My appeasement LTTE is getting published!

[NewJeffCT]

Got a message when I got home that the letter below is being published later this week here in CT. Thanks to DUer Spindrifter for some good editing advice! I'm actually surprised, because I saw a letter along the same lines as mine in this same paper today.
>>>

In a recent speech, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared the nearly two-thirds of Americans who oppose our occupation of Iraq to those who appeased Hitler before World War 2. Soon after, President Bush also invoked memories of Hitler and the Nazis. If you look at reality, however, it is neoconservatives like Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Lieberman that are truly the appeasers of terrorists.

First, these neoconservatives ignored all the pre 9/11 warnings about Al-Qaeda to focus on the Star Wars boondoggle. Then, they allowed Osama bin Laden to escape after they had him surrounded at Tora Bora. Later, in compliance with Osama’s wishes, we removed our troops from Saudi Arabia, and then kowtowed to Kim Jong-Il by removing troops from the Korean Demilitarized Zone. After that, Team Bush outed undercover agents Valerie Plame and Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan for partisan political purposes, while the CIA group assigned to catch bin Laden was quietly disbanded late last year.

Our invasion and disastrous occupation of Iraq has been icing on the cake for bin Laden, as it has been a recruiting bonanza for Al-Qaeda, while simultaneously bankrupting our treasury and giving our international reputation a black eye. The Civil War in Iraq is also allowing the Taliban to regenerate in Afghanistan, as our military is stretched too thin to help out in both places. Our ally, Pakistan, recently surrendered territory to the Taliban.

Combined with Homeland Security initiatives like cutting funds for port security, explosives detection equipment, first responders and the CDC, one would be hard pressed to call the actions of the White House anything other than appeasement, unless you called it aiding and abetting.

While Bush and Rumsfeld spoke of appeasing Hitler, it might be better if we looked inward during that time to American shores for a more accurate comparison. In the 1930s, many of that era’s conservatives, Republicans and business elites advocated alliance with Hitler and Mussolini. Some, like Prescott Bush, even did extensive business with Hitler for years, not stopping until 1942. Now, the present day Bush family has long-standing business ties to the bin Laden family. Abetted by his rubber-stamp Republican Congress, the reality is that Bush is just following the long-established Republican policy of appeasing tyrants and enriching terrorists.

[gratuitous]

1. A very fine letter

I'd be interested to see if they print it in its entirety. It's a bit long, but quite worth the length.

[NewJeffCT]

2. They actually prefer 350-500 words

I had originally written up like 700 words last week, then cut it down to under 300 when I saw that they preferred letters between 350-500.

[longship]

3. The only reason they'll publish a letter this long is if it is this good.

Excellent.
Congrats.

[BattyDem]

4. EXCELLENT letter!

Congratulations! :applause:

[NightOwwl]

5. Very powerful letter.

Good job! :applause:

[B Calm]

6. Great letter

[ovidsen]

7. Good stuff!

I'm recommending it because I think its short, logical and direct. Seriously, this could go into the next edition of "How to Write an LTTE that gets Published."

[NewJeffCT]

12. Thanks

I've done well getting letters published over the last few years... with a lot of input from folks at DU. Each paper has a different set of rules to follow - you just have to make sure to follow them.

[bleever]

8. Delighted to vote this up

to the Greatest page.

:thumbsup:

[dalaigh lllama]

9. Oh, that is AWESOME

I love that you got in the part about Prescott Bush. That was just one fantastic slam after another. K&R

[Olney Blue]

10. Great job!

:yourock:

[NewJeffCT]

11. This is the letter that is on their website today - better than mine

Who is the real appeaser?

President Bush and his cronies are calling Americans like me appeasers" simply because we want our troops out of Iraq. Instead, we want our troops going after the real 9/11 financiers and planners: Osama bin Laden and his commanders.

Five years after we were attacked, bin Laden has not been captured or killed. The war already has exceeded the time needed for World War II.

Who would Bush have attacked if he had been president Dec. 7, 1941? Greenland? Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have taken their eyes off bin Laden and let him get away.

The next time you hear Democrats being called "appeasers" or "Hitler lovers," remember these words spoken by Bush when we get attacked again by al-Qaida and "Osama been Forgotten." Notice Bush's lack of interest about capturing OBL as time goes by:

http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17189926&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=458252&rfi=6

[mwb970]

23. Yes, but your letter indicts the Bush Crime Family.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election (2004) controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.
(more at link...)


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/16/22246/144
While serving as governor of Texas, George W. Bush met with high-level Al Qaeda leaders, hoping to get support to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. (Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?) Four months into his presidency, he rewarded the Taliban by handing over $43 million in May 2001, only six months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

George Herbert Bush worked with the Bin Laden family business on at least two occasions. In August 2001, George W. Bush received a detailed and lengthy presidential daily briefing from the CIA, stating that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's objective was to launch an attack against the United States. One month later -- on the morning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- George Herbert Bush met with Osama Bin Laden's own brother at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington D.C. (Wall Street Journal September 27, 2001, Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?)

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf struck a deal with the Bush administration not to capture Bin Laden. Musharraf feared that the capture of Bin Laden would trigger incite civil unrest in Pakistan and trigger more Al Qaida attacks on Western targets across the world. The agreement between the two heads of state came shortly after Bin Laden's flight from Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001. (London's The Guardian, August 23, 2003)
(much more at link...)


Who is it again who is "soft on terrorists"?

[petersjo02]

13. Great letters

So great, in fact, that I hope you don't mind if I tweak it a bit and submit it to the Des Moines Register. Okay?

[NewJeffCT]

14. Go right ahead

I'm flattered that you'd consider it.

[petersjo02]

15. Thanks so much

It'll be on its way soon. We'll see if I have your good luck. Sure hope so!

[Straight Shooter]

16. I love the analogy of criminal intent.

"... one would be hard pressed to call the actions of the White House anything other than appeasement, unless you called it aiding and abetting."

Great letter. You took it from the first step to the last step with clarity and finesse and ended it with a grand slam. Bravo!

:patriot:

[NewJeffCT]

18. thanks

I'm starting to get fairly competent at writing letters to the editor.

[CTyankee]

19. One little comment

I love the letter but the part about Prescott Bush has me wondering if we have solid proof of this assertion about him and Hitler. Because people might challenge it and ask for substantiation and we should be prepared for that. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fair game to bring it up since the repubs have gone into the Nazi theme. They brought it up, they need to have their faces rubbed in it!

[NewJeffCT]

20. Here is one article on it

>>>>
Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian


George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

[NewJeffCT]

22. Here is an article from - believe it or not - Fox News

Documents: Bush's Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler
Friday, October 17, 2003

WASHINGTON — President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.

Prescott Bush (search) was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Fritz Thyssen (search) was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort.

His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.
Reports of Bush's involvement with the seized bank have been circulating on the Internet for years and have been reported by some mainstream media. The newly declassified documents provide additional details about the Union Banking-Thyssen connection.

Trent Duffy, a spokesman for President Bush, declined to comment.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100474,00.html

[NewJeffCT]

24. More detail here...

Kind of piecemeal since I'm at work...

“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents
By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.

The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment.


http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2

[lonestarnot]

17. Crack the nuts now before the war on Christmas! Great Job!

[myrna minx]

21. Whoa. That's an excellent letter!

:applause: