In responding to the article “Human rights of the citizens,” which is, in my opinion, an extreme outrageous tone.

What this involves right here is an attempt of painting the sitting war-time American president on the lines as a dictator. While I myself have become disillusioned with President Bush it’s for other reasons, but I do not see him as a tyrant. We still have a court system in place to defend our rights and the rights of the accused. We still have the democratic process, which can change the tide of political atmosphere. We still have a lot of things that still makes this country free.

There are plenty of other nations that have no freedom or are heading toward the road of tyranny. Take Russia as an example. We all believed that the collapse of the USSR would have brought freedom but instead the old Soviet elite which people like Putin and Gorbachev remain in power, not just in Russia but in many of their old blocs. The murder Anna Politkovskaya reveals just one of the many cases of Russia declining

back into tyranny. Anna was a critic of Putin’s war in Chechnya and of Putin himself. She was murdered on Putin’s birthday (which is sadly and eerily ironic) and was about to release another report against Putin and his deeds in Chechnya.

Now of course nothing like that has happened in America with someone like Bush vs. let’s say like Helen Thomas, who has freely used White House Press meetings to make her rants along with being a celebrity in the peace movement. Helen Thomas hasn’t ended up like the deceased Anna Politkovskaya and even I would be disgusted if she did. But back to my point is that Bush isn’t a dictator, but someone such as Putin can argue that he’s a dictator.

Many people I have noticed also protested the wars in Iraq and even Afghanistan are for oil. But I have seen no mass demonstrations against Russia and China for their oil dealings with Sudan, support for Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (who is a buddy of Hugo Chavez and came in the same way he did) or the dictatorship of Burma. What boggles my mind is how nations such as Iraq or Afghanistan receive a more humane government that is bad when other powers are doing more horrible things where’s the outrage? All that this represents in my opinion is how going for peace-at-any-cost is shattering humanity’s morality and heading down the road of self-destruction and decay.

– Maxwell Hoffman,

history major

In response to the article “Human rights of the citizens,” by William Kammer published on Wednesday, Oct. 11.

As more and more of the mistakes that Bush has made come out I really have to wonder why he is in presidency anyway. It seems to me that we have taken a huge step backwards from all that was accomplished through President Clinton. You are absolutely right to state that the biggest mistake Bush has done to hurt human rights is the lack of respect he has for a human’s right to live. I mean how ironic that is. He has innocent soldiers defending our country and losing there life daily for what? The government has already successfully captured Saddam Hussein and is trying to prosecute him for everything he has done. Does Bush not see that many lives are being taken foolishly? This is where I ask myself how can he say he is protecting Americans welfare? I cannot wait for Bush to be out of the presidency.

– Rosa Mota,

communications major