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Letters: New gun-toters scare me

Compiled by Vail Daily staff
Vail CO, Colorado

Should I be scared?

I’m writing regarding the cover story of the Aug. 13 Vail Daily. I suppose I’ve been here so long that the need to self-defend snuck up on me (there you go!). I definitely relate to the creeps on the hiking trails ” the ones who are quite convinced that their dog doesn’t have to be leashed; and that the dog is in an attack mode because my hiker friends and I frightened it while it was chasing down wildlife.

It is clear to me now as a result of this article that I need to get on board with the safety threat to my neighbors and me. I recall back in the late ’70s, back before the violent crime wave documented by Mr. Christiansen, some local dude buried a claw hammer into another guy’s skull ” killed him.



Based on this precedent and in order to connect with others of like concern, I’m forming a group, the Disciples of U-never know I May be Assaulted Some Sunny day (DUMASS), to train in the safe and effective use of claw hammers for personal protection. I will invest in a substantial number of coconuts and will drill students on the DUMASS methodology by using the coconuts as “real-life” simulation of crushing a human skull ” because you can and because they may be a “real creep.” We will play Frisbee first so that the students’ arms are warmed-up.

Once I’ve trained a critical mass of DUMASSes I propose we team up with this other group of exemplary and defense-trained citizens noted in the article who are preparing for Mountain threats OR O Nuisances (MORONs) and execute a pre-emptive strike on Lake County.

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Now I’ve met people from Lake County and some of them seem OK. But I know a lot of them have guns and they use them for things like “hunting” ” like for food.

But what I also suspect is that people from Lake County hate us. They hate us for our freedoms; like the freedom to be a DUMASS. Also, many of them come down here and take our jobs. So they’ll think we’re coming up to hike and won’t know what to do.

As a final thought to the woman pictured in the piece (meaning the article): if you and your paranoid pooch ever “come upon” a mountain lion there won’t be time for you to fill your drawers much less empty your leather. Hopefully you are getting a second opinion about the effectiveness of a .38 on a bear.

If you intend to carry, then you intend to use. You people are more dangerous than anything you can imagine (except the paintball Republicans).

God, I love this place.

Tom Gorman

The fortunes of war

In his masterful work on military strategy “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu wrote that “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” Sun Tzu wrote his book around 500 B.C., before the age of corporations and the military industrial complex ” before war became profitable for some. The only people profiting from the Iraq War are the corporations and the people who control them.

Halliburton has been given more than $18 billion in no-bid contracts in Iraq negotiated by Cheney, who was CEO of Halliburton before becoming vice president. Halliburton and its subsidiary, KBR, provide support services for our forces there but have ripped off our government, and the brave men and women of our military, for profit. They charge us $45 for a six-pack of coke and $100 per bag of laundry.

Halliburton also ran 67 water treatment plants for our troops, 63 of which were not providing safe water, and many of our soldiers are coming home with pathogens in their blood.

Halliburton run food service operations for our troops, served meals at specified times, resulting in long lines outside mess tents that became targets for insurgent rocket and mortar attacks. Halliburton refused to keep their operations open around the clock as that would cut into profits. It did not matter that our troops, perhaps coming in from a long day in combat, could not get a hot meal when they needed it.

Halliburton/KBR also run supply convoys and got paid not by how many supplies were delivered, but on how many trucks they ran. According to some drivers, trucks were run half full or even empty, and we paid the bill. Trucks that broke down in insurgent-controlled areas were destroyed to keep them from being used for IEDs, again with us paying the bill.

One convoy was sent down a road despite the fact that the road was under insurgent control. The convoy was ambushed and a number of drivers killed and wounded. As one of the drivers said “There’s no duty, honor, country among anyone at Halliburton ” KBR.”

When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke it was said that our military guards were obeying the orders of civilian interrogators at the prison, something that quickly disappeared in the media. The torture at Abu Ghraib was controlled by employees from CACI International and Titan Corporation, likely working under the direction of some CIA types.

While some military personnel involved were convicted of violating military regulations, not one of the corporate interrogators was charged. Titan saw its revenues increase from $920 million in 2001 to $2.15 billion in 2004, while their CEO made $47 million in 2004-05. CACI is in the top 1,000 Fortune 500 companies.

Bob Fiske

Vail


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