Letters to the Editor 08-04-2004
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
- Opposition To War - Buffoonery
Opposition To War
Editor, Times-Union:I have carefully observed and studied the dialogue in your column over the past 16 months on the subject of Iraq. It is understandable why those who oppose this military action are reluctant to speak out. The fairly scathing attacks they suffer from your regular contributors certainly puts a chill on any good-faith debate. The irony is that we are now told that it was for the cause of democracy and freedom that Iraq was attacked. It seems the principles of democracy and free speech escape some locally.
Mindful of this local dynamic, I still feel compelled to speak out. The pre-emptive attack of Iraq was, in my view, a horrible mistake. I am not simply acting as a Monday morning armchair quarterback. Before the attack I expressed these same sentiments in an editorial letter to a Fort Wayne newspaper. I also wrote our senators and I wrote President Bush personally expressing my profound opposition. I appreciated the response from the White House but it did not change my views. An aggressive war like this is out of character for America and a terrible example to the world. From a practical standpoint the risk of failure appears to be growing, and rather than making the world safer, it may well make life more dangerous for America and her allies. The explanations for the attack have shifted over these 16 months with the latest that Saddam was a brutal dictator who needed to be removed. Indeed he was, but so was Idi Amin of Uganda. We did nothing there and that torturer and murderer of countless scores of people now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia, our Gulf ally. Should he not be charged with genocide and crimes against humanity? What of the atrocities in Sudan? Has our dubious attack of Iraq hampered our efforts to stop the bloodbath in the Sudan because our motives will be questioned? Why do we not intervene in Burma and free the democratically elected president who has been held under house arrest for three years by military thugs? She was not even permitted to leave Burma to attend to her dying husband in London because the thugs would not let her return to her country. He died of cancer without her. What of the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan? Have the chaos and distraction in Iraq diminished our efforts there?
Nothing I am saying is intended by me to question the courage and determination of our troops. They are to be supported and commended. But I believe we owe it to them, their parents, loved ones and one another to put them in harm's way only when America is imminently threatened and war is the last choice. In my view, a "pre-emptive war" does not fit that definition.
In the late 1800s, President McKinley was goaded into war against Spain. It came to be known as the Spanish- American War. It was not a war of necessity and was started under questionable pretenses. It was apparently then considered un-American to question the war. In response, it is reputed that the great American writer Mark Twain said, "The king can do no wrong." Of course in a democracy there is no king and perhaps it is time we admitted we were wrong.
David C. Kolbe
Warsaw
via e-mail
Buffoonery
Editor, Times-Union:Re: Don Guard's recent letters:
I'm surprised that it has apparently been left up to Mr. Guard to decide what opinions can be expressed and who should stay or go in this country. What, with his orders to exit these shores and silence non-conforming views, he's really painted an endearing portrait of himself. I have to assume he wears the same "compassionate conservative" cloak Bush II wraps himself in.
I shudder to think of an entire nation filled with the likes of Mr. Guard and Harold Kitson (although a humorous image of them as sidekicks - Guard shooting off his mouth and Kitson shooting, well whatever he doesn't like - comes to mind).
It is not unpatriotic to question leadership, especially with the dubious administration we have today. Quite the opposite.
More than 900 American soldiers have died, tens of billions spent on the war machine (much to companies with GOP-ties; check www.costofwar.com for the running total) and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed. For what? The answer has changed so many times, I've lost track.
Was it WMDs? Not there. Gassing the Kurds? We gave him the gas and propped up his regime. Ties to Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11? The Commission said no. Just being an evil-doer? Well, line up the next 20 or 30 dictators, this is going to take some time. Most don't have oil; most didn't try to kill Bush's daddy, so we can just skip over those I suppose.
Funny Mr. Guard should mention the word "unifier" (re: Martin Luther King Jr.) in his last attack on Blake Dirks, considering his president promised to do that for the country and has succeeded in creating quite the opposite, both here and abroad.
In three years, he's alienated one of the world's greatest outpourings of support (after 9/11) and erased the vast majority of goodwill to the U.S. Add to that the fact that many of the countries still on "our side" are just doing it for the financial support being an "ally" brings, and the "support" erodes even more.
And let's not forget how the administrations (both parties) during "nonviolent unifier" MLK's time wrongly kept government files on his doings - Mr. Guard's selective memory? Dementia? I won't speculate.
The point is, government does not always act in the best interest of its people; it's up to us to question. Blindly following like sheep is inviting disaster, especially when you're trusting an administration that has wiped its feet with the Constitution (via the "Patriot Act") and doesn't give a damn about most Americans, save the millionaires.
I'll refrain from saying that Mr. Guard is hopelessly out of touch with the world that's beyond his doorstep, or that he is a right-wing nutjob or perhaps is just a war-mongering fool. Beyond his exclamation-point fetish, I don't know what to make of his ramblings.
Anyway, Mr. Guard's incoherency makes refuting it repetitive.
He's achieved a marvelous thing - hate speech that, due to his style and delivery, mocks itself. I scoff at his buffoonery.
