letters
Several subjects from all over the map
Don't believe everything Uncle Sam says about Marc Harris
You wrote:
"Meanwhile, US prosecutors alleged that although Harris claims to be a naturalized Panamanian citizen, there is no record of his renouncing his US citizenship. However, to legally become a naturalized Panamanian, one must renounce his or her prior citizenship. Thus on the face of it there's an Immigration fraud case here, with the larger scandal arguably that the Panamanian government is not looking into it."
When Marc became a Panamanian citizen, he took an oath renouncing his previous citizenship as must all who naturalize in Panama. That is all the Republic of Panama requires. He took it one step further and turned in a letter to the US consulate in which he renounced his US citizenship formally to a US consular official. The letter was drafted by former THO employee, Robert Payne, a US attorney who worked with THO.
This information is provided to inform you of past events and must not be construed as any defense of MMH's illegal behavior. You mention statements by the Consulate that it has no such record but keep in mind that the the US government is a very unreliable source of information. Remember those statements about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction?
Huh?
What the heck do you mean with the following?:
"We still have a surplus of insect people of the gringo persuasion infesting the isthmus, but maybe a change of government and especially a new Attorney General and a new Immigration director will rid us of some of these pests."
I certainly hope its not what is sounds like. I have a lot of respect for you, but this sounds very bad if it is your opinion of "gringos" like me. If this is what you think of gringos as a whole it's time for me to change my opinion of you.
Please explain.
Editor's Note: The sad fact is that a number of foreigners, many of them coming from the United States, have been allowed to use Panama as a base of operations for various fraudulent schemes, quite frequently choosing Americans as the targets for their confidence games. Basically Panamanian law enforcement and immigration officials are unconcerned, especially when the victims are foreigners.
Here in Panama, the word "gringo" is not pejorative. The American Society, for example, calls its newsletter the Panagringo. I prefer the word because it's easier to pronounce than "estadounidense" and more precise than "norteamericano."
As a member of Panama's gringo community I am concerned about the prospect of a tiny minority of thugs from the United States using us as cover, with the very real possibility that they could come to dominate the American image in many Panamanians' eyes. We sure don't need that.
I understand that the phrase "insect people" might be considered offensive, and for that I apologize to our six-legged friends.
Summit of the Americas --- appeasement
The leaders attending the Summit of the Americas next week have a huge problem: the Bush Administration surrendered to strategic temptation with an illegal war to set up a client state in Iraq. Silence then, when there is so much evidence of premeditation, duplicity and criminal intent, is appeasement.
Invading Iraq was a criminal act and there is no moving on.
There is so much on illegal war in the wider world press and on the Internet but I'm going to use just three short quotes to fully describe the difficult problem of dealing with the Bush Administration:
Novelist John le Carre has described the war in Iraq truthfully in just one paragraph from his new book:
"That war on Iraq was illegitimate... it was a criminal and immoral conspiracy. No provocation, no link with al-Qaeda, no weapons of Armageddon. Tales of complicity and Osama were self-serving bullshit. It was an old colonial war dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty, and it was launched by a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America's post-Nine Eleven psychopathy."
Mr. le Carre is mad as hell at a lying, deceiving President and he is getting wider and wider coverage --- a long feature in Time this week --- because he's telling a truth that there's no moving on from, only resignation or impeachment. Former White House Counsel John Dean and economist/pundit Paul Krugman have both made the case that lying about the reasons for war is a very serious crime indeed.
But there is hard evidence of planning for regime change in Iraq as far back as early 90s; specific Pentagon planning in the first Bush Administration year; of acceleration after 9/11; of a bombing campaign to soften up Iraq for invasion beginning before the UN Security Council debate.
Saddam Hussein was just an excuse in the closing window of opportunity of UN resolutions from after the Gulf War. Why? A bundle of reasons but mainly oil, or more specifically the short, medium and long term oil utility of a client state in Iraq.
There's just tons of articles on petro politic reasons for war but here's a quote that views Iraq and Afghanistan as but two small steps in an end game of no small importance to my fellow Canadians and the citizens of Brazil, Mexico or Jamaica:
"If you knew about Hubbert's Peak a decade ago --- as oilmen Bush and Cheney surely did perhaps you would regard occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as an ugly but necessary price to pay in order to secure sufficient time for the US economy to convert?
"Invading Iraq, writes Heinberg, 'was more understandable --- if no less morally and tactically questionable --- when viewed in light of a single piece of information to which the administration was privy, but which was obscure to the vast majority of the world's population. That crucial fact was that the rate of global production was about to peak.'"
Monte Paulsen, The Age of Oil is Over, http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17312
Chilling vista isn't it. George Monbiot has a sober recent Guardian op-ed on this subject. You can access the annotated version at http://www.monbiot.com/ Bottom of the Barrel.
The final quote is from a January 1 Japan Times interview of foreign policy expert K.G. van Wolferen:
How do you see the US war against Iraq?
Wolferen: It's a break with a tradition of a gradually improving global order, meaning international law, international customs relating to war and conflict. And with the invasion of Iraq, the (George W.) Bush administration has killed the West as a significant political concept, because no longer is there a shared sense of purpose regarding political civilization among the countries that during the Cold War were referred to as the West.
Concerning Iraq, the war broke with America's own tradition of political principles, and in fact it violated the American Constitution because the American Constitution says that international treaties are legal within the United States and the United States has in fact violated the Charter of the United Nations.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040101n4.htm
Illegal is a lawyers word and OJ's out golfing, but premeditation, intent or criminal gain, no WMDs, no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda, the terrorism bait and switch, the military bases and new cooperation around the Caspian Basin as the US plays The Great Game, the privatization of war, the lack of democratic debate on preemption and the new unipolar foreign policy, the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed and maimed.
Our new Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, and the rest of the Hemisphere's leaders cannot certainly be unaware of this more truthful way of telling the Iraq story and must be trying like a lot of us to calculate if Mr. Bush is ever going to be confronted Watergate style with the reality of lies, the illegal 'break-in' and the on going cover up.
I think a Canadian leader in this situation should just admit the problem of relations with the Bush Administration and try to put the case that Iraq was an illegal war to set up a client state with all the evidence out in the open, in a widely covered speech or an op-ed in a major US newspaper --- but he can't. And it will be difficult for Mr. Fox or for Mr. Lula da Silva or any of the other leaders to speak out so in all probability this issue will just fester behind the scenes. Unless, of course, these politicians are forced to confront the appeasement issue.
Just the tip of the illegal war iceberg. If you are interested and I can help directing you to more on this subject just ask. Thanks for your time,
Bill
Gibsons, British Columbia
Looking for an old friend
I am a Danish sailor, and I was in 1989-90 3rd engineer on a ship called Tanktradeer 3 (H8YR). The 2nd mate was Panamanian and his name was Luis Ricardo Gutierrez. It was his ambition to become pilot on the Panama Canal.
I would very much like to get in touch with him.
If anyone knows what I can do to locate him please contact me.
Fan mail
My name is Enrico Francis; I would first like to tell you how much I enjoy reading The Panama News, I find it very informative from all standpoints, (National and Foreign, and Old to New) from generation to generation, from culture to culture. I sense you are a man of good character, and goodwill. Keep up the good work.
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