The body of Russian human rights activist Natalya Estemirova was found lying in a ditch riddled with bullet holes. She had been shot, execution style. Witnesses saw 4 unidentified men hustle her into an unmarked white car while walking to the bus stop on her way to work. She was a fearless defender of the truth. Her death is a loss to everyone who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

The circumstantial details tell an intuitive story. She was a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin puppet they installed as the Chechnyan president, Ramzan Kadyrov. Qui bono? It seems the Russian state still has the ability to 'disappear' it's critics and it's inconveniences, wherever and whenever they want. remember polonium victim Alexander Litvinenko? Does anyone really believe that Natalya's asassins will be put to justice?

Secret death squads, operating wherever they will--as judge, jury, and executioner.

Is THIS what Cheney had in mind?

This is probably the stupidest remark I have heard in a long while--so it deserves at the very least a 5-cent exegesis.

To begin with, no man, white or otherwise, has ever walked this earth without first being birthed by a woman. So, to begin with, women built this country. In fact women are the authors of the world and its history.

And they built it long before the first Europeans with their spiritual and cultural blindness ever crossed the great waters. The early colonists would have perished if not for the assistance rendered by indigenous Americans who taught them survival skills and provided them with food.

There is a historical thesis that the Iroquois Confederation was the inspirational source for the American Constitution, and at the very least were influential in shaping the political scientific thinking of 'founding father' Benjamin Franklin. Add to that the labor and ingenuity provided by the original black colonists, who also constructed the Capitol, and whose labor made Cotton the King in the south, and White Men recede a little further in the distance. Then, consider the contribution made by Hispanic,and Asian settlers and arrivistes and 'this country' begins to take shape. No one can deny that black folks gave America the form of music known as The Blues, and Jazz, which have gone one to create a great wealth of culture both in and out of America. I could go on and on, but library shelves full of books document the contributions that persons who are not white males have made to build this country.

The Europeans who first arrived in the Caribean instituted a program of ethnic cleansing that wiped the Caribe indigenes off the face of the Earth. When Europeans first arrived in Australia, they hunted the Aborigenes like dogs. The Aborigenes had one of the most advanced spiritual and artistic cultures the world has known at that time--but all the English invaders could see was 'Savages'. The Australian environment was the consequence of 40,000 years of gentle and harmonious shaping by the hand of the Aborigene, who had the skills to turn poisonous streams into potable water, and make a nice boulevard through the forest for easy hiking. Europeans, with their scientific focus and their 'Christianity, were paradigm bound, and blind to the cultural and spiritual qualities in the societies they encountered as their technology spread them around the globe. Spanish Priests burned the entire library of Mayan codecs, save for a couple that escaped their notice.

That someone like Pat Buchanan could assert that white men built this country is evidence that the blindness and ignorance persist to this day. If the children of the Europeans could only realize what their blindness has meant as a curse for them they would weep for their own poverty of mind and spirit.

Signed,

A white male descendent of British ancestry