Reprint from a Letter to the Editor in a Florida
newspaper:
I have seen many strange things happening in my beloved
country, but none
so strange as the recent news that our Government has
decided to make a gift
of $43 million to that great bastion of democracy,
Afghanistan, for that
country's promise not to allow the production of poppies,
from which opium
and heroin is made. Our esteemed Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, made this
amazing announcement almost at the same moment that the
United Nations
Commission was proclaiming that such a promise was a sham
and a fraud, and
that the Afghans had already stored up tons of poppies to
await higher prices
before selling them.
Almost simultaneously with the announcement of our
remarkable generosity
to this benighted country, there appeared the news that
Osama Bin Laden, the
Saudi super-terrorist who has declared war on the United
States and who is
being hidden and protected by the Afghan government, will
never be
surrendered by that government.
His protectors, the Taliban government of Afghanistan,
have recently
destroyed priceless historic statues because of their
religious fanaticism,
and decreed that all Hindus must wear identifying badges on
their clothing.
They subjugate and torture women and minority groups. So why
are these
killers being made the beneficiaries of a $43 million gift
of our tax
dollars?
The sheer stupidity of our present administration in
making this gift is
only exceeded by the stupidity of our news media in
maintaining that
deafening silence concerning this unbelievable largesse on
our part to the
worst of our enemies. Is this the kind of
"leadership" that we were promised
during the recent presidential campaign? And what has
happened to the news
media in our country, the vaunted Fourth Estate? Would they
have remained
silent concerning this travesty if the former president had
committed so
egregious a blunder? Were it not for enterprising Internet
Web site
operators, none would have revealed this outrageous decision
by our so-called
"leaders".
Irving D. Cohen
Ocala