Letters to the Editor [Archives:2002/36/Letters to the Editor]
Planned Corruption
The following facts, or whatever we may call them, inconspicuous planned corruption, are inevitably related to a factual coordination between those of senior posts and those subordinates at at lower positions.
One day I went to pay the water and electric bills. I found them at same office, but separated. The water bill was YR 1266 while the electric bill was YR2546.
When I gave them the money, the two did not return to me the small change from 1-4 of the 1270 and the 2550 riyals. Everyone of them took 4 riyals more from me. This is a usual treatment they said and nobody asks for small changes from 1-4 riyals to be returned. After I investigated about this matter I knew that this treatment is in use in every government office and department which deals with salary paying and daily dealings with citizens businesses. Even the pension office treats like that when giving salaries to pensioners.
So to me this matter should not be usual and simple. It is deeply and deliberately planned corruption. If a water or an electric office collected from riyals for each bill. How much would it collect from five thousand bills, and so on? Where does that extra money go to and for whom? If not for the partners of this corruption from top to toe, to whom is it then ?
Abdulmajid Ahmed bin Ali Jabir
Mukalla, Fua Village
Israel tortures Americans
You may be surprised to know that Israel has been involved in cruel human rights violations in torturing Americans as well as its daily habit of torturing Arabs. This fact has been revealed in an astonishing way by the Foreign Service Journal, which mentioned this in a lengthy item published some time ago.
It is truly difficult to understand how the super power of the world, the US, is helpless in questioning Israel of those torture cases. Sometimes Americans themselves wonder how Israel got its might and influence over the USA in such an open manner.
According to the journal, “But it may come as an unpleasant surprise for the American public to learn that for over 30 years, Israel has also repeatedly detained, tortured and incarcerated Americans of Arab origin, without suffering any sanctions or even a public reprimand from Washington…a US State Department spokesman confirmed that Israel was holding at least 18 American citizens on “security” charges, and had detained at least 22 more since “the current violence began last fall.” He also noted that “we have no way of knowing for certain the numbers of American citizens who may have been detained for short periods and released.””
So you can see that the USA is not only being controlled by Israel, but it is even ignoring facts and figures about its own citizens tortured by Israel. This strange, yet powerful formula between the two countries could only lead to one conclusion: the US is Israel and Israel is the USA.
Nabeel Yahya
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