Finger-pointing ignored media

Sam Pollak got my hopes up for a moment. In his latest column (July 14), he began by talking about who was to blame for allowing the current administration to get away with running this country into the ground. Polls these days show that Pollak’s profession has lower approval ratings than anyone, except perhaps the Congress and the White House.

How did the press drop the ball when it came to standing up to what Mike Malloy calls, "The Bush crime family?" Those who decide what goes into our newspapers have rolled over and played dead while Dick and George and Rummy had their way with the nation’s treasury, reputation and military.

I figured Sam Pollak was ready to fess up, and get a backbone. I was sure I was about to hear a veteran journalist’s honest self-examination when he wrote, "I don’t blame President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for screwing up the world. Not when there are so many other people to blame for what Bush and Cheney have been allowed to get away with."

But no. Pollak wasn’t talking about the way the press has regurgitated White House propaganda. Rather, he set his sights on 2000 Nader voters as the guys to blame for the sorry state of the nation! Blaming Nader for Bush’s victory is as facile as it is illogical. Gore lost Florida and the presidency because he mounted an ineffective campaign there; because Bush operatives manipulated voter-registration rolls and the vote count; and because Gore did not have the nerve to stand up to the criminal cabal that was aligned against him, and that was ready to seize power by hook or by crook.

I’m awaiting Sam Pollak’s column reflecting on the press’ failure to check Bush and Company’s catastrophic reign.

Peter Kondrat
Brooklyn

9/11 happened because we failed to understand the threat of radical Islam. We are engaged in the fourth world war with radical Islam.

The Pentagon was hit for our military strength. United 93 target was either the Capital or the White House for our political power. The Trade Center not just for our economic power, but because it shows the superiority of capitalism.

In 711 AD, the Moors crossed from Africa into Spain, conquering most of Spain and Portugal, forcing mass conversions to Islam by the sword, expulsion and heavy taxation. In 724, they were defeated by Charles Martel and the Franks and driven out of France. In 1492, the Moors where driven out Spain.

The Moors became the Barbary pirates and turned to piracy and slave trade, raiding merchant ships and coastal towns of all European nations and American shipping. America, having enough, sent the U.S. Navy and from 1801 to 1805 gave them a real bloody nose. In 1815, they started up again, and American frigates and Marines beat them so severely they stopped pirating American ships. Their activities stopped after France conquered North Africa in 1830. Out of Eastern Europe the Ottoman Turks invaded Europe and a series of wars from 1423 to 1791 were fought against the radical Islamics.

In 1786, future U.S. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson met with Barbary ambassador Sidi Adja to discuss the piracy. Their report to Congress included statements made by Adja, "That it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet that was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not acknowledge their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them whenever they could be found and to make slaves of prisoners and every Muslim killed in battle would go to Paradise."

Duane Martin
South Kortright

President Bush recently reported on the progress of the Iraqi government in meeting 18 benchmarks of progress toward a "democratic, free Iraq." Of the 18 benchmarks identified, the Iraqi government was showing "adequate progress" in only six _ a success rate of 33.3 percent.

Now, imagine that Iraq were a school system subject to the No Child Left Behind Act. Any school that demonstrated 33.3 percent success in meeting the benchmarks established by Congress _ even after massive infusions of money and manpower to help meet the established goals _ would be declared a school ``in need of improvement" and would be subjected to a variety of increasingly draconian measures to assist the school in meeting the benchmarks. Such draconian measures might include the wholesale replacement of the administration, the withholding of funds for peripheral programs, the transfer of senior personnel to other arenas, the involvement of citizen advocacy groups, and the possible dissolution of the school as completely non-functioning.

Help me _ and all of us _ understand why Iraq gets a pass on meeting the legitimate benchmarks established by Congress and the President. And please, spare me the fear-mongering rhetoric about how if we don’t defeat them there, they will follow us here.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself""¦ and we have plenty of fear being thrown at us so that we don’t trust thinking for ourselves. A gut feeling of an attack "¦ really! Life itself is a challenge _ you can meet it or you can be paralyzed by it.

Where is the accountability for the documented failures in Iraq ?

Mary Margaret Snyder
Richfield Springs

Talk about cruelty to animals.

Just picture this. A hot day on July 10, temperature at 90 degrees around 1 p.m. Hot? You’d better believe it.

We were in Applebee’s parking lot in Oneonta, and some stupid jerk, and I mean that, left a dog in a hot car. Nice.

First of all, it’s against the law in the summer with children and animals. Second, it is so cruel.

I pray that little dog survived.

If I had my way, you would be locked in your hot car until your dog came to let you out. See if you survived.

Mary Jane Munster
Unadilla

I strongly object to and disagree with The Star’s portrayal of visitor reaction to Oneonta. I approach everyone I see downtown with a camera or a visible baseball association. Their consistent description of Oneonta is delightful.

As far as restaurants are concerned, the problem is not finding one, but choosing. And with curb-to-curb baseball shops in Cooperstown, it could not have been easy finding someone lamenting the absence of one in Oneonta.

Norma Hutman
Oneonta