The appointed administration of the United States sold this war to the masses as a war of “liberation” for the Iraqi people and “protection” for the American population against an “imminent threat” (Saddam Hussein). Some are still waiting for the justification, the proof, that set in motion a war that has devastated so many lives, both military and civilians. I hope that we all can see beyond arbitrary lines drawn in the dirt (borders) and realize that when the words “collateral damage” are uttered, we are talking about human beings.

Incensed as I am at the abuses suffered at the hands of our “ambassadors of liberation,” I am not at all surprised.

Prison abuse is not an anomaly. Prison abuse occurs regularly in the United States prison system.

When a prison sentence is levied on a defendant, it is a sentence to be confined for a specific amount of time. It does not include the regular physical abuse, the rapes, and the systematic dehumanization that occurs in the environment of terror our prisons have become.

According to Human Rights Watch, inmates are beaten by both inmates and guards, sexually assaulted by both inmates and guards; inmate on inmate physical and sexual violence is often allowed—facilitated even, by corrections officers. Is this how society “rehabilitates” people? The privatization of prisons should also be at issue—correction officers buying stock in the prison, their profits based on the warm bodies filling their corporate quarters. Would it not be in the best interest of a profiteer to keep an inmate for an indefinite period? How often are sentences extended based on profit principles? What does the corporatization of correctional facilities denote?

The United States has the highest imprisonment rate in the world. “The land of the free” cages over 2 million of her inhabitants.

California has built 23 prisons in the past 20 years, and one university. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

M. D. Burns
Santa Barbara, California
 
 
Miners’ march
Some 200 miners and supporters joined a march and rally on May 22 organized by the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Local people lined the main street in Pontyridd and clapped as the march went by.

Supporters of the Militant newspaper sold books and Militants. Two copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, two Communist Manifestos, a Capitalism’s World Disorder, and Leon Trotsky on Britain were part of the 16 books and pamphlets sold. Material about the Utah miner’s strike got a positive response, and some participants bought the Militant to find out more about the strike.

Two students, members of the National Union of Students in Wales, were surprised to see the photo of the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, April 25 on the front of the Militant. They told us they had been on the march representing the student pro-choice network of their union.

Rose Knight and Jim Spaul
Pontyridd, Wales
 
 
Labor and war
In your editorial May 18 you call on the “labor movement” to protest the brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Then you say that “we should demand” U.S. troops out of Iraq now.

I have to ask, WHAT “labor movement” you refer to? Secondly, please describe your characterization of the current anti-war “movement” that might take up such a demand, both here in the U.S. and overseas.

J.H.
Oakland, California

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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