Ashcroft's letter published in today's NYT, in response to The Girls Next Door (Sex Slaves article)

The NYT Sunday Magazine ^ | Feb 15, 2004 | John D. Ashcroft, USA Attorney General

[summer]

I thought this was an excellent letter from our AG, and was very glad the NYT printed it.

I linked the subject NYT article above, as it was posted on FR by Travis McGee. It can also be found in this duplicate post by sarcasm, HERE.

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PS --

BTW, here are two other interesting letters I saw in today's NYT, in the NYT Book Review:

To the Editor:
Because I rely on The New York Times Book Review to keep me posted on what I don't have time to read, I would appreciate your publishing an equally thought-provoking article reviewing some of the ''ardent pro-Bush books'' that Serge Schmemann refers to . . . just in the interest of being fair and balanced, of course.

Anne King
Honolulu

To the Editor:

I was deeply disappointed by Serge Schmemann's survey of the literature critical of America and American foreign policy (Jan. 25). As if the books reviewed weren't sufficient in their contempt for our nation's direction, Schmemann makes sure to include his own caricatured understanding of President Bush and his foreign policy.

Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay's book, ''America Unbound,'' is informative and sober, even if critical, and the only one that deserves scrutiny. Far from adding to sensible debate, George Soros, Chalmers Johnson, Robert Jay Lifton, Emmanuel Todd and Tariq Ali seem locked in a competitive struggle to see who can most furiously malign the United States. Ali, for example, asserts that American generals didn't act to stop museum lootings in Baghdad because it would have meant admitting that the ''ragheads'' had a culture. Does such nonsense really merit reiteration?

Joey Tartakovsky
Isla Vista, Calif.

[summer]

FYI.

[King Prout]

good.

[summer]

FYI.

[summer]

FYI.

[summer]

FYI.

[summer]

I also meant to bold this phone number from Ashcroft's letter --

"In order to address trafficking at its root, Justice Department officials have traveled to foreign "source'' nations, including Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. Finally, the government is devoting substantial effort to a public awareness campaign, launching the Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force Complaint Line, 888-428-7581."

[summer]

I also meant to bold this phone number from Ashcroft's letter --

"In order to address trafficking at its root, Justice Department officials have traveled to foreign 'source' nations, including Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. Finally, the government is devoting substantial effort to a public awareness campaign, launching the Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force Complaint Line, 888-428-7581."

[independentmind]

Let's not call it "trafficking". Slavery is what it is.

[summer]

From letter: These criminals smuggled young girls from Central American nations into America, holding them in forced servitude and repeatedly raping them.

I agree with you -- it's slavery, but I think he got it right when he said "forced servitude" above, as that IS slavery, as far as I know.

[ServesURight]

This just goes to show you how utterly useless and inefficient the UN is.

[independentmind]

I agree with you -- it's slavery, but I think he got it right when he said "forced servitude" above, as that IS slavery, as far as I know.

Of course, you're correct, but somehow, to me, at least, the reappearance of slavery at the dawn of the 21st century is an ominous sign of what's to come. It's always the weakest first...

[Experiment 6-2-6]

It was forward thinking like this that allowed the Korean-Vietnamese venture sweatshop "DAEWOOSA" located here in Pago Pago to be shut down, since the local government could care less about the conditions imposed on the "workers".

I was proud to be associated with a case such as this, where we actually won a civil case prior to the Bureau hauling the bad guy away for human traffic. (He was convicted, by the way)

BIG BUMP TO THE TOP

[TaxRelief]

...the reappearance of slavery

Slavery has been with us continuously, this is certainly not a reappearance.

My life as a modern day slave

She was just 12 when one night her village was targeted by Arab slave raiders, who snatched her away from her loving family to be a slave in far away Khartoum.

The story of her capture and life in servitude, published in her book Slave, reads like something from the Middle Ages but it happened in the early 1990s and she says this is still the lot of many young girls from southern Sudan. (excerpt)

Some quick examples of slavery still in existence:

WORLDWIDE: Teenage girls become prositutes and are controlled by brutal pimps.
BURMA: The UN has banned Burma from UN membership because of slavery practices.
CARRIBEAN ISLANDS: Boys are rented as sex toys to gay men.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Kidnapped Haitians are forced to harvest sugar cane.
GHANA: Families repent for sins by giving daughters as slaves to fetish priests INDIA: Children pay off parental debt by rolling beedi cigarettes or performing other factory work.
IVORY COAST: Children work on cocoa plantations.
MAURITANIA: Arab-Berbers buy and sell black Africans as inheritable property.
SUDAN: Arab militias from the North take Southern Sudanese women and children in slave raids.
THAILAND: Women and children are leased as sex slaves for tourists. (This has been going on forever.)

The list goes on.

[independentmind]

Yes, I've been corrected about that before. Perhaps I should have added "in the West".

[A.J.Armitage]

What makes you think it ever went away?

[quietolong]

Diplomats Hold Slaves - in U.S.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b2c4f9b5a79.htm

[Travis McGee]

Hmmm...nothing in his letter about closing the border off to criminal invaders.

[Triple Word Score]

Thank you for the ping. Very good article. I know so many people (including conservatives!) who irrationally demonize our Attorney General. It's almost as if they've all had personal visits from jackbooted thugs out to deny them the freedom to speak out, go to the library, eat donuts....

[independentmind]

See #15.

I haven't seen you in awhile!