A different point of view

Letters to the editor
Published by news-press.com on July 23, 2005
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050723/OPINION/507230386/1015

Profiling is needed
I'm sure I'm going to offend some with these observations, but I have about had it with political correctness.

We have multiculturalists telling us that the American culture is just one of many different cultures, but not necessarily morally superior.

As I type this, both slavery and genocide are being practiced in Sudan and in other areas across Africa. I'm sorry, but that is not the moral equivalent of the American culture. Just this week there was a news story about a woman in India who was forcibly raped by her father in law. Would you like to know the punishment handed down by an Islamic court? Because she was no longer clean, she was to leave her husband who still loved her and marry the rapist because she had had sex with him.

In another case, in Pakistan, a religious court held that the sister of a man who had committed adultery was to be gang raped so as to bring shame upon his family.

Once again, I must apologize, but this is not the moral equivalent of Catholicism or Judaism. While true that all Muslims are not terrorists, it is equally true that almost all terrorists are Muslim. We know who the enemy is, young men of Middle Eastern descent. Rousting 5,000 Swedes at the airport will not make it fair. Profile.

LEONARD SWORD
Cape Coral

Shame lies with leaders
Re: "Shame on us," Bruce Diamond, July 20. Mr. Diamond's comparison of "the stereotype of the Moslem" with the "standard Nazi portrayal of the Jew ... published weekly in Der Sturmer" is way off the mark. He needs to acquaint himself with the facts concerning the Nazi/Jew situation and the USA/Muslim situations.

The Jews did nothing overt to attack the German citizenry of the Nazi party. Yet, they, as a religious group were officially set upon by their own government. We can never forget the brutality of the Holocaust.

Prior to 9/11, the American people had done nothing to harm the followers of the Islamic faith in the United States. As a nation, we have always maintained our national devotion toward freedom of religions.

Yet, we were attacked viciously in Beirut at our embassy and the Marine barracks, at Khobar Towers, at our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Also at Yemen harbor, nearly sinking the USS Cole and, finally, at the World Trade Center. Who were these attackers? They are identified by Islamic clerics and others as "radical followers of Islam."

Further, these Islamic leaders claim that these radicals comprise only approximately 1 percent of all Muslims. Do the math. One percent of 1.3 billion is 13 million Islamic fanatics.

Mr. Diamond, you should direct your finger of shame at the Islamic leaders and religious schools who have so far only uttered words of lamentation and condemnation. It is time for them to take positive action to stop these young fanatics before we kill them all in the war on terror.

COL. RICHARD L. HELLWEGE (USAF ret.)
Bonita Springs

Punish Democrats
Democrats motivated by hatred of George Bush for denying them power are throwing sand in the workings of our governmental process, often by proxy through liberal media. They will stop only when punished enough.

Super liberal Dan Rather came up with a fake memo purporting to show that George Bush shirked his National Guard duty. When that memo was revealed as a hoax, Newsweek charged that interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Quran. When that charge was unsubstantiated also, liberals and Democrats had to save face.

So we get the Karl Rove brouhaha. Democrat Sen. Schumer demands that Rove's security clearance be revoked. Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi weighs in with her usual partisan poison. It turns out that CIA operative Valeri Plame was not covert, after all; and that Karl Rove was the recipient, not the imparter of information.

It will be interesting to see how these liberal Democratic politicians who shot from the lip with such partisan fury without information try to wriggle out of this one. These are liberals; but nominate "moderates" such as Sen. Nelson and openly liberal Democrats often end up voting the same way. This has to stop. It will, when Democrats are punished enough at the ballot box.

JERRY R. SAWYER
Fort Myers Beach


Letters to the editor 050723_News-press_response
Tom Marshall
N Fort Myers, FL

A few of Saturday’s letters require responding to. Unlike Mr Sword, I Have “…had it with political correctness.”

Three of these writers have fallen into the “us” and “them” position practiced by those they would decry. “Us”, of course, being right, by definition. “Them”, being different, not right.

To answer Mr Sword, re: Profiling is needed, while I will agree with him that those actions he quotes may have happened, and may be morally reprehensible, the recent actions of the American government are equally “not the moral equivalent of Catholicism or Judaism”. Mr Sword has apparently forgotten the obscene actions of the bush administration in Iraq, and Afghanistan. How does he adjust the slaughter of innocent people in those countries by the illegal and immoral actions of the American government to his perception of “Catholicism or Judaism”.

War is a horrible obscenity. It is multiples of times worse when it is unnecessary. Then it becomes no more than terrorism. It is by now, established fact that the administration lied to the US Congress, the UN, and the American people, in their quest to invade Iraq at any cost. This alone has resulted in the destruction of tens of thousands of lives. Each life was a person, with families and friends, the same as you and I. And equally deserving of respect.

“…it is equally true that almost all terrorists are Muslim”? I’m afraid that he has lost sight of reality.

In Shame lies with leaders, Col. Richard L. Hellwege (USAF Ret.) points his finger at Mr Diamond for failing to condemn “…Islamic leaders and religious schools…”, while at the same time Mr Hellwage fails to point his “finger of shame” at those warmongers, war-profiteers, PR firms, and “Christian” preachers who have continuously flaunted their support of the unhappy situation in Iraq. Would you not call them “fanatics”? Even in the face of reality and failure on the ground there, the exposure of their lies, and the loss of respect and trust of the majority of the American people, they continue to rhapsodize about their fantasy of control and domination. And remember, almost 1800 of your fellow servicemen and women have been reported killed. That’s dead. For a lie. Where is your finger of shame?

Punish Democrats, from Jerry R. Sawyer, is just a gas. It’s so easy to pick apart.

The Dan Rather memo may or not have been “fake”, but no one has refuted, or called false, the facts contained in it. As for “flushing the Koran”, I would think that the reports of torture and abuse at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, alone, would have shamed him enough to not even want to bring up the Newsweek red herring. And, karl rove. Apparently, Mr Sawyer hasn’t been paying very much attention to recent events. The republican apologists for rove who have engaged “…with such partisan fury without information..." are attempting to "...try to wriggle out of this one”.

When we get into comparing “us” and “them”, we need to remember that “them” consider themselves as “us” and “us” as “them”. A simple piece of logic. Try it yourselves. Stand at the end of your block, and look down the street. Now walk to the other end and look back. A different point of view, isn’t it?