Posted on 07/24/2002 1:01:26 PM PDT by Steel and Fire and Stone
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:39 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
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(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Hope some FReepers close to the Capital can attend. I don't know what burns me up more, the Saudi's attitude towards U.S. Citizens (just chattel, for their pleasure and fulfillment), or our own State Department's inaction, and DEFENSE of that inaction, to intervene in behalf of the U.S. women and children held captive in S.A.. If I ever had a good thought about Colin Powell, it ended when I found out that this policy (i.e. not intervening) is not some errant holdover from the Clinton mis-Administration, but CURRENT U.S. policy.
This is a continuing outrage. See link for the contact information (Rep. Frank Wolf's office).
FReegards.. SFS
What really frosts me is that I've written to my (Arab-American) Congressman (Daryll Issa), and I've written to the White House. No response. The site you referenced notes letters from Congressmen, and I am CERTAIN thousands of letters must be pouring into the White House about this, and yet, it just doesn't matter. The Presidents men either don't note any of this in reports to him, or more likely, every one of these letters goes to a dead file in Powell's State Dept. This issue is not a little thing, like domestic politics. The protection of American citizens from nation states who would use them for political purposes is a pivotal sovergnty issue! (Rest assured, that IS what is happening with these women and children. S.A.'s King and Princes are showing their true radical Islamic colors, striking back at the USA by holding these women. After all, if the USA can't protect our own women and children, we (American men) can't be worth much. THINK like an Arab man, and you can figure out why they're detained, and raped, and mistreated. It's their version of "power politics".)
Bush wasn't "my man" in the election primaries, though he was an easy choice compared to Gore in the general election. He gained my respect in the way he carried himself during the first nine months of his Presidency, i.e, personal character, and his stock went WAY up after 9/11.
However, Bush's acquiesance to the Saudi's knowingly, and willfully detaining American citizens, shakes my faith in him altogether. It really shakes your faith in your government's willingness and/or ability to protect Americans. If it could happen to these unfortunate women and children, what about my own, given certain circumstances?
Or, what if I became a POW in say, Iraq, Iran, or even Saudi Arabia. Would the State Department (and DOD) write me off too? What makes me, or my wife and children any more special than the American detainees in S.A.?
FReegards...SFS
Was our fellow citizen ever freed?
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