Matt Perry
New Orleans, La.
via e-mail
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- Opposition To War - Buffoonery
Opposition To War
Editor, Times-Union:I have carefully observed and studied the dialogue in your column over the past 16 months on the subject of Iraq. It is understandable why those who oppose this military action are reluctant to speak out. The fairly scathing attacks they suffer from your regular contributors certainly puts a chill on any good-faith debate. The irony is that we are now told that it was for the cause of democracy and freedom that Iraq was attacked. It seems the principles of democracy and free speech escape some locally.
Mindful of this local dynamic, I still feel compelled to speak out. The pre-emptive attack of Iraq was, in my view, a horrible mistake. I am not simply acting as a Monday morning armchair quarterback. Before the attack I expressed these same sentiments in an editorial letter to a Fort Wayne newspaper. I also wrote our senators and I wrote President Bush personally expressing my profound opposition. I appreciated the response from the White House but it did not change my views. An aggressive war like this is out of character for America and a terrible example to the world. From a practical standpoint the risk of failure appears to be growing, and rather than making the world safer, it may well make life more dangerous for America and her allies. The explanations for the attack have shifted over these 16 months with the latest that Saddam was a brutal dictator who needed to be removed. Indeed he was, but so was Idi Amin of Uganda. We did nothing there and that torturer and murderer of countless scores of people now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia, our Gulf ally. Should he not be charged with genocide and crimes against humanity? What of the atrocities in Sudan? Has our dubious attack of Iraq hampered our efforts to stop the bloodbath in the Sudan because our motives will be questioned? Why do we not intervene in Burma and free the democratically elected president who has been held under house arrest for three years by military thugs? She was not even permitted to leave Burma to attend to her dying husband in London because the thugs would not let her return to her country. He died of cancer without her. What of the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan? Have the chaos and distraction in Iraq diminished our efforts there?
Nothing I am saying is intended by me to question the courage and determination of our troops. They are to be supported and commended. But I believe we owe it to them, their parents, loved ones and one another to put them in harm's way only when America is imminently threatened and war is the last choice. In my view, a "pre-emptive war" does not fit that definition.
In the late 1800s, President McKinley was goaded into war against Spain. It came to be known as the Spanish- American War. It was not a war of necessity and was started under questionable pretenses. It was apparently then considered un-American to question the war. In response, it is reputed that the great American writer Mark Twain said, "The king can do no wrong." Of course in a democracy there is no king and perhaps it is time we admitted we were wrong.
David C. Kolbe
Warsaw
via e-mail
Buffoonery
Editor, Times-Union:Re: Don Guard's recent letters:
I'm surprised that it has apparently been left up to Mr. Guard to decide what opinions can be expressed and who should stay or go in this country. What, with his orders to exit these shores and silence non-conforming views, he's really painted an endearing portrait of himself. I have to assume he wears the same "compassionate conservative" cloak Bush II wraps himself in.
I shudder to think of an entire nation filled with the likes of Mr. Guard and Harold Kitson (although a humorous image of them as sidekicks - Guard shooting off his mouth and Kitson shooting, well whatever he doesn't like - comes to mind).
It is not unpatriotic to question leadership, especially with the dubious administration we have today. Quite the opposite.
More than 900 American soldiers have died, tens of billions spent on the war machine (much to companies with GOP-ties; check www.costofwar.com for the running total) and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed. For what? The answer has changed so many times, I've lost track.
Was it WMDs? Not there. Gassing the Kurds? We gave him the gas and propped up his regime. Ties to Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11? The Commission said no. Just being an evil-doer? Well, line up the next 20 or 30 dictators, this is going to take some time. Most don't have oil; most didn't try to kill Bush's daddy, so we can just skip over those I suppose.
Funny Mr. Guard should mention the word "unifier" (re: Martin Luther King Jr.) in his last attack on Blake Dirks, considering his president promised to do that for the country and has succeeded in creating quite the opposite, both here and abroad.
In three years, he's alienated one of the world's greatest outpourings of support (after 9/11) and erased the vast majority of goodwill to the U.S. Add to that the fact that many of the countries still on "our side" are just doing it for the financial support being an "ally" brings, and the "support" erodes even more.
And let's not forget how the administrations (both parties) during "nonviolent unifier" MLK's time wrongly kept government files on his doings - Mr. Guard's selective memory? Dementia? I won't speculate.
The point is, government does not always act in the best interest of its people; it's up to us to question. Blindly following like sheep is inviting disaster, especially when you're trusting an administration that has wiped its feet with the Constitution (via the "Patriot Act") and doesn't give a damn about most Americans, save the millionaires.
I'll refrain from saying that Mr. Guard is hopelessly out of touch with the world that's beyond his doorstep, or that he is a right-wing nutjob or perhaps is just a war-mongering fool. Beyond his exclamation-point fetish, I don't know what to make of his ramblings.
Anyway, Mr. Guard's incoherency makes refuting it repetitive.
He's achieved a marvelous thing - hate speech that, due to his style and delivery, mocks itself. I scoff at his buffoonery.
Matt Perry
New Orleans, La.
via e-mail
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