CG:
>There is something quite puerile, nasty, and chicken shit about
>sending poison letters. I associate that sort of tactic with very low
>grade, morality ridden pettiness---a mentality that exactly echos the
>qualities I associate with the US rightwing.
Tell me about it. Three days ago I received an anonymous letter postmarked in Japan. The reason for the letter appears connected to my sending an opinion letter to the 'Japan Times' English-language newspaper published in Japan. I certainly hope so.
My letter was about the US military's bungling of still yet another alleged rape incident involving a US serviceman on Okinawa. I won't go into all the details of what was said in the exchange on the topic. However, I will say that the US hd refused for four days to turn over the suspect (who had returned to his military base) after the Japanese police had served them with an arrest warrant. I discussed the 'extraterritorial' aspects to this and said, if the US and Japan made an agreement that in serious cases such arrest warrants would be honored, then the US should turn over the suspect. No discussions. No negotiations.
This discussion started before 9-11. However, it spilled over in the pages of JT for a couple weeks after it. That must have been when the anonymous individual tracked down my mailing address and sent the letter in which, among other things, they implied I was an embarassment to my 'colleagues', many who thought I needed Prozac (hey, I agree if my colleagues think that, but many won't even say good morning, let alone what they think). The letter also condemned me for being a 'bleeding heart liberal'. Wow. That really hurt. Then it said I had better stick to things I knew something about (btw, I actually know something about the extra-territorial aspects of status of forces agreements, the US military's uniform code of military justic, etc).
I found this letter so infuriating. It infuriated me that this person implied they knew me. It infuriated me that they wouldn't sign their name to their thoughts. And it infuriated me that they would stoop so low as to send a letter (even one that is just hurtful and only vaguely threatening) at a time when the mails were being used to send anthrax. It's pretty obvious to me that the person who wrote the letter is American, an American living in Japan--for one thing they didn't fill out the envelope's machine-read postal code boxes correctly. And the English is very idiomatic, but like someone who doesn't normally write very formally trying to write formally. That is about all I know.
BTW, if I were living in America right now, I'd open all my mail OUTSIDE. I would immediate throw away any junk mail and anonymous mail. And I would wash my hands frequently. And try to avoid touching my face , mouth, or nose--you know like you do when there is a bug going around.
Charles Jannuzi Fukui, Japan