LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Message was worth repeating

I agree with Joe Mullen (letters, Dec. 10) that reading day after day The Register-Guard editorials about our government's refusal to denounce the use of torture was tiring. However, for myself and I hope a great many others locally and nationally, this repetition was an expression of conscience and a plea for our citizens and leaders to wake up and end this shameful blot on our nation's international reputation.

Mullen suggests that "When the United States starts beheading people and showing it to the world, then maybe we need to do something." Isn't it enough that the United States has used chemical weapons on civilians, murdered prisoners in our custody, sexually degraded and abused prisoners, defiled their holy book and religious tenets or hidden them in secret prisons where we knew they would be subjected to universally condemned types of torture? As Sen. John McCain knows all too well, there is no stopping once we start down this slippery slope.

Our nation helped write the universal standards for humane prisoner treatment and joined most nations in signing pledges to abide by them. Why did we insist we could ignore them? The need for repeating the editorial stopped after President Bush allowed the passage of McCain's ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading" prisoner treatment. We owed that to our soldiers.

DAN ARKIN

Eugene

Make county tax temporary

With reference to the Lane County Board of Commissioners' proposal of a tax increase for public safety expenditures, I have a suggestion: Why doesn't the board propose this tax increase as temporary? It could be subject to voter renewal after a review of the performance of these county entities and their success at achieving the public safety goals they promise to the board and taxpayers of Lane County.

That way, if they fail to increase the public safety with regard to the county's methamphetamine problems to a significant degree or when they get the problem under control as they promise us they can, the tax increase can be eliminated and taxpayers will not be bound to pay endlessly for public safety programs no longer of use. This might also help increase accountability for achieving the goals they promise.

GARY ARMSTRONG 

Florence

Vandalism isn't terrorism

Ecoterror is terror? No, it's not. It's vandalism. Terror targets people, or more precisely, civilians. Vandalism targets property. It's that simple.

It's disappointing to see The Register-Guard fall into the linguistic trap George Orwell warned against: ceding precise language to those who would blur it for totalitarian purposes.

DAN RINNAN

Eugene

Torture editorials were needed

For people like Joe Mullen (letters, Dec. 10) to say they are tired of seeing the same article day after day is to totally miss the point of the daily "We do not torture" editorials.

We had gravely erred. Our national reputation has taken a hit that will not recover for years. That Mullen wouldn't realize that we have behaved in a way that is not representative of America seems to indicate that he is without knowledge of history, philosophy, humanity or decency.

Is Mullen suggesting that we only tie people up, put on a blindfold and make them bark? Where was he when those gross pictures from Abu Ghraib were being broadcast all over the world and deaths revealed?

The newspaper did the right thing. Torture is not an American value. We needed to have it rubbed in our faces each day that this should not say something about us. It does, but it shouldn't.

So, I encourage the editors to keep up the good work. If they lose Mullen's readership, they can count on mine. It's more valuable anyway, since I have to find two quarters, get in a car and drive to a machine for the privilege of having my wonderful newspaper each day.

NORMA TOWNSEND

Roseburg

Hospital site has only one outlet

From what I hear, there's been talk for 30 years about another bridge over the river to eliminate the congestion on River Road but, as a local resident stated, the environmentalists claimed that it would disturb the tse-tse flies or whatever.

The way projects stay on the drafting board here for 20 years at a time, I figure that by about 2025 they will finally get around to widening Belt Line Road and come up with a dynamic plan to eliminate congestion at Belt Line-River Road-Delta Highway (the worst!) and all the resulting accidents.

The north Eugene community is trapped with only two outlets: River Road and the Northwest Expressway. Now there's a possibility that a new hospital will be trapped out here as well, but with only one outlet - not two. I live in north Eugene at the edge of the urban development. I would hate to think of being in an ambulance racing south on River Road approaching bumper-to-bumper east Belt Line traffic and trying to make it to the new hospital - across the river from my house - before I die. They might think about running a ferry from north Eugene to the future hospital. It would probably be faster.

How many accidents are we going to have before someone finally says "Enough"? We need to get the ball rolling and plans on the drafting board soon, because I'm no spring chicken and I would like to enjoy what time I have left!

KAREN HARTMAN

Eugene

'Ecoterror' is careless speech

The "Ecoterror is terror" editorial (Register-Guard, Dec. 10) reveals the the dangers of careless thought and speech. The editorial asserts that because unintended injuries can result from acts of eco-sabotage, eco-saboteurs are terrorists.

The same can be said for any kind of civil disobedience. A peaceful street demonstration can unintentionally impede a fire truck or ambulance on a life-saving mission. Does that make the demonstrators terrorists?

Promoting this kind of doublespeak - while the federal government sends terrorists offshore to secret prisons - smacks of Soviet-style totalitarianism. Now, there's something to be terrified about.

SPENCER DOIDGE

Eugene

U.S. interrogations were harsh

It's too bad that Joe Mullen (letters, Dec. 10) felt annoyed by The Register-Guard's daily editorials telling us that we had an administration that wished to employ the use of torture. It must be hard for him - sitting in the comfort of his home - to be reminded daily that this country embraced practices that hearkened back to the Spanish Inquisition or Nazi Germany.

I wonder how he would feel if he were abducted off the street, blindfolded and whisked off to a secret prison somewhere in the world. What would he have to say after being strapped down, dunked under water and made to believe that he was drowning? "I'm innocent"? Being as how your keepers aren't bound by any restrictions, they'll use a little more encouragement, just to make sure you have nothing to hide while you're their guest.

How about being made to stand for more that 40 hours at a stretch in a filthy cold cell? How about being sexually abused? Maybe being hung from a wall with your hands bound behind your back?

Of course, there are always the usual methods of punching, or beatings with electrical cables. And don't forget electricity applied to the genitals. I'd say that after a month or more of this kind of hospitality, Mullen might think that there is a lot more to it than being tied up, blindfolded and made to bark like a dog.

ALEX STARKE

Eugene

Torture doesn't fight terrorism

I wish to commend the editors of The Register-Guard for their persistent campaign against U.S. government ambiguity on torture.

Since its founding the United States of America has been a beacon of hope in the world as it struggled to live up to the promise of its Declaration of Independence. In my lifetime great progress has been made in this long process.

When I was young, lynchings were already in the decline but dozens were still committed and millions of otherwise civilized people condoned them. In my Boston childhood, anti-Semitism by the cultural elite was openly expressed, considered a Yankee virtue and as American as apple pie.

During my first trips through the American South, pervasive legal segregation meant that every waking hour of a black citizen's life was filled with a series of humiliations. In all these areas I have witnessed enormous improvements. While inter-group tolerance deteriorated into strife in places like Lebanon, the United States has made steady progress.

Let us not lose the respect this progress has created by hysterical over-reaction to the threat of terrorism. Terrorists are real and a danger to our society, but we will overcome this threat more effectively by continuing to move toward our ideals than by falling into the barbarism of officially condoned torture.

THEODORE W. PALMER

Eugene

Christmas debate isn't a war

Every December the fight resumes about how appropriate it is to publicly celebrate Christmas. This year there's a book out called "The War on Christmas." A war, huh? That's what it's being called now? There are people fighting and dying in a very real war at this moment.

Whether you approve of political correctness or not, calling this issue a war is disgustingly overdramatic.

JESSE THIESSEN

Eugene

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