Tuesday, February 06, 2007

letters to the editor

i wonder why i bother but there are occasions when i write a letter to the editor of my local paper. i haven't done so recently- as my inspiration- sam fantuzzo- passed away a few months ago. oh, don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of idiots writing in, but none pressed the buttons like sam. no, today's response was actually a buildup of me taking this particular argument all i could: comparing the invasion and occupation of iraq to world war 2. now, the comparison itself is not wrong per se- but the folks who make it have the players wrong. they typically compare saddam and his regime to hitler's and america to europe- only we are better because we didn't wait as long to jump into the country and stuff him down.

uh huh. except- that saddam hadn't tried to use that 'domino theory' since kuwait in the early 1990's when he was neatly stuffed back into iraq by COALITION forces led by what was then- the united states of america. no- the better comparison is vietnam- which the wrong wing doesn't want to hear because that war doesn't conjure up warm, fuzzy, patriotic feelings. america invaded vietnam ostensibly to halt the communist takeover there. america invaded iraq allegedly to take out saddam hussein because he was a bad, bad man. or so our last incarnation of 'truth' from our figurehead-in-chief tells us. so here is the last straw- and my response (which was sent today so will not actually appear in the paper for a few days. you can check at pressconnects.com if you are so inclined):

Tuesday February 6, 2007
Peace not always best

Why are people marching on Congress to pull our troops out of Iraq? Do they think that peace is an answer? Well, peace is not always the answer.

If you look back in time to before World War II, you would see that after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France told him that if he stopped at Czechoslovakia, they were not going to do, well, anything. But as the old saying goes, give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Hitler saw that they weren't going to do anything, so he decided to invade Poland and later France, which is when World War II started.

So just because peace sounds like a nice solution, more than likely war is the only way to get what is needed to get peace.

Andrew Hill

Vestal


my response today:

I am confused by arguments for 'staying the course' in iraq that compare saddam hussein to adolf hitler. Saddam had not invaded any country after he was stopped by coalition forces in the early 1990's. The vietnam war is a much better comparison because america decided to invade that country for similar reasons- to topple an 'evil regime'- in this case to stop the communist spread. Indeed, america seems to be the one interested in invading countries on flimsy information these days. It is the duty of citizens in a democracy to question their government and take a hard look at it. Looking at the truth of a matter is not always easy, but necessary. Government is not a benevolent institution.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Knock me upside the head with a mallet, but did this other guys LTE actually compare Hitler with Shrub??? Kept invading countries cuz nobody stopped him and...thus started WWII...

I definitely got a feeling a deja vu reading that. (Afghanistan...Iraq...??Iran??)

I'm jus' sayin'...

pissed off patricia said...

Very good point dezzi.

Also great response, bitmo

Donnie McDaniel said...

Yikes! And people like that are out there making new ones just like themselves! Eeeekkkkkkk!