AS Terrace Review — Wednesday, March 6, 1991 Letter To the Editor; As one of the complainers who ‘‘demanded” the Correc- tional Centre find itself a new home far from Thornhill, I ob- ject to the letter — quite run-of- the-mill — printed unsigned in your Feb, 27 edition. Usually, editors don’t publish unsigned letters unless they’re convinced printing the writer’s name would put him/her at the mercy of fisticuffs or firing. This letter does neither. Unsigned letters lack all credi- bility. This writer may live in Thorn- hill, but so far from Kirkaldy that having the Correctional Centre there wouldn’t bother him/her any more than the Halliwell site concerned me. Unsigned letters point fingers at innocent people. That’s un- fair. - Inside information in this let- ter (the listing of community projects undertaken by inmates; the fact the bush around the Thornhill Primary School was thinned at the request of the principal) points the finger at employees of School District be} To the Editor; Lam writing in response to the letter about the Correctional Branch relocation published in your Feb, 27 issue. , First of all, 1 believe that peo- ple with opinions and not enough jam to sign their name to their letters don’t deserve. the right to be.read or listened to. Secondly, letters to the editor with mames withheld tend to point the finger at people who didn’t write the letter, and don’t necessarily share the same opin- ion. Since I received several phone calls asking if I wrote the above mentioned letter, I felt it necessary to respond to this let- ter. I was involved and spent hun- dreds of hours volunteering on the Aspen Park project and was involved through Thornhill Parks and Recreation Commis- sion in other Thornhill projects mentioned. The Correctional Centre did play a large part in land clearing, Thornhill Com- munity Centre projects and in thinning trees adjacent to Thornhill Primary School. As a Thornhill. resident I do ap- preciate what the Correctional x Editor’s note — policy questioned | The Gul #88, Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, and the Correc- tional Centre: or members of the Thornhill Parks and Recreation Committee. . It’s easy for an anonymous writer to support the Thornhill site now that the proposal is dead. The time to speak up was at the public meeting Feb. 7, or to the Regional District before the proposal was defeated Feb. 16. Championing the site then might have rescued the proposal sufficiently to see it through the proper channels, even though the outcome would undoubtedly have been the same, As it was, no Thornhill resi- dent spoke in favour of the site. Anonymous writers should stay out of the kitchen — and ‘the newspaper — until they can stand the heat. | And yes, I bought firewood from the Correctional Centre. ~ Buying firewood from them is one thing; having them for neighbours is quite another. I fail to see any relationship. Claudette Sandecki, I. Sandecki, Thornhill. be rf Branch did, but I still would not want the Corrections Centre as my neighbour, and don’t blame any other residential areas for not wanting a Correctional Cen- tre as their neighbour. When Corrections’ inmates were used on these projects, it was not without supervision, and it was in daytime hours. The inmates were delivered in the morning and picked up in the afternoon; I might add even then, it was not without some problems. Because inmates helped build Aspen Park doesn’t mean residents want them playing in the park with their children, or Thornhill Primary parents would want a Correctional Cen- tre located adjacent to the primary school, just because the Correctional Centre thinned the trees. | would like to add that this is my opinion only, not that of Thornhill Parks and Recreation Commission or the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine or Thornhill Primary parents. Peggy J ulseth, Thornhill. . To clarify the writers’ points in their order of presentation: . eThe letter was not unsigned — there is a signed copy of it in our files. eAll newspapers have policies regarding publication of letters, and requests to have names withheld are sometimes honoured provided they meet certain criteria. As the Sandeckis’ letter is primarily concerned with irritation at their inability to identify the author of the letter in question, it is difficult to grasp how they determined that the author failed to meet those criteria. eCredibility is a function of the individual reader's mind. eThe "insider" information to which the Sandeckis refer is available to anyone with sufficient interest to pick up a telephone and dial the Community Corrections office, directory. clearly and unequivocally listed in the eAn author meeting the name-withheld criteria would obviously be unable to publicly "champion" the proposal. - eTo our knowledge no one was propost ing that the Corrections inmates engage in play sessions with neighbourhood children. To the Editor; ‘When one drops bombs from fleeting aircraft out of range of ground-based gunners, OF sends ‘Tomahawk cruise missiles to their targets from carrier ships, the deaths at the other end occur without human compassion. Not so in hand-to-hand, soldier-to-soldier combat. The Americans and their Alliance, largely purchased ac- cording to CBC Journal of March 1, who seem to have got it right, fought this was without human compassion. Compassion comes when one actually sees the pain and anguish and suffering of those one is killing. To see that pain and anguish, one would need to be there soldier-to-soldier, but to do this one must face possible death and one must overcome fear and cowardice. Dropping bombs and cruise missiles, while technologically wonderful wizardry, eliminates the personal nature of humans and makes war truly cowardly. They said that Iraqis were all murderers and thieves and ac- cording to Bush, Saddam was the Devil incarnate, and this made it justified for Bush to commit institutionalized murder on a scale which even he couldn’t comprehend from his command post in the Pentagon. He said his quarrel wasn’t with the Iraqi people, but with Saddam. Odd that he then