Lies of Our Times (fwd)
Rochester
"Silly Robert, hollow points are for meddlers..."
"Wit is the only wall Robert Fernandez
Between us and the dark." rfer...@chuma.cas.usf.edu
- Mark Van Doren http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~rfernand
AIM: Gamaliel8
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 17:03:15 -0800
From: Chuck0 <ch...@tao.ca>
To: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom List <ala...@ala1.ala.org>
Subject: Lies of Our Times
>From *Eat the State!*, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle:)
Dear ETS!,
On November 3, after reading yet another call to bomb Iraq from the New
York
Times editorial staff, I quickly penned a "letter to the editor." A day
later I arrived at work to find, in my inbox, a message from Mary Drohan at
the NY Times urgently requesting a call. Aside from getting some personal
information, the purpose of the call was to help verify the statistices I
used. I pointed her to a 1996 article in her own paper, as well as a 1997
UNICEF report at www2.unicef.org/pub/iraqsa. She then told me she'd send
her
edit to me for my approval and I thanked her and went on my merry way. That
is, until Thursday when I opened the Times to page A24. Below is my letter
as I originally wrote it in all its naked glory, followed by the dressed
up,
sanitized version the NY Times ran. Here's the Original:
To the editor,
In response to your editorial of November 3, 1998, entitled "Iraq's
Audacious Defiance":
Iraq's defiance is not nearly as "audacious" as the most comprehensive
humanitarian blockade in history which continues to deny the entire
population of Iraq adequate food and medicine. According to UNICEF,
even with the oil for food program, over 90,000 die every year as a
direct
result of economic sanctions, over half of which are children under the
age of five. How the misuse of the US military to add to this number is
supposed to riegn in a dictator who cares nothing for his people, escapes
all rational thought.
It's no wonder that this economic war the US is waging against the
civilian
population of Iraq has proven completely ineffective. It's time economic
sanctions, the only 'confirmed' weapon of mass destruction left in Iraq,
be
dismantled.
Sincerely,
Jeff Gustafson
Here's the one they printed:
To the Editor:
Re "Iraq's Audacious Defiance" (editorial, Nov. 3):
Iraq's defiance of the United Nations weapons inspectors is not nearly as
audacious as the humanitarian blockade that--despite the oil-for-food
program--continues to deny adequate food and medicine to the entire
population of that country.
According to Iraqi officials, half a million children have died since the
Persian Gulf war in 1991 for reasons that are related to the economic
sanctions.
It's time the sanctions were dismantled.
Jeff Gustafson
Seattle, Nov. 3, 1998
After pointing Ms. Drohan to page 42 of the 1997 Unicef report which
clearly
reports that sanctions kill over 90,000/year (50,000 of which are children
under 5), she completely changed the source of these statistics to "Iraqi
officials!" Of all the changes that could be made to my letter, I can think
of nothing more effective than this--if the goal is to allow the average
American reader to more easily dismiss my words. Add to this the exclusion
of my critical thoughts on Saddam and yet another peg is knocked out from
under my argument. Furthermore, no one from the NY Times called or
attempted
to contact me regarding these changes.
I would like to ask Mary Drohan and the New York Times: "Why even bother to
radically alter any letters from the public to advance your agenda or to
completely undermine an opposing viewpoint? Why not simply manufacture
them?"
But whatever you do, don't put my name on it!
--Jeff Gustafson