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Readers' comments, complaints,  corrections and compliments

OK to lie about outing a CIA agent, because...

Let us run that by again....

In the case of Scooter Libby there was no crime committed!

Yes, "Perjury" is a crime but you cannot be forced to say something you never did regardless of the circumstances.

Lets do a comparison:

Scooter Libby was not pardoned...

....He had his "double the sentencing guidelines" jail time commuted.

Libby was convicted of committing perjury and obstruction of justice regarding the completely legal actions of an, admittedly craven, senior State Department official. There is a lie here and a zealous judge with a bunch of cronies jumped on it but hey the whole case is now in appeal.

Now how about these gems?

President Clinton was impeached, but not convicted, for perjury and obstruction of justice. He lied to a Grand Jury about adultery, a misdemeanor in Washington DC.

Clinton lied about a crime he committed. Libby lied about a "crime" that was never committed.

Clinton was disbarred from his Arkansas law license for five years and ordered to pay $25,000 in fines to that state's bar officials. This was done on the condition that Whitewater prosecutors would not pursue federal perjury charges against him.

That's the extent of Clinton's punishment. Mr. Libby will have to pay a fine of $250,000 and serve two years probation.

In 1999, Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican nationalist group that set off 120 bombs in the United States mostly in New York City and Chicago. They were convicted for conspiracies to commit robbery, bomb making, and sedition.

Overall, Clinton issued an average number of pardons, but the circumstances of some of them tend to be a bit more exciting than Scooter Libby's. Of 140 pardons Clinton issued on his last day in office, here are the lowlights:

Carlos A. Vignali had his sentence for cocaine trafficking commuted, after serving 6 of 15 years in federal prison.

Almon Braswell was pardoned for perjury and mail fraud even though, at the time, a federal investigation was being conducted about additional money laundering and tax evasion charges. Braswell and Carlos Vignali paid approximately $200,000 (each) to Hugh Rodham for representing them. Rodham is Hillary Clinton's brother. He returned the money when caught.

Marc Rich, living high in Europe, was pardoned of tax evasion. His ex-wife, Denise Rich, was a close friend of the Clintons. Denise donated more than $1 million to the Democratic Party, $450,000 to Clinton's Arkansas presidential

library and about $100,000 to the Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton.

Roger Clinton, the president's half-brother, was pardoned on drug charges after having served his time more than a decade before.

I point these things out not because I much care about the Clinton perjury record, or his pardon legacy, but to show that the superheated opposition party and individuals are poor mouthing on the Bush's commutation of Libby is self-serving hyperbole. Yawn.

Also in closing spare me the "Clinton was never convicted" speech. We know he lied to a Grand Jury about Monica under oath. He escaped conviction through a form of jury negation. As for the Whitewater problem, he plea-bargained out of a Federal trial.

Wow, how we forget that what goes around comes around!

I grant as you say in your interesting interview of how you got where you are today that some people just seem to have a Godfather that protects them from harm. Then of course the attention span and time in the minds of the public is quite short. That is why yesterday newspapers do not sell very well and only serve the purpose of wrapping up your purchase of the daily catch of fish at "El Mercado Grandee."

But then as it was so well said by Rick in the movie Casablanca, “…. in a hundred years it won't amount to a hill of beans!”

Louis J. Barbier Jr.

Largo, Florida

A fan

I am a frequent reader of the Panama News, and I want to thank  and to acknowledge your contribution in bringing information and news in English to those of us Panamanians who reside in the United States. Thanks.

Anita Cumberbatch

Reasonable complaint

Maybe the reason you get so many hits on your website is that I have to keep coming back everyday to finish reading because everything is “under construction.” Otherwise I like it so keep up the good work.

Carl

Editor's note: It's a reasonable observation, and one reason why the number for "unique sites" is more important than "visits." "Hits" are another issue, which would not be so affected by the phenomenon you mention as visits. In any case, what we are finding driving the number of visitors is the growing popularity of the twice per week Wappin Radio Shows, which include about 15 minutes of news updates and about 45 minutes of a mix of music you don't hear anywhere else.

But more than 40,000 unique sites in July, one of our traditional slow months? We never even had 30,000 in a July before.

Let me also add that a lot of people have inquired or complained about no calendar in the past few issues. There are various explanations, none amounting to a reasonable excuse. I just haven't been working the late hours that have been my custom for many years and leaving too many holes. It's not quite as good as a vacation --- which I have not had in years --- but one has to slow down sometimes and lately that's what I have done. In future issues I will be talking about some of the things that need to be done to make this community news service more sustainable from the labor point of view, and I'm always willing to entertain the readers' suggestions.

Yellow fever

"It has been many decades since Panama has had a yellow fever case. There is no legal or practical requirement for such a vaccination. However, were we to get a person infected with yellow fever here to serve as a reservoir, the deplorable state of our urban sanitation that has given us an increase in dengue fever could make the deadly yellow fever a threat once more."

