Connecting
with the world

Readers’ Views on War and Peace

To the editor:

It has been good for you to offer the “Connecting With the World” section. We thank you and appreciate it for a couple of reasons.

First, it offers readers a forum to express opinions, as is their right in a free society. Second, it highlights the challenge we have with some people who, because of their simplistic ideology or their narrow and myopic view of events, offer opinions that contribute nothing positive to the debate.

A case in point is the man who wrote, “Strident views cannot go unchallenged” and proceeds to write one of the most strident letters I have read in TRR. Then, there is the lady whose fears miraculously disappeared when her child got a high grade on a paper criticizing President Bush and the war in Iraq. Worse still, someone from Narrowsburg and Queens takes Jeb Bush to task for violating the 15th Amendment, but then proceeds to tear down the 12th Amendment. It is what I call the “supermarket method” of interpreting the Constitution—take what you like and leave what you don’t like.

I have always supported our president and our men in uniform. The first phase is now successfully over. Now, we proceed with the difficult task of achieving the goal of freedom for Iraq, the Middle East, the consequent peace for the region, and the whole world—however long it takes.

We are experiencing history in the making. Events are taking place today that will change the world forever and result in a new and safe 21st century, thanks to the strength, boldness and leadership of President George W. Bush. In spite of all the criticism, the president’s vision for freedom includes the whole world. This is a great cause and I, for one, applaud the President for his leadership, although one of your readers calls him a “bully.”

We somehow forget the lessons of history.

We forget what makes us the great nation.

We forget that most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence died in the process or died destitute. They lost it all so that someone 225 years later could say, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Well, it is not.

It is freedom—for our children, our grandchildren and us.

Reread Psalm 106 where the Bible admonishes us that “to whom much is given, much is required.”

We have become a society so preoccupied and fearful of losing our rights that we forget that no right is ever preserved without an equal responsibility.

Instead of criticizing, we should stand shoulder-to-shoulder as Americans, realizing the dawn of a new era that has been thrust upon us, which has to be met with purpose, boldness and vision, if this nation is to remain a beacon of hope and liberty. 

We were created one nation under God, with many people of different races, colors, religions, national origins and differing backgrounds. This is how we became the greatest nation on earth.

If we do not want to meet that challenge, then we will surely join the many nations and civilizations who perished from within because they forgot why they were created, what their purpose was and who created them. 

There is a wonderful quote from Theodore Roosevelt, written 100 years ago, that is pertinent to today’s challenges.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

The question is, which camp do we really identify with? The critic who does nothing or the doer of deeds who spends himself in a worthy cause? 

Fernando Barrera
Milanville, PA

The message of misinformation

For two days straight, ABC World News Tonight’s lead story recently was a flashy exclusive: “Army team discovers weapons of mass destruction and mobile lab!” Several days later, another Army team declared the claims erroneous. ABC never corrected its original story.

If this were just one instance of a media source failing to set the record straight, it would be bad enough because of the millions of viewers misled regarding a major justification for the war. Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, there have been numerous instances of weapons teams purportedly stumbling upon weapons of mass destruction only to have each and every case proven false. The corrections, if they come at all, are days later, and usually in the form of matter-of-fact footnotes with none of the high drama of the original story. This succession of premature information releases from official sources has the effect of massaging the public into believing that weapons of mass destruction really have been discovered. 

First and foremost, this war was sold to us as a defense against the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam would unleash upon American soil. Even though the CIA debunked this premise, the Bush propaganda team ground away at the public from late summer right up until the time of the invasion. The sales pitch was wildly successful, even attracting a hefty majority to the false belief that Saddam was linked to September 11, thereby proving that if something is said often enough, people will accept it as truth.

The problem is that we are not talking about ordinary salesmen, rather elected leaders who should be acting honorably and treating its citizens with respect. And the stakes are not mere objects of trade but invaluable principles like truth, justice, and international law. So while we rejoice that a tyranny has ended for the Iraqi people, we should be very concerned that our government sold us this conflict under false pretenses. The Reagan administration’s overtures to Saddam Hussein, not to mention the 1991 betrayal of the Kurds and Shiites by players in the current administration, clearly reveal that our leaders’ true concern has not been for the Iraqi people, but rather for resources, trade, and expanding hegemony in the region.

Our troops, and you and I, will continue to be mere foot soldiers until we wake up and realize that we, the people, are the world’s only superpower capable of chastening this willful and dangerous march of the military-industrial complex that General Eisenhower warned us about half a century ago.

Pete Comstock
Glen Spey, NY