slaughtered so many Iraqi peo- ple with whom he had no quarrel — and soldiers are people too — to punish Saddam. Odd that he did this when there was a political option to war. Odd that in aclimate of compromise, one which shows compassion, this was could have been averted. If Bush showed one thing it was this, that he lacked com- passion. He showed this in both word and deed. He promised there would be no compromise. Not all of the soldiers of Iraq were thieves, or murderers. Some were just ordinary people who were doing a disgusting job -which their government ordered them to do. The Iraqis and indeed any soldiers, need one pre-condition for an honourable and safe re- treat, something which the Iraqis had signalled that they . wanted. That pre-condition was a cease fire, and the USA, and its purchased and duped Allies, re- fused. They stuck with the exact wording of the Catch-22 UN clause which called for an. un- conditional withdrawal from Kuwait. Bush interpreted un- conditional to mean, “‘without the need for a compassionate cease fire’’. The Iraqis then decided to withdraw as per the UN Charter. and Bush had his big chance to show the world ‘the kinder gentler face he promised from America, but he screwed up and showed its true face. He murdered those poor peo- ple even as they were just trying to. go home. True, there were probably a few thieves among them and a few murderers, but V'll bet that the majority were just ordinary soldiers caught up in failed diplomacy. They were like the Alliance soldier, somebody’s brother, or father, or son, or husband, and now they won’t be going home. War is, among other things, two institutions who have set aside the rules of civilized con- duct and agreed to institutional- ly-condoned murder. When one side wants to renew the civil rules and the other side doesn’t but continues the killing, as the Americans and Allies did after the Iraq signalled its intent to comply with the UN clause, it ceases to be war and reverts to common criminal murder. Bush and Canada and the other allies committed murder and I am dusgusted to be Cana- dian right now, to be a party to that ugly dirty filthy business. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other hydro- carbons being emitted into the environment will increase the rate of cancers and mutations f \War in retrospect enormously among enormous numbers of humans and. other ‘living things within the airshed of the smoke from burning fires, and indeed, and world. These diseases will kill for generations to come, The oil has fouled an entire ocean ecosystem, and pro- mises to kill birds and animals for decades to come. These pollutants were dis- charged undoubtedly in frustra- tion when it became clear to the Iraqis that the U.S. alliance was going to continue to fight a coward’s war and a dirty one at that, and when it became clear that enormous numbers of Iraqi soldiers were going to die with no chance of revenge Or. of meeting their enemy on a level . battleground. 1 said it before, the American shattered ego from losing in Vietnam was behind this so- called victory, and incredibly, Bush confirmed this on the news March 1 when he said something like; ‘‘... the specter of Vietnam is behind us now...!”” In the end, it appeared to me that Saddam showed more restraint (by not using chemicals) and compassion (by ordering a withdrawal) than Bush. Both showed stupidity and ar- rogance and selfish pride. In the school of civilized humanity and environmental re- gard, I score them both zero, zero. . The military option is fraught with extreme danger for life on earth, and to resort to its use so eagerly will just inspire future generations of militarists to ex- pand their nuclear war prepara- tions. Will the Alliance now turn its attention on China’s illegal oc- cupation of Tibet as agenda item number two in Bush’s ‘New World Order’? If so, then the survivors may well ask if there is enough of Planet Earth left for agenda item numberethree. Jorma Jyrkkanen Terrace Orenda critics invited to participate An open letter to: Ms. P.A. Walker Cranberry Action Committee RR. 1, Quick West Road Telkwa, British Columbia VO 2X0 Dear Ms. Walker: I read with interest your letter of January 29, 1991 on behalf of the Cranberry Action Commit- tee. | commend and thank you for taking the time to document your views of forest manage- ment in the North Kalum. i would like to take this op- portunity to respond to the com- ments raised in your letter. Our information tells us that the pro- posed Orenda pulp mill can be supplied fully by lower quality fibre currently logged on the Orenda Forest Products Forest Licence. Clearly, no foreseeable shortage of low quality timber is anticipated in the North Kalum area. The proposed pulp mili has the potential to enhance the economic viability of North Kalum logging by providing a strong local market for the sub- stantial quantity of pulplogs from these old forest stands. Additional positive implications are improved utilization of the forest resource and a decrease in pulplog export. In response to your comments on integrated resource manage- ment in the area, the Forest Ser- vice, Department of Fisheries and Oceans and. B.C. Environ- ment devote considerable effort to ensure that harvesting opera- tions fully consider and in- corporate a range of resources. I share your concern that recrea- tional and scenic values need further recognition. As a result, we intend to complete a compre- hensive recreation inventory and c management strategy for the North Kalum in the near future. The participation of your or- ganization would be welcomed. We will contact you and other interested members of the public who may wish to contribute in this project. In carrying out our role of in- tegrated resource management, we seek to optimize the mix of resource uses. Achieving the delicate balance in this mix is a difficult task and seldom does one resource sector fully achieve their full interest. Once again, thank you for your concern regarding resource management in the North Kalum. B.D. Downie, District Manager, . Kalum District . Forest office Terrace. ;