Thursday, December 13, 2007

A Christmas Wish

With there being 12 days until Christmas, most people have a lot on their plates between shopping and writing Christmas cards. If I may presume to make a request to add one more thing on your list of things to do, I think you'll find it's for a very good cause.

Ever since I heard the case of Jose Compean and Ignancio Ramos, I have been outraged at the Bush Administration. For those of you unfamiliar with their case, Compean and Ramos were two U. S. Border Patrol Guards who were sent to prison for shooting a known drug dealer sneaking across the border into America. Due to a series of highly questionable events, the drug dealer and lawyers under Federal Attorney Johnny Sutton testified under oath and got Compean and Ramos sent to federal prison. But the part of the case that cannot be overlooked in this miscarriage of justice is the fact that the drug dealer, the attorneys, and Sutton all lied and have been called out on it. Yet, Compean and Ramos still sit in prison for doing their jobs.

This is where my request comes into the picture. If you are so inclined, please send Compean and Ramos Christmas cards if for no other reason than to brighten their days. Whether you agree with President Bush on this issue or not, you have the ability to show the spirit of the season to two men who need a bit of it.

Their addresses are as follows:

Ignacio Ramos #58079-180
FCI Phoenix
Federal Correctional Institution
37910 N. 45th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85086

Jose Compean #58080180
FCI Elkton
PO Box 10
Lisbon, OH 44432

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I, for one, would be happy to send cards to these gentlemen who bravely carried out their duties to the best of their abilities. My only sigh to the whole thing was that the scum they shot in the line of duty lived. More's the pity. Thank you for all your excellent blog posts!! Very informative and thought-provoking!

Anonymous said...

DAMASCUS, Syria — Illiteracy is spreading rapidly among refugee children from Iraq, with at least 300,000 young Iraqis not attending school in the countries where their families have sought safety.

Alarmed aid workers in Syria and Jordan report that a growing number of children can't read or write because cash-strapped parents have withdrawn them from school to cut down on expenses. In many cases, displaced families can afford to send only one of their children to school, creating a painful gap between educated children and their illiterate siblings, humanitarian workers say.

UNICEF, the U.N. education agency, is beginning a census to determine the size of the problem. There's no program in place yet to deal broadly with the issue. Aid workers admit that the development surprised them, in part because Iraq once boasted some of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East. The Iraqis' legendary thirst for knowledge is encapsulated in an Arabic saying, "The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, the Iraqis read."

"We are finding that a lot of participants in the youth programs we're running — a very high number, sometimes up to 30 percent per class — are illiterate or close to illiterate," said Jason Erb, the deputy country director for emergency programs in the Jordan office of Save the Children. He said that more than 90,000 Iraqi children were out of school in Jordan.

"In the initial rounds of some of our programs, we expected children to read and write, so we'd have all these activities that involved writing things on the flip chart or having them read a case history," Erb said. "They couldn't do it."

Iraqi teachers and professors in Damascus have begun offering free remedial lessons so Iraqi children make up for years lost to war, but they're finding far more students than they can accommodate. In Syria, some 250,000 Iraqi children, about 76 percent of the school-aged Iraqi population here, are out of class this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

"The last time my kids were in school was 2003, right before the American invasion," said Hanaa Majeed, 32, an Iraqi refugee in Damascus who can't afford to send her two sons to school. "They can barely read. I buy books and try to teach them at home, but it's not the same. My boys see other kids with backpacks on, going off to school, and they ask why they can't go, too."

Education is a point of pride for Iraqis, the descendants of civilizations that invented cuneiform, one of the world's first writing systems.

Iraq's illiteracy rate began to climb during the 1990s, when sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime decimated the education system. Schools lacked textbooks, pencils and other materials. Teachers were so poorly paid, Iraqi parents recalled, that they sometimes offered better grades in exchange for bribes to supplement their salaries.

After Saddam's regime fell in 2003, the U.S.-led occupational authority earmarked millions of dollars to rebuild Iraq's education system and schools. But the unanticipated insurgency rendered much of that work useless. With car bombs exploding near playgrounds and militants roaming neighborhoods, many parents kept their children home rather than risk their lives sending them to school.

Now, with violence at home and economic hardship for those who've sought safety outside Iraq, education has become a luxury that many are unable to afford.

Even refugee children who are enrolled in school struggle to keep up with unfamiliar Arabic dialects, aid workers said. The trauma of being forcibly uprooted from their homes and neighborhoods in Iraq also diminishes their ability to learn. Most Iraqi children also have witnessed or experienced horrific acts of violence, aid workers said.

"A whole generation is missing out on its education," said Sybella Wilkes, the Damascus-based U.N. spokeswoman on refugee issues. "Nothing has prepared Iraqis for being refugees, for running out of savings. For the first time in a generation or longer, the priority is basic survival."

