in today's newspaper under the section : opinions/readers' feedback

Bouthaina Shaaban "The neo-anti-Semitism of the neoconservatives" (June 5)

This was an outstanding article. Clearly these neoconservatives need to be and shall be defeated in the US. I can't wait for the November presidential election.

Ali Dagher
Dearborn, Michigan, USA

Before the author accuses the US and Israel of targeting and massacring Arabs, she should take a deep breath and ponder similar crimes perpetrated by Syria against the Syrians and the Lebanese.
When your house is made of glass you should not throw stones. Having been snubbed by the US media and having failed to secure meaningful meetings with US lawmakers, Bouthaina Shaaban, full of fury, admitted the other day on TV that she is frustrated and disappointed with the ineffective Arab lobby not only in the US, but in Europe as well. As a matter of fact, her European tour was a flop.
Allow me to correct you when you say that "in the 21st century the Arabs have been officially chosen as the new victims ... of hatred, killing, ethnic cleansing, torture and massacres." You're forgetting that in the 20th century the Syrian regime had already obliged humanity with worse crimes against the Syrian and Lebanese Arabs.
You are insulting the American media when you write: ! "Would the American media keep the crime in total blackout if the victims were not Arabs?"
Enlighten us instead about the free Syrian media. By the way, what happened to the voices advocating reform in Syria during the "Damascus Spring?" Arif Dalilah, Riad Saif, Riad al-Turk, Mamoun al-Homsi, Aktham Nuayssa and the hundreds of other outspoken critics of the Syrian regime?
You accuse the United States of violating people's rights and sovereignty and of violating international legitimacy. Why has the state of emergency been in force in Syria since 1963?
Why is internal opposition banned and retaliation against families of Syrian dissidents living abroad still commonplace? Why are you still suppressing the Syrian Kurdish minorities? Why have you been wreaking havoc with Lebanon since 1973? What have you done with the hundreds of Lebanese prisoners of conscience? And you write about human rights violations at the Abu Ghraib prison and about violating peoples' rights and! usurping sovereignty.
Syria has been occupying my country in violation of UN Resolution 520, and you think the world is buying your call for safeguarding international legitimacy in Iraq?
Pity the free world for choosing to look the other way for 27 long years.