Actually, from my days working at Gorgas Hospital in the 1970s, I remember occasional cases of Yellow Fever appearing in Panama. I believe the howler monkey harbors the virus, but it is not a great threat to humans unless the jungle is cleared, bringing mosquitos which normally live in the forest canopy into contact with humans.

Allen Jones

The over-criminalization of America

Here is an interesting video that highlights one of the biggest problems I think American culture is grappling with. Our media is full of focus and attention on petty crimes, misdemeanors, and legislated morality based on religious convictions...while focusing very little attention on growing international heinous crimes and imbalances of economics and trade that are rotting away the foundations of our national security. Prison has obviously been a big failure in changing or amending a persons behavior. If anything, it is more a breeding ground for more and other criminal ideas and lifestyles. While we obviously need prisons to harbor dangerous and hardened criminals from society, it has hardly proven itself to change people's lifestyles when it comes to substances or other misdemeanors. With the costs of incarceration added to the moral issue of it, it doesn't make sense to build prisons to house drug addicts, or pop actress icons like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, who just continue to capture the worlds attention of how shallow our mass culture and its interests can be. It would be much cheaper to finance education and reformatories that would teach and assure people of skills and jobs that would make them feel more secure and of value in society.

OK... enough of my soapbox for today:)...

Edward Thurston

www.3americascorp.com

www.PanamaConnections.com

Organics

Just reading your article.

I am disappointed.

I was getting all hyped up about living in Panama, but from what you are saying, there is nothing much to eat.

On the juice thing, living in Toronto until recently, there was a farmer providing un-pasteurized frozen organic apple cider, and if I didn’t have a supply on hand there was something wrong with my life. Now I am in the Vancouver area, where there are lots of stores selling organic produce and grocery items. No organic un-pasteurized juice though.

I was visiting Zen master Philip Kapleau (Rochester Zen Center) in Florida. “who wants to boil orange juice” he said with disdain.

Hugh Travers

Neo Warfare

In our world, there are lots of countries, nations, languages, religions, cultures, costumes but also lots of disagreements. History has it that there was never peace and respect among nations since the formation of the first state. From the beginning of the first conflict till date, wars have been fought for the same cause: political differences, trade, religion, liberation, dynasty, seizure of territory, the annihilation of a rival state, the destruction of the enemy's ability to prosecute military action, revolution or genocide.

We can recall aggressive wars of Alexander the Great, nine Crusades, the War of Spanish Succession, the Hundred Years' War (France-England), the American Civil War, or 20th century wars: World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War and the Yugoslav War, among others. 

There was not yet a single year without war in history known to mankind; and it seems mankind was yet to learn bitter lessons from centuries of fighting and conflicts; wars had never brought anything good to nations and countries. Currently there are 32 ongoing wars which are being fought around the world. These include the Sri Lanka Civil War, the Second Chechen War, the war in Afghanistan, the Civil War in Cote d'Ivoire, the Central African War, the Iraq War, the war in Somalia, the age-old Arab-Israel/Israel-Palestine (including al-Aqsa Intifada) conflict, among others.

Wars are now being fought in under-developed regions without any serious threat of spreading to neighboring countries, thought that may soon change. The world is altering, and countries are developing with the formation of new unions, financial help and foreign investments. Very soon the World will be without the so-called Third World countries, and without territories to start war. Would that signal the end of wars, or usher in new form of modern warfare into the world? 

According to these facts and enormous velocity and evolution of the world, in the future we can expect more wars; wars that will be fought between industrial countries. These wars may not take place in our lifetime, but it offers mankind some food for thought, which calls for critical thinking and preventive actions. It looks as thought some countries are not recognized and their voice is not heard so they use all necessary means to be heard even if it meant the use of force, start war and take some lives along that path. Consequently, it behooves the United Nations to get serious in its business and invite all countries to become members of the world body and make them discuss issues of concern in diversified arena in peaceful and understanding way, rather than sorting issues out in the battlefield.

The question which then arises is: which country, will, first start that war and on which ground it will begin? It is very hard to predict, but as before, it will, most probably begin in Europe and not in the Middle East as many would think.

In Europe, the European Union (EU) is, financially, the strongest and one of the biggest multi-ethnic and multicultural community in the World. But because of too many differences and inability of some members to agree on future political and financial issues, the EU may become unstable, and eventually collapse. Since the EU has enormous influence on many countries, its collapse will start a chain of destabilizations and race for domination. It looks like that history will repeat it self, just that it will cost more.

Contrary to this, the main goal of every country should be to preserve national identity, culture, religion, and of course, financial development, but as long as we have political differences and disrespect for other religions and cultures we will not have peace among nations. If we put these differences a side and focus on helping each other, perhaps there could be a chance to maintain stability in the World.

Time will come when all countries will get united for greater and peaceful goal, but that may come rather too late, though it will foster some degree of unity and understanding as never witnessed before.

Ivan Simic

Belgrade, Serbia