Illiteracy is growing fastest among displaced Iraqis, humanitarian workers said. An estimated 2 million people have fled sectarian bloodshed within Iraq, and another 2.5 million have sought refugee in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and other countries.

As displaced families scrounge for food and shelter, educating the children becomes difficult, even in countries such as Syria and Jordan, where Iraqi children can attend public schools for little or no fees and needy families are eligible for U.N. assistance with books, uniforms and transportation.

Many Iraqi parents are so poor that they can't shoulder school costs, especially with several children to a family. In addition, parents often rely on older children to help support the family by taking on odd jobs and helping at home. Only 35,000 Iraqi children are enrolled in Syrian schools; 20,000 are enrolled in Jordan.

"I have a 13-year-old who can't read or write," said Azhar al Haidari, 47, an Iraqi who can afford to send only two of her four children to school in Damascus. "It destroys me. He needs to start from A-B-C, but he's too embarrassed. He says he's too old to learn now."

Haidari and her unemployed husband rely on their sons, Bassam, 13, and Ayman, 14, to bring in cash by doing odd jobs for shopkeepers. After household expenses, the couple can just barely pay school costs for their daughters, Mary, 8, and Inam, 11.

Haidari said Bassam was so jealous of his sisters' ability to read and write that he stormed out of the apartment if he saw them with books.

"The other day, I was going over dictation with the girls and Bassam started yelling at me, 'What's the difference between me and an animal?' " Haidari said. "He quits jobs on the spot when they ask him to fill out forms. He's humiliated. He feels he has no future."

Anonymous said...

Why aren't those murdering monsters Compean and Ramos on death row?

TLindaman said...

DeathToALLMurderers said...
Why aren't those murdering monsters Compean and Ramos on death row?

December 13, 2007 8:50:00 PM CST


Ummm...because Compean and Ramos didn't actually kill anybody? I'm no lawyer, but I would think the lack of a murder would kinda hurt a murder case.

Speaking of murdering monsters, since you think they deserve death, why aren't you calling for the death of the convicted drug dealer they shot?

Anonymous said...

Anyone who decides to go out and "shoot some Mexicans" and then does so is a murderer in my book. Rotting in jail is too good for those scum.

Hopefully some other murdering scumbag in prison will do what the feds didn't have the balls to do and kill them.

TLindaman said...

deathtoallmurderers said...
Anyone who decides to go out and "shoot some Mexicans" and then does so is a murderer in my book. Rotting in jail is too good for those scum.


Two problems with your notion.

1) Compean and Ramos are BOTH HISPANIC, which makes me question whether they actually said what was attributed to them.

2) You can't be charged with murder without a dead body. The convicted drug dealer was shot in the butt and was ALIVE. That's how he was able to TESTIFY AGAINST THEM.


Hopefully some other murdering scumbag in prison will do what the feds didn't have the balls to do and kill them.

December 13, 2007 9:06:00 PM CST

Why would the fed kill two Border Patrol agents who didn't commit a crime that warranted the death penalty?

And thank you for dodging my previous question. Guess you don't want to kill all murdering scumbags, just the ones you can lie about. :-)

Anonymous said...

If you knew anything about the law you would know that a person does not have to complete a crime to be punished for their conduct. Trying or attempting to commit a crime is a crime just as completing the offense itself is a crime. When the actus reus is accompanied by mens rea those evil monsters are murderers.

Let the rest of their lives be a prelude of the suffering they will experience for eternity in Hell.

TLindaman said...

deathtoallmurderers said...
If you knew anything about the law you would know that a person does not have to complete a crime to be punished for their conduct. Trying or attempting to commit a crime is a crime just as completing the offense itself is a crime. When the actus reus is accompanied by mens rea those evil monsters are murderers.


Of course, the major flaw with your argument is that THERE IS NO DEAD BODY. Last time I checked, murder requires someone to die for it to be a murder.

But that doesn't matter to you, does it? You would prefer to slander Compean and Ramos wrapping yourself in some perverted form of justice to justify your hatred. Sorry, but the facts don't bear out your desire to have these two men killed.


Let the rest of their lives be a prelude of the suffering they will experience for eternity in Hell.

December 13, 2007 9:31:00 PM CST

Given the fact that you can't even get the basic facts of this case right, I would be rather hesitent to believe you're speaking on God's behalf. I'll let Him decide where Compean and Ramos go, and I guarantee He'll be a LOT more fair in his judgment than you have been.

Anonymous said...

DeathToALLMurderers said...
Why aren't those murdering monsters Compean and Ramos on death row?

December 13, 2007 8:50:00 PM CST

Why do people like you insist on proving Darwin wrong?