Letters to the Editor, February 20, 2005

Climate change and the Kyoto agreement

Has consumption of energy decreased in the world? What would happen if we took the entire family and put them in the garage with the car running? Look at the vehicles, consumption of fuels and amazingly, killing the environment that sustains our life and all life. Tomorrow I am off to church to pray to god and on Monday I will be back at work polluting and what I pray to. The US needs to sign on to Kyoto as does Australia. Countries may have territorial borders, we are one globe and are impacted by all countries.

We are an environmental company that has found a building design problem with North American Construction that is a great waste of fossil fuels and electrical generation, a 180 degree contradiction of Kyoto. The western world is legislating energy, not achieving it. We have info showing why the US needs to join Kyoto immediately. We have requested an audience with the Canadian Government's Common's Environmental Committee based on an unprecedented environmental emergency and have made the same request to present for the United Nations based on the same urgency. Our research is being implemented into engineering curriculum as soon as Sept/05 specifically because of the building design problem. Please add this to the letter. We look forward to any challenges on the information presented here. You should see what we see as temperature specialists. Thanks and let me know if you would like to see documented images of the building flaw,

Curtis Bennett, www.thermoguy.com

Internment of Japanese Americans: The Day of Remembrance By Abdus Sattar Ghazali (Al-Jazeerah, Feb. 16,2005).

When will Japan pay our POW's

The Japanese got their blood money! When does the whining stop??? When will Japan pay our POW's that were in REAL 'concentration' camps. When will they pay our citizens that worked for Suzuki and Honda during the war? Where is the back pay? How about all the Japanese 'citizens' from Heart mountain that were tried and convicted for draft evasion? Revising history like in this article doesn't fool anyone.

June Thresher Hailey, Idaho, USA

Internment of Japanese Americans: The Day of Remembrance By Abdus Sattar Ghazali (Al-Jazeerah, Feb. 16,2005).

Germans were also interned

The article was excellent, but wrong in one major and definitive respect as he omitted the internment of over 15,000 Europeans during that very same war. I was interned with 2,000 Germans, 2,000 Japanese, and one Italian family in the internment "concentration camp" (your description) located at Crystal City Texas. We were within the very same fenced compound, guarded by guard towers, ate the same food, used the same hospital, schools, roads, ad infinitum.

I WAS ARRESTED ON A WARRANT BY ATTORNEY GENERAL FRANCIS BIDDLE IN MY HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM IN CINCINNATI. I WAS 17. I WAS RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER 1947,AGED 22, EVEN THOUGH THE WAR ENDED IN 1945. I WAS NOT ACCORDED AN APOLOGY, NOR $20,000.

While in Crystal City, Germans and their indigenous families were brought from Latin American countries for internment there. They also were not compensated. The fact is that the US was preparing for war in 1940 when it instituted the first peace time draft and required the registration of all aliens 14 and over, male/ female, with fingerprint and foto all bound in an internal passport we were required to carry.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, more onerous restrictions were introduced including travel restrictions, weapons including certain kitchen knives, and others too numerous for discussion here. I still have that passport. Data and information is available at: http://www.foitimes.com which includes documents, internment camp sites, reference books, presidential decrees and orders , some of which you cannot get even from NARA.

Mr Ghazali did get most of his facts right. His Japanese informants failed to tell him that we were interned together with them in racial integration, harmony, and even brotherhood. Should you require my registration, internment and naturalization numbers, I will gladly supply them. In the meantime your readers deserve the whole unvarnished truth, which I am sure is your very objective for obvious reasons.

EBERHARD FUHR, Palatine, IL, USA

Editor: Thanks Mr. Fuhr. Readers would appreciate any contribution from you about your personal experience, and from others who are willing to share it with them. Who knows who else may be interned this time?