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Appreciation and clarification

Letters

The POW myth

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