My Letter to the editor - and the response

[Beaver Tail]

Here is my letter to the editor

Regardless of what channel I turn to, the newspaper I read or what ever web site I look at the phrase “War on Terror” is becoming a best an irritating phrase. We are being deceived into believing this War on Terror is winnable by using force.

Wars are won against organizations, societies, countries and so on. They are not won against an idea, ideology, belief or method. These are all intangibles and you cannot kill an intangible. Imagine trying to win a war against a religion. What ever happed to the “War on Drugs” (Richard Nixon started this)? How about the “War on Poverty” (Lyndon Johnson)?

What I am trying to say is we cannot win wars against ideas by using force. The only way to win these so called wars of ideas is by changing our collective behaviour, how we relate to other countries and other cultures. Most important is to respect these cultures.

Finally by using the term “War on …” (which is becoming a catch phrase more than anything else) we are desensitizing ourselves to the atrocities of a real war. People are maimed, lives are lost, children are orphaned, families’ destroyed and other horrific crimes against humanity are committed, crimes that most of us can’t even begin to comprehend (or would even want to).

Of course i had a rebuttal that basically said my position is dangerous and wrong. He goes on to reference 9-11, London, Madrid and so on. He gives various explanations but I don’t agree with his over all assessment of “dangerous and wrong”. This is my rebuttal to this letter.... what do you think?

I read .....'s rebuttal to my contribution to the Letter to the Editor and although I do see his points I cannot agree with him. The acts of these terrorist groups are terrible and the devastation we saw September 11th 2001, recently in London, the gas attack in Japan as well as attack in Madrid Spain although shocking and tragic are nothing new to someone in the Middle East, South East Asia or Africa. They have been dealing with this for years. These terrorist have preformed crimes against us and I will not be apologetic for their actions but the ultimate question remains. Why did they do it? What was the motive? I highly doubt they woke up one day and said “I feel like killing a bunch of Westerners today”.

Imperial powers have been pretty much immune to terrorist attacks in the past few hundred years…until recently due to technology available. Terrorism occurs in other countries but they have much higher causalities than what we saw at the World Trade Centre. This is a simple fact that can easily be supported.

We apply rules to others that we don’t apply to ourselves. A perfect example would be how the Nazis were found guilty of the war crime of opening the dikes in Holland however the US government bombed the dams during the North Korea war and were never brought to trial for war crimes. Destroying a dam is far worse than opening a dike. This is not to belittle what happened in Holland. World War II was a terrible war started by one of the most evil men in the world but there are many more examples where the victors also committed war crimes but were never brought to justice for the sheer reason they were the victors. This is a very ugly picture that most of us (including me) don’t like but unfortunately Imperialistic countries have always behaved this way.

There are modern day examples where the Western World has sponsored state terrorism. All one has to do it look at countries like East Timor or Modern day Turkey (the Kurds in southeast Turkey have suffered far greater atrocities than those preformed by Slobodan Milosevic) and the many countries in between. I quote the great Intellectual Noam Chomsky “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well there’s a really easy way. Stop participating in it”. I would encourage people to look at various Middle Eastern, African and South East Asian countries and their history of Western Imperialism and take a look for themselves. Relying on what is typically fed to us is not enough as you only see one side. Our justice system requires us to know both sides of the story before passing judgment and most of us are not seeing the other side.

NAME HERE should take a serious look at the body count in Iraq today and see how many tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died over a war led on by at best bad intelligence (at worst a lie). Many of them died before they ever knew they were Iraqi. Of these tens of thousands most of them died from American bombing. By doing this we are only proving to the terrorist their justification to continue these acts. September 11th 2001 did not happen at a whim. It happened of a very specific reason, one that no one in any government has answered in the western world.

It seems to me that terrorism is not being stifled but is growing. The suicide bomber is only recent on the scene. How can this be? Do they really hate our freedoms? If this is the case why was a democratically elected government in Iran overthrown by CIA agents in the 1950’s to be replaced by an American backed dictator (The Shaw of Iran)? The CIA was also responsible for bringing Pinochet to power. These are just two of dozens of examples where sovereign nations have been directly influenced by Western powers.

[skygazer]

1. Honest opinion?

Not worth a rebuttal. Your original letter was very good, accurate and concise. It sounds like the response was the usual idiot drivel, not worthy of response.

However, if you do decide to do it, I'd shorten the letter considerably and it's the "Shah" of Iran, not "Shaw."

[Beaver Tail]

2. LoL.. thank you for the correction in spelling

[Mythsaje]

3. I agree with your concepts

but would condense some to a snippet:

War against an overt aggressor is one thing...war against a 'notion' or 'idea' is something else. Terrorists are criminals, not soldiers. One hunts them down, arrests them, indicts them, and puts them on trial. One does not attack a country allegedly hoping that all the terrorists flock there and die in glorious battle.

From my "Rending the Myths about Liberals" post currently on the Greatest Page.

[Beaver Tail]

4. I like that. Very Good

Much better worded that mine but I am not an author by trade LoL

[Mythsaje]

5. LOL

I was out mowing the lawn and the whole post pretty much came to me. I thought your letter pretty much fit the idea, so I decided to share it with you-maybe give you some ideas for your next one.

[Ready2Snap]

6. I'm led to believe your letter was published

if so, in what paper and when. And when did the response appear.
It's hard to call parroted talking points a rebuttal,
furthermore, it doesn't seem he actually addressed your complaint
about calling everything a "War on Something."

LTTEs need to be tight and concise, but also have to touch the readers;
people read what they piques there interest, whether they find it appealling or revolting,
and that sells newspapers(lets not forget their prime motivation.)

Using "What I'm trying to say -" is a waste of space.
Go back and read the sentence without it, I'll wait ---
See how much more powerful it is when you make a clean, clear statement.

Are you part of the Du Activist Corp?
If not, sign up - we need an army of letter writers to get the truth out.

p.s. I dropped a note to Skinner(admin) at DUAC
about forming a volunteer editorial staff of DUers with writing experience
to help people like yourself who would like to have a resource
and a sounding board for their ideas. Please send him a note if you support this idea.