Real threats to public health Despite years of promotion by biotechnology cheerleaders such as Henry Miller (“Gore vs. the environment,” Commentary, Saturday), consumers are justifiably wary of milk produced with the artificial growth hormone recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST. Bovine somatotropin (bST) is a protein hormone that occurs naturally in cows. rBST is the genetically modified version used to increase milk production. Proponents of rBST claim that it is indistinguishable from the naturally occurring hormone, but the United States is the only industrialized country to approve rBST. Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union outlawed the artificial hormone due to unanswered questions about links to breast, colon and prostate cancer, as well as increased rates of infections in cows.
Mr. Miller’s argument that rBST is better for the environment is as misleading as his claims about its safety. The Department of Agriculture estimates that more than half of rBST is used on the largest industrial dairy operations, where thousands of cows crammed together generate air and water pollution that threatens Americans’ health. Meanwhile, small farms use less than 10 percent of rBST.
Consumers should not have to assume the risk from rBST just so more milk can come from factory farms.
WENONAH HAUTER
Executive director
Food and Water Watch
Washington
Don’t sell Rudy short
I take exception to Bruce Bartlett’s column in which he stated Republicans need the “anti-Bush” (“Who is the anti-Bush?” Commentary, July 4). He also thinks former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is a “one-issue candidate.” I disagree.
President Bush had a good vision for solving continuing Middle East problems relative to the United States, but I believe the media and Democrats did all they could to sabotage America’s efforts, much like they did during Vietnam. I don’t believe Mr. Giuliani would allow the media and Democrats to get such a “free pass” as Mr. Bush has given them these past five years.
Mr. Giuliani is a proven leader in more ways than just his reaction after September 11. He reduced major crime in New York City, increased adoptions more than 60 percent, decreased abortions by 20 percent and reduced the welfare rolls by over 640,000. He also cut taxes 23 times. Does any other candidate have such a record?
Please don’t tell me Mr. Giuliani is a one-issue candidate.
LT. COL. STAN GUSTAFSON
Marine Corps. (Retired)
Cumming, Iowa
Learning from the Civil War
I read with interest Donald Lambro’s story “GOP base’s support erodes over Iraq war” (Page 1, Sunday), in which he said that “some Republican officials are concerned about the political fallout for their party if the president’s troop escalation has not eased violence in Iraq enough for a reduction of U.S. combat troops before the elections next year.” Democratic opposition to the war in the current political climate is a given. But the erosion of support of the Republican base, along with recent defections of prominent Republican senators, is a different matter.
It may be useful, however, to look back at another time of war in our nation’s history to take heart in a time of restiveness. In his memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant explained the extraordinary measures he took in his attack on Vicksburg by saying: “The campaign of Vicksburg was suggested and developed by circumstances. The elections of 1862 had gone against the war. Voluntary enlistments had nearly ceased. A forward movement to a decisive victory was necessary.” The Union victory at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, coinciding with victory at Gettysburg on the same day, hardened the resolve on the part of the North to continue the immense struggle.
In a similar sense, the elections of 2006 went against the war in Iraq. Our military is greatly stretched as it engages a determined foe. Public sentiment for the war is waning. What is needed now, in Grant’s words, is “a forward movement to a decisive victory.”
We will not obtain peace in Iraq and resolve at home through political negotiations in a time of war. We must hope and pray that God will bless the work of our brave men and women in uniform and bring about a decisive victory through the surge in Iraq. And we must hope and pray, perhaps just as importantly, that if that victory is obtained, it will be reported accurately in the media.
ROBERT R. WILCOX
Falls Church
The truth about Macedonia
Experience has taught us that it is very difficult to communicate with people who have lived under, and have been trained by, the Communist mentality. Case in point: the misleading and well-camouflaged claims made by the honorable foreign minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Antonio Milososki, to The Washington Times in the article “Name game blame” (Embassy Row, July 11) that his country will promote stronger trade relations with the United States, and, with its transition to an independent nation, should be designated Macedonia, not FYROM.
Mr. Milososki claimed that his country has “gone from a security consumer to a security provider,” which is hardly accurate and honest. What the minister forgot to mention is the teachings in FYROM’s schools and military academy that continue to poison the new generations with falsehoods, planting the seeds of hatred to come in the years ahead and in clear violation of the U.N.-brokered “Intermediate Agreement” signed by his country and Greece. FYROM today is more a picture of a terrorist training camp rather than a “security provider.”
“Our name is the cornerstone of our identity,” said Mr. Milososki. What he left out was when and how it received that name. Did the name belong to somebody else for millennia before Josip Broz, or “Tito,” and Josef Stalin in 1944 re-baptized “Vardarska Banovina” into “Macedonia,” usurping the name Macedonia from the northern province of Greece with the ultimate goal of annexing Macedonia away from Greece and gaining access to the Aegean?
Unfortunately for the minister, history recorded that President Truman provided the arms, and the Greeks provided the rivers of blood to stop Tito’s and Stalin’s plans, rescued the Macedonia province and the rest of Greece from the Communists’ deadly embrace, and kept Greece and her Macedonia province on the western side of the Iron Curtain. What the province lost in battle then, it now expects to be given on a silver platter.
Mr. Milososki, your people once claimed that there were about 750,000 of them in the United States. The 2000 census revealed the truth as being not even 40,000. You now claim that 120 countries have recognized you by your self-declared identity. Would you kindly produce such a list for the public and identify exactly which countries have recognized you so officially by government-to-government official letter and which others are only coerced by bilateral agreements between companies in your country and other countries?
We hope you enjoyed your visit to the United States of America, Mr. Milososki. The truth can neither be killed nor ignored. The name “Macedonia” is an indisputable part of Greece’s historic and cultural legacy, and the Hellenic world will never give up its ownership.
NINA GATZOULIS
Supreme President
Pan-Macedonian Association
Dover, NH
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