Peter Kadzis, you should know better! I have not read Sydney Schanberg’s American Conservative article on the question of whether US prisoners of war were abandoned by our government, but from the quotes you pulled, it looks like it is nothing more than a rehash of long-disproved mythology which has circulated for years.
There is a whole culture (which incidentally is not confined to the right wing) of believers in the notion that there were Americans held in Southeast Asia past the end of the Vietnam War, and that our government purposely left them there and kept this fact hidden for decades. Some of these adherents, including family members of missing and unaccounted-for servicemen, are sincere; others are cynical hucksters who prey on them by raising funds for “public awareness campaigns” to expose the so-called truth. It’s all nonsense, and the fact that not a shred of credible evidence has surfaced after all these years that there were ever POWs held in North Vietnam after 1973 should be plain to anyone who seriously investigates the topic.
Peter Mork
Allston
PETER KADZIS RESPONDS:
Mr. Mork may be right. But if he reads both of Schanberg’s articles he might at least think twice.
The end of America
In your “Holy War” story, you say, “Catholics, Mormons, and evangelicals have united to fight gay rights, women’s choice, and other progressive causes.” Some might find your choice to label them progressive as retrogressive. Our Supreme Court is our only refuge, and that is under attack — look at the illegal takeover of General Motors.
Our nation is being polarized, and is now in danger of having a Supreme Court that rubber-stamps any edict that Barack Obama invents. We should all consider this as the beginning of the demise of the nation that our founders created.
Nick Pappas
Scarborough, Maine
Related:
Will the Catholic Church kill gay marriage?, Chafee’s number, Impeach John Roberts, More 
- Will the Catholic Church kill gay marriage?
Rhode Island’s gay marriage moment has finally arrived. And the Catholic Church just might kill it.
- Chafee’s number
This week, we continue with a running feature, the Gubernatorial Scorecard. Every so often, we'll rate Lincoln Chafee from 1 to 10 on both the politics and substance of his most recent maneuverings.
- Impeach John Roberts
It is time for an enterprising and courageous member of the US House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts. The charge: lying under oath.
- Checking in with the Westboro Baptist Church
I went to a picketing of a "pervert-run" high school by the infamous Westboro Baptist Church ...
- I was a teenage Sandinista
As a freshman philosophy major at the University of Colorado, Deb Olin Unferth fell in love with a junior named George. A pious Evangelical, George felt it was his duty to help his Communist brethren in Central America fight against their capitalist oppressors. So he did, and Unferth went with him.
- Pregnant pause
The Maine Republican Party has a death wish. Over giving birth.
- Elementary, my dear Watson
Phillipe and Jorge are decades-long fans of the TV game show Jeopardy! Thus, when we heard that there was to be a man-vs.-machine lock-up on the show between a supercomputer named “Watson” and two of the show’s most outstanding past champions, we flexed our mental John Henry muscles and got ready to hammer this upstart junk pile.
- God's country
We live in Massachusetts, with troubles of our own. So why should we care about What's the Matter with Kansas? , the title of Thomas Frank's new book?
- Immortalizing Irene: dressed up to clean up, tales of survival, and blowhards
Phillipe had to endure Irene at Casa Diablo South in Newport. No problems at all, save for a titanic poplar limb, whose size had already led P&J to dub it "Johnny Wadd," falling all the way across the circular driveway and nearly taking down the power lines.
- In his new graphic novel, Craig Thompson wins an argument with God
This book is a gorgeous object; to make it, Thompson apparently covered himself in honey and rolled around in a thousand years of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and the result is breathtaking — the amount of ink expended on one resplendent panel after another, not to mention the virtuoso draftsmanship, speaks of hundreds of hours of hard work.
- Deval's Green Blues
The document in question contains the final regulations for the state's biomass subsidies, and according to environmentalists, the Patrick administration is planning to reverse its pre-election position — and fly in the face of good science — for the benefit of a handful of developers who stand to make money off of burning trees for energy.
- Less
Topics:
Letters
, Religion, Southeast Asia, Vietnam War, More
, Religion, Southeast Asia, Vietnam War, Evangelicals, servicemen, Sydney Schanberg, gay rights, Supreme Court, military, government, Less
