I Send Letters
My latest letter to the editor of my local paper, which they printed yesterday. It was in response to a letter claiming that liberals are pathetic idiots who are to blame for all bad things.Bush policies have increased world dangers
If I were to engage in the amateur psychoanalysis of writer Jeff Davidson (“Hatred for Bush is a sign of deep fears,” June 30), I would speculate that Mr. Davidson is projecting when he claims that liberals fear death. However, I prefer not dwell on groundless speculation, but instead to look at the facts.
A recent poll (CBS/New York Times) shows that 55 percent of the public think that U.S. involvement in Iraq is creating more terrorists who are planning to attack the United States rather than less (17 percent). Also, the poll shows that 47 percent of the public think that the U.S. military action against Iraq has increased rather than decreased (13 percent) the threat of terrorism against the United States. Even the State Department admits that terrorism increased sharply last year with the highest number of fatal terrorist shootings and bombings since 1998 and the highest number of significant terrorist incidents in at least 20 years.
The liberal argument is not that Islamo-facists do not want to kill us, but that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Islamo-facists or Osama bin Laden. Since there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq nor any connection between Saddam and bin Laden, why did we stage a pre-emptive strike on that country? So we could “spread democracy”? Or is it just the justification this week? What does the “Bush doctrine” say about Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, well-known hotbeds of Islamo-facism?
The so-called clash of cultures is a radical, right-wing idea, and it is meaningless. Why, even President Bush himself said last week that the simple act of including Turkey in the European Union “would expose the ‘clash of civilizations’ as a passing myth of history.”
The belief that Bush’s policies are ineffective and indeed harmful is no longer just a liberal viewpoint. Numerous well-respected conservatives (William F. Buckley Jr. and George Will, just to name two) have recently stated that they no longer support the President’s policies on war in Iraq.
Liberals do not “hate Bush,” nor do they have unrealistic fears. The reality is that the president’s policies have made the world a more dangerous place. No matter how hard the fear-mongers of right-wing radio and TV (and local letters to the editor) work at blaming liberals, this is no longer a conservative vs. liberal issue. An ever-increasing majority of the public recognizes that the current administration’s policies are not working and that change at the top is needed.
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