© 2002
The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
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The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

Letters, letters, letters
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.

To the Editor:

Depleted Uranium munitions, DU, leave behind sickness and deformity for generations to come.

It's arguably unwise and immoral to use such weapons.

But beyond that, they do so much damage to the troops who employ them as to put in doubt the sanity of those who continue to use and manufacture them in the face of overwhelming evidence from the First Gulf War that they are self-destructive.

Who would create a weapon they know will kill and maim their own soldiers and deform those troops' unborn children?

It's about as nuts as the industrialist who cheats on pollution regulations, knowing that the environment he pollutes is the one his own grandchildren have to grow up in.

This sort of insanity may be an extreme form of the deep disconnect between the logical and the emotional/relational sides of the brain, a disconnect too often encouraged inside the Beltway. Perhaps it's time for this society to label as "insane" those leaders who send our young into battle with weapons known to disable them and their children.

Time to begin screening applicants for positions of power and authority, sidelining those who suffer from this particular form of mental illness.

Send them for treatment, and only allow them to run for office, be appointed as a government official or become a corporate officer after their illness is under control. And let's attend to the mental health of future leaders attending Yale, Harvard, Princeton and other universities, so as to reduce the percentage of deranged decisions emanating from our future leaders.

Bill Stevens

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To the Editor:

In times of war, we have a tendency to classify everyone as either a hawk or a dove. It's good to see that there still are some owls around.

Thanks Chuck Kuzminski and Joe Leonardi for your thoughtful pieces.

Tom Worcester

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