much a "highly paid white collar defense attorney." In this particular case, he is simply doing a hatchet job to cover the asses of past and current federal officials, including high-ranking members of the current Bush administration.
Chris Randolph
Philadelphia

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Litter Bugged
How do you expect the city to be clean when it doesn't even maintain Center City trash cans [Cover story, "Trash Daze," Jenna Portnoy, July 14, 2005]? All these containers, with metal on the exterior and plastic interiors, melt from lit, often swept-up cigarettes. It takes months to get a replacement. Up and down Chestnut Street, these metal shells will fill up with days/weeks of compacted trash. Eventually it gets completely cleaned out and they put a bag on/in the shell that can easily slip off and the process starts over.
John Steacker
Clifton Heights