http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=46508America: empire or republic?
A friend of mine claims that Americans don’t come from that big place called “America,” but from a planet he calls Zog. I told him he was crazy. And yet, sometimes I wonder. Take, for example, the fact that some Americans are talking about “taking back America.” But surely, to “retake” something, you first have to know what you have lost.
The letters page of Stars and Stripes is full of writers screaming at fellow Americans they call “liberals.” My friend claims that this is impossible: He has information from an informant from Zog itself that the last real liberal died in 1949.
He claims that Zog is actually being controlled by creatures called Neoconis from another planet. These Neoconis have taken control of the capital, they are supported by the Zogian media (nothing more than seamless propaganda), a naïve electorate, both political parties, the corporate conglomerates, which include the “military industrial complex,” and a strange-looking creature called Bill O’Reilly.
My friend claims that
were once proud of something they called the “Constitution,” the “Bill of Rights” and the “republic,” created by a group of wise men who lived long ago. But he claims that these are nothing more than a fading memory — yellowing paper under glass. What they called a “republic” has been replaced by an empire. And it’s the non-acceptance or denial of this empire among the Zogians, their media and politicians especially, that has caused confusion, bitterness and suffering.
My friend is quite adamant about this. He says they must decide: either for a republic or an empire, they can’t have both.
Mark L. Warren
Wiesbaden, Germany
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Liberals just want to be heard
Regarding the May 30 letter “Liberals wish to silence others”: Again we are reminded by a narrow-minded conservative that liberals are lower than pond scum and don’t deserve to speak out on touchy subjects such as the present administration’s bluff and blunder.
The problem is the letter writer and his ilk have gotten us entrenched in a war nobody wants or needs and in which we cannot prevail. Our poor soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen are suffering because of the president’s ineptness in dealing with the facts: 1) there weren’t weapons of mass destruction and 2) Saddam Hussein had better control of Iraq than we do and should have been left alone but closely monitored — a cheaper and more effective means of control than the billions of dollars we have squandered so far in the Middle East.
Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, “Iraq is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Churchill, by the way, was also a Liberal.
Senior Master Sgt. George Sterpka (retired)
Shaw Air Force Base, S.C.
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