Two views on the Navy brig in Hanahan

Thursday, March 26, 2009
Letters to the Editor, The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC

Brig leadership

Post and Courier reporter Tony Bartelme has done a valuable service to the newspaper's readers with his story on the Hanahan brig. The professionalism of the brig's leaders and staff comes across loud and clear. I believe this story ought to dissolve a lot of apprehension about housing "war on terror" prisoners in the Hanahan brig.

When the brig opened, I was the public affairs director at the S.C. Department of Corrections. The brig leadership and staff at that time came to Columbia to learn some of the ways a modern, well-run prison system operated.

I remember SCDC personnel stressing with brig personnel that "prisoners are sent to prison as punishment for their crimes, not for punishment." Again the attitude of the brig's current leadership, as reported by Mr. Bartleme, makes it clear they still understand this, even if other officials in the Department of Defense do not.

FRANCIS X. ARCHIBALD
Franke Drive
Mount Pleasant

No to terrorists

I am grateful to The Post and Courier for letting me know that terror suspect Al-Marri was relaxed and smiled during his recent court appearance. I think our nation needs to remember 9/11 every day and watch the videos of the sacrifices that were made on that day and the days after.

It has reached the point that terror suspects have more rights than anyone else. Now President Barack Obama wants to remove them from Guantanamo and put them somewhere else. Our state could possibly be the one picked to receive them.

I say if President Obama wants to put them on American soil, let it be in his home state. We do not want them in South Carolina.

PEGGY NICHOLS
Quail Hollow Court
North Charleston

Moscow Rules

A movie review this week for "Duplicity," starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, calls it a smart, sexy, sophisticated film. Roger Moore, the syndicated reviewer, said the picture was shot, edited and scored "like a sexy, '60s caper picture - conga drums and horns, split screens," and spy jargon ("Moscow Rules"). (The Post and Courier, Charleston, SC, 3/1/9/09.)

What are Moscow Rules? Other than those who slink around dark alleys, boarded up warehouses, lonely apartments and rainy streets associated with spies and spy-catching who even thinks of such things? Some say there never were any Moscow Rules; that these were the figment of fiction writers' imaginations. Others swear that vastly outnumbered Western spies operating against Soviet and East German Stasi agents throughout Europe during the Cold War survived by following Moscow Rules.

Fact or Fiction, true or not, these are the Moscow Rules:
1. Assume nothing.
2. Never go against your gut.
3. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
4. Don't look back, you are never completely alone.
5. Go with the flow, blend in.
6. Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
8. Don't harass the opposition.
9. Pick the time and place for action.
10. Keep your options open.

And by the way. "Duplicity" has four (out of five) stars. Ought to be a treat for Julia Roberts' fans. Clive Owen - an up and coming action actor has a bright future. See you at the movies.

Touche...

A friend asked: Where did President Obama get the cardboard cutout of Francis Archibald? (See "Fresh Sights and Faces", below). I also stopped long enough recently to be photographed near the FBI building, on Pennsylvania Avenue; our nation's monument to the now-controversial J. Edgar Hoover.

Fresh sights and faces

When I visited Washington recently on some family business I enjoyed several new sights and met some interesting people...including this view taken from the rooftop of the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue and this familiar face.