Dear Editor,

Recent tirades against my unapologetic support for the United States in the war against terror are now trying to infer quite foolishly that I am aligned with one US agency or the other. Evidently, these detractors are losing the ideological war and are now seeking to obfuscate the core issues in discussion. One Mr. Calvin Woseley even ventured off field to suggest that I could be stripped of my US citizenship. Good luck to him for rather wishful thinking considering the fact that I am part and parcel of an entity that currently provides services to an important US federal institution. This is an institution that has an annual budget of no less than US$8 billion, employs more than 24,000 persons and is definitely not under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress like the CIA and the FBI but which I am not at liberty to disclose for obvious reasons. The fact that a number of Guyanese are now in INS detention following the September 11th tragedies suggests that they may have violated US immigration laws by being in the US on expired documents, committed criminal offences or are being treated as suspects in our ever widening investigations related to September 11, 2001.

Then there is the issue of Cuba. I hold no contempt towards the people of the island but a lifelong and bitter resentment towards the Castro regime. This ideological animosity springs from the fact that I suffered as a young child and teenager in Guyana growing up under the despotic Forbes Burnham regime that had sought and received intense ideological and military support from Fidel Castro. It was Fidel Castro who assisted Forbes Burnham in oppressing my generation and which both the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan gave bold support for. To this very day, my generation still bears the scars of the PNC's foolish experiment with an otherwise bankrupt ideology. In case no one remembers, there was a time in our history right into the 1980s that the long oppressed citizens of Guyana were standing in lines for basic foodstuff. The whole concept of rationing, currency controls, big brother were all imported from Cuba including oppression of the Catholic Clergy. Naturally, there are always going to be greedy institutions who will put 'profits before principles, like the unscrupulous Canadian and European companies investing in Cuba where the average Cuban slaves away in such places as 'Club Varadero' for less than US$2.50 per month.

The remittances to starving relations in Cuba are simply a humanitarian gesture and any talk of lifting the embargo is mere wishful thinking as long as the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) continues to exercise its powerful influence and our friends in Washington such as Congresswoman Illeana Ros Lehtinen and Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart continue to keep a watchful eye on our interests.

It should please Mr. Woseley and Mr. Braithwaite to know that if I had my way I would put both Sen. McCarthy and General Pinochet on Guyanese postage stamps because they were courageous and unwielding in standing up for their sacred beliefs. There is no greater duty in life (other than serving God and humanity) than ridding our world of communism. Communism is a dreaded disease and socialism is no more than a carbon copy of this contagious disease.

The misguided likes of Messrs. Woseley and Braithwaite must understand that the US is at war and if this means an expanded role for the CIA, FBI or INS then let it be. Try telling otherwise to our brave young men and women who are in uniforms braving landmines and sub zero temperatures in places like Tora Bora, Spin Boldak, Jalalabad, Mazar e Sharif, Kandahar and Herat as we continue our heroic struggle against the forces of tyranny, evil and potential nuclear terror. What line of defense will these detractors and closet sympathisers of bin Laden and 'al Qaeda' offer now that there is mounting evidence based on discovered documents that there were plans afoot to unleash nuclear terror on the western world and Israel? If my only crime is being a patriot then let me die being one.

On the issue of Israel, I chose to support the Jewish state for principled reasons and if this makes me a Zionist then let it be. Sadly, no one wants to talk about the fact that many Guyanese Muslims went to Libya to receive military or ideological training. These PLO supporters received large amounts of cash in the late 1980s when the now defunct Libyan government funded and supported 'Al Fateh Islamic Cultural Centre' was in full swing in Queenstown. In fact, the PLO's roving Ambassador Zehdi Terzi (then the PLO's Envoy to the UN) had a series of secret meetings in Guyana with many of these persons in early 1984 whilst visiting Guyana.