Battle of the Letters Part 2

Well, I've gotten into another letter to the editor war. I'm going to put all the letters here and then my response to her most recent missive.

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When WWII veterans say the atomic bombs were justified because they saved their lives, they're saying it was all right to burn thousands of innocents because they put themselves above them.

That's hardly heroic. And now we live in terror that terrorists will drop such a weapon here. Whose fault is that? When Pandora opens the box, Pandora is to blame.

Anyone who has it will use it -- as we did. Now our hands are as dirty and bloody as those of our enemies.

The army tested the bomb on helpless farm animals and radiation on our own unsuspecting citizens. And you wonder why I don't feel protected?

This war is no different from Vietnam. It is illegal, it's wrong and it has no end. And terrorists are more numerous and dangerous than ever. And the government will hide in shelters while citizens pay the price.

Call me an ingrate. Call me a traitor. But you're nuts if you continue to support Bush, his war and his warriors. Yes, his warriors. They voted for him and they're fighting his war quite willingly.

M.J. CLINE, Topeka

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M.J. Cline seems to be confused in a recent letter. She starts off by decrying the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan as a horrible decision that the United States is to blame for. She then goes on to say that if a terrorist organization uses nukes on the U.S. that the U.S. is to blame for that as well. Do you not realize how contradictory this is? Who gets the blame for bombings now? The person pulling the trigger or the victims?

In the case of the Japan bombings, you say the bomber is to blame, but then you say that if the U.S. is bombed it's our fault. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

In reality, Ms. Cline is showing her true colors here. She's part of that crowd that believes that everything the U.S. does is wrong. She completely ignores anything that would threaten that view, such as the inherent contradiction within her own letter, because that particular crowd doesn't operate under the banner of logic or reason. They can't let silly things like facts get in the way of their opinions.

I find it most ironic that Ms. Cline feels the need to voice her opinions as gospel considering her history of issues with people who believe in the Gospel. Hopefully, one day people like Ms. Cline will start looking at those troublesome facts and truths before forming their opinions instead of the other way around.



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No, Scott, my letter was not self-contradictory. Whenever a country uses an atrocious weapon on another country it will have that same weapon thrown back at them sooner or later. It's fact of life. Read history.

No, I do not present my word as gospel, nor do I fight with anyone else for believing in the Gospel. You attempted to put me in some "crowd" to discredit my views. It was a favorite trick in the '60s to identify anyone against the Vietnam War with a handful of violent pretenders in order to discredit them. It worked for a while, but they eventually overcame. They turned out in the end to be the true majority.

The troublesome fact that people like you don't want to face is that most Americans now want out of this mess in Iraq. You just can't set up democracy in a country that doesn't know the meaning of the word. Apparently you don't either. Dissent is our sacred right.

M.J. CLINE, Topeka

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Ms. Cline, you continue to make me laugh. I appreciate that. Your most recent example of your sense of humor was when you said that a democracy can't be established in a country, you were referring to Iraq, that doesn't know the meaning of the word. I suppose you could have been serious when you said that but that would require that you pay no attention to what's going on in Iraq now. You know, those pesky free elections that are one of the hallmarks of democracy. I guess the 70%+ turnout of voters in Iraq just shows how much they don't want democracy. Since that's a higher voter turnout than we've had in this country I would think that would be ample illustration that the Iraqi people want democracy, but that may just be me being brainwashed by the evil right-wing conspiracy machine.

I'm not going to even bother addressing the rest of your statements. If you're so willing to completely ignore basic facts such as the massive involvement of the people in Iraq to establish a democracy then no actual fact will stand in your way. You don't have time for facts when you have your opinions.

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This is the primary series of letters. There were some side letters involving throwing the word traitor around along with freedom of speech and I'll include those in another post. These are what I'm concerned with now.

As you can see, Ms. Cline and I have nothing like common ground here. As far as I'm concerned, she's off her rocker. In my last response to her I ignored a couple of her points cuz it was obvious, to me, that she is not the type of person to acknowledge facts that are contrary to her viewpoint. I'm going to address those points here.

First, she tries to maneuver out of her earlier statements saying the US would be to blame if an nuke was used on us. Her earlier statement was that, "now we live in terror that terrorists will drop such a weapon here. Whose fault is that? When Pandora opens the box, Pandora is to blame." That statement doesn't simply deal with the possibility of an atomic weapon being used it places the fault for it squarely on the US. her last letter stays away from playing the blame card and instead says,"Whenever a country uses an atrocious weapon on another country it will have that same weapon thrown back at them sooner or later. It's fact of life." Basically she realized playing the blame card didn't work and tried to backtrack. Problem with that is that she made a completely asinine statement. She tells me to, "Read history." for examples to back her statement up. Well, here's some history for her. The Japanese used kamikaze pilots to attack the US in WW2. Did the US, or anyone else for that matter use kamikaze against the Japanese? The answer is no. In Gulf War 1, Saddam used various nerve agents against our troops. Did ANYONE use those against Iraq in the first or second Gulf War? Again a no. How about in Vietnam? The Vietcong used torture, poisoned traps, and car bombs against the US. Did we use the same tactics against them? No, we didn't. History doesn't back you up Ms. Cline. I suggest you read a bit more before you try to argue a historical point.

The US passed out blankets infected with smallpox to the Native Americans at one point. By Ms. Cline's logic that justifies anyone to use bio-weapons against us. Eco-terrorists have spiked trees and laid traps for loggers. By Ms. Cline's logic the loggers are fully justified to retaliate in kind. By Ms. Cline's logic the US would be justified in hijacking airliners and flying them into major cities of countries that support terrorism. You'll have to forgive me Ms. Cline, but I'm playing the BullShit card on you and your argument here.

She does make one semi-valid statement in her most recent letter. She claims that I put her in some 'crowd' to discredit her views. While I did say she was part of a particular group she is wrong in assigning blame to me for her being there. Her comments and views put her there, not me. Considering her habit of labeling all who disagree with her as brainwashed Bushites I think it's amusing she has issues with being put in a 'crowd.'

Finally she claims that "most Americans now want out of this mess in Iraq." this is demonstrably false as even the MSM has shown. A recent poll by CNN shows that 59% of Americans don't believe US troops should be pulled out of Iraq until our goals are reached. Only 35% wanted to set a specific timetable for withdawal. I realize that numbers are sometimes difficult for people to deal with so I'll spell this out. In order for Ms. Cline to be right, more than 50% of the population would need to want out of Iraq now. In face, the opposite of Ms. Clines views is the correct one as a clear majority of Americans disagree with her. I don't expect her to acknowledge this fact however. I truly expect to see these facts ignored or that she'll make a poor attempt at discrediting the poll cuz we all know what a right-wing media outlet CNN is.

I'm pretty much done with trying to debate with Ms. Cline in the letters anymore. She has made it painfully obvious that responding to actual facts and figures isn't what she's interested in. All she can do is try the old magicians trick of drawing your attention away from the real action. She figures if the quality of her arguments is bad she can make up for it by yelling and calling names at the top of her lungs. But what do I know? According to her I don't know what democracy is simply because I called on her to deal with facts instead of opinions. Think she's got it a bit confused?