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Reply to Bob Herbert – NY Times
I want to thank Bob Herbert for his editorial opinion on this Memorial Day. It is with great spirit and respect for the freedom earned for him by the barefoot men at Valley Forge that he writes about his great love for his country. He takes the deaths of the Civil War that granted freedom to slaves and mocks the worth of such foolishness. He skips over two world wars as if saving the world from dictatorship is meaningless. He views fighting to defend against attacks on soil of the United States, “America is increasingly being seen as a dangerously arrogant military power that is due for a comeuppance.”
It should not surprise anyone that the idea of a day to show respect for the men and women who have fallen in battle defending the right of Bob Herbert to degrade their sacrifice is a prime example of the media today. Everything is politics to people like him. His hatred for the President and the United States itself is clearly shown in not just the timing of words, but the sources he quotes as if they were gospel.
It is Bob Herbert’s right to ignore the human rights violations commented each and every day by members of the same fundamentalist groups held in our military prisons. If he feels that cutting the heads off people is acceptable, so be it. If he believes that gutting a poverty worker and leaving her body on the street for dogs to eat is acceptable, it is his right. Instead of even attempting to look at the whole, Bob Herbert looks at our military and stands with terrorists. Bob Herbert works for the defeat of the United States military even on the day set aside to honor the fallen that won freedom for all of us.
Yes, we can all be proud of the freedom expressed by Bob Herbert on this Memorial Day. You see, hatred doesn’t recognize holidays.
You can read his opinion by clicking on "America, a Symbol of..." above.
Posted by Don Black at May 30, 2005 03:36 PM
Herbert didn't "degrade" anyone's sacrifice. The ones who have degraded the sacrifices made by American military personnel are those who planned, justified, ordered and carried out the so-called "Copper Green" program that resulted in the torture and "sexual humiliation" of foreign prisoners held in American jails.
There is considerable irony in all of this. Here we have the American right-wing, which spends a lot of time railing against "moral relativism" and for a "culture of life," justifying the American use of torture by posing it as relative to what the worst of the Arab world has done. So much for absolute truth, and so much for a culture of life.
If something is wrong, then it is wrong no matter who does it. The U.S. seemed to know that 60 years ago, when the Marine Corps had a policy and widely followed practice of humane treatment of Japanese prisoners of war. The Marine Corps didn't sanction the torture and "sexual humiliation" of Japanese P.O.W.s on the grounds that the Japanese military had committed unspeakable atrocities against American troops.
Instead, the USMC followed American values which said that we are Americans and we dictate our own values without regard to what a savage enemy might do. Along the way, the Marines learned that humane treatment of Japanese captives yielded remarkably useful information. Pity that the so-called "patriots" circa 2005 have been so willing to view morality in relative terms, and to let Middle Eastern terrorists determine our ethics.
Such a pity, really, that the right-wingers of today's America have so little respect for those whose sacrifices made our freedom and prosperity possible. They care nothing for America or its values, and that's the tragedy of our time.
Posted by Willysnout at May 30, 2005 11:38 PM
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